The Oppenheimer Report 7/25/16

As I discussed in an earlier report, I tend to buy my vehicles new and keep them for a long time. We put about 200,000 Km on our 1997 Jeep Grand Cherokee, and then turned it in on a 2006 Acura MDX. Last week, we traded in the Acura for a 2016 Honda Pilot. These are similar cars, and they both feature the very reliable Honda 3.5 litre V6 motor, but the MDX was a “high performance” vehicle. This meant it required high test gas, something I won't miss. The Acura was a great car, especially in the heavy snow, but its time had come. Over the years, I have developed a sixth sense about when my cars are about to become very expensive to operate, and the MDX was approaching that stage. It was a relatively trouble free car for the ten years I owned it, but when the air-conditioning failed, that was a red flag. The car needed brakes, there were developing suspension problems, and the alternator, starter motor, radiator, etc. were likely to fail soon. I had briefly entertained the idea of repairing everything that was wrong or about to go wrong with the car, but then came to my senses. Some people advised me to sell the car on my own, because dealers never give us market value for our trade-ins. Years ago we did that with my mother-in-law’s car, an old Cadillac Seville that we mistakenly assumed was a valuable classic. We did ultimately sell the vehicle, but for only a fraction of what we thought it would fetch. Most of the potential buyers turned out to be flakes, or liars, or both. As well, the car had been sitting unused for a long time, and that is not good for any car. I vowed that I would never go through that experience again, if I could avoid it. The bozo who finally bought the car, for next to nothing, had the audacity to call my elderly mother-in-law up months later to say he felt he’d been ripped off, because the car needed a lot of work. We made no misrepresentations.Caveat emptor. I am reminded of a recent high profile news story about that guy in Hamilton, Ontario who was selling his pickup truck. He took two potential buyers out for a test drive and they murdered him in cold blood. The world is becoming a more dangerous place (just ask Donald Trump) and I don’t need to stack the deck by selling vehicles to strangers.

 

Sixteen years ago today, I penned a song entitled “Jordan” about an experience Shauna and I had, the day her 48 year-old brother Jordan passed away. At the time, Jordan was living in Toronto with his parents while he underwent treatment for a brain tumor. We were rushing back from Banff because we’d received a phone call that he'd taken a turn for the worse, and we wanted to get home to say goodbye. We did our best to make it home in time, and as we approached the outskirts of Winnipeg, in the early morning hours, there was a terrific storm. I’d never seen so much lightning. The sky was lit up almost constantly with strange, horizontal lightning bolts cracking the heavily clouded sky. Shauna was filming the spectacle on a Sony Handycam videotape recorder - the kind with a flip out screen for viewing - and during one flash of lightning she looked at me, as pale as a ghost, and told me she had seen Jordan clearly on the screen of the video camera. He seemed to be dancing in the clouds. Of course there was no evidence of this on the recording, but I know my wife, and I believe she saw what she saw. When we arrived at our hotel in Winnipeg, the clock in our room was flashing 5:16AM. A smoke alarm went off in the room, which was strangely coincidental, and we had the eerie feeling that these were all signs that he was gone. Sure enough, we learned several hours later that Jordan had passed away in the early morning, and although no one was in the room with him at the moment he passed, we could narrow the time down to between 5:15 and 5:30AM. When we finally got back to our apartment in Toronto, all the clocks in the apartment were blinking 5:16AM. How strange is that?

Next Sunday, weather permitting, I will play a set of my songs at the nearby Kearney Regatta. I have some new songs I want to try out on an audience, but as well I will be playing some of my older songs. My songs are like journal entries, and they reflect my state of mind at time they were written. I think I might play “Jordan”. I don’t think I have ever played that song to a live audience.

“… In Regina we bought those tee shirts, and it gave us both a laugh/ As we travel these roads you’re everywhere, your humor will ever last/ Some people say they saw you, you were dancing in the clouds/ Who knows where the illusion ends when the spirit cries out loud …”

 

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2016 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED    

The Oppenheimer Report 7/18/16

While the angst-ridden worry wort in me wants to talk about the latest terrorist atrocity in Nice, France, which followed the terrorist attacks in Atlanta, Orlando, Belgium, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc., I believe the twenty-four seven news outlets have fairly well exhausted those stories. I wonder sometimes if the news was any less atrocious fifty years ago, when we did not have all this “information” at our fingertips. No wonder I bury my head in the sand with a good book, or really bad reality television.

The other day, I found myself in Huntsville on a Wednesday evening, because Shauna’s beloved Blackberry Bold cell phone had finally given up the ghost. I don’t know what it is about Blackberrys, but some people become very attached to them. Personally, I don’t get it. We were scrambling to upgrade her to a similar phone, which was soon to be discontinued, and doing so proved to be a challenge. Her cell phone plan had to be changed,  data transfer was complicated by upgraded software conflicts, and it was, in short, a silly day of you-can’t get there from here tech issues. After five or six hours of nonsense, and at least one employee at Bell who did not do his job (preceeded by three hours Shauna had spent on the phone with Bell), at 9PM, I left the store in Huntsville, new phone in hand. I was fit to be tied. I’m rarely in Huntsville on Wednesday nights, but  when I am, I like to go to Sean Cotton’s open mic at one of the waterfront bars. I arrived at the Pub on the Docks, hungry and stressed, and Sean immediately waved me over to his table. He was sitting with some mutual songwriter friends, and we began to jaw about music. What had begun as an aggravating day turned into an enjoyable night. I even got up and played a few of my originals with Sean’s expert accompaniment. While I don’t particularly like hanging out in bars anymore, the music is my inebriation.   

 

While at this open mic, I bumped into my friend Jacob Kriger, a young man who recently joined the Hunters Bay Radio staff. Jacob has taken on many of the responsibilities previously handled by the late James Carroll, and he’s been doing a great job so far. Recently, I discovered that Jake is an aspiring songwriter, and a few weeks ago, I made a rough recording of several of his original songs. We began to talk about the difficulties in becoming a recognized songwriter, which eventually led to a discussion about compromise. Do we sell out when we play cover tunes, or when we draw from earlier influences to try to please the audience? Jacob worries about finding that balance between what is original, or what is simply derivative. I think this is a common concern among artists. I am almost forty years Jacob’s senior, but I wrestled with the same questions when I was in my twenties. My contention is that a true artist brings his or her own unique take to any and all the music that came before him or her. I know my songs are derivative of everything I have heard and all the music I appreciate. There is nothing new under the sun, no matter how much we may think we have re-invented the wheel. It has all been said, but we can add something to the discussion.

Have you heard about the new Pokeman Go application people are loading onto their cell phones? It involves some kind of interactive game wherein the player uses the GPS on his or her phone to “capture” various targets based on their location, and in so doing scores points. The problem is, this is becoming yet another way people become distracted by their phones when they should be paying attention to something else. Already there have been reports of car accidents, robberies, and the clincher … two men in California who walked off a cliff and presumably fell to their deaths, because they were so distracted by the game. No doubt those two geniuses will be new candidates for the Darwin Awards. I believe the new Sodom has less to do with moral weakness and more to do with stupidity. I am as guilty as the next bonehead of becoming distracted by my phone, but don’t you think maybe things are getting out of control!? Our brains are being re-programmed. Perhaps this is why Trump is a front runner for President of the United States. Just sayin’.

 

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2016 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED    

The Oppenheimer Report 7/11/16

The other night on my Lyrical Workers radio show, I played a song I’d first heard on the Dr. Demento show over 25 years ago. By a British group called The Piggies it is entitled  My Baby’s Got Rabies … “Not gonorrhea, syphilis or scabies / My Baby’s got rabies, she’s absolutely mad about me.” I love comedic songwriting, and I’ve even thrown my own hat into the ring from time to time. Tunes like How Come It Hurts When I Pee and, my all-time favorite, Swamp Queen, come to mind. I am seriously outranked when it comes to funny songwriting, and here are some of my favorites, in no particular order: Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah by Allan Sherman, The Lumberjack Song by Monty Python, Talk To My Lawyer by Chuck Brodsky, Don’t Eat The Yellow Snow by Frank Zappa, and Dance Ten Looks Three from the musical A Chorus Line,  to name but a few. I have a pretty good collection of novelty songs I can pull out when I need to wake my audience out of their approaching slumber.

The much-needed rain showed up late Friday, and it poured cats and dogs. Somewhere in the late afternoon we could hear a thunderstorm slowly rolling in, and it began to blow hard while I was down at the dock. When the lightning started I ran for cover, and within a few minutes there were branches flying through the air. We lost power for 24 hours and the storm washed out part of our driveway. Radar has been unpredictable with these storms, many of them pop-up thunderstorms which seem to appear from nowhere. Of late, it’s been feast or famine with the rain. One minute I’m pouring buckets of water on my new trees to keep them from dying in drought-like conditions, and the next, I’m figuring out who to call to fill and re-grade our washed out driveway.

Saturday morning, I volunteered (in a small way) to participate in the Huntsville Bathtub Derby. I’d never been to a bathtub race before. Towing my landscape trailer behind my car, I “paraded” the Hunters Bay Radio tub down the main street in Huntsville in a rather silly parade of tub floats. These tub races have been held on and off since around 1995, and they are a big draw. Various sponsors advertise a floating tub, and the pilots, navigating their outboard-powered tubs, compete in various elimination heats, battling for first prize. "Compete" might be the wrong word. Struggle precariously to stay afloat while ramming into each other might be a better way of putting it. An encouraging number sink. I think that’s why the event is so popular. Anyhow, we did the bare minimum to dress my trailer up like a float, tying a few helium-filled balloons to the trailer, and slapping on a few magnetic Hunters Bay Radio signs to the sides of my car. We then we transported the Hunters Bay Radio entry to its appointed race site, parading down Huntsville’s Main Street in the teeming rain. Despite the deluge, which lasted through almost the entire parade, over one thousand came out to watch the races. As I suggested, I think the draw was the potential for disaster. 

I recently read a book entitled Gumptionade, and written by my high school classmate Bob O’Connor. I am skeptical of self-help books, but thought I’d give my classmate a little support. I enjoyed the book, which was both humorous and instructive. Gumption, I learned, is about doing what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, and Bob uses examples of his own personal struggles to illustrate his points. A lot of it is common sense, but he gives the reader a road map for getting “unstuck”. He discusses the distinction between success and excellence, and suggests that success is often the product of timing, serendipity, and luck, while the pursuit of excellence is a more difficult but rewarding goal.One of my favorite lines in the book is "Be less wrong." I laughed a bit to myself, because a few weeks ago, I bought a new gas grill, unassembled. The box had been sitting on my porch for three weeks, but the task of getting rid of the old grill and assembling the new one just seemed daunting to me. Yesterday, I mustered some gumption and began the process. With the help of my neighbors I’ve moved the old grill, and will soon take it to the dump in the trailer, which is conveniently still attached to my car. It feels good to get this out of the way. Do I get a gold star?

 

Final note: my best friend’s black lab Sadie passed on last weekend, and she will be sorely missed. Sadie was a legend to all who knew her. To Bob and Laura, if you’re reading this, you were the best mom and dad a dog could hope to have.  

-Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2016 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report - 7/4/16

Banff 2005

As I begin to write this report on Canada Day, I am listening to the radio and Hunters Bay Radio is airing all thirteen Tragically Hip albums.  Regrettably, it is raining which is not great for outdoor events, but we need the rain up here. There has been a fire ban for weeks, and there was some question about whether or not the fireworks displays would be permitted.  

Last Monday’s dedication to James Carroll turned out to be a very positive and uplifting gathering. About forty or fifty of James’ friends gathered at the Hunters Bay Radio studio for the unveiling of the stone bench. Local stone mason Rudi Stade offered his services for free, Jim Allen and Donna Mathias from Huntsville Treasures and Trophies provided the engraved plaque, and Shauna and I paid for the materials. We also planted a sugar maple tree outside James’ office window on the east side of the building, and during the dedication, whoever was so inclined scattered some of his cremains around the roots of the tree. Many people who attended the dedication stood up in front of the group and shared a “Jimmy” anecdote. Earlier in the day there were signs that James was screwing with us. There were a few mysterious technical glitches at the radio station that day, and Shauna could not get the printer to print off a copy of the poem she’s written for the dedication. The weirdest thing involved Shauna’s car. Because we had Shauna’s 91 year-old mom with us, we decided to drive into town in Shauna’s car. The air conditioning does not work in my car. We got about five miles from home and her car started to lose power. At one point it began to free rev and would not move at all, and I was sure this was some kind of catastrophic transmission failure. Horrible timing! I was eventually able to get the car moving, very slowly, and with the flashers on, somehow, we managed to limp into Huntsville in time for the ceremony. It seems a little strange that the car would fail at that particular moment, when we were pressed to make it to James’ event. He was adamant about not wanting a funeral service, and while this was not really a service, perhaps he was messing with us. Of all the times for Shauna’s car to fail so completely, it seems strangely coincidental that it would happen when we were going to James’ bench dedication.

Activist, writer and human rights advocate Elie Wiesel died last weekend at the age of 87. A Holocaust survivor and champion of human dignity, the Nobel peace laureate wrote extensively about his survival at both Auschwitz and the Buchenwald concentration camps. He witnessed unspeakable atrocities, he watched his father starve to death, and he lost everyone in his family but his two sisters. Wiesel represented a voice for the six million Jews whom some still deny were exterminated by the Nazis, and he was a spokesman for justice regardless of race or creed. To me what is most remarkable about this man, is that his message is one of atonement, and forgiveness, not bitterness and hatred. We could all learn a lesson from this man.Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust memorial, is a reminder that we should never forget, but history continues to repeat itself. Cambodia and Rowanda are more recent reminders that evil is alive and well in the world, and while we concern ourselves with a relatively small group of crazy Islamic fundamentalist, there are much, much bigger evils in the world that seem to have been buried in the history books. I’d like to believe that in this age of information such atrocities are harder to forget, much less commit, but look who is running for President of the United States! Guys like Trump feed on the two worst characteristics of human beings: fear and ignorance. 

I watched a story on the news last week about Methylene blue, a relatively inexpensive drug that has been around for almost a century, and is widely used to treat blood disorders. Turns out that new research suggests it might improve brain function in stroke victims and Alzheimer’s sufferers. Give me more stories like this and less stories about why I should hate Muslims.

Speaking of the land of the free, and the melting pot of the world, Happy Fourth of July to all my friends stateside. I have fond memories of dangerous boating adventures to watch the fireworks display in Buffalo. Miss Liberty may be a little worse for wear, but she’s still standing. Here’s to freedom, and may we never lose it!          

 -Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2016 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED