The Oppenheimer Report - 6-27-11

The weekend before last, I made an unusual discovery: seagulls can be aggressive. One of my rituals when I’m up north at Jasper Bark Lodge and when the weather is co-operative, is to take a cruise around our lake in my little portable dingy around sunset. As I try to reduce my Sasquatch-like carbon footprint, I am using the little boat with the 3hp motor more and more often. I haven’t quite stepped down to the canoe, or heaven forbid, a sailboat, but I’m heading in that direction. Despite the black flies and mosquitoes, the beauty of nature abounds up here, and my little boat rides around the periphery of Little Doe Lake afford me the opportunity to stop and smell the muskrat poop. Last week’s O.R. entry featured a photo I took two weekends ago of a mother duck with nine of her newly hatched ducklings. I’ve seen blue herons, many species of ducks, owls, loons (I love the loons), Canadian geese with their goslings, sandpipers, and countless other birds. As well, there are lots of other critters roaming about. The other day, I saw a beaver the size of Nebraska on the Magnetawan River, building what appears to be a beaver high rise condominium. There are minks, weasels, otters, fox, moose, bear, deer, raccoons, porcupines, etc., and I enjoy seeing them all.

The other day, while on my pre-sunset cruise, across the lake from our house, I noticed two seagulls acting peculiarly. As I approached, they began to swoop down and seemingly dive- bomb my boat. At first, I thought they were playing, but with each pass, they came closer and closer, at one point coming so close that I felt the breeze from their pass. They appeared to be agitated, and I thought their behavior was odd. The next evening, I returned to the scene of the crime, armed with my portable digital video camera and my still camera. Sure enough, there they were, perched on the little island at the narrows to the middle lake, and as soon as they saw me, they alighted and proceeded to do what they had done the evening before. They were like Kamikaze pilots. I took some video of their behavior, and while I did manage to capture one or two close passes, the video is jerky and the birds are only visible for a nanosecond. Oddly enough, I had better luck with the still camera. Of course I took a hundred unsuccessful pictures of the lake and trees with no sign of the swoopers, and several photos have just a webbed foot or a wing tip in the frame, but I did manage to get one or two decent shots showing the perpetrators. I was fascinated by this phenomenon, because in my almost 50 years of boating, I’d never seen seagulls behave like this. What was going on? Is this too a product of global warming; are the animals all going crazy? On day three, I brought my neighbor along to view the swooping gulls, and it was then that I saw why I think they were acting the way they were. There along the shoreline, near their little island, was a baby gull floating around in the calm water. It couldn’t have been more than a week or two old, and I don’t think I’d ever seen a baby seagull before. I’m guessing these swooping gulls were protecting their young, and I was an intruder on their otherwise quiet lake. Gulls are not my favorite birds. They crap on my boat cover, their call is like fingernails on a blackboard, and they are one of Mother Nature’s scavengers. Nevertheless, they play an important role in a marine environment, and I recognize their part in the natural order of things. I waited for the swoopers to land in the water and putted over to them. We had a bizarre Camp-David-like conversation, and while I don’t speak fluent gull, I told them that I was sorry for causing them any distress, and by the way, I mean their baby no harm. Then I gunned the motor and tried to swamp them. I am, after all a homo sapien, and a semi-retired one to boot, which makes me a double threat.

The huge Walmart class action suit filed by women claiming discrimination was thrown out by The Supreme Court. Perhaps the judges were concerned that such a big class action could have deleterious implications for the rest of corporate America. Isn’t this a little like saying the banks are too big to fail, so we must bail them out? Too big to fail or trust-busting; either way there’s government intervention. Once again, profit and power trump justice. Big wildfires in Sierra Vista, Arizona and parts of Texas. 4 Million acres have been destroyed so far this year alone. Up here in the Great White North, rain has been the big story, and it came down hard for most of last week. My weather gurus up here have predicted a hot dry summer, but so far, a week in, I don’t see it. I spoke to one of my buddies in Banff last week, and he said that the above-average snow pack in the mountains has made for a wet Spring. I remember many times well into July when Shauna and I encountered deep snow hiking at the higher elevations in the Canadian Rockies. Odd to need “gators” in July.

Anyhow, this is your seagull behavioral expert, signing off. Next week, join me as I recount the story of the annual Buffalo television shoot.

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2011 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report - 6/20/11

Newly hatched in Katrine

This past week in the media it was the tale of two Anthonys. For me, it is unusual to miss an opportunity to make some wise crack about a political scandal, but I missed the boat with Weinergate. It just didn’t interest me all that much, so jaded have I become by all these stories of aberrant behavior among famous or important people. Ahnold the marriage terminator, Elliot Spitzer the high stakes John, Sen. Edwards, Brett Favre; where will it end? After all the sex scandals involving celebrities and politicians, this just didn’t seem all that scandalous. Stupid yes, ridiculous, absolutely, but interesting or newsworthy, not so much. The Weinergate scandal did add a new word into my anemic vocabulary: “sexting.” Congressmen Anthony Weiner Tweeted his penis (huh?) and got caught. I mean, come on! Last Thursday, after vowing indignantly to remain in office, the broken Weiner announced that he would resign. Another story that I didn’t need to see ad nauseam on CNN last week was the Casey Anthony trial in Florida. Apparently this so-called mother is on trial for murdering her little daughter Caylee, and while there is only circumstantial evidence, it is becoming increasingly evident this woman at the very least was responsible for her daughter‘s death. I don’t think it is a good idea to try defendants in the court of public opinion, because I believe it leads to bungled verdicts. While it may be yellow journalistic entertainment for some to follow the trials of pathological liars, cheats, cyber-exhibitionists, and sociopath murderers, I think the publicity hinders the legal process. I realize that our capacity as human beings to commit unconscionable evil is Nancy Grace’s bread and butter, but I also believe that O.J. might have been convicted if there had not been so much distracting media coverage. Last week, I turned on the news to see what was happening in Libya, or Syria, or Yemen, or any number of stories that might effect the real world, and what I saw was a fist fight in the line of potential spectators for the Casey Anthony trial. And there was some guy in a neck brace, racing to get in the line to watch the trial. What, was Disney World closed that day? He looked like some obnoxious kid racing to get into the Space Mountain line. Is this the righteous indignation of a largely law-abiding public or vultures circling over the latest kill on the Savannah? Secretly, I’ve always wanted to attend a Judge Judy trial. I did NOT injure that woman’s poodle on purpose with my weed whacker! Judge Judy is kind of like the championship wrestling of law.

Hockey is officially over for another season. Heavy sigh. The Boston Bruins won their 1^st Stanley Cup in 39 years, defeating the Vancouver Canucks handily in Game 7. Once again, a hockey game was hyped as Canada vs. the rest of the world, but come on, Boston probably has Canadian players, don’t they? I was torn, but in truth I wasn’t particularly vested in either team. Riots broke out in Vancouver after the game, and while this was probably the actions of a few disgruntled fans, it makes Vancouver fans look like poor losers. Let me see, what else is news … there was comedian Tracy Morgan’s homophobic rant, for which he is very sorry. “Hey, some of my best friends are fags, but if MY kid came home and said HE was one, I’d stab him in the head with a knife.“ And scene. Greece is about to swirl down the toilet bowl of bad debt, and fears are that this default could have a domino effect on countries like Spain and Portugal, further imperiling the European economy and indirectly threatening other economies in the world. All this greed and mismanagement. I wonder if those Greek government finance guys like to tweet pictures of their private parts? A moment of silence for Springsteen sax player Clarence Clemons, who died last week not long after having a severe stroke. Clemons was 69.

Final note. You may have heard of the Burning Man Festival now held annually in the desert of Nevada, but did you know there is a Frozen Dead Guy Days festival in Nederland, Colorado? I just read an article in the NY Times about it, because apparently the town fathers are selling the copyrights to all things Frozen Dead Guy. They actually have a frozen dead Norwegian guy named Bredo, stashed in a freezer somewhere outside of town, but he doesn’t go with the package. Sounds like a money maker to me. From this article, I learned that there are other such bizarre celebrations out there. For instance, in Fruita, Colorado there is an event celebrating Mike the decapitated chicken, who allegedly lived for 18 months after his head was cut off (urban myth?) There’s also one in Arkansas, called Toad Suck Daze. I’d buy that tee shirt. I suppose these festivals are no more bizarre than incarcerating a groundhog to predict the weather. In Buffalo we used to have our world famous annual New Year’s Day television shoot. If any of my twelve loyal readers wishes to hear more about that, I’d be happy to oblige. It’s likely to be more interesting than the drek now spreading across the news. Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2011 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report - 6/13/11

When I returned from Buffalo last week, I stopped at our apartment to pick up the mail. I went into the kitchen to grab something to eat, and I noticed that the refrigerator had crapped out. One of the many nice features of living in an apartment building is that I simply call up the maintenance department and request that they replace the faulty appliance. The bad news is that I still have to clean out the refrigerator before they can replace it. Yuck. There were frozen blueberries from 2009 which had melted and leaked all over the freezer, melted frozen vegetables, not-so-frozen meat, etc. It’s amazing the stuff that can accumulate in the back of a refrigerator and go unnoticed for half a decade. I found a jar of jam stuck behind the pickles that had an expiration date from 2006. Miraculously, no mold. In the freezer there is a slab of white chocolate made to look like piano keys with dark chocolate black keys, which Shauna has kept for the past twenty years I have known her (and perhaps for much longer). I do not question these things, I just leave stuff where it is and hope that some day it will disappear.




Everyone in Canada knows it’s black fly season in the Great White North, and for any of you unfamiliar with those little bastards, they are tiny enough to go unseen, but their bites are ferocious and itch for days. The other day I was in such a hurry to try out our new lawnmower that I went out under-protected. I didn’t realize my mistake until it was far too late, and now I am covered in black fly and mosquito bites. This coupled with the squirrel family that has taken up residence in the one foot crawl space between our ceiling and our roof deck just above my bedroom made for a few relatively sleepless nights. I may have to resort to playing my Del Rubio Triplets album at full volume to drive the squirrels out. That is something I usually reserve for unwanted dinner guests who have over-stayed their welcome. The Triplet’s version of the Doors tune “Light My Fire” is so bad it’s not even funny. For the black fly bites I have made my own version of Afta-Bite itch reducer (ammonia and water), and that seems to help, temporarily. Unfortunately, I was attacked in the two sensitive areas wherein scratching is considered unseemly. One of the major problems with these embarrassing nether regions is that it is difficult to determine the exact location of the bite (for obvious reasons), so there is a lot of unproductive groping and grabbing to achieve the desired relief. This of course is not acceptable public behavior. Thank goodness I have no pressing social engagements this week, only a dental appointment. I will if needs be, scratch those areas in front of my dentist. I once had to sit through my entire college graduation covered from head to toe in poison ivy, and that was in sweltering heat. The only advice I can give based on that experience is that alcohol and skinny-dipping are not always a good combination.



Mini rant about postal service. It’s bad enough that I constantly have to buy two cent postage stamps to add onto my letters because the rates keep changing, but I have just had my second CD package returned to me, months later, that was properly posted in the first place. I’m not sure what is happening, but I am certain I would not be having this problem if I could fax a CD. A few weeks ago there was a postal strike over the usual issues: salary and benefits. That’s right, let’s make mail delivery even less economical shall we? I recently heard about a bulk email delivery service that some of my musician friends use called something like Usendit.com which will send large files and/or documents through the internet for pennies a day. I can email a 400 page book to a friend in Bangkok or my entire CD collection (as computer files of course) to my buddy in Australia, for a very reasonable annual membership fee, and it offers the almost instantaneous transmission times characteristic of the internet. This is a thousand times more economical than snail mail. I keep hearing about how snail mail is losing business, and it’s not hard to figure out why. It now costs $1.03 Canadian to send a POST CARD to Buffalo, N.Y. from Ft. Erie, Ontario, a distance of a mile or so. And that usually takes at least three days, if Canada Post does not lose the piece. If they were a private enterprise, the market place would deem them uncompetitive and run them out of business within a month. But noooo, they’re run by the government so they’re expected to be expensive and inefficient. Jeesh.



Oh, I think I just found the spot …. Oh yeah … ahhhhh, that’s better! Scratch and win.

The Oppenheimer Report 6/7/11

Cousin Harry

Sumer has finally arrived, and with a vengeance! Last Tuesday I was in Huntsville and I could have fried an egg on the hood of my car. The thermometer read 91 degrees, and it was only the end of May. The next morning I checked the temperature, and it was a frosty 41. Yikes! Still a lot of rain, and it has been difficult to plan outdoor planting and painting projects. My cousin Harry in Oregon sent me an email the other day, as he does on a semi-regular basis. I love receiving his missives because they are always laced with interesting stories about life on his farm. In his most recent folksy letter, he mentioned that all his farmer friends who planted in March are basically screwed because of the crazy weather. While the burning of fossil fuels may certainly contribute to global warming and the resulting weather changes, I am skeptical of Al Gore’s voodoo science premise that global warming is primarily the fault of mankind. Whatever the cause though, it is hard to dispute that we are experiencing extreme weather changes.




Did any of you ever see that disturbing internet video wherein people allegedly pop corn with the microwave transmissions from their cell phones? This video was quickly debunked as a hoax, but there is a new study out suggesting that cell phone radiation may be more harmful to the human brain than we originally thought. And they figured this out just in time to watch the horse running away from the barn. Cell phone radiation has been re-classified and is now considered about as dangerous as chloroform, lead, and car exhaust. Fun fact: there are about 5 Billion cell phones out there emitting microwaves in the world. No one seems to know exactly what level of risk they present, but I am taking precautions. I do not use my cell phone all that frequently, but when I do, I try to use it in speaker mode. Someone told me that those hands free headset thingies that hook onto your ear, while they may comply with hands free regulations, are just as dangerous as holding the phone to your ear. One doctor I heard commenting on the subject suggests that merely holding the phone an extra inch away from your head exponentially lessens the danger of microwave radiation exposure to the brain. Frankly, I don’t think anyone knows for sure yet what’s going on, but there is evidence that more and more people are getting brain tumors. I figure I did enough damaging things to my brain in my ill-spent youth, I don’t need to stack the deck.



Last year I watched a very interesting, albeit depressing movie, entitled “You Don’t Know Jack” about the life of Jack “Dr. Death” Kevorkian. Kevorkian was released from prison in 2007 where he did some serious time for his overt and notorious campaign of assisted suicide for the terminally ill. The movie was interesting, not only because it shed some light on the personality of this strange and enigmatic man -- and by the way, I thought Al Pacino did an excellent job portraying Kevorkian -- but also because it delves into the highly controversial subject of euthanasia. I won’t go into my usual tiresome rant about my opinions on the quality of life and right to life debates, but I think if nothing else, Kevorkian‘s self-inflicted martyrdom has forced this issue of euthanasia out of the implicit classification of religious and moral heresy, and into the light of day where it belongs. In fifty years will he be deemed the blasphemous demon, or will he be perceived as a visionary pioneer, championing the rights of the end stage terminally ill? Dr. Jack Kevorkian died last week, at the age of 83, presumably without any assistance.



Actor James Arness died last week as well. Some of you are old enough to remember him as marshal Matt Dillon fron the 70s T.V. show “Gunsmoke.” I looked him up on Wikepedia and was surprised to find that he was Peter Graves’ brother. He looks like Graves. My dad and I were watching “Gunsmoke” one night and caught a serious continuity error which made us both laugh. Dillon was talking to his barmaid/girlfriend Kitty and he said, “Don’t be uptight Kitty.” I don’t think cowboys said “uptight” in the Wild West. Festus, the town loser, was my favorite character on that show, I suppose because I identified with him. By the way, who names their kid Festus? Oh, he reminds me of a festering pustule; let’s call him Festus. Did you ever notice that in all those cowboy shows like “Bonanza,” “Gunsmoke,” and “Rawhide”, there was never any horse manure on the ground? As someone who has been around a lot of horses, I did not find this particularly realistic, and as we all know, I crave reality in my television. Finally, I heard on the news last week that Winnipeg, Manitoba is once again going to have an NHL hockey team. The Atlanta Thrashers will be moving to Winnipeg next season, and now the team needs a new name. How about the Winnipeg Frozen Stiffs? Many people in Canada refer to Winnipeg as “Winterpeg.”

Festus honey, come inside, it's time for your iodine treatment.

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2011 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED