As the United States begins to emerge from the worst of the pandemic, Alec looks back with three guests on the ways their work lives changed. As the Suffolk County medical examiner, Dr. Odette Hall’s work is always about the logistics of death. In the early days of the pandemic, that meant figuring out makeshift morgues and processes to deal with an unknown threat. Additionally, as the first Black woman in her public-facing role, Dr. Hall’s openness, humor, and compassion made her a trusted source amidst the chaos and grief. Alec also talks with his sister, Jane Baldwin-Sasso, a physical therapist who works with children and the elderly. Jane creatively faced challenges turning her hands-on work into virtual treatments. Finally, clarinetist David Gould performs with some of the world’s most celebrated ensembles. COVID brought a sudden halt to his professional life last spring, and personal losses due to COVID leave him reflective about what’s next.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
This is Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to Here's the Thing from my Heart Radio. We're more than a year into this pandemic. People are getting vaccinated now and life is starting to return slowly to normal. Still, many of us are coming to terms with the ways COVID nineteen changed our lives. My guests today have had different experiences during the pandemic, both in their personal lives and especially in their work. Jane Baldwin Sasso is a physical therapist in upstate New York who works with children and the elderly. She's also my sister. David Gould works in New York City and plays clarinet with some of the world's most prestigious ensembles. But first, I'm speaking with Dr Odette Hall, the Suffolk County Medical Examiner here on Long Island. Last spring, when the pandemic started with its sudden death and makeshift morgues, I wondered how medical examiners like Dr Hall grappled with their work. She started our conversation by explaining what a medical examiner does. So we're looking for people who were not under doctor's care, died unnaturally, died with no known medical conditions. Inherent in the phrase medical examiner is the word examined. You're there to examine and find out how they died, correct, and not everyone gets an examination, so most people automatically think autopsy. So when we think of examination, we're saying the broadheading of sort of forensic examination that can be an external exam. So if we have enough information or family objects, there are situations where we will sort of say we cannot honor your objection, and it will take a court order to prevent us from doing the autopsy, because we have the right to perform and autopsy at our discretion. So people can actually object to an autopsy being performed on religious grounds absolutely and have to defer to them. What if it's part of a criminal investigation, So in cases of threats to public health or concern or suspicion of a homicide, that is where we will not honor the objection without a court order or judges order to say no, you cannot perform this autopsy. So in those situations we will tell the family we hear your objection, but this is a threat to public health or concern or suspicion of a homicide, so we will take it to court. And in that situation, we will contact the county attorney. So we have a case that needs to go to court to override an objection, and then they'll take it from there, and then it goes lawyer to lawyer, and ultimately, if the judge says you cannot perform this autopsy, then our hands are tied. Now. I don't want to speak with any kind of casualness about the subject of death this horrible time in the lives of their families and friends and loved ones. But what would you say in terms of the cases you handle, what's the top three? Actually, the vast majority of our cases are people who just have undiagnosed natural conditions. Then we get into accidents, and then from there we'll get into suicide. And let me sort of put the caveat on accident that our drug overdoses are classified as accidents as well. When we get into certifying death, you're talking about cause of death and you're talking about manner of death. So by training, the cause of death is the physiologic derangements that happened that causes a person's life to cease. That's the formal definition, that's what's drilled into you as a fellow. So you die of a heart attack, but the heart attack was caused by a bucket of cocaine. The manner of death would be accident because you're under the influence of cocaine, which is known to be a cardiovascular irritant. So we can find a completely blocked artery. But if you're positive for cocaine, then cocaine becomes contributory and your manner of death becomes an accident because that contributed to the cardiovascular irritation. Is it Do levels of drugs tell you when it's a suicide, Well, it does, But suicide is the hardest manner for a medical examiner to prove. The burden of proof to call something a suicide is on us just because a person has a high level of drugs and the family says there is no suici out of ideation history, there's no suicide attempt history, there's no note this came out of the blue. But this person has this sky high level of drugs. We have the option of calling that undetermined if we feel there's no reason why this level should exist in this person except for the fact that you took a whole violet pills and that can only be attentional, but if we do not have firm ground to stand on, we have to pull back from suicide. Speaking of that, I mean, we're all human beings. Do some medical examiners tend out of a kind of grace towards the family to not make the call of a suicide unless you're a thousand percent sure it was a suicide. That's the vast majority of the reason why we don't make that call because it is one of the most delicate manners of death. To call it is very, very traumatic to the family. So if you are not a hundred percent sure that that is what the person did, and especially when we get into our older population that may have issues with dementia, it could be an issue of I'm supposed to take two pills, but did I take my two pills already? Well, let me take two more, And then an hour later they forgot that they stop at the two pills, so they took two more. So by the end of the day they've got the equivalent of ten pills in their stomach and blood levels that are through the roof. But I can't call that person a suicide, So you have to kind of default to undetermined where are you from originally Jamaica? Queen's you're born in Jamaica born? And where did you train for this job? I got my undergraduate degree from Spellman College in Atlanta, where I majored in biology. PREMT where'd you go to medical school? So I went to Sunny Downstate in Brooklyn. And then when you left, did you know this is what you wanted to do? I went into medical school wanting to be a O. B g y N believing in women's care for women. But then ultimately you go through all kinds of clinical rotations in medical school, and I did not enjoy O. B G y N rotation, did not oh not at all. Ultimately, I just found that I did not enjoy, you know, chasing lab values, chasing X rays. I enjoyed talking to patients, Oh my gosh, I love talking to patients. They tell you their whole life stories, and people's life stories are fascinating. But I didn't enjoy the sort of cover your hignee approach to medicine. But interesting how you went from the beginning of life to the end of life. Yes, when did you make that decision to get into the work you're doing now? I was very very fortunate to have attendings who watched me throughout my rotations and they said, you know, your interests seemed to peak when you're touching and you're seeing something like so you're either a surgeon or a pathologist. And I said, I am not a surgeon. You know, I'll tell a funny story on Actually my O B G Y N rotation. We were doing an eck topic pregnancy surgery and they have to remove the whole fallopian too, so they put it in the cup. They put it off to the side and they say it's going to pathology. I said, well, you know, can I go see it? I want to see what a fellopian tube looks like. And they're like okay. So I go upstairs to the lab and in the lab accessioning area there are just buckets of specimens that have come up from the O R. So I find out where my specimen went and I go over and I'm like I opened the jar and everyone in the lab was staring at me, and I'm just like, oh my god, am I doing something wrong. They're like, what does it look like? I was like, you know, sit here all day with all these specimens and you know, look at them like, oh my god. I couldn't believe it, and it was kind of like, yeah, you're a pathologist. So I started taking pathology electives and sort of shadowing pathology residents and talking to pathology attendings and finding out what it is that they do and grossing specimens and looking at things underneath the microscope, and they call you the doctor's doctor, because essentially you're you're almost a consultant to doctors. Pathology literally means study of disease and injury and the human body, and forensic pathology is pathology that has medical legal implications to it. Your focus is unnatural deaths, so it's sort of a little branch off of pathology. So to become a forensic pathologist, you have to first do pathology training. So I did my pathology training at the University of California, Irvine, and every pathology resident has to do a rotation in forensics. So I go to the Orange County Medical Examiner's office and I had a wonderful attending who just kept on saying that you want to be a forensic pathologist. I was like, no, I don't want to testify in court. I don't want to No, no, no no manage, and he just kept on sort of asking me, and by the end of the rotation, it's kind of like, oh, can I sit on that case? Can I do that case? He was just like yeah, sure, you don't want to be your friends with all just was like, okay, maybe, but interesting how in the medical examiner's office or in something related there's a quas illegal function. Absolutely, as you said, I don't want to testify in court, and a lot of people who do what you do that's part of the job. And I think it's just because I'm a relatively bashful person and I don't like attention on me in that manner. But you get on there and you just get into a zone and you realize they're asking you questions about what you did, and if you're a hundred percent confident in what you did, then speaking on it doesn't become a problem. And also they teach you to focus on the jury. You're teaching the jury, trying to get them to understand what it is that happened in this case, and when you put it in that context, it becomes a more relaxing experience because it's kind of like I can talk about what I do I enjoy what I do, so telling you what I do as lay people that felt better to me. But also you're a profound part of the criminal justice system and bringing justice and finding out what really happened to somebody. Correct. Correct, But it's very, very, very important to maintain objectivity. I speak to findings point nine times out of a hundred. You're being called by the d a's office. However, you're a neutral witness. I am just speaking to what the body told me and what conclusion I came to based on what the body told me, and that is it. And when I'm meeting with d as, I often tell them that I've got to give this information. I will not withhold anything, I will not truncate anything. I have to speak to the facts of the case. And they understand that. But sometimes it helps the defense and not the prosecution. Will explain to people the difference between a medical examiner and a corner. It's very sensitive then in the intramural juke. Other than the greatness of one versus the kind of greatness of the other, it is one of those things where it is one of this medical examiner corner, you know who's greater. So corners are elected and coroners do not have to be physicians, and they don't have to be medical examiners, so they're more like police. Correct. They could be police, they could be politicians, and their function is typically what they do issue cause and manner of death, but they issue it based on somebody else's findings. So now tradition that was historic coroner's office, you're really not going to find coroner's office that aren't staffed and run by medical examiners. They're going to perform the autopsies, they may turn over the findings, and they may come to the conclusion of the cause and matter of death, but sometimes it is under the discretion of the coroner's office to sort of say whether or not they're going to bless that cause and manner of death. Now, you started in the medical examiner's office win how long ago? August two thousand and nine. What would you say has been the significant change you've seen in the work you've done in the last twelve years. Has the office changed much in its tasks? No, In terms of the basics and performing forensic examinations, that doesn't change much. Some of the technology may change, but the fundamental of doing the exam doesn't change. What are some of the changes you've seen in terms of the work of your office during the COVID Beyond Death's bike COVID So, and initially it was just learning to adjust to being in the midst of a pandemic where they were going to be an increasing number of deaths. So, by definition, COVID is under the jurisdiction of the Medical Examiner's office because it's a threat to public health. However, largely it's death from natural causes. Is death from a natural event, and the vast majority of them actually aren't coming to the Medical Examiner's office. They will be in hospitals. However, all things death, the medical examiner sort of becomes a portal to what do we do with the increasing number of deaths? What do we do with storage of increasing numbers of people dying? What do we do with these death certificates? How do we are the death certificates? So, in terms of body storage, what we didn't realize because of COVID, everyone's reducing staff that applies to cemeteries, crematoriums. I wonder if we'll come out of the COVID with so many things changed, been forced to confront these changes, and we wonder how those changes will be permanent, in which the handling of these death arrangements will change permanently, which people will sit there and go it almost doesn't matter what we do with the body. But but but let me ask you another question, which is you're you live in Suffolk, you live in the suburbs, and when you're out in Suffolk County, which has less of what and more of what crime was. It's interesting because I trained in the city, the New York City Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, so I spent two years their training in forensics. So what's different is the type of like injuries you see. And when I trained in two thousand seven to two thousand and nine, the drug epidemic was just starting to shift an increase, like in terms of subway suicides, people jumping in front of trains in the subways. There are no subways in Suffolk County. So people dropped in front of the Long Island Railroad. How many of them marine Suffolk County every year? Because it dozens or just a handful, It's handful to dozens, because unfortunately, you do get circumstances where you can tell that it was very intentional that they will on the tracks. What are the circumstances to tell you that. Unfortunately, it's the conductors. The eyewitness someone jumps in front of the direct correct or, they watch the train come at them, and it is such a traumatic event to the conductor, who cannot stop that train even if they wanted to. But clearly that person is intent. And again, what brings the person to that point, I don't know. I can just only honor whatever it is that they're feeling that brought them to that point. But in terms of life going on, thinking about the conductor, some of them are truly truly devastated and impacted by events like that, and it happens too often. So the girl from the city who's out here, what's unique for you with a less diverse community, shall we say? It's interesting that you say that, because it was a unique opportunity for me in terms of a woman of color growing up in the city where again it is very diverse, and I did grow up in it predominantly black community. To come out to Suffolk County and now work in a predominantly white community and think that all these things are going to be different, But it's actually in essence, not we create such differences amongst ourselves and there really aren't. So, you know, at the heart of it, we want to love our families. At the heart of it, we want to socialize and interact. At the heart of it, we want to be able to play our bills. We want to be stable, We want to be able to sort of give back to the next generation. So in Suffolk Counties, you almost sort of get on the defense a little bit as a black woman coming out into the society, you know, sort of double minority if you will that it's going to be a struggle. It's gonna be so hard. And when you just meet people on the level of I want the same things that you do, we're equal in that regard. What you just would you like to see within the system you work in that would help you do your job better and beyond just more money and more staff, you know, I mean that's number four. What's number five? You know in terms of you know, diversity and race and issues like that. I haven't felt that impact. You're doing a job and you're out to get an answer. It just says what it is, who shot this person? Not who shot this black person? Who strangled. This person who's strangled this white person. It's who did it, why, and let's get them. So I'm protected in that I'm not interacting with the person on the street corner. I'm just okay, this person is dead. Death is the great equalizer. I'm in somewhat of a protected bubble in that I am only charged with sort of this person's cause and manner of death. So in that regard, your medical examiner isn't that much involved in your community. It's insulated from politics. But absolutely, Now, what are the social services you think would benefit being funded more, having whatever the resources they need to be more effective. They would cut deaths that arrive at your doorstep. Drug treatment. Drug treatment would most certainly sort of cut back on overdoses. But mental health services. So much of drug overdoses happen in people with mental health issues, and mental health is just we don't want to talk about that. But mental health is real. Mental health services is paramount to our community, and it even goes into to some degree obesity. Some of your overeating is a mental health issue, some of your under eating is mental health issue. So really, at the top of what could be addressed, I think first and foremost mental health, and then after that things that keep people stable. With access to living in safe environment, living right on top of expressways, you're gonna have more lung disease. Not having access to healthy food, you're gonna have a lot more people eating fast foods and getting heart disease. So people who you know, they don't have anything walkable in their communities. Creating more parks and more tracks where people can exercise and get outdoors, more knowing what you know and seeing what you see. And that beautiful thing you just said about mental health because of what I believe now is that if we all get honest, we've all been brushed by that a little bit during What are you doing to take care of yourself? During the COVID? What are you doing? I joke with my friends my life was an exercise and social distancing, long before we had the social distance. I'm in home body. My mother is the if the sun is out, she's got to be moving. She's got to leave the house at least once. And my father and I we come home on Friday, we put on a robe and we're not back out the house until Monday. Are you just a happy person in general? Depends on who you ask, because you seem like one I try to be with this job and with sort of death in general, people who work in this industy stree have to sort of create a barrier. You have to protect yourself. Not that you take death lightly, but there's got to be a barrier. You absolutely respect the person who was on your table. There's someone's mother, brother, sister, cousin, loved one. But you cannot throw yourself into who this person was because you will be emotionally crippled. Um. So there's that wall that I create. Life is to be enjoyed, absolutely, absolutely, Doctor Hall. You are such a light. God, what a wonderful light you have to you. I am so grateful to you, and I hope that when I die, my body gets sent to your office. Dr o Debt Hall is the Suffolk County Medical Examiner on Long Island. If you've been wondering about the impact on mental health during the pandemic, your own or others, be sure to check out my conversation with psychiatrist Dr Julie Holland. She says the ambiguity about when the pandemic will end has been a challenge from the beginning. In the beginning, everybody was like, if I just knew when this would end, I would be okay, you know, if I knew it was just for the summer, or you know, I mean when it started, it was like when if I know it was just April, right, But that was a big deal. For the first few months with my patients, was just this idea that they needed to be able to encapsulate it. You know, if it could be compartmentalized, then they could deal with it. Here more of my conversation with psychiatrist Dr Julie Holland that Here's the Thing dot org. After the break, I talked with my sister Jane Baldwin Sasso about how she moved her physical therapy practice to Zoom. I'm Alec Baldwin, and you were listening to Here's the thing. You know how there are some people in life who just make everything better. My physical therapist is like that. Her treatments make all the difference, or they did before the pandemic. My sister Jane is a physical therapist and not mine, of course. She works in upstate New York with children and the elderly. For her was a very chaotic year. So when COVID first came back in March. We were very confused. We didn't really know what was happening. When I left my school job, we got an announcement on the on the p A said check your email immediately something. So we we we we knew things were happening. We just had no idea. And then we saw an email. It said today's our last day of school. We have no other information. So I just packed up things for you know, the next few days, thinking well, we're a few days off. This is weird, and then um, it came to be that that It just extended on and on, and then Governor of Homo stated in May that we're done for the school years. So we were doing a lot of platforms like Zoom, so if you can imagine zoom. Physical therapy with children is just very hard because they don't understand why I'm not with them, why we're not in school. My name is Mrs S to the kids, and they are Mrs S. Why can't we go to your therapy room and do what we always did? And so you have to help to calm their concerns initially, and then we have to think about really formatting things for a computer screen is compared to they come to my room and I have an obstacle course set up, or I have mat on the floor and we're going to do stretching. Now we're on a zoom call, and so it's just you have to format everything you do differently. It's sad. It's sad for the kids, it's sad for the teachers and the therapists, and it's challenging. But you know, we keep rising, rising to the occasion every day to try to make it fun. We we changed the way we do things just to engage the kids on the screen. So I wanted to say one thing too that that, you know, there was a little bit of a silver lining in that the parents who never see what I do ever because I'm in school with their children they don't see. They really got to see firsthand, grandparents and parents what we do and they really were like, how do you do this? You know, I have my kid home now with me and I don't know how you do it. So some of that was, you know, a little bit insightful for the parents. And then with my other job all summer, I started full time at the rehab job when school ended in June and We were in the very thick of COVID at that time, and as you know, I worked in a in a nursing home. They were just inundated with COVID. It was overwhelmingly stressful and sad, and what we had to do was massive amounts of ppe. You know, just an N ninety five covered with another mask, covered with a face shield has been got COVID. Yes, he's so careful, so careful before COVID. He's very kind of a German folk guy. But he's always been with the kids when they were a little wiped this and wiped that and just like that. It was sort of ironic. But um, the only places he really ever went to consistently was our gym, really regularly. What were his symptoms and have that all play out with him? How was it? What was his COVID experience? He really um had what he thought was kind of a tough bout with allergies. So he called our doctor and said, hey, my, can I get something stronger than over the counter? But um, the doctor said, well we should get you tested. So he went to get tested and he really was like, come on, just give me the prescription for the allergy meds. But it turned out positive. And then the boys and I got phone calls from New York State Department of Health. And it was pretty quick because pretty shortly after his results were in, within two hours, we all got phone calls to be home immediately. Whatever you're doing, stop what you're doing. We're like, really, And they were pretty strict about it. With your work with hospitals and doctors and the and your interaction with the medical profession, is it assumed that hospitals are unsafe places to a degree that we should avoid hospitals as much as possible, you know, something. To be honest with you, hospital admissions are so down when COVID started ramping up because people who wouldn't think twice at all, I'm going to the urgent care, I'm going to the er because my I have a toenail, a hangnail, whatever. Now they're like the last place I want to be as the hospital. You know, it's very different than what it was. We are rehab jim, which I used to joke and say, it's the happiest place on earth. It's restoration, it's music, it's happiness. People come in with a grumpy face and they leave smiling, like oh, you know, that was a great workout, and they don't want to get up and try to walk, but we walk them in the parallel bars and they feel better, they feel accomplished. That's been shut down since March seventeen. Our gym has been shut down. We do all bedside treatments in their rooms because residents in the in the nursing homes are not allowed to leave their rooms. It's called COVID isolation, and it's just very that in and of itself for someone who's not sick at all, is something that is detrimental. It's isolating, it's very depressing. I go in a room now to treat a patient and their roommate is like, hey, can I do that with you too, just because they're lonely and want to do I've had more roommates asked me, you know what do you do and open the curtain? Can I do it too? I'm like no, because I only have a doctor's order for this person. So it's just hard. You mentioned how school aged children, who under ordinary circumstances wouldn't be able to view the work you do. That a silver lining was for them to be exposed to exactly what's going on when their their kids are in your care and stuff with it under your direction, whether any other silver linings are the things that have happened, not just work related, which is something that's happened during the COVID that you said yourself, I'm gonna keep that. We're gonna hold on to that for me, honestly, I have grown children. My oldest is twenty three. My younger just turned one, and we had an empty nest for literally two months, and we we geared up for empty nest. I was anxious about it and sick about it. I'm like, I'm a mother and I'm so worried. And we have the empty nest and we're loving it. We're golfing and having a great time. And then COVID came and back to the house came both of the kids, and you know, they're grown, and it's it's strange to have these four adults in the house that we have card nights and um, you know, dinner. Another friend of mine texting me, said, Jane, you're never going to have this time again, the four of you, So to have us under the roof, it's just you know, nice, and I know it's going to come to an end. But with COVID, like you said, we're we're home a lot more. One of the silver linings of the COVID from me, especially at my age, is to realize how to take better care of myself. And I will imagine that when this is over and people can re emerge and get back into society, however change they may be, you're gonna have a line going down the block of people who are gonna need a lot of body work. A lot of people said that same thing is like I've had it. My body hurts everywhere, because who do they come to if their body hurts at the school? The teachers, my room, Jane, my neck, my back. They've had a lot of teachers come to me with you know, at a higher rate than ever before. And I think a lot of that too is the stress levels are high, which releases all that court as all in your body all the time you're running kind of on a high level of all. Thank you, Jane. I love to you and we'll talk to you later. Thank you, sweetie. You're welcome, very welcome. Jane Baldwin Sasso is a physical therapist in upstate New York. If you're enjoying this conversation, Tell a friend and be sure to follow. Here's the thing on the I Heart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. When we come back. I talked to clarinetists David Gould about COVID's impact on his life as a professional musician in New York. I'm Alec Baldwin, and this is here's the thing. The COVID pandemic was a crushing blow to performers. For professional musicians, especially those who perform with large ensembles, most of their work came to a complete halt. David Gould plays clarinet in the Orchestra of the American Ballet Theater and the Pandemics toll goes beyond the loss of his livelihood over the last year. The biggest effects since this obviously, I mean the loss of my father, mother and my mother being ill at the same time. And then you know the same story that now over four people have gone through. You can't be there to comfort and and all that sort of thing. I mean, the the silver lining, if if you can can call it that, this all this downtime, this you know, no time playing or rehearsing or traveling or all that sort of thing. Um, I was able to spend more time with my family like everybody else, and we kind of had a pod with my folks. We would go out and spend weekends there and I was hanging out with them, and I was helping my dad with stuff around house, and we we got closer, you know, we I mean we had a normal relationship like everybody else, you know, ups and downs, but nothing bad. But we just got closer doing things. And so that was the silver lining of the whole thing from that side. You know, of course, artistically, to lose all real opportunities to kind of share, to be in the same place with people in you know, in a in a hall. I think every performer wants to share. They want to share their story, they want to give to the audience. And I mean, as musicians, it's our job to interpret what someone else wrote and inspire those listening, to draw people in, to make them love this music as well. And there's a feeling walking out on stage, you know, it's that feeling, the excitement, this this tangible, uh feeling that you know, you put the you know, the uniform or the tales or whatever it's gonna be. You're gonna walk out and you're gonna play and share. And that's you know, obviously the financial it is is huge. Describe your dad. Your dad was retired. What kind of work did he do? So he, Uh, he was a pressman for the daily News back in the day. He did that for about twenty seven years. And while he was doing that, he he had his own business. Believe it or not. He would rebuild fuel pumps and water pumps for old cars. And uh, myself and my two brothers, you know, the family business. So we'd come home from school, we would help out. We would all do some of that stuff. And it's just how it went. And but he had been retired now all about eight or nine years, I would say, and you know he was just you know, enjoying life, you know, doing doing his thing. And and thus your career as a classical artist, how did the clarinet come into your life? It's funny the clarinet started from him. Also, he h all three sons had to pick up an instrument. It was you know, you're gonna learn an instrument, that's what we do. And my older brother played trumpet, and I looked up to him. I wanted to play the trumpet, and my father said, no, no, you know Robert's doing that. Why don't you, Why don't you play the clarinet? And he was in a phase where he was all into Already Shaw and Benny Goodman and and uh, I don't know. We were actually at an old car swap meat of all places, and there was a guy there who I think was a music teacher, but he also did some art things and would end up at car shows with instruments selling them, which doesn't sound so kocier to me, but it is what it is. So I ended up got my first clarent it that way and made my way with it and kind of got inspired. When I hit high school, I was a band teacher that was inspirational and did everything we could to not touch the table. Did your father have any pre existing conditions? If you don't mind my asking, well, I mean, look, he was not exactly the portrait of health. He um, he had had some infections, he had diabetes. How quickly did this all play out? He what happened? You know? He went in the hospital and they I think they were testing every few days and negative negative, negative, negative, and then one day positive. Uh. In fact, my mother caught it there too, we believe, and then they think he got it where in the hospital. No, he had been in the hospital for an infection. He was fighting and he uh, they were testing him and he ended up with it in his like second the third week in the day, but beginning of the third week of the hospital. So and he I within a week of being diagnosed. Basically, yeah, oh my god. And my mother she had it. She was at home. I mean she for her it seemed like I would say, a bad flu. You know, she was out really bad for about a day and a half, two days, and then slowly, you know, aches and pains went away. And but then I was a Monday, and by Friday she was you know, felt more like herself again. So, you know, in in one thing, and this is my my thought with classical music, it's a hundred and I don't know what is it? A hundred a hundred and ten hundred and eighteen people people on stage. It's not Shostakovic unless we have the whole gang up there, you know. And uh, and I'm wondering, do you miss your colleagues? Yeah, So I'm the luckiest until all this, I felt like I was the luckiest guy in the world because I'm you know, I'm a member of an American Valley Theater orchestra and so we play in New York in the in our season's um But I'm also you know, a sub or an extra musician with a lot of these great groups, and it's special to make music together. You know, it's it's you know, it's an ensemble of things. And it's like you said, you don't you don't have that one part. I mean, the show can go on, but it's not the same thing. It's a family. I mean, we've had countless zoom calls since this has gone on, and just you know, check it in coffee time, and we spend more time i think with the dancers in those uh than we sometimes are during the seasons. You know, it's just what going on? And are you staying in touch with some of the people you work with? Of course, you know, how are they coping? You know, they're they're doing their best. The same thing, you know, it's the finances, so they're figuring that out. And and also it's the same thing. You know, one month, two months, three months, okay, six months, okay, nine months, and you just start to hear about people who are moving away, people that are selling their extra instruments, and then finally there's some you know, I'm friendly with a lot of jazz musicians. I mean, I know some jazz musicians who have kind of just said I think I'm done, you know, just because I can't. I can't make a year eighteen months without any sort of income. Friends of mine having a conversation a couple of us, they working all kinds of different fields. We were talking about how are all of us gonna get erased by the COVID, Like, is the COVID gonna come back when? When? When it starts, people are gonna be like, well, your your career was a pre COVID career. It's literally BC before COVID, and they want everything new. Is it like an etch a sketch that people are gonna want to just flip it over and erase everything and say let's start everything new. Now, you're still in the ensemble there at ABT and you haven't benna. You've been given any indication? Are they? Are they thinking about fall of this year? Well, our spring season was canceled, of course the fault. We're hopeful for the fall. You know, we're hoping that it'll that it will happen, but this, you know, we have to wait and see, like everybody else, Like everything else. It's unreal. You're not performing that much classical music, and you're certainly not performing any under the circumstances you normally do. Are you listening to more class cycle music as a result. Yeah, of course. I mean I've been listening to everything from Brahms to Tchaikovsky to shasta Kovich, and it's almost it's in a way, it's got a memory lane thinking of the things that we used to do and all this and the concerts that we just did and projects were working on. But of course trying my best to listen as much as I can. My my aunt, who's in her eighties, who's a poet, she actually was giving me a hard time that I don't have good speakers at home. I should be listening to more. My kids should be hearing more music, more classical music. What are you doing? Like? It kind of guilted me into taking it seriously again. What's a nice soothing piece you recommend people listening to just calm them down. At the end of another COVID impacted day, I would still stand by this Brahms piano Trio B Major number one. Uh, there's a recording I like with the trio to Trieste. It's an old recording. Uh. You know, we we pick our favorite recordings based on what we're we hear first sometimes or what sticks with us or what makes an impact. The trio d Trieste here it is. Is that what you said? Yeah, just the first couple of bars you'll hear just in the piano. It's just your shoulders drop and then the cello comes in. It's just it's really it's magical and and no joke. I mean it's this sounds silly, like a public service announcement for classical music, but I'm just thrilled that you're putting this out there for people that might not know classical music and nobody should ever be intimidated by it. And that sounds maybe ridiculous, but it's you just try a little bit end up eventually hopefully going to a concert. I mean, you asked about missing colleagues. I miss my colleagues, but I miss sitting on stage and being lost in this sea of sounds and music, you know, the waves and the and you get lost in there. It's it's look, we call it playing. We're in it's fun. It's I mean, it's sometimes hard work, but it's really special. I always say that when I go to the movies, I'm often disappointed, and when I go to the theater, I'm sometimes disappointed. And when I go to the symphony, I'm never disappointed. Never. It's the best evenings I've ever had in my life. My god, it's it's it's one of the things I missed the most. Thank you so much for doing this with us. Stay safe, Thank you so much, and stay safe, be well. Clarinetist David Gould by thanks to him, Dr Odette Hall and my sister Jane Baldwin Sasso. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing from my Heart Radio. As David Gould recommended, this is the Brahms Piano trio number one in B major from the Trio de Trieste Ute