Matt Salada – on diabetes and rock ‘n roll.

[The following conversation between Sacramento musician/web artist Matt Salada and New Orleans journalist Cheryl Wagner was conducted in December 2000, via email.]

Cheryl: How old were you when you were diagnosed with diabetes?

Matt: I went to the emergency room on New Year’s Eve, 1998. My birthday is January 5th, so I was still twenty-six.

Cheryl: How has having diabetes impacted your beer drinking?

Matt: It has devastated my almost Herculean intake of beers. Now I only sip pre-dinner beers occasionally. On the rare instances I find myself in bars, I only have one beer. Mostly I just don’t go to places where there is beer anymore.

Cheryl: When I first heard you got diabetes, I was sad. Then I laughed. I thought it was hilarious that you were going to have to start exercising or being healthy or whatever. I pictured you enjoying picking out some obnoxious velour sweatsuit with maybe a matching headband, then sitting back down to watch TV or play your guitar.

Matt: I did acquire some day-glo sweat tank tops after my diagnosis, but mostly for rock ‘n roll purposes. I find “exercise” difficult. It has never been in my nature to do some repetitive, painful thing (except get wasted and wake up with a hangover). However, I do like riding a bike around, shooting baskets, and now Meg and I play tennis every couple weeks. I still can’t get really competitive with myself about it though.

Cheryl: If you wanted to go get a half-gallon watermelon daiquiri could you? Or only occasionally?

Matt: No, I wouldn’t, or Chubby Hubby ice cream, pistachio cannoli, or a Butterfinger either. There are some European sugar-free chocolates that are top-notch, but I don’t really crave sweet stuff, or miss it really.

Cheryl: What food do you miss the most?

Matt: It’s situational, I guess. If Megan is eating a huge slice of banana cream pie at a diner I feel sad. But it’s more about the experience than any particular food.

Cheryl: I’ve noticed that you have a certain insulin injection style that I have not seen before. The hey-look!-then-stab-yourself-in-the-stomach style. I liked that a lot. Did you develop that yourself? It’s a real dinner-party shocker.

Matt: I don’t really know the proper etiquette. I usually go to the restroom if we’re at a restaurant. I didn’t even know you noticed me doing it, let alone that you thought I had a fully developed “style.” I’ve read that some people inject through their pants leg. That’s extreme!

Cheryl: Does having diabetes make you have to pee a lot?

Matt: Maybe.

Cheryl: Who’s more worried about your diabetes? You or your wife Megan?

Matt: We’re both fixated on death. She’s a hypochondriac, though, so I’m not sure. Probably her.

Cheryl: Do you think that your immune system was compromised by the time you got scabies from thrift-store clothes in the Ninth Ward, leaving you open to attack by other opportunistic diseases?

Matt: Who really can know these things? Yeah, I think it could be related. I’m not certain how though. I’ve heard about how schizophrenics can exhibit symptoms of diseases they don’t even have. I’m not saying I’m full-blown schizo (whatever that means) but I entertain the idea of a psychosomatic source for my diagnosis. I had asthma pretty severely as a kid and still have allergies. I’m scrawny, my vision is bad. I’m the kind of guy even the army would reject.

Cheryl: Are you still hot and tired all the time?

Matt: Yeah but for different reasons. No, I’m not, just kidding. I’m cold and peppy now.

Cheryl: If you had to pick a chronic disease to get, assuming you didn’t have one already, what would it be?

Matt: Probably the one Andre the Giant had, or an enlargement of the brain giving me super-computing abilities. I wouldn’t “pick” any if I had the choice though.

Cheryl: How often do you think about death?

Matt: Daily, though not always my own. I think our whole consumer culture in America is focused on death so it’s hard not to.

Cheryl: Would you ever go to a, like, Rockers With Diabetes support group if they had one?

Matt: I tried a support group at first and I came home more frightened than I was before I went. But I did make lots of phone calls to diabetics who had similar lifestyles to mine, people I didn’t know, friends of friends. It helped me, but I think I freaked a lot of strangers out. I haven’t talked to any of them since. I found the non-diabetic friends I had (i.e., everybody) very caring and supportive all on their own.

Cheryl: I just recently gave my first injection. It was to my dog. I enjoyed it. It made me feel all scared and then powerful afterwards, like, that was no big deal. Now I can deal with whatever life dishes out. It made me think of you stabbing yourself in the stomach with that hypodermic needle.

Matt: O.K.

Cheryl: What’s your current biggest fear in general?

Matt: I have a vague undefinable dread. More specifically that I will somehow “fail.” Also that George W. Bush will be the leader of the free world.

Cheryl: If diabetes was one of your paintings, what would it look like?

Matt: I don’t do paintings anymore. The idea of “Diabetes Art” came up after the diagnosis though, from different artist people. But that just sounds like a really poor idea.