The Oppenheimer Report 12/29/14

I've always considered New Year’s Eve to be amateur night, and for the past twenty years I think we have walked to the one or two celebrations we have attended. I used to throw a pot luck dinner party when I lived in Buffalo, and shortly before Midnight, we’d head downtown to watch the not-so-big ball drop from the Niagara Electric building on Genesee St. I was usually stewed by this point, and there were always several designated drivers to insure our safe passage. It was almost always miserable weather, and it just seemed like a lot of trouble to go out. I could be getting wasted in the comfort of my own home, watching America’s oldest teenager MC the gig for me on television. Dick Clark was the best; much better than Ryan Seabreeze.

 

This year my friend Juan Barbosa and his band will be playing in Huntsville, and I think Shauna and I will break tradition and head down to see them play, because he always puts on a good show. I was never a huge fan of big New Year’s Eve gatherings in general, even when I was drinking, and I will always find it a little strange to attend a celebration where most of the other attendees are drinking heavily, now that I am on the wagon.  I’m getting a bit more used to it after a year and a half of sobriety. As long as the partiers have arranged for a sober driver, or a cab ride, I say have at it. Probably the strangest part about being around drunk people is they remind me of what a jackass I could be when I was under the influence.

 

I always enjoy the week preceding the New Year, because it is now when we are reminded of all the newsworthy events that took place throughout the year. A few come to mind automatically. 2014 started out cold. By the end of January, I had for the first time in my life purchased a block heater for my car. I also learned a new term: polar vortex. The crippling Christmas ice storm in Toronto left my mother-in-law without power, as well as most of the rest of the Greater Toronto Area.  The destruction from this storm was astounding. 2014 was also the year when the Toronto Mayor Rob Ford went completely off the rails, for all the world to see. After Toronto Star allegations that Ford had been videotaped smoking crack, incriminating photographs and videos surfaced of Ford publically drunk and ranting, urinating in public, consorting with lowlife criminals, and generally making a damn fool of himself.  I find it ironic that it was ultimately abdominal cancer that sidelined him from the mayoral race, not his deplorable behavior. Local (Huntsville) Olympic Slopestyle skier Dara Howell brought home the gold from the Sochi Winter Olympics, prompting the town to go wild. It was a bad year for Malaysian Airlines. First there was the jet that disappeared without a trace, presumably off the west coast of Australia, and then there was the jet shot down over Ukraine. Now, just the other day, yet another Malaysian jet has disappeared, although this latest tragedy was likely the result of bad weather. Other stories: the “Heartbleed” computer virus, unleashed by a 19 year old Canadian man, reminds us how vulnerable our sensitive information really is. The Ebola virus devastates West Africa claiming thousands so far and still out of control.  RIP, Casey Kasem, Jack Bruce, and most recently, Joe Cocker, dead at 70 of lung cancer.

 

As we usher in 2015, I can only say that 2014 flew by. I think I fulfilled my resolution for 2014, which was to stay sober and to become a better musician/ songwriter.  I finish up this year #3 on the Hunters Bay Radio Top 20 list, and I don’t suck half as badly as I did a year ago as a performer. I still have a long way to go. I resolve to be a more tolerant, loving human being in the year to come, and to assist some of the more gifted artists in my community to find their voice in some public forum. Happy New Year to my 12 loyal readers, see you in 2015!  

 

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2014 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 12-22-14



The best part about the holidays

A few weeks ago, Shauna’s mom Ethel bit the bullet and bought herself a tablet computer with her air miles points. We honestly did not think she would embrace the internet, especially using a tablet and touch screen technology; up until now she has shown little interest in “surfing the net.” She is just about to turn ninety, and she has always said that new technology is a bit overwhelming to her. But I remember my dad became internet savvy, well into his nineties, and he took to it instantly. Intelligence knows no boundaries. He was for decades his class agent for the Cornell University Alumni News, and an avid correspondent in general. Adding the internet and email to his tools of correspondence vastly upped his game. In much the same way, Ethel has thoroughly embraced this new form of communication, in a very short period of time. The other day she even figured out how to access her supermarket coupons online. She sends messages to friends and family, and recently, she learned how to navigate Facebook. This has been an amusing ride for Shauna and me. As Ethel discovers the wonders of limitless communication, so has she discovered the pitfalls of hitting the “Send” button. The other night, Shauna noticed that Mom Taylor had posted what she thought was a personal message, but instead of posting to her own timeline had posted to George Takei’s – you know, the man who played Lt. Sulu, helmsman on the starship Enterprise, on Star Trek. She is not quite clear about the security settings available for Facebook. No one is less a Trekkie than my mother-in-law, but there she was, sending personal messages to Sulu. Somehow she must have commented to one of his posts by accident, thus sending her “personal” message out to thousands of strangers. We are still trying to figure out how George Takei became her “friend” in the first place! Who else has she friended? Charles Manson? Kim Kardashian? And what is next for my newly enlightened mother-in-law? X-Box? Weird YouTube videos?

 

Last week was a good one for bad news. A lone terrorist commandeered a coffee shop in Sydney, Australia, killing two of his hostages in the standoff, before he himself was killed. Of course there are many questions about why this man had not been incarcerated already, given his rather long history of subversive behavior. There are so many ticking bombs, how can we diffuse them all? Another story that outraged me concerned the Taliban slaughtering about 100 schoolchildren and teachers in Pakistan. Talk about Charles Manson.These demented religious fundamentalist have given evil a new face, and their “buy or die” mentality flies in the face of any decent religious doctrine.  It saddens me when I get my song ideas from these horrible stories on the news. Someone was quoted as saying “The smallest coffins weigh the most” and I found that phrase profound. It is difficult to know how such perversion of everything that is decent and good can be deemed in any way a service to G-d. Then again, look at The Crusades, or Christmas for that matter.

 

America resumes diplomatic relations with Cuba after sixty years, and many Cuban Americans are up in arms. I do not know how I feel about this. I remember the Cuban Missile Crisis, and those bombing drills in school … as if hiding under my desk was going to protect me from a nuclear bomb! I suppose it’s about time. It’s not as if America does not have relations with other oppressive regimes. While this restoration of diplomatic relations will inevitably send the message to the world that Castro won, and maybe he did, the lifting of embargos will likely benefit the beleaguered Cuban people, which is the silver lining. Surely it will improve the Cuban economy. Finally the Cubans will have Big Macs, crappy movies, and access to new American cars. Rejoice Raul, you no longer need to jury rig the old Desoto.     

 

My favorite talk show hosts are going off the air! I was both a David Letterman and a Craig Ferguson fan. I just watched Ferguson’s last show, which surprisingly featured Jay Leno as his final guest. Considering Letterman’s production company produces Ferguson’s show, that seemed an odd choice, but apparently Ferguson and Leno are buddies. For Josh Robert Thompson, the guy who was the voice behind Ferguson’s wisecracking gay robot skeleton, it might be cancellation bookings in the Poconos. That would be a shame because the guy is really funny. Final entertainment comment: About the Sony hacking scandal – now they think it was that little pimp, Make Me Ill Junior, in North Korea, and they have scuttled the Christmas release of the new blockbuster comedy The Interview, because of terrorist threats. What a wuss move! I could care less about the release, and am still working on trying to see movies released five years ago, but has anyone else noticed how often our sensitive databases are being compromised by cyber terrorism? While I do not know much about the fundamentals of hacking, it occurs to me that the horse of out of the barn, with both oars out of the water, and he didn’t look before he leapt. Too many of those anarchist guys with the “V” masks on, it makes me nervous. Time to invest in diamonds.

 

The smartest Bush running for president? Jeb will throw his hat in the ring, maybe. I am sure if he does, the big “elephant money” will all go his way. I can see the slogan now: “Vote for me, I’m not as big a train wreck as the other guys!” I can spell and I know how to pronounce N-U-C-L-E-A-R! Hillary Clinton vs. Jeb Bush, that could be an interesting race. Seriously, who would really want to lead America right now? Are there any leaders who can fix the mess we’re in? 

 

Peace and love to all my readers, Merry Festivus,  Happy whatever, with whomever!!

 

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2014 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 12/15/14

Today’s self-righteous rant concerns the trouble I ignore, but which seems to be knocking on my doorstep. I watched with sadness the coverage of people protesting the Ferguson, Mo. shooting, and more recently, the bizarre seemingly unjust acquittal of the Staten Island officer charged with killing Eric Garner by putting him in a suffocating chokehold. There seems to be a growing consensus that the police are using unnecessary force with African Americans and that this problem undermines our very system of justice. So I think about justice in a free society,  and I think about right and wrong. At what point does force fail to enforce? America, and to a lesser extent, Canada, seem to be sitting on a powder keg, at home and abroad. How do we diffuse the bomb?

 

The other night there was a news story about Omar Khadr, the young Canadian tried for treason and murder and sentenced to serve in prison at Guantanamo Bay, although he was under sixteen years old when he was apprehended. Now a young adult, going blind in a Canadian prison, Khadr claims he was railroaded, and his lawyer says that he did not get a fair trial. Khadr, he argues, was a child soldier, forced under duress to do the crimes for which he was accused, and it is the adults who directed him in his crimes that should be held accountable. Khadr confessed to killing an American soldier and to assisting in terrorists activities (bomb making), so there is little chance in a post 9-11 world that he will ever be exonerated. After years of reported abuse in Guantanamo, he was recently sent back to Canada to finish out his sentence. When I read his story, it became a little clearer to me how a young Muslim becomes a radical. I can look at these people and say that they (all Muslims) are the enemy; it is the simple solution to have an us-or-them mentality, especially when we are force fed outrageous images of Western hostages, brutally beheaded by Islamic radicals. But not all Muslims are fanatical, violent monsters. Most are peace-loving, good people, just like you and I. It does humanity and injustice to demonize the second largest and by some accounts fastest growing religion in the world.

 

I just watched an interesting video entitled The Islamic State, which I found on the International Herald Tribune website. It is attributed to a filmmaker and journalist named Medyan Daireh, who for three weeks was embedded with Islamic State rebels in Syria, and who covered the story for an organization called Vice News. First of all I cannot believe that this man was allowed to document what he saw and whom he interviewed without being killed, but he did, and the footage is a sobering look inside the foul underbelly of the Middle East. I do not know how accurate the information was, but I did find the footage alarming. While I always knew that the Muslim extremists hate the infidels, and want us all dead, this documentary seems to suggest that their poisoned ideology is growing and more widespread threat than I had imagined. What becomes evident is that these fanatics control a good part of Syria and now Iraq, and seem to be closing in on other parts of the Middle East as well. With the recent disturbing one-man attacks in Canada and the United States, I fear it is only a matter of time until some of these religious nut balls succeed in their diabolical mission to carry off some new genocide in North America. Terrorism is ultimately indefensible when the terrorists are perfectly willing to sacrifice their own lives. What happens to the rules of engagement when one side completely abandons them? While I sit here frustrated because my Blackberry will not communicate with my laptop properly, twelve year olds are learning how to shoot automatic weapons, and being indoctrinated with the hatred of an ever growing poisoned theocracy. Did we foment this hatred by backing monsters like Assad and Hussein, or were these religious wars bound to erupt? Do we justify torture now because we are trying to catch up with a new kind of enemy? We cannot fight this enemy with bullets and drones; I think it is clear that will simply alienate the innocent and mobilize the enemy.

 

Here is what I see, at least in myself. I see I don’t know who is right or wrong; I used to think I did. Especially where religious ideology is concerned, people are still hated for their chosen beliefs in G-d, and this perplexes and astounds me. I also see the growing gap between the haves and the have-nots.  I’m a have, at least for now, and as much as I yammer on about my thankfulness, I am acutely aware that some of my good fortune is unearned. Every time I hear about a soldier taking his or her own life, and about the hopelessness that so many vets feel due to PTS, or about an African American man shot and killed for no good reason, I get a glimpse of how out of touch I am becoming with the world. I am numbed by the news, and no matter what the spin, the facts are clear to me. Ignorance and fear are the enemies, not Muslims, Jews, Blacks, or the police. Ignorance and fear are growing every day, ironically fueled by today’s increased “information.” They cannot be fought with force, only with education.

I am as ignorant and afraid as the next man, but while it is hard for me to face my failures as a human being, I have not given up on love. As we approach the upcoming holiday, which used to stand for peace and goodwill , but which has fallen so far off the tracks it’s ludicrous, I ask only this, of myself, and of my friends. Try to make an effort to understand what you do not understand,- the other side - be it another culture, or religion, or race. Love is not dead, but it is fighting for its life. I’ll try harder if you will.

 

“And time just seems to swirl up like the leaves in a blow/ So much spinning out of my control.

And I want to solve the problems of this oh so troubled world/ But I can’t even seem to solve my own …”

 

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2014 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 12/8/14

The Yusuf Cat Stevens concert proved to be everything I’d hoped it would be. Thank you to my lovely wife Shauna for that wonderful birthday gift! As I mentioned in last week’s report, this concert involved substantially more security than most others I have attended. We arrived at 6:15PM for an 8PM concert and the line was already half a mile down Yonge Street. A friend of ours was standing in line with us, and her significant other was late. He is an actor and had a scene in the TV series The Good Witch. The shoot was 4 hours behind schedule, and he had to come from somewhere far out on the west end, which meant that, by the time we reached the front entrance of Massey Hall, he had not yet arrived. According to the strict rules of admission, she was required to enter with him or he would not be allowed to attend. Once in the venue, no one was allowed to leave (tough luck for the smokers!). I don’t know how she pulled it off, but she did eventually get him in when he arrived, and he only missed two songs. Perhaps the security guys took pity on her. The concert was delayed by over an hour because of the tight security. It became “The Peace Train a Little Late Tour.”

Anybody can go on Cat’s Facebook page and see the set list for the show, and of course there are pictures of his performance all over the internet. His voice is still as distinctive as ever. He played a lot of the old favorites from Tea for the Tillerman, and Teaser and the Firecat, and he played a lot of songs from his new album, Tell ‘em I’m Gone as well. That album is a bit of a departure from the Stevens music I know, and it has a bluesy edge to it. As I said in the last report, I did not go to this concert with any preconceptions about his politics or his religion, and he did not really talk about his beliefs with the audience. He did make some cryptic references to the bad press he has battled for much of his career. Of course there were the usual jerks in the audience that jeered “Play something we know!” which must drive an artist nuts. I think Cat did a great job of entertaining us, and even his several covers were unique. When he played Father and Son, I admit it, I had tears in my eyes. Of late I’ve read a bit about how he is perceived in the public eye, and it makes me wonder if I could ever tolerate being a celebrity. A lot of people are saying nasty things about him, and especially now, when Islam is being tainted by the actions of a small radical minority, he is perceived by some as a radical Muslim. Back in the late 80’s he made some comment about the fatwa imposed on author Salmon Rushdie, and I think it was blown way out of proportion. I am wary of any religious fundamentalism, especially when it spawns violent zealots, but I have never had the impression Stevens was like that. In fact I think he has moved more to the center than he used to be, specifically because of the onerous restrictions of religious fundamentalism.

 

Last Friday, Shauna and I dropped in to Hunter’s Bay Radio for a visit and to pick up five copies of “The Gift”, the new compilation CD of local artists. Of course, we’ve listened to the disc several times through now and I for one am impressed. Many of the 14 holiday songs are strong, original tunes, and while I did not submit a track for this year’s CD, I feel honored to be a part of the musical community that produced such good work. Ten dollars from the sale of each CD will go to area food banks, and it is being sold at many local establishments from Huntsville down to Gravenhurst. Ranging from bright and cheery to quite dark, some of the songs really moved me, and I am going to send copies to some of my musical friends and family. Next year, I want to write a song about Krampus, the Christmas monster who eats naughty children, thus making Santa’s job a little easier. I’m not making this up; Google Krampus if you don’t believe me (or refer to The Oppenheimer Report 12/19/11 in the archives of this blog)! If you can, buy this CD, or ask me to send you a copy (a deal at $15, and I’ll even throw in the shipping), it really is good. The starting gun for Christmas has long since been fired and, as we brace ourselves for the onslaught of forced over-eating and drinking, fist fights in shopping mall parking lots, and nonstop television advertising depicting Norelco shaver-riding Santas and Scrooge lusting after wireless headphones, I wish you all patience, peace, and balance in your lives. I can be found holed up in front of my television set, watching  It’s a Wonderful Life over and over again, crying like a little girl ... Zuzus petals!!!! Don’t get me started on that movie.

 
Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2014 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report - 12/1/14

I’m writing this week’s report a bit early as tomorrow we will be otherwise occupied. We are headed down to Toronto to see the legendary Cat Stevens perform at Massey Hall. Since I was a young teenager, I have enjoyed listening to Cat Stevens’ songs, but I didn’t think I’d ever get the chance to see him perform live. The album Tea for the Tillerman is one of my favorite albums of all time. It is part of the sound track of my life. Cat Stevens, or Yusef Islam as he now calls himself, does not do a lot of touring in North America, and he does not make it easy to attend one of his concerts. When we purchased our seats to his performance, we were not issued a ticket, but instead a complicated list of instructions for admission. We thought the emphasis on a paperless transaction was an environmental thing, but in fact this complicated admission process is designed to make scalping next to impossible. One must come to the concert with picture identification and the credit card with which one purchase the seats. The person who buys the ticket has to be the one attending the concert with his or her acknowledged guest.  We were told we will be thoroughly frisked for any kind of recording devices, and there is a list of other restrictions, including the maximum size of a woman’s purse allowed! While I am put off by all of this, I am curious to see how it works out, and we really want to see this rare concert. The Stevens concert in New York City was actually cancelled, I believe because NYC by-laws conflicted with these Draconian requirements.
 

There are certain bands and musicians that are/were on my “bucket list” to see. Cat is certainly on that list. So were the Rolling Stones. I finally saw them when they passed through Toronto in ‘97-‘98 on the Bridges to Babylon tour. I had low expectations for the concert, because the Stones were by then well past their prime, but they rocked the house. Yes, Jagger did strut around “like aging poultry” to use Letterman’s description, but they still rocked. I take the Stones with a grain of salt, because they play up the rock royalty thing a bit too much, and they really should throw in the towel, but I have always had great respect for their songwriting ability. They wrote Jumpin’ Jack Flash, for heaven’s sake, one of the best rock anthems of all times. The (original) Who were another band I expected to cross off my bucket list, and back around 1977 I drove from Hartford to Boston to see them, when they were scheduled to play the Boston Garden. Regrettably, drummer Keith Moon was so drunk that after stumbling through one or two songs, lead singer Daltry announced that Keith “had the flu,” and the concert was called off. The Boston fans were not amused and began to break up the seats. I never got to see the rescheduled concert, but having seen videos of some of their live concerts, I’m not all that broken up about it. In 1994, as a wedding present to Shauna and me, Shauna’s brother Jordan gave us excellent tickets to see Pink Floyd when they played the Ex in Toronto. That was a wonderful concert; those guys know how to put on a show. I’d like to have seen the Ramones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Nirvana, but sadly I never will. I never wanted to see the Beatles, because in my opinion they could never have lived up to their studio performances. I would love to have seen George Harrison play as a solo act. Some other performers I regret I never got a chance to see are: Little Feat, Led Zeppelin, The Clash, Cream, J.J. Cale, Bob Dylan (30 years ago), The Band, and The Jefferson Airplane. I have been fortunate to see many good acts throughout the years, and thanks to You Tube, I can at least see what I missed.

 

Tomorrow, Shauna and I will submit to what will likely seem like prison security in order to attend the Cat Stevens concert. He’s been the focus of a lot of bad press over the years, but I think perhaps much of it stems from Islamaphobia.  I am not attending his concert because of his religion or politics. I do not pretend to know whether he is a good man or a bad man, although I certainly would not trust the press or the government to decide that for me. I want to see the songwriter whose songs speak of peace and tranquility, and I want to see this legendary songwriter perform Father and Son, one of my all time favorite songs.

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2014 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 11/24/14

I am a radar junkie when I know bad weather is blowing in. Early last week, I had the Weather Network bookmarked and consulted it constantly on my laptop.  I was watching for those lake effect streamers blowing in off Lake Erie and Lake Huron. Up here in Katrine we got a pretty good dumping, but the real story was Western New York, where some communities east and south of Buffalo got up to six feet of snow in a very short period of time. That is a lot of snow. The photographs were remarkable. Now, as temperatures warm up, the big concern is that all that snow will cause roofs to collapse and flood the areas hardest hit. This is nuts, I’m already on my second tank of gas for the snow blower in a week! I must mention that the news coverage about this Western New York storm was misleading. When the storm first hit, CNN reported that Buffalo had received the huge amounts of snow, when in fact the city center and points north received comparatively little snow. It was points east and south that got hit the hardest. In this respect lake effect snowstorms are a little like tornadoes in that they can be remarkably narrow in the path they take. A friend from Buffalo remarked that, instead of sending national reporters to the hardest hit areas, a better and more informative news story would have been to place two reporters a mile or so apart in Western New York , one in a hard hit area, and one just outside that area, to show the profound difference in snowfall amounts. My sympathies go out to all the people in my hometown community who continue to struggle with the aftermath of this storm, especially today, when the warmer weather and rain melt those massive amounts of snow.
 
Watching the Toronto news the other night I saw a story about the City of Toronto ordering the Uber car service to cease and desist. While I’ve never used Uber, which is essentially an unregulated car service, relying on the internet and GPS to communicate with its customers, it sounds like a great idea. In a city like Toronto, where cabs can sometimes be difficult to hail, why not offer another viable alternative to private transportation? Perhaps this is unfair competition for the cab companies, forced to abide by municipal laws, but I had to laugh at a city representative who used the excuse that the Uber vehicles were uninspected and unregulated, suggesting that they were potentially a danger to the public. Having ridden in my share of Toronto cabs, I  wondered how much more dangerous those “unregulated” cars could be? The last Toronto cab I took had no shocks and  I felt like I was on a carnival ride. And don’t get me started about the cab drivers. I suspect that this issue has more to do with threats to municipal licensing revenues than protection of the general public.

I don’t know why I do it to myself, but last night, I once again watched the American Music Awards. After it was over, I felt as if I’d just wolfed down two Big Macs. I was ill. I am interested in what passes for pop music in the current market, and I like some of what I hear every year. Lorde and Iggy Azalea … not so much. I think Pit Bull, the host of this year's AMAs, might be the luckiest entertainer in history. Glad to see my man Garth Brooks nominated as a country artist, although he did not win. Garth is a great songwriter and performer, and the song he sang was another winner.

Final note, when I think of fashion photography, which is something I rarely do, a few iconographic fashion photographs come to mind. I think of the famous Richard Avedon photo of Nastassja Kinski draped in a live boa constrictor, or Marilyn Monroe standing over a subway grate holding her dress down, or that woman striking a dramatic pose wearing a Dior evening dress, flanked by two elephants. Recently, and in keeping with our ever-accelerating swirl down the cultural crapper, I saw a recent photograph of Kim Kardashian, looking back over her gargantuan derriere. This photo left me dumbfounded. She could serve full course dinner off that ass! Admittedly the Kardashian circus is not something that I regularly follow, although I am incredulous that this freak show has generated so many celebrities. Hey, I like a good celebrity train wreck as much as the next moron, but this is getting out of control. I saw on the news the other day that there is the recent surge in butt enhancement cosmetic surgery. Huh? I thought women getting their lips fattened was nuts, but now women are having their butts enlarged, so they can look more like Kim Kardashian?!That isn’t just crazy, that’s bat shit crazy.

To all my friends in the U.S., have a Happy Thanksgiving, and I hope you have a wonderful celebration with family and friends. Can’t wait for the Macy’s Day Parade! R.I.P. to former Leafs coach Pat Quinn who died today.

 

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2014 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

 

 

The Oppenheimer Report - 11/17/14

Jasper surveys the latest snowfall

Apparently we missed the starting gun for winter … I was not prepared! We were a little late scheduling an appointment to have our snow tires put on. After the first significant snowfall a few weeks ago, we called to schedule a service appointment, but the dealership where we store our snow tires was so backed up, it was a week before we could be penciled in. Shauna and I have had three occasions to travel south in the past week or two, twice to Orillia and once to Barrie. Both of these places are in the heart of Ontario’s snow belt, and on two of those three trips, we experienced blinding snow squalls. One minute the sky was clear and the next minute we could not see the cars directly in front of us. It’s feakin’ mid-November! Today, I went to Burk’s Falls for my first physiotherapy session and I was a little concerned about getting out of our driveway. Yesterday, we had a lake effect squall that dumped about 8-10 inches of wet snow (see photo above). Thankfully, our snowplow guy was on top of the situation, or I would have been in trouble. It could be a long winter up here in the near north.

Last Monday I got the green light from my surgeon to begin physiotherapy on my shoulder. I no longer need to wear a sling, and the arm feels pretty good. Today’s session at the physiotherapist involved assessing my current range of motion and taking benchmark measurements to gauge future improvement.  I’m a little sore now, but my incentive is that, once things have loosened up a bit, I might again be able to hold a guitar for longer than ten minutes without discomfort.  I’ll do whatever it takes in order to get my strength and mobility back. I won’t do anything until the therapist gives me the go ahead, but I have a lot of songs brewing in my head, and I'm eager to get that guitar back in my hands.

 

Some of my songwriter friends up here are putting out a Christmas album of songs for the holidays, and I believe most or all of those songs are originals. I got a sneak preview the other day of a song written by my friend Scott Gilson and his partner Amber. It’s called Anticipate and Scott, famous for his unusual guitar tunings, has created a beautifully hypnotic melody for this one. I love the song and I’m looking forward to hearing what the other artists have to contribute as well. All the proceeds for the sale of the CD will go to local food banks, and this is the kind of music project that truly reflects the holiday spirit. Personally, I was never a fan of Christmas, for all the obvious reasons. My songs about Christmas – and I have written two so far – are, not surprisingly, a little dark. The first one is called Nothing Comes for Free and it is a preachy, self-righteous song (Jamie Oppenheimer, preachy and self-righteous? Preposterous!) about the excessive materialism of the Christmas holiday. It is so frightfully dismal and depressing I dare not play it in public, or for anyone really. Thematically, this song lies somewhere between Edgar Allen Poe and Dickens, complete with starving paupers and destitute homeless geriatrics, freezing to death on street corners… a real toe tapper. Sometimes I need to get a song like that out of my system … like diarrhea. A second more recent song I wrote, entitled Merry Christmas to Me, is I think a much stronger song, written from personal experience. When I was sixteen, still living in Buffalo, and during the height of my rebellious youth, I and my cousin John hitched downtown to go to a wild Christmas party. We were picked up by a guy dressed as Santa, driving a beat up red Ford Van  - one of those older hippie vans with the cool headlights. In the passenger seat was another guy, dressed as and elf, and the two of them were half in the bag, drinking Jack Daniels out of the bottle, smoking a joint, and I’m guessing high some kind of hallucinogen as well. Exhibiting the good judgment that so effectively guided me through my teen years, I had no problem accepting a ride from these toasted gentleman, and the song tells the story of that memorable, snowy night. There’s a little hyperbole and poetic license thrown in for good measure, but the message of that song, while somewhat grim, is more focused and personal.

 

Western New Yorkers pride themselves on their ability to party, and while zero tolerance is a good rule by which to abide, back in the 70’s I’ll wager that at least a third of my hometown City of Buffalo was drunk or stoned for most of the month of December. There is even an internet joke I have seen more than once, depicting a driver’s view of an icy road …  the caption reads something like … “Most other drivers would look at this situation and panic, but a Western New Yorker says “Hey. Hold my beer and watch this!” Not entirely untrue.

 

“I used to live my life spontaneously

Embellishing my clouded memories

I viewed the future apprehensively

But that was long before your love came to me.”

 

I may not drink anymore, but I still embellish my clouded memories; I am still the rebel without a clue. If you do plan to party - and by all means, knock yourselves out - find yourself a designated driver, or take a cab. Do not, under any circumstances accept a ride from a guy smoking a joint, drinking hard liquor out of the bottle, and pretending to be Santa; that’s a “red flag.” Santa would never do that.

 

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2014 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 11/10/14

I’ve had a little taste of what it feels like to be one-armed this past two weeks, and boy do I appreciate the ability to use both my arms! I received little post-operative instruction from my surgeon as to what I can and cannot do, and of course Shauna and I disagree as to how much I should do. She’s right, of course, and I need to give the surgery sufficient time to heal before I start using the arm. Driving a car has been particularly challenging, as I would normally use my right arm to insert the key in the ignition, to put on my seat belt, and to place the car in gear. Thank goodness I no longer drive a manual stick!  I now have a little more respect for those who are missing limbs. Later today I am scheduled for my first post-operative appointment, and I’m hoping I can start physiotherapy soon. I am going a little bonkers rattling around the house, doing little but whining. Everywhere there are unfinished projects of mine which require the use of both arms, and of course, there is the guitar which sits on its stand in the living room, taunting me. I have kept the arm immobilized as instructed but now I am eager to see if the surgery was a success. “Don’t it always seem to go you don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone …”

 

The American midterm elections have turned the Senate back over to the Republicans, and of course the elephants are boasting this sends a clear message: Americans despise Obama and the Democrats. But come on, has anything really changed? There will still be divisive gridlock in Washington. It’s still the crazy Republican extremists who will make the news for suggesting that Ebola victims should be rounded up and exterminated; it is the Republicans who still believe climate change is a conspiracy foisted upon us by the liberal donkeys, it is those humorless Republicans that are perceived as bible thumping troglodytes. Mark my words, come election time in 2016, no matter how badly Obama stumbles, it will be the Republicans who once again fly off the rails and come across as the party of bat shit crazy nut balls who promote bigotry, religious extremism,segregation, homophobia, pollution, and greed. In short, it will be the same excruciatingly long spin war of opposing television networks and PACS as it was in 2012. As much as we (and by we I mean I) the voters claim we want change, we still vote for the flavor of the month; we still drink the toxic but brightly colored Koolaid. Here’s an idea: take all those billions in partisan PAC money and donate it to UNICEF, Doctors without Borders, and The Red Cross. It could not be spent any worse than it has been so far, and perhaps it would even the playing field. Let the Republicans and the Democrats compete to see which party is the most charitable. Leave the spin to print mediums and cap each party’s campaign contributions to $10Million. When even the new, enlightened Pope is shedding the blinders of ignorance, religious extremism is still gumming up the works of world politics, and certainly of the GOP.  Much was made among the pundits about how badly the Democrats fumbled the ball in the midterms, by distancing themselves from the presently unpopular Obama. It always boils down to bad press, and sadly few candidates have the testicles (or tits) to take the high road. What does it say about us voters that, statistically, we encourage the stalemate by not insisting on an end to the obscene election spending and lack of meaningful dialogue? And therein ends this week’s indignant rant.

Tomorrow is Remembrance Day here in Canada. I have yet to write a meaningful song about the profound sacrifice our veterans have made and our soldiers continue make to preserve our freedom. But my good friend Bobby Cameron did, and if you are reading this, I beg you to listen to a song he recently penned and has just put up on YouTube, entitled Here and Gone. www.youtube.com/user/bobbycamerontv  . It’s one of the best songs I’ve heard in a long time, and I wish I’d written it. It beautifully summarizes the sacrifices our service men and women make for war, and reminds us to show respect and gratitude for the men and women who fight to preserve our freedom. As I watch winter’s grey-white squalls blow in to denude to trees of their last remaining leaves, on this now deserted lake, I thank our veterans for their ultimate sacrifice. I think we North Americans are the most fortunate people in the world.

As always, thanks for reading my self-righteous rants. 

- Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2014 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 11/3/14

It is Saturday afternoon as I begin this report, and we have had our first appreciable snowfall of the season. Yesterday morning it came down as wet, sloppy snow, but right now it is cold enough for it to remain on the ground. Shauna has been entrusted with some of the dog walking duties this week as I mend from my shoulder surgery, and I do not envy her. Jasper accumulates wet snow in her fur as she walks, and by the time she is back in the house, she is the Michelin Dog with big balls of snow all over her legs. My sympathies as well to all local trick-or-treaters and their escorts. Halloween has always been one of my favorite times of the year; this is when I catch up on my ridiculously bad horror movies…

I have been an aficionado of bad cinema and bad television since I was a young man, but horror flicks are my passion. I like directors like Ed Wood and George Romero, the low budget guys who make movies so bad they become cult classics. Movie critic Joe Bob Briggs used to rate horror flicks in terms of breast and body counts, but I feel there should be other considerations as well. I saw a horror flick with my friend Bob maybe thirty-five years ago – I think it was called Night of the Zombies- and even by my low standards,  this one was hands down the worst horror flick I’d ever seen. The very first scene was of a zombie munching on an arm, which seemed promising, but it then descended into complete chaos. This movie had absolutely no plot whatsoever, and, to make it especially ludicrous, in between the gory scenes of flesh eating were nature shots which had absolutely nothing to do with the movie. It was as if the director needed some filler, so he just grabbed some stock wildlife footage, and spliced it in. One minute a screaming woman was being eviscerated by a blood-soaked zombie businessman in some big city, and the next, there was a completely incongruous shot of cranes alighting from a swamp. You don’t need much plot for these things, but you need some plot.

 

Years ago, when I still lived in Buffalo, there was a really crappy low budget horror flick filmed nearby in the south towns, and one of my friends was on the crew. It was called The Burning, and it did have a plot, sort of. My friend got a hold of the script one day, and a bunch of us got very wasted one night and tape recorded our “version” of one of the movie’s more inane scenes. Even by our juvenile standards this script appeared to have been written by a ten year old with no imagination, and clearly no idea what actually happens when a man and a woman have sex. I imagine the writer fit the profile of the misogynist video gamers to whom I referred in last week’s report. The movie could have been more aptly entitled Stunted Development. Anyhow, when the movie was (miraculously) released, a bunch of us went to the local drive to see how it came out. I am quite sure there was weed involved in the viewing, because I do not remember much about the movie other than that it sucked moose gonads. It far exceeded our expectations for badness. Added to the obvious movie flaws - poor writing, continuity failures, and abominable acting- this movie had some laughable technical glitches. At one critical point in the movie, when suspense was intended to build, the cameraman chose to adjust the aperture on the camera lens, so that the viewer clearly saw the click stops as the scene got darker, then lighter, then darker again. Remember the old SNL skit with Dan Akroyd’s character Leonard Pinth Garnell, reviewing bad movies? This one would have been a headliner!

In honor of All Hallow’s Eve, last night I watched an episode of the much-touted series American Horror Story- Freak Show, and frankly, I was disappointed. I was hoping for something as creepy as David Lynch’s Twin Peaks or Blue Velvet (two of my favorites), but the show somehow fell short. It features a great cast, and a nice touch is that the creepiness takes place in the 50’s. I don’t think you can’t go far wrong with a bunch of deformed freaks, and a psychotic, murderous clown in the plot, but something was missing. It’s well filmed, but I think the writing was the weak link. I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt and watch a few more episodes before I give it the gong. What is your favorite horror flick of all time? Son of Bride of Chucky? Friday the 13^th Pt 25?

                     Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2014 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 10/27/14

A therapeutic burger at Webers on the way home

Thursday night, Shauna, Jasper, and I drove down to Barrie to stay in a hotel, because I was scheduled for shoulder (day) surgery at Royal Victoria Hospital very early Friday morning. While I have not spent much time discussing this in my report, I was apprehensive about this surgery. Over thirty years ago, I had had an operation on the same shoulder, for a recurring separation problem. The aftermath was extremely painful, and the recovery took a long, long time. No one could really tell me what to expect with this one; the surgeon knew there was damage which had severely compromised the arm, but would not be able to determine the extent until he went in with a scope. While the procedure was arthroscopic, and therefore not as invasive as my previous surgery, there was no way of knowing what the recovery time might be. Frankly, I would have lived with the impairment had it not become almost impossible to play the guitar. Last summer, I played seven or eight live performances, including one on the radio, and I never knew when the arm was going to give out. As well, up to a few weeks ago, I had recorded 21 or more songs with Juan Barbosa. At times the pain was so distracting that I’d frequently go off tempo, or blow a lyric, and was then forced to re-do the track. Eventually, those songs will be released, and with Juan’s patience and studio wizardry, they will likely be presentable to the general public.

We arrived at the hospital at 6AM, and after all the paperwork, and assessments, and the oft-repeated questions, I found myself sitting in a waiting room, wearing nothing but a skimpy hospital gown and flimsy blue paper slippers. I sat there, attached to an IV pole, with my very nervous, loving wife Shauna by my side, waiting along with about ten other patients for our sessions in the OR. Finally, around 8AM, all the surgical patients were herded into another waiting room and taken, one by one, to our respective operating rooms. I spoke to a few of the other patients to pass the time and distract myself from my trepidation. There were young children in the group, some of them about to have more invasive surgery that I was to undergo. Here I was, a 59 year old man, nervous about relatively minor shoulder surgery, and there across from me was an eight year old kid who had already endured heart surgery. I guess we’re never too old to be afraid, but what a whiney bitch I am.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, I was led into my operating room, and I met my surgeon. It was cold, and I was asked to lie down on a very narrow table. “So which arm is it we’re operating on?” he asked. Hah freakin’ hah. He wrote something on my shoulder in black magic marker, the nurses repositioned me, threw some warm blankets over me, and the next thing I knew I was done and waking up in the recovery room. I’d forgotten what waking up from general anesthesia felt like. At first it was kind of cool, like waking up after a strange dream, but then, almost immediately, it felt as if there was an anvil on my right shoulder. Just as it was beginning to hurt, there was a nurse there to administer that glorious shot of hydromorphone. From there, it was another couple of hours of recovery, then back to the hotel to spend the night before heading home Saturday.

I fear I will not be a very good patient for Shauna, as I am used to being the caregiver, but the good news is that, at least so far, the pain has been far less severe than I had anticipated. I’m going to give it a couple of days before I get too optimistic, but after 24 hours I had weaned myself off the strong painkillers and seem to be alright with just Tylenol. I’m not one to quietly endure pain and would do what I need to do to avoid it. Recovery and physiotherapy are likely to take longer than I’d like but I am eager to get back to my normal life. That brief visit to a hospital for a relatively minor elective surgery was a reminder to me of how lucky I have been thus far to avoid any real health problems. Once again my perspective has been “clarified” and I hope my good luck continues.

Jack Bruce died last week. Cream was one of my all-time favorite rock bands. R.I.P.

 

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2014 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 10/20/14

As I scramble to get all the outside work done around the house before my shoulder surgery this coming Friday, I find myself fighting the elements. After a stormy summer, we have had a very wet fall and the temperature variances have been extreme. As I sometimes do, I consulted the radar last weekend, and noticed a familiar blob of green and yellow covering the near north of Ontario. What I was not ready for was a significant area of blue, indicating snow. Last night we had the first snow of the season, and while there was no accumulation, not yet at least, I’m not ready! One of my priorities this weekend was to change the oil in the snow blower.

The Ebola virus has been front and center in the news of late as it recently made its way into North America. A Liberian man died recently in Dallas, Texas where he had been visiting his family.  Much has been made of the likelihood that the Dallas hospital mishandled this case. Not only did they not properly diagnose the man’s illness in the first place, sending him home where he may have infected others, but when the man was finally admitted, the hospital procedures for protecting its caregivers proved inadequate as well. One or two nurses who were treating the man were infected with the virus, and now hospitals all over North America are re-assessing their preparedness to deal with this issue. While the disease is thankfully not contagious by airborne transmission, unless bodily fluids are exchanged, it is extremely deadly when it is contracted. This particular strain has a mortality rate in the 50-60% range, and there is no known vaccine at this time.

 

From the serious to the ridiculous… did anyone else catch that gubernatorial debate story in Florida? Republican incumbent Florida Governor Rick Scott refused to debate his Democratic opponent and former Republican Governor Charlie Crist, because Crist was using an illegal fan under his podium to cool himself. Pundits are calling it “Fangate” and it bespeaks the absurdity which is U.S. politics. As satirist John Stewart quipped: “Thank you Jesus!” for this chestnut of comedy gold. I wish the Republicans would wake up and join the race. Another story which I caught on CTV News, and which I found bizarre, concerns the video gaming industry. Apparently, several women who are becoming successful in video game development have had their lives threatened because of their perceived threat to the tide of violent misogyny in video games. Admittedly, I know little about video games, except that, like todays films, some of them are extremely violent. One disturbing trend seems to be the depiction of women in these games as expendable objects of sexual fantasy. As the news suggested, some vidiots out there, who thrive on these games promoting misogyny, feel threatened by any female who would dare to intrude on their violent woman-hating fantasies. I have for a long time harped upon the growing social disconnect enhanced by advancements in technology. Cell phones and computers give us more access to information and communication, but at the same time can retard acceptable social behavior. Hey, here’s a great idea, I think I’ll text this girl’s naked photo to all my classmates. Who knew she’d kill herself because she was so ashamed? How strange is it to hear that someone is having an existential crisis because a woman is interfering with his right to fantasize about violence against women in a video game. It’s an existential crisis over something that does not, or should not, really exist in the first place! It is bad enough that these video games have an audience (it’s a free country right?), but I think they need to catch these desensitized troglodytes and get them a little behavioral therapy … perhaps make them watch The View for a couple of hours a day. O.K., that might be a little too harsh.    

 

Yesterday, I attended the memorial service for local country musician Sam Fattore. A lot of his musician friends came out to the Katrine Community center to celebrate his life by performing at the service, sending him out in style. Goodbye Sam, you have some good friends.

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2014 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 10/13/14

 

 

First order of business: Happy Thanksgiving to my Canadian brothers and sisters!

 

My 59^th birthday was last Wednesday, or as I now tell myself, I am ushering in my 60^th year. In last week’s report, I quoted from a song I wrote out in Banff, entitled The Wind Begins to Blow, and it is about the swift passage of time. It was written on a blustery cold day in July, about ten years ago, and I was feeling particularly pensive that day. Even in the summer, the mountain weather in Banff can be quite hostile, and I felt in some inexplicable way that change was in the air. Of course, change is always in the air, it’s just that sometimes I feel it more than other times. Anyhow, it was about to snow, and as I watched a Clarke’s Nutcracker clinging tenaciously to a tree branch outside my window, the gloominess of the moment narrated the song in my head. My friend Gil from Florida chided me the other day, suggesting I should write more happy songs. I suppose he has a point … if I were Barry freakin’ Manilow, or if I gave a flying Walenda about commercial appeal, which I never have. Anyhow, sorry Gil, but this is who I am; I’ve always been this way, and you can’t teach a decomposing misanthrope new tricks.

 

 

Last Monday and Tuesday I had my last recording sessions with Juan Barbosa before my scheduled shoulder surgery at the end of the month. In those two back-to-back sessions and I laid down bed tracks for six songs. Lately I feel as if my time is passing faster, and I feel some sense of dire urgency/ In a month or so I’ll usher in my 51^st year/ And I’m nowhere near where I thought I would be. Juan and I work well together, and I think he gets my songs. My ambition has never been perfection, or even to impress anyone with my performance. I am a writer, and know my limitations as a performing artist. Still, Juan has proved a wizard at covering up the mistakes effectively. I heard a famous musician interviewed the other day - I can’t remember who it was - and he said there are certain albums his band did that he simply cannot listen to, because he hears all the mistakes. Ultimately my goal is to present the songs better than I have done so far, without the distracting, glaring mistakes apparent in my previous self-recordings. To a greater or lesser extent, I think Juan has succeeded in doing this. He sings a few of these songs and really breathes new life into them with his bluesy soul. Without getting too full of myself ( as if it isn’t too late) it is exciting to hear some of these songs, many which were just sketches when I wrote and recorded them, come to life as legitimate musical performances. I feel blessed to have found this like-minded musician to take my songs to the next level. After my surgery at the end of the month, and while my shoulder heals, I want to move on to new songs, things that I shelved fifteen year ago and which need fresh eyes and ears. I want to get my good friend  Bobby Cameron involved too. Bobby's a gifted producer, and a killer guitarist. There are at least twenty or thirty unfinished songs, some just penned, that I intend to revisit this winter. Perhaps with the help of some of the talented local singer/songwriters up here one or two of them will be heard by a wider audience. Who knows? I have new goals now.

  

 

 

 

One of the songs we recorded last week was a humorous novelty song I wrote many years ago called Swamp Queen. Shauna doesn’t like that song, because it is a bit rude and she feels it is beneath me. Ever my publicist and biggest supporter, she worries I will not be taken seriously if I put out a novelty song. I cannot believe this woman has been married to me for twenty years and still feels that there is ANYTHING “beneath” me, but there you have it. Anyhow, I recorded Swamp Queen as a mock rock anthem and I think in Juan’s hands we can knock this one out of the park. It has YouTube written all over it! Juan actually lives on a swampy little pond, and if we can get the right video recorded, this one could be a lot of fun. So Gil, if you’re reading this, I can be light-hearted, on occasion. The Wind Begins to Blow is anything but.

 

 

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2014 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

 

 

The Oppenheimer Report 10/6/14

 

I apologize in advance if today’s off-the-cuff ramblings seem particularly disjointed. The Fall rains and the Jewish High Holy Days have left me feeling a little anxious and reflective. Last night, while I was deleting some old emails, I came across one from my recently deceased artist friend Frank Riccio. It was from March of 2013, and he was ribbing me, in a manner so typical of Frank, about how fortunate he felt to have been mentioned in my report. He jokingly suggested that, like so many other forms of electronic correspondence, my reference to him in my report will perhaps someday be a matter of historical record. He said: “And like every phone call and text message, all will be routed through and saved at the giant data facility in Utah!  ~ƒ” Now, a year and a half later, his amusing email remains, but Frank is gone. Being the neurotic, overthinking worrywart that I am, that prompted a flood of apprehensions about my own mortality and about the fates of those I love. It is that queasy feeling I get in my stomach when I revisit the epiphany that almost everything is out of my control. Last week, I mused about letting go of things from my past, and about how I struggle to live in the moment. Last Friday, on the Eve of Yom Kippur, we learned that a dear cousin who is our age was admitted to the hospital in Toronto suffering from severe pain. He’d had a history of colon cancer and we were obviously concerned that this affliction has re-emerged. We helplessly await news of his condition. Perhaps I read too much in to the weather. Around here at least, Fall has returned early, and with a vengeance. For me, Fall is the season when change is most apparent, and as the October winds cleanse the trees of their rusty foliage, I feel strangely out of step with the march of time.

No doubt, Yom Kippur makes me more reflective than I usually am, especially because I fast from sundown to sundown, and this accentuates the discomfort of self-awareness. Yom Kippur is the Jewish Day of Atonement, the day when Jews ask forgiveness for all the wrongs we have done in the year. Comedian Lewis Black, a Jew himself, does a funny routine about it in his hysterical, angry, ranting style. Ridiculous as he thinks it is to assume that any religion can absolve one of one’s wrongdoings, he says that at least the Catholics don’t let it build up. Catholics confess their sins on a regular basis, but the Jews, who have a black belt in guilt, hold in all their sins for the year and purge them all in one day. That’s a lot of apologizing for one day. Mostly, I regret taking my good fortune for granted. I’m talking specifically about family and friends. What if I’d spent more time with my parents, what if I’d kept in touch with Frank, what if I been more charitable with my heart to people who are now gone? Why don’t I call my sister and nephews more often? Who have I forgotten, only to be reminded when they are gone? Hopefully, I’ll improve on all of this in the coming next year.

The same neurosis that begs these unanswerable questions compels me to write songs. I never sit down with the intention of writing a song about anything. Songs come to me from my personal experience, or they are triggered by a news event underscoring the human condition. They simply come out of me the way weeds come out of fertile soil, and I have over time become more vigilant about recording them when they occur. Not all of them are clear and concise, and not many of them are good or meaningful to anyone but me. Yet they are my little garden of neurotic ideas, and I cultivate them. And they will be here when I am gone, recognized or otherwise; my emotional footprint on the sands of time. Ugh, that was horrible, wasn’t it? Last night I consulted my song notebook and there were twenty or thirty pages of recent stream of consciousness lyrics. Verbal diarrhea. Over the past few weeks, I have been on Facebook quite a lot, because that is largely how the musical community up here communicates. The danger of Facebook is that it sometimes overwhelms me: too much information. It is, in some watered down way, a medium of connectivity, and in any event, I drink the Kool-Aid. When the annual Day of Atonement arrives, or when I am confronted with the passage of time, measured by new aches and pains, or watching a niece or nephew get older in photos on Facebook, or by something as mundane as the amount of dog food consumed by Jasper (a good thing, by the way), I sometimes become concerned by my growing incapability to prepare for the coming winter.

As I sometimes do, I consulted my report from about a year ago to see what was going on in my life at the time. A year ago next week, the U.S. government had shut down in an impasse over The Affordable Care Act. In that same entry I mentioned that I got caught in the dark with the ATV for a long, cold, drive home from my friend Buck’s house. He lives about ten or fifteen miles south of us on the big lake, and because I got delayed, the ride home was frosty and a bit nerve racking. Up here, Mother Nature is not too forgiving of the unprepared, and that frosty night I was underdressed. From what all the local “experts” say, we have another cold winter ahead of us. Today, a year later, the world mobilizes for what might be an escalating religious war, and global leadership does not seem to be any stronger, or less divisive, than it was last year. I just finished recording a song I wrote t 9 years ago about these grey days …

“And time just seems to swirl up like the leaves in a blow

So much spinning out of my control
I want to solve the problems of this oh so troubled world
But I can’t even seem to solve my own …” –excerpt from The Wind Begins to Blow

(Destined to be a bigger hit than Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini)

To the members of my tribe, and to all the rest of you as well, Shanah Tova – have a good year.

 

-Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2014 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 10/2/14

Monday, I drove down to Fort Erie, Ontario to sign over the deed to the family beach house near Ridgeway.  I believe my grandfather bought that place in the late 1920s or early 1930s, and it had been in our family ever since. My mom and her brother Harry Jr. spent their childhood summers there, as did my sister and I. By the time Mom and Dad were too infirmed to spend their summers there (it is a short commute from Buffalo), neither my sister nor I was living close enough to spend any significant time there. While Mom was alive, I did not have the heart to sell the place, although that would have been the sensible thing to do. Even though for the last few years of her life Mom was suffering from severe dementia, she still asked about the beach house constantly. Did the landscaper come to plant the flower garden? Did I remember that the storm windows are stored in the garage? Don’t forget to run the washing machine once through with nothing in it, so the rust can clear from the water pipes. Of course, I did not have the heart to tell her we were renting the place to strangers. I loved that house almost as much as she did, and I did not know how to let go.

Finally, I had to, so I drove down to visit the place one last time, with a trailer in tow to bring back some of the furniture and the other mementos that reminded me of my family. I knew it would be an emotional trip, but as I walked through the house, it suddenly hit me like a brick: this was it. This was perhaps the last time I would ever set foot in this wonderful home, which had for such a long time been a unifying force in my family. A thousand happy memories washed over me like a tidal wave as I looked out the windows, opened cabinet doors and pulled out drawers, trying to make sure I did not leave anything important behind . There were childhood memories of boating and waterskiing, dinner parties full of laughter with friends and family, bonfires and marshmallow roasts, the fond recollections of time spent with four generations of my family. My friend Bob, with whom I'd shared many of those memories, came over Monday night to offer me some moral support. Otherwise, I probably would have fallen apart. So many memories.

For instance, I remember when my sister got married in 1971, the ushers party was held at that summer house, and that the first wild party I ever attended. My cousin Paul and I were only about thirteen or fourteen at the time and we got very drunk. At some point during that Bacchanalian evening, Paul’s mom called from Buffalo asking to speak with Paul. A very drunk girl answered the phone, with loud music in the background, and fifty or sixty people yelling at the top of their lungs, and she slurred, “I dunno, describe him!” I woke up the next morning in a reclining chair- the morning of my sister’s wedding - with a terrific hangover, naked except for the beach towel draped over my waist. Someone was shaking me awake to remind me that I had to be an usher in the wedding in about an hour. The place looked like the aftermath of a frat party.

During my search, I opened a broom closet in the kitchen, where we kept all the keys to the house, and underneath the key rack was a list in my father’s distinctive handwriting, describing what each key was for. That made me smile and I kept the note. Every corner of that house, every knick knack, ever pot and pan, was somehow a memory. How fortunate I was to have had that kind of a charmed childhood! I pulled out the bottom drawer in the linen closet and found a bunch of small, framed watercolor paintings, about eight in all. I recognized them as in my mother’s style, and sure enough, she’d painted them. Her initials were at the bottom of each painting. I’d never seen these pictures before, and they would have been painted when mom was a very young woman, probably before she became a professional artist. I’m glad I found those.

I’ll miss the old beach house, but the time has come to move on. Next week I will usher in my 60^th year, and more and more  I find myself forced to let go of people and things that were dear to me. I don’t want to, but dwelling on the loss just makes me sad.  I struggle not to live in the past, and I do not want to fall out if step with the march of time, much as it is sometimes a challenge to keep pace. To get stuck is to miss out on all the surprises life still has in store for me. To live in the present, in the moment, is something I am still trying to figure out how to do, but I think it is a worthy pursuit. I feel blessed to have had so many good experiences so far, and so much love in my life to guide me along the way. I cannot bring back those who have left me, and I cannot hold on to real estate and chattel that reminds me of them, but I can be thankful for all I have been given. Perhaps I can even spread a little of that love to others. As they say “you can’t take it with you” but one should enjoy it while it’s here!  My mom is present in every brush stroke she painted, and in the home she created for us all. My Dad is alive in every brilliant, illegible word he wrote. I feel confident that there are many happy memories still to come. Tuesday, I closed one door for the last time, but there are many more to open.  

  - Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2014 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED