The Oppenheimer Report - 4/29/13

Flooding has been the big story up here in the Great White North this past week. A fast thaw coupled with a lot of rain has put some people in cottage country under water. Our property is fairly well drained and runoff is diverted to the perimeters of the property, but this was a large volume of water in a short period of time and we live at the bottom of a hill. We had some flooding, largely because our sump in the basement failed, but there were quite a few people locally who had it much worse than we did. Our local marina, which lies on the Magnetawan River, is also our post office, and when I went over to pick up our mail the other day, I saw that the river had swollen well beyond its banks. All the docks are ruined, and depending on how bad this turns out, their boat ramp may be damaged as well. Large debris floating down river might catch on the ramp and undermine it. As I write this I can see out on the recently thawed lake that there are some big dock parts floating around out there, and all sorts of flotsam is floating down the Magnetawan right now. Nearby Huntsville and Bracebridge had a lot of washed out roads and on the local news it was estimated that in Huntsville alone the damage was up over $1Million. We were in Huntsville today for a doctors appointment and it is obvious from all the heavy equipment driving around town that Huntsville is in the middle of a big cleanup. Many of the stores were closed, including my beloved dollar store. They are calling this a hundred year flood, after which the term “hundred year flood plain” was derived for planning purposes, and most of the locals say they don’t ever remember the water getting this high. Rain is in the forecast, so this is not over yet. Our lake level is at least four feet above normal, and I’m just hoping that all this water flows down to Georgian Bay without decimating all the communities downstream. Last week I was in a terrible mood , because after the tease of spring, I was pumping water out of our basement, and to rub salt into the wound, we had two nights of heavy, wet snow. I was watching a couple of Canadian geese out on the lake last week, and it was almost as if they were complaining. Wife to husband: “You just HAD to be home for the first day of spring … we couldn’t have stayed in Florida for two more weeks, you schmuck!!”

Near the capital of Bangladesh the Rana Plaza building collapsed killing a lot of the most underpaid garment workers in the world. In all, there were five separate factories in the building which employed about 3000 workers. At least 400 are reportedly dead with many more still missing, and it is being called one of the worst garment industry accidents ever. The real tragedy is that many of these workers knew the building was structurally unsound but did not protest for fear of losing their jobs. Cheap labor attracts the business of Western retail companies like J.C. Penny and Loblaws. When you see those Joe Fresh polo shirts for ten bucks, chances are they’re made by workers who get paid pennies an hour and work in sweat shop conditions reminiscent of turn of the century America. While the events in Boston and West, Texas last week pretty much dominated the news, one needs look no further than page three (of that soon-to-be-obsolete newspaper) to find some international tragedy that puts all other tragedies into perspective. There was a massacre last week in civil war torn Syria in which hundreds were killed execution style.

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher passed away not too long ago, and I never knew much about her until well after she served as Prime Minister. The other night we watched The Iron Lady in which Meryl Streep played the controversial leader, and I was impressed by Streep’s award-winning performance. I never realized that Thatcher was so hated by many of the British. I suppose like some other myopic Americans, I was generally uninformed about the politics of other countries. What particularly interested me was the dementia aspect of her story. No matter how important a person may be during their illustrious life, dementia robs them of the ability to reflect upon that life. I read an article today about a book Thatcher’s daughter has written, and in the article was a discussion about our perceptions of the dementia “sufferer”. The article suggests that we don’t really know anything about what the sufferer feels, and have only our own perceptions with which to torture ourselves. And what is this about the CIA providing bags full of money to Afghanistan President Karzai “to pay off warlords” -- about $36 million over the past ten years, or, as the CIA refers to it “chump change.”

Final note. I watched Jon Stewart’s Daily Show tonight and he made me laugh with one of his rants on Congress. He coined a new word while suggesting that Congressmen seem to spend more time watching internet porn than representing their constituents. The word is procrasturbating: “using masturbation to otherwise occupy yourself while pressing matters await.” Hee hee.

　

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 4/22/13

The big news last week was the Boston Marathon bombing in which four (including the MIT police officer who was shot) were killed and hundreds injured. I have become almost numbed by the news of terrorists bombings in other parts of the world, especially in the Middle East, because this form of violence has become commonplace. But I take notice when it happens in my backyard, and I kept watching the footage on television - that old runner about to cross the finish line as he was knocked off his feet by the explosion, who then got up and finished the race - as I would stare at a train wreck. I had the same feelings of outrage that I had when the Newton massacre happened recently. This violent act is of course a little different, and the latest speculation is that two brothers involved, who had the audacity to call themselves Americans, were making a political statement. Much has been made of the fact that the older brother, perhaps the ringleader, had recently spent six months abroad in Chechnya. There is much speculation that while off the radar in Chechnya he may have become radicalized and that now Russia is exporting its own brand of jihad terrorism to the United States. When I learned he was dead I assumed it was at the hands of American law enforcement, and was surprised to learn that, though he was badly wounded, he was actually killed by his younger brother, who ran over him with the stolen SUV he was driving. My guess is that these killers had a “take no prisoners” pact and there is some evidence that they fully expected to go out guns ablazin’. It sends a chill up my spine to hear so many friends and acquaintances speak of how soft spoken and nice the younger brother seemed. How odd that he acquired his U.S. citizenship on September 11^th! I am as guilty as the next man of rushing to judgment, and of course we should wait to hear how this story unfolds, but this a-hole apparently killed and maimed a lot of people, and in my eyes he is a monster. My concern is that violence begets violence, and between the mentally ill and the political zealots (some would probably argue that they are one in the same), there may be some suicidal copycats out there who are eager to go out in a blaze of infamy. By the way, on the heels of that House defeat of gun control legislation - and don’t get me wrong, I am all for stronger background checks and perhaps a ban on assault rifles - this reminds us that there are hundred of creative ways to kill people without using guns. As one exasperated pundit asked last week, are we now going to ban all backpacks in public places? How about pressure cookers? As I said after the Newton tragedy, where there is a will there is a McVeigh. My hat goes off to all the law enforcement officials, especially the ones around the Boston area, who so bravely put their lives on the line to stop those SOBs. So many questions remain - were there others involved, were the brothers radicalized in the States …. and where was Geraldo during all of this?

The second big news event was the big fertilizer plant explosion in West, Texas which killed 14 people (that we know of right now) including a lot of volunteer first responders. The explosion was reportedly felt 45 miles away, completely wiped out 4 blocks of the small town, and was caught on video. Aren’t cell phones remarkable? Because of the close proximity to Waco, Texas and the fact that the explosion occurred (I think) near the anniversary if the Branch Davidian fiasco, and also around the anniversary of the Murrah Federal Building bombing in Oklahoma City, there was some talk that this explosion wasn’t an accident. Apparently, the ammonia compound that caused this explosion is a little less volatile than the compound used in the Oklahoma City bombing, but it will still ignite in a fire. While these ingredients are allegedly monitored and regulated (like guns?), it seems to me that this is a terrorist plot waiting to happen. I remember after 9-11 occurred, right after the second jet hit the tower, we sat in our Toronto high rise apartment feeling like sitting ducks. After the Boston bombing, and upon hearing about the West Texas explosion, I felt a similar trepidation. I guess I am a neurotic product of the times in which we live.

Finally, there was another big earthquake in the southern province of Sichuan, China. So far 188 are reported dead and well over 10,000 injured. Again, an arguably bigger disaster is eclipsed by our national headlines. At least the vultures have been diverted from that Jodi Arias trial. And comedian Jonathan Winters died last week. I thought he was a comic genius and particularly liked his Maude Frickert character. My heartfelt condolences to all the victims in Boston, Texas and China.

Written by Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report - 4/15/13

In keeping with my New Year’s resolution to become more involved with the local music scene, I met with a local songwriter last week and we bounced a few songs off each other. In my thirty years of studying and attempting to learn the craft of songwriting, I have only several times attempted collaboration with anyone other than my wife. My dormant ego tends to flare up whenever someone has the audacity to question my creative genius. In fact collaboration can be tricky, and having just met Doug, I was not immediately convinced he could provide any constructive criticism for my perfect songwriting skills. My Achilles heel, or my Achilles torso as the case may be, is my lack of education in music theory. I imagine most successful songwriters have a more comprehensive understanding of music theory than I do, and Doug was a professional musician for many years. He did come up with some good suggestions and all in all it was an enjoyable and productive meeting. If I am to grow as a songwriter, I must learn to accept constructive criticism. The creative process, for me at least, has been such a mystery, and when the muse strikes I am reluctant to muddy the waters with rules and structure. Anyone who has ever seen my desk understands that organization and structure are not my strong suits.

 I started playing guitar when I was about twelve, and my mother insisted that I take lessons before she would invest in a proper guitar. My first guitar, which I believe I ultimately “el kabonged” was a real piece of crap. It came in a flimsy cardboard box – I’m not sure it wasn’t made of cardboard -- and cost about fifteen bucks. Buddy Guy’s first guitar only had two strings, so I suppose I shouldn’t complain. I took lessons from a frustrated jazz guitarist named Joe at Sedola Music over on Buffalo’s West end, and it was not a particularly enlightening experience. Let me rephrase that, it was an abominable experience that almost turned me off the guitar forever. My lessons were held in a dingy little back room the size of a phone booth, and Joe was an unpleasant, short-tempered man, clearly incapable of the patience required of any teacher. He would yell “No, no, no, no!!!!” while I struggled nervously through some classic dirge like The Volga Boatman, then show me how Joe Pass would have played it. He seemed more interested in proving to me that he could play the guitar than he was in teaching me how to do it. Sadly, a bad teacher can really put the kybosh on musical aspirations, especially when that aspiring musician is only twelve, and I lasted through about ten or fifteen lessons before I decided that guitar lessons from “Sedola Joe” were not for me. I did take away some valuable practice exercises and scales, which I still use today to warm up. I bought a chord chart for guitar and taught myself how to play over the next several years. Certainly I could have learned faster and improved more had I found a good teacher, but my ambition was to compose songs, never to perform on a stage. Besides, it became apparent to me early on that good guitarists were a dime a dozen. Throughout college, I met a lot of accomplished guitarists, none who intended to make a living in the music industry. When I was in my late twenties and working in Buffalo, the seventeen year old parking lot attendant for our office building was an incredible guitarist who could play fugues by Bach. I knew I’d never make it as a musician, but I began to write songs, which not every musician can do.

Shauna is a classically trained pianist, who as a young woman schooled at the Royal Conservatory in Toronto. She is my biggest fan and has been trying in vain to get me to learn music theory so as to improve my writing skills. She used to teach piano and I think she is pretty good at it. At one point early in our marriage she sat me down at the keyboard and gave me some basic lessons. She told me I was not the worst student she’d ever had (I certainly was not the best), but for some reason the theory wasn’t soaking in, and I never gave it the time it requires. It may be a throwback to that first bad guitar teacher, but I seem to have no patience with learning music theory. I can follow other musicians intuitively, but for some reason, I seem to flesh out melody lines faster when I am not trying to keep the theory in my head. I think there is some math involved in musical instruction and math was decidedly not my strong point. My friend in Alberta composes with a recording software called Pro Tools, and it is remarkable to watch him build a song with a computer. I have even less interest in learning to become a studio whiz than I have in learning music theory, which I suppose makes me both a Luddite and a fool.

In his autobiography blues guitarist Buddy Guy talks about his musical illiteracy. He did a lot of session work at the famous Chess Records in his early days and was self-conscious about his inability to read music. That said, he could learn a song quickly and managed to build a career in music despite his shortcomings. In about a month, I will be performing to a rather large audience of people who may actually be listening to my songs as I play them. I think I’ve reached the point where I can present them passably. A good song is a good song, and hopefully I am closer to writing one. Buddy, are you listening? I wrote Forked Tongue Tango just for you.   Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 4/8/13

John Lee Hooker

Just finished the autobiography of blues guitar great Buddy Guy, entitled When I Left Home: My Story, and his story confirmed what I already knew about Black blues musicians. A lot of them got completely screwed by the music industry. Most rock and/or R&B musicians today, certainly any of them born before 1990, realize that guys like Lightnin’ Slim, Junior Wells, Lighnin’ Hopkins, Howlin Wolf, Otis Rush, John Lee Hooker, and Muddy Waters paved the way for most of the good rock music to follow. I’ll wager that most people have never even heard of most of these artists but for anyone interested in the roots of rock ‘n’ roll, these guys were seminal influences. In his autobiography Life, Rolling Stones ax man Keith Richards talks at length about and of the debt of gratitude he and the Stones owe to those blues pioneers. In fact, the much-touted “British Invasion,” which brought us such super groups as the Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Cream, and The Yardbirds, owes its existence in large part to the influences if Black American artists. There is a great passage in Guy’s book wherein he recalls the one and only time he met one of my favorite rock musicians, Jimi Hendrix. Hendrix was already far more popular and successful than Guy would ever become, but when they met, Hendrix was deferential, and only interested in recording with the man he considered to be one of his mentors. I’d give anything to have seen Buddy Guy play with Junior Wells in some Chicago blues dive back in the late 50s or early 60s. While Buddy Guy is still playing and finally receiving some of the fame and success he deserves (but nowhere near the success and good fortune of white performers), most of his predecessors and contemporaries died poor and relatively unknown.

I can only hope that in this brave new Wild West world of music, the talented will receive the recognition they deserve, be they Black, White, Red, Yellow, or Heinz 57 varieties. Today emerging artists can use the internet to spread the word, and in fact I’ve found most of my recent favorites online. For the past five or six years I’ve been following the career of John Butler, a very talented guitarist from Down Under, whom Shauna discovered while surfing for music on the internet. While not a superstar in popularity, Butler’s unusual style of guitar playing makes him stand out, and he has broken into the North American market largely because of his internet presence. Gone are the days when a career is made or broken by some fickle, myopic, record company. The other side of that coin is that because there is so much more talent out there, it is harder and harder to stand above the rest. I seriously wonder if some of the super groups of the 70s would make it were they forced to compete with the expanded field of talented artists we have today.   

Well the N. Korean Michelin Man, Kim Jong-un, son of and successor to deceased President Kim Jong Make-Me-il, has turned up the volume in his threatening rhetoric, and some are concerned this little putz will trigger WWIII with his polemic antics. Really? Pointing his long range missiles at S. Korea and Japan may win him some support with his starving countrymen, but his dangerous posturing strengthens international resolve to isolate his rogue state. Most agree that any effort on Kim’s part to follow through on his aggressive threats will be suicide for him and his people, and like that Iranian butthole surfer Ahmadinijad, it looks like Kim is all talk and no action. Watching that propaganda video of him firing a handgun was about as silly as watching that ridiculous photo op of then presidential candidate Michael Dukakis back in '88, dressed in combat fatigues and riding in an Abrams M1 tank. From what I’ve read, Kim is more of a figurehead anyhow. I wonder how China feels about all of this. As China’s economy becomes inextricably linked to Western economies, N. Korea must be something of an embarrassment to Mother China. It’s kind of like your drunken Uncle Charlie who, without fail, throws up at the Thanksgiving supper, but you keep inviting him anyhow. Whaddyagonnado, he’s family?! Pretty soon China (the Godfather) will be forced to take N. Korea (Fredo) “out fishing” and the next thing you know, problem solved. China annexes a new province and S. Korea is in real trouble. As I said, it’s time for an infusion of Western culture. I am suggesting an arranged marriage: Kim Kardashian marries Kim Jong-un, and everyone wins. Dennis Rodman can be the best man. It’s just a suggestion.

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 4/1/13

 

Happy April Fools Day! Did you play a practical joke on somebody? I dressed up like a giant squirrel and chased Jasper around the house. She was not amused. Seems like the big joke is on all the folks in the eastern half of the continent who are still struggling in winter’s stubborn grasp. Last year around this time I was sunbathing, but this morning I woke up to a mini blizzard. Gosh I love the Great White North!

 Of course yesterday was Easter Sunday, and to celebrate we had Hasenpfeffer for dinner. I’m kidding, but someday, when I am having a “slow news” week, perhaps I will reprise my story of the notorious “bunny lab” I experienced in boarding school. I have two amusing recollections of Easters past. First, when my sister and I were very young, my mom had us color some hard-boiled eggs and then she hid them around the house so we could have an Easter egg hunt. Mom hid thirteen eggs, but my sister and I only found twelve. The trouble was, Mom couldn’t remember where she’d hidden the last one. About a month later it became readily apparent, when the living room began to smell like a rotting corpse. Mom had hidden that thirteenth egg on top of a lampshade in the living room, inches away from a hot light bulb. It took a while to get the stench of that rotten egg out of our living room, and that was my last egg hunt. Creative genius that I am, I always preferred the coloring part to the hunting part anyhow. I remember a similar hunt that used to happen after a Seder supper at Passover: the hunt for the afikoman. The head of the household would hide a piece of matzo wrapped in a napkin and the children ran around tearing up the furniture to find it. In our household, the prize for discovering the afikoman was “gelt,” - not the real deal, but foil-wrapped chocolate coins. I think this was supposed to liven up the ceremony, but it was too little too late for this Jew. There is simply no excuse to serve gefilte fish.

 My second Easter memory was that it was a tradition on Easter Sunday for my father to take the family to the Buffalo Club for a fancy brunch. The Buffalo Club is a venerable, formerly male members-only, club in downtown Buffalo. I liked going there because the food was good and because it is a beautiful club. Unfortunately, for special occasions, the Buffalo Club featured their own special brand of entertainment known as The Travelling Musicians. As I recall they were a trio of mediocre, older musicians who travelled from room to room in the club with their instruments, serenading the guests while they ate. They were quite loud and annoying close up, and I don’t know about you, but I am not a big fan of in-your-face live music while I am trying to eat or make conversation. I’m pretty sure there was an accordion in the mix, and that was a deal breaker for me. I felt a little like I would were I to be “surprised” at a Chucky Cheese with a loud, multi-employee Happy Birthday serenade, accompanied by a cheap cupcake and a sparkler. For me, the funniest part about these guys was the bassist. He was a very small guy, and he didn’t look like he was in the best shape. After schlepping his bass fiddle around from room to room for a few hours, he’d be perspiring and visibly winded. By the time The Travelling Musicians reached our table, it looked very much like the bassist was going to vapor lock. My very prim and proper father was insistent on proper table manners at the club, but he would still laugh whenever I pointed this out. One year, to my pleasant surprise, the Buffalo Club broke from tradition, perhaps while the little bassist recovered from open heart surgery, and hired as their Easter entertainment The Pointless Brothers, a very good Buffalo bluegrass band. While they were in my opinion much better and far more entertaining musicians than The Travelling Musicians, they dressed as if they were extras from Deliverance, and to my knowledge were never invited back.       

 North Korea has been doing some sabre rattling this past week, spewing a lot of incendiary rhetoric about incinerating the Western enemy. Certainly we have heard this all before, and while most experts slough this off as Kim Jung Il’s son and successor just flexing his flabby, doughy, little muscles to garner support from his starving and destitute subjects, it is nevertheless unnerving to hear. That little ball of shmaltz seems even more unbalanced than his dad was, and while his shenanigans may simply be diplomatic posturing, he does have some powerful weapons at his disposal. What if someone calls this little Korean Michelin Man’s bluff and lobs a grenade at him, triggering some kind of escalating conflict? If we could only figure out a way to infuse some of our rich western culture into the mainstream of North Korean society, I think our troubles would be over. Hijack their televisions, and pipe in some Jersey Shore, and Real Housewives of Newark. I firmly believe Snookie, the Khardashians, and Honey Booboo are our secret weapons. The Chinese may be manipulating their currency to dump their products on western markets; the North Koreans may be parading their dubiously effective nuclear arsenals in front of the international stage, but communism is no match for mind-altering insipience of reality television. Gotta go, we’re having bunny leftovers for dinner tonight. 

 

   -Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED