The Oppenheimer Report 5/26/14

When Shauna, Jasper and I drove down to Connecticut for my 40^th reunion at Taft

last weekend we decided to take the scenic route. It was not the most direct route, which would have taken us down the always congested and annoying Hwy 400, through Toronto commuter traffic, and down the even more vexing QEW to the Buffalo Peace Bridge. That bridge has become a bigger and bigger headache, and because it was a holiday weekend in Canada, it was bound to be a longer than usual wait. Instead, we travelled east across Hwy 60 from nearby Huntsville towards Ottawa, then made our border crossing at Ogdansburg, N.Y. along the St Lawrence Seaway, and headed southeast through the eastern half of New York State. Eventually we made our way southeast along country highways, through Massachusetts and down through Connecticut. It was Shauna’s suggestion and I am glad we did it this way, because while it added an hour or so to our journey, it made the ride much more enjoyable. On top of avoiding all the dreaded Ontario highways and the Toronto traffic, we missed the mind numbing journey across ¾ of the New York State Thruway. More and more these days I am all about the journey, and trying to make every moment count. Why not use the destination as an opportunity to explore parts of the map neither of us had ever been? Of course we got lost once or twice, usually due to a GPS glitch. At one point we were travelling through a little town near the Adirondacks, and I knew we were going in the right direction, but that friggin’ TomTom lost its mind and told us to make a U- turn. We stopped and turned around in the driveway of some mean looking tattooed guy who was sitting out on his front lawn, and visions of the “squeal like a pig” scene in Deliverance went running through my head. As his wolf-like dog trotted toward our car to see what was for dinner, I gunned the car and we took off in a cloud of dust. Note to self: never ask a guy for directions who is filing his nails with a rasp. “Come on inside Elmer, the KFC is on the table and yer gonna miss Honey Boo Boo!”

We travelled through Watertown, N.Y. which is a place I have always wanted to visit. Because of its location on the business end of Lake Ontario, Watertown experiences some of the most ridiculous snowstorms in all of New York State. One winter not too long ago, Watertown got dumped on with so much snow- something like seven feet in less than a week - that I think they had to call in the military to dig out the town. Perhaps because I hail from a snow-belt city notorious for having endured some serious snowstorms, I have a morbid pre-occupation with severe winter weather. Last Wednesday I performed some songs in my second Hunter’s Bay Radio interview in Huntsville, and I could not resist playing one of my whiney Buffalo winter songs Cabin Fever. Hey, I write about what I know. That one was a big hit in Burk’s Falls when I played it at a recent “coffee house” gig. Certainly the residents up here can relate.

This Thursday Shauna and I will have been married for 20 years. I could not put this anniversary into perspective until I realized that my best man Bob’s daughter was born shortly before our wedding, and she just turned 20. It blows me away.

 

GRAIN ELEVATORS AND TUMBLEWEEDS

MILES OF NOTHING BUT LIVESTOCK AND FEED

WHEN WE TRAVEL IT SETS ME FREE

I LOVE TO SEE THESE PLAINS SURROUNDING ME

 

IN A ROOM WHERE PEOPLE WALK AROUND

SOME WALK IN AND SOME WALK OUT

WE SEE THE MOTION BUT WE HEAR NO SOUND

WE GET SO LOST IN THE TIME WE FOUND

 

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2014 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

 

 

 

 

The Oppenheimer Report 5/20/14

With Roger Stacey (center) - photo by Shauna Leigh Taylor

I apologize to my twelve loyal readers that this week’s report is a day late, but we just returned from a road trip to the States, and I did not have the opportunity to write yesterday. Last Thursday, Shauna, Jasper and I headed down to Watertown, Connecticut to attend my 40^th reunion at The Taft School, and I am so happy she was able to join me for this momentous event. While I’m not entirely sure she was thrilled about the 13 hour drive down, it was important that she accompany me on this important milestone occasion, and she was a good sport. This reunion meant she was introduced to a bunch of complete strangers, and that can be off putting, but she handled it with grace and charm.

 Some of you may recall my Oppenheimer Report recollections of the 35^th reunion back in 2009, wherein I expressed my trepidation about returning to face my peers after so many years away from the school. 2009 was not a banner year for me, and I felt that perhaps the majority of my classmates had accomplished far more in their lives than had I. Maybe they had, I don’t know. Success is an elusive concept to me, and class reunions underscore the ambiguity of the term. Are we successful because we earn a lot of money? I have not. Are we successful because we successfully raise children? Again, I have not, although Shauna and I have a good marriage, and will celebrate our 20^th Anniversary in nine days. But I have started to let myself off the hook about this. After the 35^th I realized that life is a kick in the ass for everyone, and it is how we deal with adversity that shapes us. I know that I have tried hard to be a good person and to do right by my parents and friends, and I am confident that I am still growing.  I like the man I am today better than the man I was five years ago, and I see great potential for my future.

I take pride in feeling I was the motivating influence to get some of my more reluctant classmates to attend this reunion, and I was delighted to reunite with them. Several I have not seen or heard from in 40 years. One classmate said it best: we all look different – some more than others - but the eyes are the same. The personalities that drew me to my friends are still intact, despite the ravages of time and circumstance, and it was comforting to know these people whom I have not seen in so long are still my friends. Especially in a boarding school, as fellow inmates, I and my classmates shared some life-changing experiences. It is an unexpected pleasure to discover that I enjoy the company of some classmates I did not know in school. High school is an awkward time for most of us, and given the passage of time I found myself more open to friendship with these people with whom I had not associated in school. After all, we did share our adolescence together.

I would be remiss if I did not mention that I had the opportunity to see and visit with my favorite English teacher at Taft. He was certainly one of the reasons I love to write and aspire to persevere and improve my writing skills. He is also a reminder to me how important education is to a child’s future. Although a child of privilege, I was a handful at 16, and I could easily have fallen off the tracks had I not been steered in a better direction. Without knowing it, and simply by being a strong role model and a good teacher, Roger Stacey guided me towards something I love to do, and I will be forever in his debt for that. While I never made my living as a writer, it has been and is something I will always love to do, and I feel confident that it is one of the things that sustains me in my moments of self-doubt.       

Finally, and on that last subject, I got to talking with one of my classmates who has written a self-help book called Gumptionade (www.gumptionade.com).  Not unlike me, he had a spiritual crisis a while back, and writing that book was perhaps his pro-active solution to that existential struggle. We talked about “good” suffering and “bad” suffering, and that was meaningful to me. Good suffering is therapy, and the general pursuit of self-awareness, while an example of bad suffering is self-medication. Having recently quit booze, I understood that. I intend to read his book soon. Getting back to that elusive concept of success, perhaps that is what success has become for me. I have begun to focus on something I love to do, and that has had a ripple effect in other aspects of my life. I communicate better, which means I am able to purge my sometimes toxic thoughts and emotions before they consume me (bad suffering). I am writing better songs, and with a little luck, I might even achieve some of that elusive recognition I so craved when I began that journey. Regardless, it will always be the journey which sustains me. To all the classmates at Taft whom I have come to know, thank you for your friendship. Keep in touch, and I hope to see you again soon!!

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2014 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  

The Oppenheimer Report -5/12/14

The other day I opened up my email and there was a Facebook message from a friend encouraging me to sign a petition boycotting the “I Hate Dogs” Facebook page. There’s a Facebook page devoted to people who hate dogs?  Wow. Of course, I had to see for myself, and the page looks like more of a joke than a serious statement. The above and profanely amusing photograph was “shared” from this page. Hey,  I love dogs, and most animals for that matter, and I abhor the mistreatment of any animal; but while it is bad taste and maybe even a bit disgusting that there is a page that professes to hate animals, is it something we should prohibit? I’m no civil liberties zealot, and I understand the indignation that a Facebook page like this might generate, but come on, maybe this is not our biggest problem. It reminds me of Nancy Reagan with her infamous war on drugs. That ill-conceived campaign took the focus off hard drugs,  was a colossal waste of money, and had no appreciable success at stemming the proliferation of hard drugs in North America. At one point during the Reagan years, a New Yorker could be put away in prison for life, simply for possessing a bag of weed, and that is just a stupid waste of money.  As I said, I went to the Facebook page to see if the so called dog haters have crossed any lines, but it looked more pro dog than anti dog.  There are a lot of kooks using social media; are we going to ban them all? Good luck. While even the implication of hatred may not be a healthy sign for our culture, it’s a free country, right?  I hate Barney the Dinosaur, but other than calling him a purple blob of evil, I’ve never acted on my emotions. I think the majority of the haters visiting that page are likely to be dog lovers who want to express their outrage at such ignorance.

Still, there is an awful lot of real hatred out there in the world, and as an international community, I don’t think we’re doing a very good job of addressing it. Yad Vishem, never forget. Post holocaust (which some haters still deny even happened) it has become an underlying reminder, for Jews and everyone else, that hatred can and does spread like wildfire. Never allow a Hitler to rise again, isn’t that the message? Many of us assume such an atrocity could never re-occur in our lifetime, but it has, over and over. Rowanda, the Congo, Pol Pot, the Turks and the Armenians, the Bosnian War, Idi Amin, to name but a few. Madness and evil abound. And then we have that NBA bozo Donald Sterling, owner of the Clippers, admonishing his young girlfriend for associating with Black men.  As hard as it is for me to believe, ignorance and racism are alive and well and flourishing in North America. In general, I think we have done a pretty crappy job of learning from our mistakes. Sadly, hatred and intolerance may be an inextricable part of human nature, but I still believe good, loving parents, or family members, or role models, and proper education ,will go a lot further to combat hatred than will shutting down a Facebook page. Absolutely, shine a light on evil; expose it, teach us the difference between right and wrong, and then let us decide for ourselves how we deal with it. I believe love can catch on like wildfire just as easily as hatred can.  My self righteous rant du jour.

I WATCH THE BOOB TUBE CAUSE I’M A RUBE, I LIKE TO WATCH THE EVENING NEWS

I WATCH THOSE IDIOTS LIGHT THE FUSE AND EVERYONE IS SO CONFUSED

I DON’T SEE THE RAGE ANYMORE

cho:

IF I HAD MERLIN’S WAND, WITH THE WAVE OF MY ARM

I’D BRING THE WHOLE THING  DOWN, AND START IT OVER AGAIN WITH LOVE, I'D START IT AGAIN WITH LOVE.

                                     -   Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2014 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 5/5/14

Gigging at The Barn

Last Saturday night, I attended a get together of local musicians at a friend’s barn, which is in fact called The Barn, and doubles as a living quarters and recording studio in Huntsville. Juan Barbosa invited me to attend and, because I will soon be recording with Juan in this space, I was eager to see what it looks like. Juan told me that local musicians gather here every several months to “let their hair down” and jam with each other, and he said it would be an opportunity for me to mingle with some of the local talent. Digital field recorder in hand, I arrived about two hours into the party. By that time, everyone was sufficiently lubricated, and the music was flowing freely.

It feels a little weird not to be drinking when I’m in a setting like this, but grasping my non-alcoholic beer for courage, I tried not to stand out as the square stranger. I am sure I stuck out like a sore thumb. This was an open stage, and musicians came and went as they felt inspired. It’s my favorite type of performance, musicians playing for musicians, spontaneously jamming and improvising. I really enjoyed what I heard. There was every kind of music, from reggae, to punk, to jazz, hard rock, and country – and most of it was really good. Thankfully, not one of the covers was anything I hear ad nauseam on the radio. Most of these guys are pros, and what is great about pros is that they can play with  anyone. I was fortunate enough to be allowed to get up and play a few of my originals, and although I was clearly out of my league, everyone was gracious and supportive. I wasn’t very good, but the other musicians managed to help me sound better, and I sang my songs to exactly the audience I’d hoped to reach. I was in my glory, and I came off the stage with some new friends and some uplifting compliments about my writing skills. For decades I have been writing in a vacuum, and have played to open mic audiences who are, for the most part, not listening so much as waiting for their turn on stage. Since I moved up here, I have found a vast community of very talented musicians and songwriters who are at once generous, humble, and extremely encouraging. And they actually listen. I have seen very little of the corrosive egoism that plagues many successful artists. I have learned that for every famous musician, there are a thousand unrecognized artists who deserve to be. I know there are these music communities in every town, big or small; I have simply never tapped into one before. Most of my friends and family do not really understand how important songwriting is to me. It’s like an inexplicable little aberration in my being. A little like turret's of the soul, I blurt out these songs, these little whistle stops on my long train ride, and in some ways the songs define me. It is perhaps the one thing I think I do well, and having the opportunity to find an outlet for my creativity has brought me some degree of contentment.

During the four hours I listened to the jams at The Barn, outside it poured torrentially for most of the night. What was a long, muddy, uphill driveway when I drove in was now quicksand. I texted Shauna to inform her that I was heading home, but as I walked toward my car, precariously parked on the side of the drive, I noticed some guys walking up the hill. They told me we needed to get some people together to free a cab. It had become stuck coming up the drive to pick up a couple of inebriated attendees, and it was stuck in the middle of the drive, blocking access or egress. You can imagine what happened next: six or seven drunk guys attempted to push the cab out of the mud, but only succeeded in getting mud-soaked and miring the cab deeper into the muck. A tow truck was called, and I assumed this would  be just a minor delay. I sat in my car as guests stumbled by to pee in the woods, and after about an hour I walked down the drive to find out why I could still see the lights of the cab, and why it had not yet been pulled out. There at the bottom of the hill was the tow truck, halfway up his wheels in mud, also stuck. I got that sinking feeling inside that I might be sleeping in my car that night.  An hour or so more passed, and miraculously, the tow truck guy got himself unstuck and managed to free the cab as well. I begged the tow guy not to leave, until he saw me get out safely. My MDX has all-wheel drive, and with some difficulty, I managed to back down the drive, slowly, avoiding the minefield of soft spots. I made it out, but just try backing down a winding driveway, full of muddy soft spots, in pitch black rain, and you will understand how this might have been a little nerve racking. I doubt anyone made it down in 2-wheel drive. 

The end of the story is that I got home around 4:30AM, a little frazzled, but energized from meeting and listening to a bunch of crazy musicians. Music is probably the one thing in my life that exposes me to a little chaos into my comfortable little world. Saturday night was just such a night. 

-   Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2014 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED