0:00

She could go on sabbatical, go back to Ukraine and be behind the,

0:07

the enemy lines and do that Iron Curtain dentist

0:12

work on Russian soldiers. All right, what's up?

0:17

Okay. All right, what's up? Okay,

0:22

what's going on? I'm on hold for the infusion department.

0:27

I think I was supposed to have an infusion later this month,

0:31

so I'm not on hold. I, I did one of those things where they're like,

0:36

let me call you back and save your place in mind.

0:40

So theoretically I'm going to get a phone call.

0:44

Maybe it'll happen right away. I'll just knock on wood.

0:48

Maybe it'll happen right away. This whole thing runs on hopping hot sauce.

0:53

Hopping hot sauce. It's the best hot sauce hopping hot sauce.

1:00

It's the best sauce in the world. The world.

1:05

I'm telling. You. A lot of people think that's the best jangle in the world.

1:10

Stock up for barbecue season in the hopping hot sauce is

1:15

on Amazon. Thanks for tuning in. You're tuning into the,

1:20

what's the matter with me podcast. My name is John.

1:24

I'm 44 years old. Husband, father,

1:28

small business owner, radio DJ podcaster,

1:33

and I have multiple sclerosis and trigeminal

1:38

neuralgia. I made this podcast to share what I'm going through.

1:44

I'm a survivor. I'm a survivor for now until I'm not,

1:49

you know, I live in the neighborhood with retired police officers

1:55

and the other day my neighbor, he's a fan of hopping ss and we got the people in the

2:01

neighborhood onto this stuff. They sell it at the grocery store in the neighborhood,

2:07

shout outs to Galvan's Market and to S two D O produce.

2:13

So we've got the whole area on lock. People are eating,

2:18

hopping hot sauce. That's where you get it. So one of my neighbors,

2:23

or across the street, retired police officer,

2:27

I think it was in Fremont pd,

2:30

and he caught some people driving around.

2:34

That's not an offense in itself, he just is on the scene.

2:39

It's not like he caught them, but they were driving around and he made an

2:45

unmistakable impression upon them.

2:49

He suddenly got their name and address and he,

2:53

he's still out there Man. Retired cops.

3:00

Retired cops. I know that if you're listening to What's the Matter With Me podcast,

3:06

you've heard me talk about the retired cops in my neighborhood

3:11

and they're always walking around. This guy across the street from me, this guy Kerry,

3:18

and he's like always on the beat.

3:22

He's always out walking around early in the morning,

3:28

late, late, anytime all day long.

3:31

He walks and picks his wife up.

3:34

He walks to the train station and gets her and they

3:39

walk back here. He is always walking. He'll be like, I'll be like,

3:43

what's up Carrie? He'll be like, I'm trying to do what I can,

3:48

all that I can for as long as I can. And I'm like,

3:53

I feel you man. But I was in my room and I heard Carrie catch some people

4:01

and he does it so subtle. It's so smooth with him.

4:06

You know, he, he, he caught some people driving around like he was, they were in their car,

4:12

he was on foot. But all of a sudden I heard him being like, oh yeah, oh yeah,

4:17

where are you going? Where are you from? What's your name?

4:21

And he's like taking their statement and they're all laughing about it,

4:26

but he's totally getting like their name and I'm sure he is like making

4:30

mental note of the license plate.

4:34

He's around all the time. I love that energy that,

4:39

that it's like dog energy, you know, it's a,

4:43

I will always stay on it. I will always just

4:50

perk my ears up, like, you know, I'll always be on the beat.

4:55

Carrie is always walking the beat, my neighbor.

5:00

And then there's other retired cops up the street. It's great.

5:05

It's, these people are, oh, where are you going? What's your name?

5:12

Oh, where do you live at? Oh yeah.

5:17

Oh, what are you planning to do? He's like,

5:21

get their motorist operandi. He's good.

5:25

Catch some people driving around.

5:28

He's walking and somehow he manages to like

5:33

flag them down and take their statement. Love it.

5:38

Love that energy. Oh yeah. Where are you going?

5:45

Oh, where do you live? Where are you from? Oh,

5:50

oh yeah. Which, which house? Oh yeah.

5:56

What are you planning to do here today?

6:03

How long will you be here? Do you know anyone in this neighborhood? Oh, you're just driving around.

6:14

Let me, lemme get your license plate There. Yeah, he's still out there taking their statement

6:28

unless he's gone off to do something else.

6:32

Probably he's not involved at all in my packages 'cause he is

6:37

retired police officer. He is just holding it down.

6:41

But I got the liver last week. I got some Billy shoes.

6:47

They're a type of shoe that you could zip on and off.

6:51

They're kind of some kind of thing. So my wife was like,

6:55

maybe we should try 'em. So I checked them out, but I got the wrong size.

7:00

They're too small. I got two different sizes and the biggest size was too small.

7:08

So we'll see where it goes with that.

7:10

I'm gonna get the size up 'cause my current shoes are a mess. I,

7:16

I started photographing them, you know, when I'm not in them

7:22

and they, it looks like a nine piece of 19th century

7:27

medical equipment because they're so worn out.

7:31

They look like they could have come from

7:34

125 years ago back at the

7:39

end of the 19th century. So I gotta get new shoes,

7:44

move into the 21st century.

7:49

That's crazy. The 21st century I the 20th century.

7:54

I'm a 20th century guy and I feel my kids

7:59

are never gonna know the 20th century maybe that's not

8:04

a bad thing. I love talking with my cousin Emily about how traumatic,

8:11

you know, because every, they're all talking about anxiety and trauma in

8:18

her generation and younger, my kids' generation.

8:22

They're very aware of feelings and,

8:27

and how and how do you feel? And so I,

8:30

I was telling her about the things we would do and the way we would

8:36

play at school and how it was basically a hundred

8:40

percent trauma all the time. And we ate it up.

8:45

We lived and breathed trauma.

8:48

Like I said last week, I think I still have trauma from trigeminal neuralgia.

8:55

One of the main things that like kind of can,

9:00

can bring it on is getting my teeth cleaned.

9:03

They were doing dental work, so I had my teeth cleaned last week.

9:09

I went with my son and we,

9:12

we got it all taken care of. And the,

9:16

my new dentist, the way he tune it cleans teeth.

9:21

It's like getting your teeth cleaned by a cat. I'm so gentle.

9:27

Instead of like my last dentist,

9:30

we called her the iron curtain, she would make you bleed.

9:36

And my new dentist doesn't really do it like that.

9:40

It really is so gentle. Oh,

9:45

I think this is a doctor, hold up.

9:49

Hello? Hello. Hello.

9:52

Hi <inaudible>, this is James. Am I speaking with John?

9:55

The business owner of Hub Hot Sauce? Alright, scam. Likely that would scam likely.

10:03

That's not what I was looking for. I'm looking for the radiology department.

10:08

It's no, not the radiology infusion to call me back from Stanford.

10:14

Not scam, likely. So my current dentist is like so gentle

10:22

and it's not like my old dentist.

10:25

She was Ukrainian actually.

10:28

And we called her the Iron curtain.

10:30

She would make you bleed like for days after when you brushed your teeth,

10:35

it'd be all pink. So the iron curtain, she would hurt you.

10:40

She would make me cry, you know, I'm like stoic individual.

10:45

And I would sit there, but I would cry an involuntary tear and invol

10:51

we would say it's my steel tear.

10:55

And you and I would say, you hurt me, you're tough.

10:59

Her name was Genia. I would say, you hurt me Genia.

11:03

I cried a steel tear and she would say, oh yeah, are you done?

11:08

And then we'd go back to hurting me. So,

11:12

but I thought about her because of the Ukrainian war, you know,

11:17

she's a Ukrainian dentist and I was so, I got my,

11:23

my teeth cleaned thinking about the iron curtain.

11:27

She's Ukrainian and I wonder if she wanted to quit being

11:32

a dentist in the States and move back to Ukraine.

11:37

Maybe just temporarily. Somehow she could like go on sabbatical,

11:44

go back to Ukraine and be behind the,

11:48

the enemy lines and do that Iron curtain.

11:53

Dentists work on Russian soldiers and they would have

11:58

like a, an epidemic of pink toothbrushes and bleeding gums.

12:04

Every soldier in the Russian army would be bleeding gums.

12:09

All because of the iron curtain. This is the kind of thing that I think about when I look at the ceiling.

12:16

My current dentist has like some picture of hot air

12:21

balloons that is obviously leftover from the eighties

12:26

or something. And it's like a, um,

12:29

printed it on a trans, like printed on a light.

12:34

So it's like an image, a light box image of some hot air balloons,

12:42

colorful hot air balloons. It's pretty rad.

12:47

I also talked to the dentist and the dentist

12:52

assistant. 'cause you remember last time I went to the dentist,

12:58

he didn't know Lionel Richie. And,

13:02

and I straight up in front of his assistant, I was just like, how old are you?

13:07

And he told me, and he was younger than I am.

13:11

So this time I was like, Dr. Sue,

13:15

you shouldn't have told me. You shouldn't have answered. You should say like,

13:20

I hardly think that it's germane in the proceedings.

13:24

If somebody ask you your age and he's so nice. He was like,

13:28

I'll tell him my age. And I was like, no way. Not me.

13:32

I would shut them down, be like, don't,

13:37

what has that got to do with my dental work and how dare you Really?

13:43

Yeah, I wouldn't give it back. But Dr Dr Sue's a nice doctor.

13:47

You can just ask him his age. He's younger.

13:52

So they had on Michael Bolton on the,

13:57

the, they play a kind of, I think it must be Spotify.

14:02

No, I think it's the radio, but there's no commercials.

14:07

So it's like eighties hits or something. Like,

14:11

to give you an idea, while I was getting my teeth cleaned,

14:16

it was Michael Bolton and I was like, oh, Michael Bolton,

14:21

remember this? It was everywhere. And I looked at them and had this younger dentist and even younger

14:28

assistant and I was just like,

14:30

how dare you people be so young, go to hell.

14:35

Young people, Michael Bolton lift,

14:39

lift you up where you belong. I don't really know anything. I get,

14:44

it's up where we belong with Joe Cocker and Jennifer

14:49

warns from an officer and a gentleman.

14:53

I could have asked them about that and they'd be like, I,

14:57

I've never heard of that movie. Is it streaming?

15:02

Where is an officer and a gentleman streaming? Forget it,

15:06

Google it yourself. It could be the iron curtain could work on the,

15:13

the side of the Ukrainian military.

15:17

So things are kind of moving around.

15:19

I've been like having a hard time getting from getting into the

15:24

garage. I go over this kind of threshold and stuff's to been moving

15:31

in and out of there and it's kind of changing my approach

15:36

and I keep screwing it up and with my stick and then

15:41

I am like getting caught in the trash can or I'm on the other side.

15:46

I'm getting caught in the desk and so I've totally bailed.

15:51

The one good thing about the garage is there's some kind of soft,

15:56

gooey synthetic stuff polymer on the ground

16:02

because I've totally ate it trying to get in the garage.

16:06

And then I, I started to almost hit the,

16:10

the desk and the chair and I,

16:13

so I kinda hopped to my side. Well that didn't work. I ended up,

16:18

I didn't to hurt myself. I just nearly knocked the wind outta myself.

16:23

And one time I headbutted the wall in the garage and I got like a

16:28

little abrasion on my head. The wall is solid,

16:32

like headbutting the wall. I'm training for some kind of Ukrainian cage match and

16:40

I'm like headbutting the wall and attacking the desk.

16:45

And one good thing it's not all smash,

16:50

smash and grab self-destruction and inhalation.

16:55

We got the pedestal sink in the bathroom.

16:59

It being kind of moving because it wasn't quite anchored into

17:04

the wall of a hundred percent.

17:07

It was like 68% anchored in the wall and that's a

17:13

d d plus. So we got it anchored to the wall with like a piece

17:20

of wood, some heavy bolt. My buddy who's the contractor came over with Yuri and

17:28

they did some awesome work and then they did some finishing work that

17:32

I hadn't really thought about, but it was like starting to crack and the paint and

17:38

stuff. And so they kind of just cut it away and filled it in and

17:44

I was like, oh, it looks better. So that was cool.

17:48

And then while they were doing the job,

17:50

my friend who was a contractor complimented me that my house looked

17:55

nice, you know, in the main room.

18:02

All right. Wow man, a lot of stuff just went down.

18:06

It all piled up on me.

18:11

They called me back from the infusion center and

18:16

told me that I can't make an appointment

18:21

yet because there's no order, order in the system from my doctor.

18:27

So I wrote my doctor about that. They'll write in order.

18:32

It's no big deal. So that bit is, we're gonna take a pause on that,

18:39

but also at the same time we're gonna try and get the house cleaned.

18:45

And I, I have these two ladies,

18:48

we're thinking about the one or the other and

18:53

I'm communicating with them in Spanish,

18:57

which is kind of like a stretch for me. It's a new thing.

19:01

But I like doing it. It's,

19:04

it's fun and it's cool to speak in Spanish.

19:10

And so I'm getting to the point where I can like understand

19:15

what's going on and I can express myself to some degree.

19:22

So I'm right on the cusp. And the way I'm going about it is just I'm having

19:30

these discussions. I'm scheduling things as if I'm

19:36

a person who speaks Spanish. They must know.

19:41

They must be like, this dude can't be a native Spanish

19:47

speaker because he says, okay C,

19:51

then I can't help. But I love that C Y A, okay C,

19:57

then I hit, that's like my move and I gotta figure that

20:04

out in Spanish O K C then,

20:08

I mean okay works. So all that communicating happened kind of all at

20:15

once there. So my friend fixed the bathroom and made it so like,

20:22

I can move around 'cause I'm like a furniture surfer

20:27

and the sink is something I'm always going to be surfing off of.

20:33

So he fixed it, but also he complimented me that my house

20:39

looked nice. It felt nice and it was a good compliment.

20:43

And I'll take it even though he's the guy who works on the house.

20:48

So it's kind of like saying, oh well I did a good job, but he did.

20:53

I'll take it. So last week was the last week of camp.

21:00

My kids start school on Wednesday. Right now it's Monday.

21:05

They're at their grandparents' house for like the end of summer.

21:10

They'll come back tonight after dinner.

21:13

But last week was family night. It was awesome.

21:17

I wanted to see my kids do their kids.

21:21

But the day before family night,

21:25

somehow I popped my wheelchair tire.

21:30

It has a tube, an inner tube.

21:34

It's like a 12 and a half inch tire.

21:38

And the tube popped. I really don't know what happened.

21:43

Things seemed all right in the house, nothing weird happened.

21:49

And then I worked out and when I was done working out, the tires were,

21:53

the tire was totally flat,

21:56

so one of the two and inflatable wheelchair tires

22:01

was totally flat. I don't know what happened.

22:06

The tires are kinda like mountain bike tires,

22:10

but of course a much smaller diameter, but they're kind of fat.

22:16

Two to three inch mountain bike tires.

22:19

And they had a tube inside. One of 'em popped.

22:23

I took it to the medical supply place in Castro

22:28

Valley. And that I'm always interested to see like what they have,

22:34

but I couldn't get up in there because I didn't have my chair.

22:39

So my wife went in there and tried to get a tube and I guess they

22:44

were like, they don't make these tubes that they don't

22:50

come separate from the tires,

22:54

which seemed pretty weird to me.

22:57

All we needed was a tube. We ended up buying solid wheels for the

23:05

wheelchair because the guy was like,

23:07

these are what people use now. And I was kinda like,

23:12

I'm, I think if we just had a replacement tube.

23:18

But then Ami, my wife came out and she was like,

23:22

we have to go to family night tonight.

23:25

And that won the argument. I was like, well,

23:29

these are gonna have to work. So we got solid wheels for my wheelchair at the

23:38

medical supply in Castro Valley.

23:41

Why couldn't we get a,

23:44

get the tire off the wheel and pull out the

23:49

tube and put a new one in there? I'm not really sure.

23:55

It seems like that makes a lot more sense and would be

24:00

an easier fix,

24:04

but I couldn't do it. So either way I can't fix it myself.

24:11

So it's kinda like, what, what does it matter?

24:16

We got solid wheels. They worked,

24:19

I I got off road in them. They were fine.

24:24

Where the previous ones were kinda like mountain bike tires.

24:29

These are closer to what you would call an urban hybrid,

24:35

like a hybrid road mountain bike tire.

24:39

So it's a little smoother. There's still a grip,

24:42

there's tire surface,

24:46

they work fine. So they worked,

24:50

they got me the family night.

24:52

I watched my kids do their own amplified skits.

24:57

It's kind of avant garde theater for, uh, quite a while.

25:02

So, and they were happy and I was happy.

25:06

The camp here in San Leandro and the recreation

25:11

department in San Leandro is good.

25:15

I have good contacts over there.

25:17

We kind of have an open line of communication.

25:22

So if I'm trying to do something,

25:25

I can call it out and my contact will be like, okay,

25:30

I'll let this person or that person know,

25:33

or you should try this. And so it,

25:37

if things work when I'm happy for that.

25:42

We got solid wheels. I popped my tire. I don't know how,

25:46

I think I might've backed up onto something and somehow popped it,

25:51

popped the tube. So, but they don't make those.

25:56

I got solid wheels last night for dinner.

26:00

They said it was cool. I had a big success. We had dinner.

26:05

First of all, it was just me and my wife and it was great. It was,

26:10

you know, we had a bottle of wine that my parents

26:15

gave me that is a nice bottle of wine,

26:19

far nicer than the, the things that I usually will drink.

26:25

So it was like we had a nice bottle of wine and there

26:30

were some squash, carrot, onion dish,

26:35

the side dish, there was some rice,

26:39

there were grilled onions. And I had a nice rib steak and it was

26:47

huge. It was like two pounds. It was bone in,

26:51

but it was huge. So we grilled this rib steak.

26:54

The way I did it was I rubbed it with kind of Santa Maria

27:00

spices like salt and pepper granulated,

27:04

garlic dried onion as well.

27:09

So sat in that in a bowl for about

27:12

40, 45 minutes. It was a tablespoon of salt,

27:18

a teaspoon each of the garlic and the onion and

27:23

black pepper. And then throw that on this rib steak in a bowl.

27:29

It was the bone in rib steak that they,

27:31

they often make into those cowboy tomahawk giant

27:36

bone things. But this had very little bone on it.

27:42

It was mostly meat. Tossed it in those Santa Maria spices and then put it on

27:49

the barbecue up on the rack in the barbecue

27:54

and just lit one of the barbecue side the burners

27:59

to medium. And that makes it like about 250, 300

28:05

degrees in the barbecue. And I put in a,

28:10

a probe set to beep when it was 106

28:15

degrees. So it took like almost an hour,

28:20

a good part of an hour, and went off at 106.

28:26

I tested the temperature, it was like 103.

28:31

So I let that get up to 1 0 6, then it took it off.

28:36

Then I preheated the barbecue for five minutes with every,

28:41

all the burners on screaming hot and opened up

28:46

the barbecue and grilled the ribs.

28:51

This rib steak for like two minutes,

28:56

two and a half minutes about just a lot of turning it over,

29:01

a lot of flame. It did not cover the barbecue.

29:06

And it came out pretty good. I got a good sear on it, you know,

29:11

it was all kind of sweating and getting dark.

29:15

It was good. Then we rested it and they had it with the wine, onions,

29:21

and squash and rice. It was super good.

29:24

It was really even rare. And that, that was,

29:29

uh, something my wife was like,

29:33

you're your son who's gonna love this? Like, you gotta make this.

29:38

I've been trying with different thermometers and different equipment

29:43

to get this result. And I finally did.

29:47

I used this chef alarm, chef alarm thermometer that I had used for hopping hot sauce

29:55

when we cooked it all here. I think the thing is,

30:00

106 degrees is rare.

30:03

You don't wanna shut the top and make it like an oven in there.

30:07

You want to get the, the,

30:10

the sear on the outside and then let it rest and

30:15

carve it. It was yum, yum.

30:19

It was fun to cook on the barbecue and have it be a

30:24

success and no kids around with their bad vibes.

30:29

Thanks for tuning into the, what's the Matter with Me podcast,

30:34

past episodes getting me,

30:36

what's the matter with me.org or wherever you get

30:41

your podcast, wherever the guy's like, oh hey, do you want a podcast?

30:46

You go, yeah. And he gives it to you. Wherever that is.

30:51

Whatever corner or shady, get the podcast.

30:55

Thanks for tuning into the What's the Matter podcast

31:01

catch next time.