The Oppenheimer Report 11/18/13

Last Friday night I had the opportunity to play a few my songs at the monthly Burk’s Falls “Coffee House”, and it is always gratifying to play a couple of my songs for a receptive audience. I dragged Shauna out with me and I think it was therapeutic for her to let go of her grief and to meet some new people. These coffee houses provide a good chance to meet like-minded people in the community who share a love of music and good song writing. I’ve been playing open stages for over thirty years now and I have yet to play a better venue for songwriters than this one. On Friday, I met two good writers who performed their own songs, and we sat with an older guy named Sam Fattore, who moved up here from Hamilton recently. Sam played several good covers of older country songs (George Jones, Hank Williams, etc.) and I ended up buying his CD, although traditional country music is not my favorite genre. We talked guitars and swapped war stories about the worst venues we’ve played. A few weeks ago I acknowledged the passing of rock icon Lou Reed, and I alluded to the fact that he had influenced my song writing. One of the songs I played last Friday night was Dear Dirty Dublin, one of my favorites in my repertoire, and Lou Reed figured significantly in the writing of that song.

Dear Dirty Dublin recounts the story of an all-night party in which I participated, back in 1977, in a suburb south of Dublin. The Irish know how to have a good time and my Irish partners in crime and I drank a lot of Irish whisky, smoked some home grown weed, and all night long we listened to Lou Reed and Bruce Springsteen albums. As the party was winding down in the wee hours of the morn, someone had the brilliant idea to continue the celebration at some skid row bar in the bowels of Dublin. That decision required a bus ride into the city, and still loaded from the bender, we boarded the double decker 6A bus headed for Dublin. Because it was the first bus of the morning, it was filled with all the bus drivers who were to be dropped off at their respective stops along the way. You can imagine how strange it was to board this bus, inebriated as we were, and to see it full of uniformed bus drivers going to work.

 “…The trees are black cracks against the diesel sky/ And through my reflection I watch the cars go by/ Dublin Bay is on my right the water cool and still/ Rid me of this vagrancy, I’m gonna drink my fill.”

I remember everything about that long ride into town, and I remember we ended up at a skid row bar along the Liffy River in the industrial section of downtown Dublin. We arrived just before the doors opened, and tinkers (what the Irish call gypsies), were milling about outside waiting for first call. When the doors did open shortly thereafter, we entered a world I had not seen before and have not seen since. I felt as if I was half immersed in this foul underbelly of vagrancy, and it was a real life lesson. We drank at this bar for several hours and then staggered back into the city centre, making an obligatory stop at the Trinity College campus to view the Book of Kells (which, as it turns out, is even more interesting to view smashed), before heading home to sleep off what had been a legendary bender. At the time, I was in a literature class and studying Joyce’s Ulysses, hence the title of the song and the general theme of exile.

 “…That pub down by the Liffy, tinkers circling outside/ Soon they’re shooting whiskey and spilling Irish jive/ From delirium to paradise is such an easy slide/ This ain’t no kissin’ the Blarney Stone, it ain’t no tour bus ride/ No sir this is the 6A bus to the bottom of the line/ Dear Dirty Dublin, I think I’m out of time.”       

Hitting rock bottom is part of what that song is about, and as I watch the Rob Ford scandal unfold, I think I’m watching it happen to him. From SNL to CNN, Ford has become the laughing stock of the world, and he is taking Toronto down with him. How a man can in his right mind presume his glaringly public and deplorable behavior will go unpunished, especially under the microscope of the media, is beyond me. Today Toronto City Council votes, I think on whether or not to strip Ford of his operating budget. Last week they voted almost unanimously to strip him of his staff. Ford says he will challenge their decisions in court, at the taxpayer’s expense, if his power is taken away, but one way or another, this pathetic man is going to need a bulldozer to pull him out of the political quagmire into which he has fallen, head first.

                             - Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED