The Oppenheimer Report 3/26/18

Last weekend, I caught a little of the coverage from the anti-gun rally in the States, and I was encouraged. I was reminded of something songwriter Jon Brooks said recently. He said he’s lost faith in the adults, but the kids may save the world. I agree, and watching that rally last Saturday I was cautiously optimistic about the next generation. I listened to a lot of well-spoken, intelligent kids speak out against the NRA and gun violence. They are participating.

The other day I turned on the tube, and there was a story about how former VP Joe Biden had suggested that, if he were in high school, he would have taken a Donald Trump “out behind the gym” and beaten the crap out of him. It’s a strange turn of events when I’m rooting for Joe Biden. This of course prompted the cowardly and boastful Rump to counter with something like: “yeah, you just try!” That’s what I like to hear from my supposed leaders; childish schoolyard threats of violence. Perhaps they need to put  something in the food on Capital Hill to lower the testosterone levels. Then I began to think, hey, maybe we’re on to something here. Rump is always talking about his leadership and bravery. HE’D have gone into that school, unarmed, to take out the shooter, HE’S the tough guy who’s going to make America great again, blah, blah, blah.

What if we scheduled a televised, pay-per-view event: Rump Vs: Bannon? It would be The Battle of the Blowhards, The Rose Garden Rumble, The Cage Fight Clash of the Morons. For fifty bucks – and what American wouldn’t cough up $50 for this kind of entertainment – dress these two clowns up like sumo wrestlers (can you imagine!), slather some oil on them so they’re both slippery, and put them in a cage out in the Rose Garden for a no holds barred fight to unconsciousness. The last man standing wins. My money is on Bannon, but we all know Rump fights dirty, so it’s really anybody’s call. The catharsis alone would be healthy and, I predict that hundreds of millions worldwide would gladly pay for that kind of entertainment. Hell, we could probably put a little dent in the national debt selling tickets. Just brainstorming here.

A friend of mine put up a clip on Facebook the other day, and it had to do with the heroic actions of an old man who ran an orphanage in Nazi Germany during the holocaust. Although given the opportunity to escape, he remained with the 192 children in his care until they were all eventually exterminated at the Treblinka death camp. I know there are heroes in our world today, but I never hear about them. All I hear about are the fools and liars. Take Rump out of the equation, and like a toothache, or a hemorrhoid, the immediate discomfort will abate, but the underlying problem will persist. Why did such a large percentage of Americans believe that this bonehead would save the United States? We have a much bigger problem than Donald Trump, and it's aglobal epidemic. I was a spectator; I never saw this coming. Shame on me. Democracy is not a spectator sport.

Final thoughts. Much has been made in the news about the Cambridge Analytica scandal and the shocking revelation that Facebook did not have our backs. Wake up and smell the coffee people! A nineteen-year-old in Markham Ontario successfully hacked into the Canada Revenue Agency a few years back. I gave up the illusion that my “information” was safe a long time ago. With cameras and computers everywhere, anyone could be listening in on our lives. Remember, this is the golden age of information ….  

Siri, what is my neighbor’s social insurance number?

  

- Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2018 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 3/19/18

The morning before last I was awakened by the sound of crows. There must have been a lot of them, and the cawing was coming from down by the frozen lake. There have been a lot of deer around our house, as there usually are with the approach of spring. They come out of the woods, foraging around on the newly exposed grounds. Almost every year there is at least one kill somewhere nearby. A few winters ago, I watched two wolves dragging a deer carcass across the frozen lake. Last Friday morning, I discovered that the crows were picking at the remains of a carcass in front of our neighbor’s house. I went down to see what was going on, but there wasn’t much left to inspect. Ribs, a lot of blood, legs, and a little fur scattered about. I was reminded of the symbiotic relationship of all living beings, and of the harsh realities of Mother Nature.

I’m a “citiot”, born and raised in a city, and I remained relatively oblivious to nature throughout my ill-spent youth. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always loved the outdoors, but I wasn’t particularly respectful of the balance of Nature. It wasn’t until Shauna and I began to vacation in Banff National Park that I became profoundly sensitive to that delicate balance. Over the many years we travelled out to Banff Park, we befriended a lot of locals, and some of them guides and park officials. We learned about the dangers of habituation, and of the damage ignorant tourists do to the park habitat. People act badly, and it is the animals who pay, sometimes with their lives. Now, we live in this natural paradise near Muskoka, where wildlife and wonder are omnipresent. People come from all around to experience the beauty of our parks, but many are not respectful of the wildlife. Loon chicks drown in the wake of jet skis, people feed bears, thus creating a “problem bear” which must often then be destroyed. Most of us are unwittingly the party to animal abuse, simply because we eat meat that is raised in an inhumane manner. In short, things are getting more and more out of balance, and no doubt man is the primary culprit. That saddens me.

At first, I was a little shocked to see the deer carcass, and to think that the animal probably suffered before it died. I don’t like killing things myself, although I will (and have) if those things become a nuisance to my home. Still, I do not deny my nature as a carnivore, and was fascinated by the sight of this kill. We rarely see wolves around here – I’ve probably seen two since we moved up here – but I know they are in the woods lurking. Mother Nature is one tough lady, and she takes no prisoners. We can build all the waterfront condos we want, closer and closer to the shore, ignoring the potential for a weather catastrophe. We elect myopic, greedy politicians, but what is in the interest of some may not be in the interest of most. More and more I don’t know wherein lies that delicate balance. I know that hindsight is 20/20. I got a little reminder the other morning, when the black birds were hovering around the kill. Mother Nature is in charge, and she will cull the herd. Much can be learned by respecting her laws. Alternatively, much can be lost by ignoring them.

Of late, I’ve been in a dry spell with my songwriting, but the sight of that carcass jump started a lyric in me. I penned a song full of metaphors, about watching out for the wolves. Nature will always win in the end, no matter how we struggle to control it. Man’s hubris never stops amazing me, but in the end, Mother Nature and her wildlife will likely have the last laugh.

“Deer carcass on the frozen lake/ Ribs picked clean in the morning light/ I turned away from this bloody sight/ Knowing no soul goes down without a fight.”

  - Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2018 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 3/12/18

Last Wednesday afternoon, I listened to an interview with Singer/Songwriter Jon Brooks and Hunters Bay Radio host Sarah Coombs, shortly before I attended Jon’s concert at Michaels On Main At The Ridge in Sundridge. In the interview, Jon discussed the sometimes disturbing subject matter of his songs. Two of his albums in particular, Ours And The Shepherds and The Smiling And Beautiful Countryside, are collections of war anthems and murder ballads respectively. Those albums beg the question: does a talented artist lose a potentially larger audience when he or she presents stories about mankind’s darker side?  You don’t need to convince me that Jon Brooks is a remarkable Singer/Songwriter, I’m a fan. For those of us who appreciate great songwriting, we accept the good, the bad, and the ugly. Regrettably, much of the best song writing goes under-recognized, and I think it’s because people aren’t listening to each other the way they used to. How does a great songwriter manage to resonate and capture a large following in this attention-deficit-disorder-instant-gratification Satan of social media, where PODUS tweets out irrational, thirty-word rants to tens of millions of followers?  It’s a crazy, and increasingly inarticulate world, and we don’t need our art to reflect the bad news; we prefer to get that message from CNN, right?

Wrong. Jon’s superb ability to craft words, along with his unique, percussive, and beautiful musical treatments, draw me effortlessly into his message. Jon can write songs which resonate with the masses, in fact he has written many such songs, but he also writes some deeply disturbing short stories (The Only Good Thing Is An Old Dog / TWA Sisters). Marketing aside, I think there is an untapped demand for Jon’s darker prophecies. I am skeptical, but I hope he succeeds in waking up my generation, because I fear that the most intelligent among us are either oblivious or running for cover. Jon is the consummate folk artist, who reflects the society we live in while straddling that fine line between righteous indignation and objective reporting. He’s a modern day Brecht, who makes his stories interesting by always maintaining his distance from the voices in his songs. He’s a troubadour with multiple personalities, and it is those voices who present his inconvenient truths. Whether it is the mass murderer, or the gun dealer, or the WW1 soldier in a foxhole, or the Yugoslavian cage fighter, Brooks shines a light on the darkest corners of the human psyche, and I for one find that exploration fascinating.

Never before have I been more skeptical of the information I glean, from the news, and from my so-called leaders. I’m fearful, discouraged, confused, and I’m ashamed that we as a species have screwed things up so badly. Jon isn’t on a soapbox preaching “the” truth, in fact he may be just as lost as you or I. What he does do, with uncanny eloquence and a spellbinding delivery, is paint unforgettable, sometimes nightmarish pictures with his songs, and those songs compel me to listen to his truth. He explores the foul underbelly of mankind, all the while maintaining a perplexing hopefulness, and nothing is presented as black or white. In his song Cage Fighter, he refers to a quote by Alexander Solzhenitzyn about the divided heart. It is a universal theme for Jon that good and evil reside in us all.  We all harbor good and evil, and it is that uncertainty about which one will prevail that makes life interesting and meaningful. He may not have the answers, but Jon Brooks’ songs reflect the belief, the hope anyway, that love can prevail.  His songs entreat me to explore the abyss with him, to listen to his truth, to be the teetering idealist, in hopes that together we can find our way through this hellacious maze of disinformation and spin. His stories are far more captivating than all the cinema noir to which I gravitate, and I can’t look away from his car wrecks. It’s a crap shoot whether good or evil wins in the end, but there is much to be learned from Jon’s songs. Watching him perform live, well that’s a different kind of epiphany. His performance last Wednesday night with accompanist and producer Alec Fraser Jr was superb; I doubt anybody in the audience left disappointed. I certainly didn’t.

It’s been four years since Jon Brooks put out a new album, and he has a new CD due to be released in the spring. I anxiously await what he has to say next. The other night, he ended his show with a couple of songs from this soon-to-be released CD, and the songs suggest a different theme. I always hope Jon will reach a much larger audience, but regardless of his commercial success, I look forward to every new chapter in the Book of Jon Brooks. His songs emanate from the divided heart of one of the world’s great songwriters. Jon, thank you for you for your art.

-Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2018 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 3/5/18

This probably falls into the category “I’ve run out of things to discuss in this report,” but humor me. 

We bought a food dehydrator a few months ago, and while it took me a while to get the hang of dehydrating food, I use it all the time now. With all the health problems Shauna has been experiencing, I’ve learned that there is a clear connection between autoimmune illnesses and problems with the gut. Because Shauna has Crohn’s Disease, and a myriad of other potentially related autoimmune disorders, I have been experimenting with dietary changes which might allow her besieged bowel to heal. We’re now eating more plant-based foods, and we have substantially reduced the amount of dairy, grains, and animal fat we consume. I bought the food dehydrator because I was looking for nutritional alternatives to corn chips and other snacks we used to eat. I have tried dehydrating a variety of fruits and vegetables and have found several we really like. The best part about a food dehydrator is that we no longer have spoilage; I simply dehydrate leftover fruit and vegetables before they can spoil. Dehydrated foods maintain much of their raw nutritional values, keep for a long time, and can be re-hydrated to be added to soups and stews.  

Here’s the issue. Neurotic individual that I am, it occurred to me the other day, as I was cutting up the fifteenth apple for the food dehydrator, that I may be subconsciously hunkering down. I think I may be going into survivor mode. I’m watching all these stories on the news about climate change and weather disasters, crazy despots and nuclear Armageddon, the seemingly exponential rise in mass shootings in public places, and of course Baby Rump’s daily chaos-inducing foot-in-mouth tweet, and I think all this negativity is eroding my anemic sense of security. Stress is widely considered to be a fertilizer for ill health, and I don’t think the world has ever seemed more stressed than it does right now. Just the other day, our quiet little rural community made the national news because there was a triple murder/suicide, very close to our home. Americans can’t seem to persuade their NRA-paid-for leaders that it is a wise decision to make automatic weapons a little harder to purchase, so I’m thinking the horse is out of the barn, barking up the wrong tree with both oars out of the water, and it didn’t look before it leaped. The talking heads keep drumming it into my head that the world is stockpiling ridiculously overpowered weapons ( if you can’t hit that rabbit you’re hunting with the first shot, the next fifty or sixty are bound to do the trick), wiping out endangered species (white rhino, you’re next), warming up the planet, and hating just about anybody who doesn’t look, act, or worship like us; and here I am, frantically cutting up food for dehydration, so that when civilization finally does reach that fast-approaching tipping point, Shauna, Jasper and I will have a three month supply of dried apples and beef jerky on which to survive. I’ve become a closet hunker-downer.       

When I was seven or eight years old, many of my friends lived in houses with bomb shelters. Cuba and the evil Russians had missiles pointed at the U.S., and we were told it was just a matter of time before someone blinked. We practiced drills in our school wherein we hid under our flimsy desks when an alarm was sounded. Even at that early age, I was skeptical that hiding under the desk was going to save me from a nuclear blast. I guess history is once again repeating itself, except now I won’t be hiding under a desk, I’ll be in my basement with a garbage bag full of dried fruit.

   - Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2018 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED