The Oppenheimer Report - 8/27/12

Yesterday marked the 20^th anniversary of the first time I met my future wife Shauna. We’d spoken on the phone a few times, and written letters to each other, and finally, on August 26, 1992, we agreed to meet at Niagara-on-the-Lake for supper. I convinced her that this location was equidistant from Buffalo and Toronto, and being geographically challenged, she believed me. In fact, Niagara-on-the-Lake is much closer to Buffalo, and I suppose I was hedging my bets. She was almost two hours late, but when we finally met we became fast friends. I remember sitting in her little red Mazda RX-7 after the whole town had gone to bed, listening to The Guitar Trio with Paco de Lucia, a guitarist Shauna and I both enjoy and have since seen several times. Her intelligence, her passion for music, and her sense of humor stole my heart that night, and I didn’t have a chance. Within a year, I proposed marriage to her, in a song I wrote, and surprisingly, she said yes. Because my decision to propose was made at the last minute, I didn’t have a proper engagement ring, so I used a hose clamp from my tool box instead. You snooze, you lose girfren. Marriage is not for sissies, but after eighteen years, we’re beginning to figure it out. She is still late a lot of the time, but I think I made the right decision.

Apparently what happens in Vegas does not always stay in Vegas. Naked photographs of Royal playboy Prince Harry have surfaced, thanks to celebrity bashers TMZ, and are circulating in the tabloids. Apparently Harry was playing strip billiards with some alleged friends and the crown jewels were exposed. I’m sure Britons have seen far worse, and if memory serves me correctly, some paparazzi scum managed to snap Prince Chuck in the nude a long time ago. My question is, how much did the “photographer” get for those Harry photos? Hope it was worth it, because you are now an international scuzzball. Same goes for the a-hole who sold that photo of Michael Phelps taking a hit off a bong after the Beijing Olympics. Look for the new movie about rampant opportunism, coming soon to a theatre near you: Scumbag Millionaire.

How about that Teabagger-endorsed bozo (and six term) Missouri Representative Todd Akin, claiming that “legitimately” raped women don’t get pregnant? Whuh? This is the Republican strategy for saving money? It’s the new, inexpensive way to prevent pregnancy … will it away! While we’re at it, let’s scrap all stem cell research, because some people think that phrenology and bloodletting are far more effective in treating life threatening illnesses. I do not see any way that we could claim that Akin’s comments were taken out of context. That is quite simply a dumb ass thing to believe, much less to say! And I keep repeating it every four years, especially since the controversial Bush/Gore race in 2000; America has become hopelessly crippled by partisan politics. If the Founding Fathers could see how far off the rails this train has gone, they might have opted for some form of autocracy. What infuriates me is that Republican or Democrat, whoever wins in November will be hamstrung by a corrupt and self-serving Congress. At least I can voice this opinion with impunity, for now at least.

They say the number seven is good luck, and yet that number was linked to infamy last week. It’s the 7^th time Mark David Chapman is up for parole for the murder of John Lennon. I don’t think so, Mr. Chapman. Imagine there’s a prison, where bad guys never leave. And after giving up his fight to clear his name of allegations he “juiced,” seven time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong has thrown in the towel and will be stripped of his Tour de France medals. Armstrong may have been wise to give it up. While no test has proven he used performance enhancing drugs in his competitions, somehow this scandal just kept coming, and “eyewitnesses” have come forward to testify they saw Armstrong do the dirty deed. He can now walk away from this “witch hunt” as he called it and focus on his charitable endeavors. This one is complicated. I know that doping is fairly common in competitive cycling, and I’ll wager that a lot of his less successful competitors were juicing as well. Rules are rules, and if he did cheat, I suppose the punishment fit’s the crime. If it can be proven. Is there indisputable proof he cheated? Perhaps. Dope or no dope, the guy was a winner in my book. He beat cancer and still remained competitive. His was such a great story: I guess I just don’t want to believe it‘s a lie. When cynicism becomes the norm, no one will dare to dream. Finally, first man on the moon Neil Armstrong has passed away. We thought it was a big step Neil.

Verse #1: “A year ago I didn’t know, didn’t have a clue what I was waiting for/ Passing time, imperfect rhymes, didn’t have a clue who I was writing for. Cho: And I’m telling you I love you, and I’m asking you to please consider me / Oh please, please Shauna Leigh, will you marry me?”

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report - 8/20/12

Shauna’s birthday was last week and I have always been at a loss to decide what to give her as a gift. It’s been a while since I gave her anything of real value and I was feeling a little guilty about it when lo and behold my problem was solved. Well, sort of. It turns out Barbara Streisand is coming to Toronto in October and will be accompanied by trumpet player extraordinaire Chris Botti. While I have no interest in seeing Streisand, I am a big fan of Botti and have seen him perform several times. I told Shauna that she could pick out her seats and I would purchase the tickets. That’s the “sort of” part. I have never in my life paid as much for concert tickets as I paid for those Streisand seats! It was absolutely outrageous, and while the tickets I purchased were on the floor, they were far from the best seats in the house. Thankfully, her mom is a huge fan and I will happily offer my ticket to her, and even drive the two of them down to the Air Canada Centre to see the show. Shauna and her mom will appreciate that concert far more than I ever would. Jewelry is always a viable alternative, but this gift of music will be something unique: a memory that Shauna and her mom will share forever. When I grumble about the cost I keep hearing Shauna’s late brother whispering in my ear, something he said just before he passed on: “Don’t postpone joy!” At a time when fairly well all my disposable income is being poured into the long overdue completion of this house, giving Shauna the gift of music makes me very happy. To boot, I get brownie points with her mom.

This morning I read an interesting article in the NY Times entitled Raising the Ritalin Generation and it was about the author’s experiences with that drug and what she felt was its over use. Her eight-year-old boy was having trouble focusing in school and his teacher suggested he be tested for AD HD. Her point seemed to be that not enough attention is paid to the possible side effects, especially on a young child. While some children do in fact have severe attention deficit disorder, there are plenty who don’t and are prescribed the drug unnecessarily. The main thrust of the article seemed to be that in general, we are becoming or have become a society that looks for magic bullet solutions to complicated problems. This struck a nerve with me. Maybe the kid didn’t focus because he had a bad teacher, or because he was like every other energetic kid who would rather play outside than read about Magellan. We take pills to get erections, to put us to sleep, to wake us up, keep us from being depressed, or to counter the side effects of other pills with dubious effectiveness. One need only listen to the sometimes ludicrous laundry list of possible side effects in the fast-talking disclaimers to realize that something may be wrong here. May causing bleeding from every orifice in your body … if you feel like killing yourself or others, stop taking the drug … don’t take this drug if you drink water, eat meat, or use a cell phone, and on and on. My wife Shauna suffers from several chronic illnesses which cause her great discomfort. One of those illnesses, fibromyalgia, has been particularly debilitating. She has tried many drugs to provide her some relief, none which have been particularly helpful. There is drug being hyped on T.V. these days called Lyrica which professes to provide relief for fibromyaligia symptoms. If you want a laugh sometime, google it and read the page entitled “Lyrica is not for everyone.” Years ago, Shauna tried what I think was a similar drug that was widely recommended called Amitriptyline. Basically it was an anti-depressant and it did not help in any way. In fact, it made matters much worse. Shauna gained a lot of weight that was subsequently difficult to shed, the drug made her into a zombie, did nothing to relieve her pain, and she had to wean herself off it very slowly. It is still being prescribed and I wonder what the long term effects are. While pills can certainly improve our lives, caveat emptor, nothing comes for free.

Speaking of drugs that don’t help, have you read about the drug generally referred to as “bath salts”? As I understand it, bath salts is basically another synthetic designer drug similar in effect to the very destructive crystal meth which has metastasized in North America. Bath salts, of which there are many variations, was up until very recently legally available and sold in head shops and on the internet. It first came onto my radar when I heard about that guy in Miami who ate the face off another guy while reportedly high on bath salts. In my wildest fits of teenaged stupidity I was never tempted to sniff airplane glue and inhale spray deodorant. Of course turning one’s brain into lunchmeat is bad enough, but these bath salts apparently inspire psychotic, violent behavior as well. Give me some of that! Who wants to smoke a doob and curl up to Cat Stevens when you can crank up your The Flesh Eaters (yes, there is a band by that name) album, snort some “BS” and chow down on some face. Now you're talkin'! Scary stuff.

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report - 8/13/12

Last Saturday I attended my fourth annual Western New York powerboat poker run in Buffalo. Because of the storms last weekend there was some concern they might call off the event, but come Saturday morning we fired up my friend’s vintage twin screw 1972 27’ Magnum Marine powerboat and headed up the Niagara River to the Erie Basin Marina to join 60 or more other boats in town for the run. Sadly, the open water portion of the run was cancelled because the threatening weather and the 5’-7’waves. While many of the boats in the run could have handled the rough seas, there was always the distinct possibility that one of those high performance behemoths would break down and the organizers felt it would be better to avoid the 20 mile run down the lake to Sunset Bay. Nobody wants to be dead in the water when the winds are gusting to 40mph and the sky is threatening rain and thunderstorms. In years passed, that open water portion of the run has typically been the most entertaining part of the ride.

Since I was a little boy, I have had a fascination with boating in rough water. I get tears of nostalgia when I remember my first little aluminum boat, later named The Raging African Queen (thank you renowned Buffalo artist Peter Stephens for taking it upon yourself to paint that horrible name on the transom of my boat with indestructible yellow Rust-o-leum), and the fun I used to have as a ten year old boy taking it out in rough weather. The trick was to keep the boat afloat until after I had cleared the breakers out past the sandbar, then to jump into the boat quickly, fire up the little Johnson 51/2 horsepower outboard and head out at just the right angle into the waves before the high winds could blow me sideways and sink or capsize the boat. I became quite good at it. Later, I did the same thing with my 13’ Boston Whaler, and most of the other boats I owned. The shallowest of all the Great Lakes, Lake Erie is particularly treacherous when small craft warnings are in effect. The chop tends to be steep and deep and misjudging it can easily be fatal. Davy Jones’ locker is full of drunken Western New York fishermen, trying to pee off the stern of their boat in high winds. During my ill spent young adulthood, I did some ridiculous things with and in The Raging African Queen. One choppy day we drove the approximately five miles from our summer home on Lake Erie over to Holloway Bay, on plane, standing on top of the seats, and steering the boat by leaning to the left and right. Another time, at night, with about seven people in the boat on one of our legendary booze cruises, we actually sunk the boat while driving along the shore. It wasn’t until the boat was completely underwater that I and my inebriated crew abandoned ship. I distinctly remember holding the transom of the boat up in shoulder deep water, probably with the motor still running, in order to keep the motor from submerging. While age and experience have somewhat tempered my horrific bad judgment, I am still prone to the occasional bout of unprecedented stupidity. One October day on Lake Ontario -- now in my 40s mind you --I attached the ignition kill switch to my belt and headed out in the open water looking for the perfect wave. Failing that I made the ill-considered commitment to jump the wake of a rather large passing naval ship. With the crew looking on, I hit that enormous wake at perhaps 15-20 knots before realizing I had made a serious mistake. My 20’ HydraSport was clearly not designed to leave the water, but leave the water it did. I suspect that from propeller to the water’s surface, I was around 3 feet off the water, and I remember waking up on the floor of the boat, on my back, engine stalled, hearing the crew members of the now distant navel vessel laughing uncontrollably at my stupidity. I am only on this earth to spread joy to the masses.

Renowned composer Marvin Hamlisch died last week at 68. The London Summer Olympics are over.  Civil war in Syria is escalating and the UN seems powerless to stem the violence. Kofi Anan, meet Neville Chamberlain. Nice job by the way, doing nothing. Wouldn’t it be lovely if we could simply add something to the water supply that rendered men less aggressive? Mitt the twit Romney picked his running mate, the conservative Wisconsin Republican congressman Paul Ryan. Of course the Ryan is pro life and anti homo, two strikes against him in my book. He believes that the fetus enjoys full legal rights at conception … that is, of course, unless it is a homosexual. Pregnant moms beware, your unformed fetus may have retained an attorney. Law and Order: Fetal Justice. If Romney is to have chance in this election, he’d better focus a little more on state and a little less on church. By the way, it looks as if the mudslinging has started early this year, and both sides have come out swinging with their lies and innuendo. With the money those PAC bastards raise and spend on below-the-belt negative ad campaigning we could probably house a few million homeless Americans, maybe even cure cancer. Then again, what has politics ever had to do with helping people? Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report - 8/6/12

Almost every day for the past week we have been awakened to the sound of an excavator on our property. Four years after the construction of our house, we are finally getting around to cleaning up the grounds and to landscaping. We had boulders lying around the property from the original basement excavation and felled trees stacked along our driveway. Those trees like so much of the other construction debris were never removed from the property. Although everything is parched right now, it is important to consider and provide for proper drainage. Because we are at the bottom of a hill, water diversion is an important issue. When we get heavy rains, we need to ensure that runoff is diverted away from our and our neighbors’ properties. To that end, in our original site plan we included retention ponds and diversionary culverts along our driveway. We even put in a tile bed next to our house to capture runoff from the roof. Because of a particularly difficult next door neighbor, who caused us a great deal of aggravation and who managed to stir up unnecessary controversy among other much less affected neighbors, we ended up substantially overcompensating for potential drainage issues, at great expense to us. That same neighbor had, several years before our build enlisted our support to essentially double the size of improvements to his property, something that in retrospect seems far too generous of us. The good news is that, through the building process, we became better friends with our neighbors on the other side, who have been both understanding and patient with our construction. When all the earth moving is complete, we will finally have a much more presentable property. We have further plans to remediate some of the shortcomings of the original builder, but the big stuff will be soon over. If you are considering the construction of a custom round log home, I can certainly tell you what not to do. We broke ground in the Spring of 2007.

The other day I came across something interesting that I picked up and then forgot about when we were cleaning out Mom and Dad’s house. It was an old guest book and in it were brief testimonials to Harry Lehman, my maternal grandfather, founder and president of The Wildroot Company, Inc.. Wildroot was a Buffalo based manufacturer of hair tonic and other related products, and in its day, it was a big company. The occasion  for the guest book was some kind of national convention in Savannah, Georgia, and all the employees who attended wrote something in that book. I never knew my grandfather - I was perhaps three when he died - but my mom idolized him and filled me with all sorts of stories about what a great man he was. She told me that the door to his office was always open to any Wildroot employee, and that all the people who worked for him loved him and considered him a fair and decent boss. How often do we hear that about the big bosses today? I suppose he wasn't loved by everyone, still it was refreshing to read so many positive comments, some put in the form of creative limericks and poems. Of particular interest to me were some sketches I found in the middle of the book (see above photo). Al Capp, creator of the famous comic strip L’il Abner had been employed by The Wildroot Co. Inc. to illustrate for one of its ad campaigns. I believe the ads involved his character Fearless Fosdick. Capp and my grandfather were friends and for years two framed sketches he’d done for Grampy hung in my childhood home. I still have the sketch of L’il Abner that Capp drew for my deceased sister Joanne, and my sister Jill has a sketch of Mammy Yokum that he drew for her. As I was paging through the guest book, I was surprised to see two sketches in it, one by Stu Hemple, a famous illustrator in his own right, who had worked for Capp, and the other by Al Capp himself. A little Antiques Roadshow moment for all of you. While I doubt these sketches are particularly valuable, they are priceless to me.

With the London Summer Olympics winding down, I have enjoyed watching the competitions. As always, the coverage on Canadian television is far better than that which is available Stateside. Outrageuos judging in the boxing competition! That guy from Azerbaijan should have been a clear loser after six knockdowns by the Japanese guy. Rock star Michael Phelps won twenty-two medals (18 of the gold), far exceeding what he needed to be the most medaled Olympian in history. Jamaica’s Usaine “Lightning” Bolt won gold in the men’s 100 metre dash, and boy was he fast. There was a lot of talk the other day about the disqualification of one of the Canadian horses in an equestrian event due to a controversial injury. At first I made fun of Canada’s first gold medal in these summer games (because after all, I am an ignorant yank), because it was in the trampoline event, but Rosie MacLennan's performance set me straight and made a believer out of me. All in all the Olympics were as entertaining as always, and in many ways a reminder that while governments continue to spin their political webs, their countrymen and women are often reflective of that which is decent and honorable in the human struggle. Nice to see that from time to time.

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED