What adventures have I had since I posted yesterday? Yesterday something momentous happened on yesterday’s Donut Walk™, I got to Krispy Kreme and didn’t go in! It was just a walk. Why? Three reasons. First, I didn’t really feel like a donut. Second, I’ve been working on walking faster and didn’t want to break my stride. Thirdly I was on the phone talking to a friend and I didn’t want to interrupt the conversation. The reason behind the Donut Walks™ is that Krispy Kreme is giving anyone vaccinated a free donut every day for the rest of 2021. I didn’t need any more incentive to get vaccinated other than not wanting to get sick, or even more importantly get other sick. For me the free donut was an incentive to get exercise. When it started, I would note how many more calories I burned than consumed in the donut. Today I burned 405 calories and the donut is 190. Today I got the donut. The friend I was talking to yesterday emailed me this article in today’s New York Times, A Dollar Per Doughnut Per Day: One Man’s Vaccination Quest. It’s about a donut-loving man that vowed to get a free KK donut every day and donates $1 to charity every time. He posts pictures of the donuts on social media to incentivize others to get vaccinated. If you are reading this and are not vaccinated, think how much you’d like a free donut every day the rest of the year. As a side benefit, you’ll be less likely to sick, far less likely to die, and far less likely to get someone else sick. Getting vaccinated is a mitzvah with a sweet reward.
Before and after talking to my friend I listened to Folk Pod, Cheryl Prashker’s Folk music interview podcast; her guest was Joe Crookston. Joe is at the apex of my folk musician pyramid. He and Cheryl are also good friends with each other and with me. You can listen to it now, Joe Crookston: F*ck This Folk Sh*t. I subscribe on Google podcasts, but I linked to the Apple as that’s more popular. Early on Joe explained why he chose his very much not-off-the-shelf cover of The Logical Song as one of his two songs at the Falcon Ridge Emerging Artist Showcase. He described it as his, “Goofy offering.” That is exactly what I love about Joe as both a musician and a person, he is perfectly at home coming across as goofy. I very much hope that’s how you see me. It is how I like to see myself. They played some live songs and some recorded songs of his and for each one I thought, “That’s what I’ll play on Gord’s Gold next week.” I ended up choosing a song that is one of his most requested songs but not one that I’d ever requested, Freddy the Falcon. Why? Because I had the perfect song to pair it with, Wings by Jean Rohe, who is also at the apex of that pyramid. Jean and Joe are quite different people that I love but relate to completely differently. So why the paring? They have to things in common, residence in the eye on top of the pyramid, and working with people in prison. Freddy the Falcon and Wings both came directly from that experience, and both use he metaphor of flight for freedom.
The entire time I was listening I was talking back to them even though they can’t hear me. I don’t do it aloud, but I do it for all podcasts and when I read essays. The difference between listening to Joe and Cheryl and listening to the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast or reading Paul Krugman is that I don’t have to settle for one sided mental conversations. When I got home, I called Joe. He’s not someone I talk to all the time, or at all often. We’ve talked to each other on the phone a few times over the years, but I had so much to say to him after listening to him for an hour and ten minutes. By pure coincidence it was his birthday! Perfect timing. We talked about the show, talked about art, talked about being goofy, and caught up with our personal lives. If you listen to the podcast you can catch up on that too. It’s personal so I’ll let you hear it straight from him. I hadn’t heard that part of the podcast when I called. Calling was a great decision on my part. I always have anxiety when I call most people. The number of people I’m confident want to talk to me is small, every else is test of will. This reminds me to risk being uncomfortable and make the cool.
I finished the podcast today while I was getting my infusion. I get Entyvio for my Crohn’s disease every eight weeks. I’m not at all shy about talking about my medical issues, I don’t think of that as personal. That’s about my body, not me. The infusions do seem to help though it’s always hard to judge. The reason there is quack medicine is because it’s so easy to fool yourself into thinking that something helps. For centuries people used leaches, and nobody noticed that they don’t help. The difference is that Entyvio has been shown to work in double blind experiments. I never mind being hooked up to an IV, the worst part is having to hang around the hospital for hours even though the actual infusion takes just half an hour. The one part I enjoy is interacting with the nursing staff. They are uniformly friendly and fun people. They have the best trait of all, they laugh at my jokes. I’m probably the healthiest person they see all day, most infusions are for cancer patients getting chemo. That puts me in better spirits than the other people they talk to and that has to be something of an emotional break for an empathetic person, and most nurses are empathetic. I shouldn’t call them all nurses; some are various forms of medical technician. I don’t know who is what. The people who put the IVS in are always nurses. They always appreciate my easy to find and access veins.
The Mets are losing, … again and I turned the game off. I’ll find other ways to amuse myself today. I’ll probably program most of next week’s Gord’s Gold. No, I won’t, I already have programmed 39 out of 56 minutes. That’s my usual mix, 56 minutes of music and four minutes of talking. Yes, I’m also surprised at how little I talk on the show.
I have two pieces of DJ news. I was invited to present someone at the Suzi Wollenberg Folk DJ Showcase at NERFA. I was hoping I’d get to do that. I guess I’m a legit DJ. I always have doubts. I even decided who to present but I won’t release that until it’s official. The one thing I wanted was someone that hadn’t been to NERFA before, or at least was not a regular. To me that’s the entire point of the showcase. Secondly, I applied to be a judge for the Folk Alliance International Official DJs. Again, I wasn’t sure if I really counted as being in the industry but one of my friends that definitely is, messaged me to suggest that I apply. He said I was perfect for it. I still have my imposter syndrome doubts but as I always tell others, let other people make those calls for you.
I’ve been writing short entries of late, and this is such a long one. I could have broken it up into to. Now I have to figure out what to write tomorrow. It’s good to give yourself a challenge. Now there is a cheesesteak waiting to be made for my dinner. I might be adventurous and use pepper jack or mozzarella cheese. I just mentioned that as you’d think this wasn’t written by me if I didn’t talk about food.
Wise Madness 