Today is the Canadian Thanksgiving, and most of the cottagers on our
lake will now pull up their docks, drain the pipes, and head home until next
season. Within a week or so, this lake will be empty of its inhabitants, and I
love it up here when everyone goes home. A city boy most of my life, I have grown
to enjoy the solitude up here in the fall and winter. I can motor around on our
little lake in my dinghy without seeing another soul. One of my favorite pass times is to
putt around in the nearby Magnetawan River, with my voice recorder in hand,
reciting ideas for song lyrics and Oppenheimer Reports. “What’s up with adult
diapers … is our incontinence so severe that we really need to wear something
that will absorb a litre of Coke?” With no distractions, this is a perfect
atmosphere in which to create and write.
There was a commercial on television the other day that made me laugh, partly
because it was intended to be funny, but also because it made me think about
the competitive field of acting. In it, a woman in an office is plagued by some
kind of bowel disorder, personified by a skinny woman in a silly red wig, and wearing a beige unitard featuring a diagram of the human intestinal tract. The bowel
disorder follows the victim everywhere, preventing her from going about her normal
daily routine. I can just hear this young actress referencing this part in her
resume: “And I was the woman who played “diarrhea” in that bowel disorder
medication commercial.” Not every actor is offered the part of Macbeth, and I’m
sure that there are many actors who make a good living personifying sponge
towels, or nostril debris, or painful rectal itch in TV commercials. Still,
when you do make it big, won’t some of these jobs come back to haunt you? George Clooney got his big break in “Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes,” which
I suppose is marginally better than playing “diarrhea” in a bowel disorder
commercial. No matter how you slice it, show biz ain’t pretty.
I was amused to watch CNN’s coverage last Thursday night, as Hurricane
Matthew began to hammer the Florida coast and points north. When the hurricane
did not prove to be as newsworthy and devastatingly destructive as anticipated,
they moved on to the next roadkill: Donald Trump, pilloried for an
incriminating 12 year-old videotape, which conveniently surfaced shortly before
yesterday’s town hall debate in St Louis, Missouri. In the tape, Trump can be
heard making disturbing, vulgar, and predatory remarks about women, and
bragging about sexual assault. While many have complained about Trump’s
misogyny and sexual indiscretions before, this is the most outrageous recording
to come out to date. It was disgusting, but then I started to think about all
the insane drek this man has uttered so far, and I am astounded by his poll
numbers. He called the incriminating videotape “locker room banter” but I think
even his campaign manager must have done a double take when she heard this. Never
having shown him much support, the Republican Party has virtually abandoned him
now, and maybe that is a blessing for the Donald. If Trump wanted to upend the
political system and call attention to all the hypocrisy of the campaign process,
I think he has succeeded against all odds. Clearly, he has embarrassed the
Republican Party, as well as the biased media which so overtly spins his nonsense
in whatever direction they choose. He has managed to sway an embarrassingly large
number of Americans to follow him, and what does this say about the state of
the union? Are these people ALL stupid, or angry, or both? My worst nightmare
has finally happened: reality television has in fact become reality. How can we
pick better leaders, be more discriminating, when so many of us gravitate to
the lowest common denominator of human behavior?! What does it say about us, or
our faith in democracy, that as a nation we are prepared to vote in a bozo like
Trump, simply because we think he’s better than the status quo? Is Trump the
guy to fix our broken political system? I don’t think so.
Saturday was my 61st birthday, and it was a beautiful day.
Shauna, her 91 year-old mom, and I had a lovely dinner up in nearby Sundridge. I,
of course, ate too much. Today, on the Canadian Thanksgiving, I am reminded of
all my blessings, and am thankful for all the good friends and family I have
known over these many years. I remember fondly the family gatherings in Buffalo
during the American Thanksgiving, and in these strange times, I comfort myself with
the notion that the love by which I have been surrounded over these past 61
years will be enough to weather the growing storm around me. For now, I look
forward to one or two quiet fall days.
- Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2016 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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