The Oppenheimer Report 3/25/13

As much as I eschew technology, I am as much a slave to it as the next man. Last week, I received my new Dell laptop in the mail. I’d purchased its predecessor, an MSI notebook, at an Office Depot in Buffalo in 2008, because I needed a cheap computer to use while staying with my parents. That little laptop was a great computer for the money and it served me well. Unfortunately, it began to fail, and the most notable problem was the loss of the “E” key on the keyboard. I do not know where the “E” key went, perhaps Jasper ate it, but when the keyboard started to go, that was my red flag to look for a new laptop. I tried gluing something to the exposed key pressure point, but it was not a successful mend. I had beat on that laptop for five years and frankly I’m surprised it lasted as long as it did. At one point, the base even became delaminated, exposing wires and computer parts, and the whole thing was held together with tape and glue. Miraculously, none of this hindered its performance.

I bought my very first computer from Radio Shack, back in the late 80s and it was a laptop with no hard drive at all.  Basically it was a little typewriter with a 3.5 floppy drive and a terrible, unreadable LCD screen. It was as primitive as they come, but when I hooked it up to my noisy dot matrix printer, I began typing these reports on a computer. My first “real” computer was an Acer Acros desktop, which I bought by mail order around 1991, and it came equipped with a 40MB hard drive. These days the average photo file is ten times that amount of memory, but back then it seemed pretty cool to me. For the first time ever I could store the letters and reports I wrote on my computer. Of course, with the added convenience came the omnipresent glitches, and I quickly learned that customer support for computers is anything but. Over the years I have owned a lot of computers, probably seven or eight since I married Shauna, and I have had good luck with Dells. We still have an old Dell laptop which we use in our office, primarily for photo storage. That laptop is over 10 years old, and it is bulletproof. Now, I’m typing this my first report on the new Dell, and it seems to work fine. The only problem – and I loathe buying new computers for this reason – is that it came loaded with Windows 8, the newest version of Windows. With every new operating system comes the struggle to learn about the changes. I am sure this new operating system has more bells and whistles than the last one, but Windows 8 is very different from Windows 7. Even the new and improved version of the word processing software is completely different. As I get older my learning skills have begun to atrophy. Who am I kidding, I never had learning skills.  

A few weeks ago we had a thaw up here in the Great White North, and everyone said that was the end of winter. No so. Late last week we had two healthy reminders that while spring is officially here, so is Jack Frost. Yesterday, my buddy Harvey the snow plow guy and I drove our ATVs over to his farm in a nearby town. Among other things Harvey produces maple syrup, and we went to monitor the sap production. I’d never before seen a maple syrup factory, and it was interesting. The sun was out and it was a good day to enjoy the great outdoors. I know spring is around the corner (and down a few blocks) and I am anxious. The fishing huts are off the lake, the sap is flowing, and it’s time to start germinating some flower seeds.

Final notes. The world has a new Pope, and this one is from Argentina. Pope Francis (not a sissy) is reportedly a Pope of the people and he says he will focus on the poor. Perhaps he should also focus on moving the Catholic Church into the 21^st Century, or making its members more accountable for bad behavior. The Jewish celebration of Passover begins tonight after sundown, and tonight Jewish families around the world will be sitting down to the first Seder supper. This will be the first year in my nineteen years with the Taylor family when that does not happen for us. Happy Passover to all my Jewish friends and family.

                    -Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The OppenheimerReport 3/18/13

Did you ever have one of those days when everything just seems to be out of whack? Bad biorhythms. The 24 hour period from last Wednesday night to last Thursday night was like that for me. We had an overnight guest visiting  us at JBL from Guelph, and while she was here there was a medical problem with Shauna’s Dad down in Toronto. His blood pressure spiked and the aid did not want him to go to sleep in that condition. Usually he can have a cup of tea with some cinnamon and honey and the BP will lower, but not that night. We got no sleep that night. To rub salt into the wound, the squirrels came back and were wreaking havoc in our roof. Thursday morning the power went haywire, first causing a brownout and then causing our generator to kick in. We don’t have a lot of guests up here and it was strange to have so much go wrong in such a short period of time.

Last Friday night, at the urging of our plumber, who is a well-connected musician in the area, I went to the local watering hole in Burk’s Falls to attend a monthly music showcase. For the past several months I have been entertaining the thought of hosting my own local open mic, but the general consensus is that there is not enough demand up here. Also, I am not crazy about the idea of lending my guitar out to those participants who do not bring their own instrument. Some people do not understand guitar etiquette and can be pretty rough on a host’s instrument. I did enjoy the showcase, and saw at least two acts I’d like to see again. I also met a songwriter who lives in nearby Kearney and we have exchanged phone numbers. Hopefully we will arrange to meet again and jam. I am finding that there is a remarkable wealth of talent up here and I hope to tap into it and network.

In the news, last Monday marked the 2^nd anniversary of the earthquake that struck near Northern Japan, the one which sparked the destructive tsunami and caused the environmental disaster at the Fukishima Nuclear Power Plant. Nearly 19,000 victims died in that tsunami and approximately 300,000 are still living in temporary housing. NYC Mayor Bloomberg continues his fight to outlaw 16 oz. sugary drinks in Manhattan fast food restaurants. I’m not sure how successful he will be, because there is some question about his authority to do so. Do you think government has the right to legislate this kind of thing? It does seem rather silly because it is a random prohibition, and one can still buy huge containers of pop at any supermarket. While I understand the motivation for the controversial legislation, and while I wish there was some incentive for obese North Americans to pay closer attention to their health, I’m not sure government should be involved. The issue seems to be that junk food puts a huge strain on our health care system, and fast food indirectly costs the taxpayer money in higher health care costs. I don’t know what the answer is, or how to encourage fast food restaurants to serve healthier choices. The trick is to create the demand, and I doubt the average overweight North American will opt for a tofu burger over the Big Mac.

Pop star Justin Bieber is growing up. He’s nineteen now, and perhaps the pressures of his charmed celebrity life are catching up with him. Last week he had a bit of a melt down in London. He showed up late for a concert, angering his fans and prompting some bad press. Once again, another young celebrity learns that cute only works for so long before the predatory media feasts on his not so secret private life. Justin, of course people will be gunning for you now. You’re rich and famous (some would say young and undeserving); deal with it like a pro, or, like so many flash-in-the-pan celebrities do, OD on a speedball in some fleabag Hollywood hotel and leave a handsome corpse. A propos to nothing, who dresses that guy? Where do I buy those silly pants he wears, the ones that look like they were designed by a drunken tailor and which hang down below his butt cheeks? Who decided that was a good look? Talk about the emperor's new clothes! Last year, I watched Beiber interviewed on Letterman, and I was not all that impressed. Letterman asked him a question about Italy and made reference to the Sistine Chapel. In Beiber’s response he referred to the landmark as the Sixteen Chapel. He might want to Google Mike Angelo and learn a thing or two about a true artist. As I have said so many times before, being rich and famous ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. For damage control, I’m sure Justin’s publicist will have him on film feeding the poor in some soup kitchen, or visiting sick kids in a hospital, but the magic is gone. He's been branded as just another spoiled celebrity acting badly. And he was so cute!

As everyone prepares to go to work tomorrow hung over,  I say what I say every St. Patrick’s Day .... “Erin go bra-less.”

The Irish will get it.  

- Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 3/11/13

Last week, I talked about some of the artists I have had the pleasure to know and, while most of my creative friends seem grounded and fairly well-adjusted, there are a lot of creative people who are a few spices short of a goulash. Creativity often goes hand in hand with narcissism, or in some cases (like mine), self-loathing. The artist, or the commercial artist anyway, is putting his or her personal statement out there for others to judge. To varying degrees, when an artist starts to become recognized, it feeds that narcissism, or the self loathing. Most of the artists I have known are musicians. Playing open mics for the past twenty years, I have met a lot of good musicians; some of them are doing O.K. Most of them have “real” jobs, because making it as a singer/songwriter is about as likely as becoming successful as a movie actor. I’ve watched so many try and fail, and for a nanosecond in time, I even deluded myself into thinking I had what it takes. I think it’s the narcissism that keeps that dream alive, and I simply did not believe in myself strongly enough to chase that carrot. I’m no expert, but it sure seems like a lot of truly gifted artists are train wrecks.

I mentioned that I have been reading a lot of biographies lately, and especially some of the successful musicians seem to be high maintenance. Having read his autobiography Life, I’m not sure why Rolling Stones guitarist / songwriter Keith Richards is still alive. He certainly burned his candle at both ends. His band mate Brian Jones bit the bullet early in his career, and to hear Richards talk about him, Jones was a dickhead. I enjoyed Richards' stories and thought the book was intelligently written. I wrongly assumed he had lunchmeat for grey matter, because he took a lot of drugs. I just finished reading a biography of Kurt Cobain, lead singer and creative force behind the rock band Nirvana. I once wrote a song about Cobain, based on a newspaper article I read after his death. It interested me to follow the rise to fame of this man, a boy really, because in some ways, his downfall fit the stereotype (Club 27). I knew what most people knew about him, which is to say, not much. Cobain had a troubled family life, he was self-destructive, got into hard drugs about the time his career took off, and ended up blowing his head off with a shotgun. I was especially interested to read how many musicians that I admire are also fans of his music. I never loved grunge, but lately, I‘m liking it more and more. Really any form of visceral Rock ‘n' Roll appeals to me. I spoke a few weeks ago about the joy I derive from watching my artist friends grow. Cobain’s progress was unusual in that, as he started to grow and take off creatively, his demons swallowed him whole. According to the book, there was a lot of evidence to suggest that he was self-destructive from an early age. Watching him unravel as he achieved recognition, was a disturbing foray into the bowels of fame and fortune. Growing up, I was surrounded by creative under-achievers, and I used to envy them. I have learned that with creative genius often there is a price to pay.

We live in a culture where fame, notoriety, and fortune are deemed the products of success. Just look at Who Wants to be a Millionaire, American Idol, The Voice, the perplexing celebrity of reality television, and the strange and growing phenomenon of criminal celebrities (and if I hear Jody Arias’ name mentioned one more time, I’m gonna puke). Child athletes dream of being in the NBA, the NHL, the MBL, or the NFL. I dreamed of being Eric Clapton or John Lennon. But most of us want to do an end run around the hard work necessary to become a celebrity. The older I get, the more I am gravitating to the opposite extreme. While there is no danger I will ever be famous, my dream is to be a completely anonymous success.

Beloved Canadian country singer/songwriter Charles “Stompin’ Tom” Connors passed away last week at 77. I read somewhere that Stompin’ Tom recorded 61 albums of music. He wrote The Hockey Song, hands down the best Canadian hockey anthem, and my personal Stompin' Tom favorite. He was kind of the Canadian version of Woody Guthrie, writing songs about his vast experiences traveling through Canada’s heartland. There are not a lot of minstrels left out there.

Finally, I have made it a custom to walk out onto our frozen lake at least once during the winter, and I did so yesterday. I was a little wary, because we are experiencing a bit of a thaw right now, and the lake was slushy. I walked as far as a new house being built down the lake, and I was alone in the yellow-orange dusk light of the snow-covered lake. My own personal tundra. Shauna took a picture of me as I returned, and there I am, as I imagine myself - a speck in the universe, the anonymous success.

- Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 3/4/13

I have certain creative aptitudes but fine art is not one of them. In high school, I quickly realized that drawing was not one of my skills, and to this day, I still cannot draw a human form in anything other than a stick figure. I loved photography and spent a good deal of my youth in a darkroom. I love to write as well, but ask me to draw something and I’m lost.

Over the years, I have had the good fortune to have met and known some pretty good artists. Their personalities and styles vary considerably, but the common similarity is that they are fascinating people. In boarding school, I knew few guys who were really gifted, and one of them is now running a very successful art gallery in Manhattan. Presently, I have three friends whose art I love. One, a sculptor and multimedia artist, clearly my most outgoing, gregarious artist friend, is a guy named John Tracy. I met John in Buffalo over thirty years ago, and he opened my eyes to so many different aspects of art. He once introduced me to the bizarre performance art puppetry of a woman named Pat Oleszko. I watched her do an outrageous x-rated performance art rendition of Homer’s Odyssey once, using among other things, naked bodies for props. It could have been a disaster, but it was in my opinion, brilliantly entertaining. Among other things, John works with fired pieces and has done some amazing works in porcelain that have been displayed in prestigious galleries. One of his many styles was to make impressions in porcelain out of found objects and scrap. Anything from a child’s toy to an impression from a glass jar might find its way into John’s work, and in this way, his spectacular art becomes a sort of archeological map of the times in which it was created.

Another artist I met and befriended in Buffalo is a gifted painter named Peter Stephens. I rarely buy art but I invested in one of Peter’s painting because I simply loved his work. For me, this is the only reason to buy a work of art, because it moves you. Peter’s work does that for me and one of his beautiful paintings, done with various tints of shellac, hangs over the bed in our Toronto apartment. I’ve known Peter for a long time as well, although I’ve not seen him much since I moved to Toronto. I always had a lot of fun with Peter because he has an acerbic wit and, like me, he has little patience with fools. I caught up with him about a year ago while I was in Buffalo attending to the needs of my failing Mom. He had a show of new paintings and I went to the Buffalo gallery to see them, but Peter wasn’t there. When I saw him a few months later, I learned that his mother had passed away shortly before mine did, and we shared a consoling hug about that.

The third artist, featured in the header of this week’s report, is a guy named Frank Riccio, and I got to know him when I was attending Trinity College in Connecticut. The above work represents one of his many styles, though I am most familiar with  his prints from (I believe) woodcuts. He’s done some beautiful work in this medium. Together, we belonged to one of the cooler fraternities on campus. Our chapter of DEKE allowed women in as equal members (to the scorn of the national organization), had the highest grade point average on campus (no thanks to me), AND threw what were widely regarded as the wildest and most entertaining parties. DEKE definitely had the best live bands. Of all of my artist friends, Frank is probably the guy with whom I have spent the least amount of time. Ostensibly a quieter more peaceful human being, Frank is clearly a still-waters-run-deep kind of guy. He is, among other things, a successful illustrator of books, specializing I think in children’s books. I know he has collaborated on one or more of his own children’s books, and as we all know, that is an art unto itself. I feel I have come to know Frank better through our written correspondences after college than I ever did while we attended Trinity. As an avid collector of hand stamps, I always enjoyed a letter from Frank, because it was usually hand-stamped with an example of his art.

I realize my boring recollections of a few friends will be meaningless to most of you, but I mention them because art has changed me. A few weeks ago, I talked about meaning as something to which I aspire. I’ve been writing and performing songs since about 1982, and within the framework of that medium, I have had some measure of my growth (or stasis). Admittedly, it’s not much to hang my hat on, but it is something. It has made me more aware of creativity in others, and it has made me a better observer. To be able to monitor the tangible evidence of my changes is a great gift, and knowing these artists as I have, and watching them grow and develop, has been one of the joys of my life. I have known many artists - talkers, actors, singers, sculptors, painters, writers. Some are “successful,” most are struggling, but one thing they all have in common is that they are not boring.
  - Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED