The Oppenheimer Report - 12/26/16

Jacob Kriger is a young man who works at the Hunters Bay Radio station, and on top of hosting and teching much of the daytime programming at Hunters Bay Radio, he produces some very creative audio and video promotions for the station. Last Monday, I was called last minute to volunteer for radio bingo. As a joke, and because I knew it would make Jake laugh, I wore Shauna’s pink “Big Brother Canada” onesy to the station. I told everybody I had already changed in to my jammies when I answered the call to volunteer. If you’ve never heard of onesies, they are the one piece pajamas with feet that some of us wore as children, and they are very cozy. I think they are making a comeback among adults. I remember laughing when I saw rock star Gene Simmons wearing a onesy on his short-lived reality TV show Family Jewels. Anyhow, when I arrived at the station, in my pink onesy, Jake was in the process of creating a video for tonight’s special $4000 jackpot bingo giveaway. It did not occur to me that Jake might be filming me in my pink getup, but when I saw the finished video on the Hunters Bay Radio Facebook page the other day, there I was, in all my pink splendor. Another man might have been humiliated, but I have no shame. We have a lot of fun at that radio station.

As we approach the New Year, of course I am as worried about the future of mankind as the next man. Everything seems to be regressing; race relations, politics, religion. I can’t believe a woman’s right to have an abortion is again up for debate in America! I’ve got to stop watching the news, because the general message is that the world is coming apart at the seams. Most recently, and leading up to Christmas, there was the assassination of the Russian ambassador to Turkey by a Syrian terrorist. I woke up to that bad news and was astonished to see the murder video broadcast on CNN. Shortly thereafter, on December 19^th, there was the terrorist attack in Berlin that killed 11 people and injured over 50 others. Anis Amri, a 23 year-old Tunisian man and ISIS sympathizer, drove a hijacked truck into a Christmas market full of people in Berlin, escaped after the attack, and was later apprehended and killed. I watched an interesting segment on CNN called “What They Hate Us” about the Muslim extremists. I think hatred is self-propagating, but so is love. How do we combat ignorance and fear? Focus on the heroes I guess. They may not make the headlines but they are the best antidote to hatred. In that Berlin attack, there is evidence to suggest that the hijacked truck driver tried to grab the steering wheel from his hijacker before he was killed. During the 9-11 attacks the courageous passengers on Flight 93 fought back and kept the terrorists from hitting their designated target in Washington, D.C. That heroic action probably saved a lot of lives. There are a lot of good people in the world, we just don't hear much about them.     

I will leave it to the pundits and the newscasters to pass judgment on the notable events of 2016 but let it suffice to say this was not a banner year for good news.  I suppose it has always been this way; the press reports that the sky is falling, and the world keeps spinning on its axis regardless. While I worry about the future, the fact is that I rely too much upon our leaders to fix our problems. I will usher in 2017 as I have the last few years, quietly at home watching TV with my wife Shauna. At midnight we’ll give each other the first kiss of the New Year, hug each other, and hope for peace and prosperity in the world. And I will make the same New Years resolution this year that I made last year, and the year before that:  to be a better person. Happy New Year to my twelve loyal readers!   

“When I look in the mirror, I see a broken plan

I see the aimless wandering, I see a selfish man

And I ask myself, how can I begin to make this better?”   

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2016 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED      

The Oppenheimer Report 12/19/16

Saturday afternoon, I listened to Tony’s Rockin’ Shindig on our local radio station. Tony Clement is our local Member of Parliament here in the Muskoka region, and he hosts his show one Saturday of each month. He’s probably the most high profile radio host we have at the station, as he’s in on television quite a lot, commenting about the latest political issues in Ottawa. Tony takes the time to research his artists, and his show, which focuses on rock ‘n roll, is always interesting and informative. In last week’s show he featured offbeat Christmas songs, and he played a lot of songs I’d never before heard. In this past week, I’ve heard a lot of interesting Christmas songs on “The Bay” (a/k/a Hunters Bay Radio); songs which I’d never heard before. I prefer the darker Christmas songs, and I listened to one the other day that I liked enough to feature in my own Lyrical Workers show. The song is entitled “Christmas Is Upon Us”, by a Massachusetts punk rock band called The Dropkick Murphys. It’s about the dysfunction of Christmas family gatherings, and it made me laugh. In my show last week, I played “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer” performed by Elmo Shropshire and his then wife Patsy, a/k/a Elmo and Patsy. Written by Elmo’s friend Randy Brooks, the song has been a favorite of mine since it was released in 1979.

Last Friday night, I performed five of my original songs at the Burk’s Falls Legion during the monthly 3^rd Friday Coffee House. In that performance, to about 60 or 70 people, I played one of my dark Christmas songs, “Merry Christmas To Me”, and that was the first time I have ever played that song in public. Somewhat autobiographical, the song refers to an experience I had as a teen, wherein my cousin, my best friend, and I hitched to downtown Buffalo to go to a party hosted by a notorious local pot dealer. It was Christmas Eve, and we were picked up by two guys, dressed up as Santa and an elf, driving a very beat up red Ford Van. We were probably somewhat intoxicated, but Santa and the elf decidedly had us beat. Santa was drinking Jack Daniels out of the bottle, and both he and the elf were smoking a joint. Keep in mind, this was the Seventies, and around the holiday season I’ll wager that half of Buffalo was driving around intoxicated. There’s actually an internet meme about the unique ability of Western New Yorkers to drive drunk in snowstorms. At sixteen or seventeen, my ability to make wise decisions had not yet even begun to develop and, happy to be out of the cold, we hopped into the van without a second thought. I don’t remember much about the ride downtown, although we were riding in a dilapidated, rear wheel drive van, with no shocks, in a snowstorm, with a very drunk and stoned driver dressed up like St. Nick.  We made it to the party unscathed, and there I remember drinking a lot of really crappy pink wine. Back in the 70’s, Pink Catawba wine from some Upstate New York State winery was a popular cheap wine in Western New York.  Along the lines of Mad Dog 20/20, or Ripple, or Boone’s Farm, Pink Catawba was sweet, rotgut swill that tasted a bit like ginger ale. In keeping with my severely under-developed ability to make wise decisions, I guzzled about five or six big glasses of Pink Catawba rotgut, and probably drove the porcelain bus at some point in the evening. Another thing I remember about that night - and keep in mind I had only recently been exposed to marijuana - was that someone was walking around with a salad bowl full of joints, passing them out to guests like hors d’ouevres. As a sixteen year-old kid, I had never seen so much weed in one place. In the song, which I probably wrote in my mid-30s, I took poetic license and embellished the story for effect. The subject of the song was a loser adult (not like me!), Santa and the elf were drunk, stoned, and high on hallucinogenic drugs, and the story ends with the loser staggering around in the snow at 3AM “wondering where the hell to call home.” While many of my songs include kernel of personal experience; the trick is to make the message universal. I also played another original song during that Burk’s Falls performance, which I have only just completed. It’s about an old friend of mine who had at one point in his life had ended up in prison due to drug addiction. I recently heard from him, now clean and sober for sixteen years, and he seems to have put his life back on track. “Old friends are the hardest to deny/Because Old friends know the secrets that we hide.”

If you plan to imbibe this holiday season, and many of you will, let a designated driver or a cab be your ride home. May your holidays be blessed with peace, good health and, of course, good music!

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2016 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 12/12/16

Everybody has at least one recipe they can call their own, something no one else knows how to make as well as they do. For some people it’s scrambled eggs, for others it’s a secret barbecue sauce. For my father it was boiled water. My mother had a potato salad recipe handed down from her mother, and it is the best I’ve ever tasted. My wife Shauna makes a chicken dish she claims was sent to her telepathically by her deceased grandmother, and I love that dish. I suppose I could learn how to make some of these special recipes, but that would spoil the mystery. Somehow it never tastes the same when it isn’t made by the original cook/baker. I prefer to have it served to me and to live with the illusion that no one save for the original cook could make it just the same.

My claim to fame is granola. I’ve been making granola for at least 30 years and I think I’ve finally perfected it. The trick is in the oven temperature. You might say granola isn't a big deal! Let me tell you something; the older I get, the more obsessed I become with my lower intestine. I’m a regular guy, and I have become increasingly concerned with insuring I stay that way.  Cereal with lots of oats and fiber-rich grains keeps the plumbing clear. I’ve spent a little more time with geriatric nurses than I care to admit, and one of many the things I learned is that keeping the pipes clean is fundamental to good health. Believe it or not, bowel obstruction is a common cause of death in nursing homes.

Last summer, I went to one of the snootier boutique food stores in Huntsville, the one that caters to all the wealthy “citiot” cottagers who come up from Toronto. After I bought my over-priced apple, I browsed the aisles to peruse the fancy over-priced foods available for sale, and I began to experience sticker shock! A rather small bag of “homemade” (whose home, by the way?) pasta was $7.99, but the thing that really floored me were the granola prices. I half-considered buying a small bag of snooty store granola that looked enticing, until I saw the price. A very small bag was close to ten bucks! On principle (read, I’m way too cheap), I did not buy it. I read the ingredients on the back of the package, figuring maybe there was some remarkably expensive nut or berry that could justify the high price, but in fact, it was simply over-priced granola. If you’re going to charge ten bucks for a bag of granola, give me more than four helpings!  Even with expensive nuts (I put cashews and almonds in my granola) and honey, I can make the equivalent of ten cereal boxes of granola for under twenty bucks.

There was a story on the news the other night about the rising cost of food in Canada, and the growing pressure on Canadian food banks. There is speculation that the imminent leadership change in America may not bode well for the future cost of food produced in the States. If Rump runs all the illegal immigrants out of America, some wonder who will harvest the crops? I don’t think Rump will do what he so adamantly proclaimed he would. He’s backed off a lot of his other campaign vows and there’s no reason to suggest he will abide by this one. Still, if he does, how will that impact the economy? Right now in Huntsville there are numerous holiday drives going on to fill the larders of local food banks. Shauna and I make a generous annual contribution to the local food bank, and in general I have begun to redirect my charitable contributions to local charities. I’m beginning to realize that my contributions made to local charities are far more likely to be efficiently used than my contributions to bigger charities, the ones that send out four direct mail requests per year and spend countless millions sending out pens, calendars, and return address stickers.

Does anyone else find it ironic that we live in a time when we can video conference with people across the globe on a cell phone, but we are destroying our drinking water and our food supply is dwindling. Granola for ten bucks a bag. Jeesh.

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2016 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 12/5/16

This morning, I heard on the radio that some experts in the field of aeronautics are warning that unmanned drones may become a potential terrorist threat. I guess it stands to reason that if we are using drones to fire missiles at terrorist targets, that perhaps they might consider fighting fire with fire. Drone technology is readily available to the general public; I’ve seen them advertised at the local electronics store. Years ago, I’d commented in one of these reports that I was concerned someone might use drone technology to launch an assault on North American soil. Imagine an unmanned drone flying over a Superbowl stadium, or perhaps the Macy’s Day Parade, or the ball drop in Times Square, and the havoc that it could wreak. How do we defend against these things if they become a part of our daily routine? The other day there were two stories in the news about drones. One suggested that an unmanned drone may have forced a commercial aircraft to take evasive action, and the other reported that Amazon.com is considering using drones to deliver packages. I don’t look forward to the day when the sky is littered with those things buzzing around.

I watched part of a movie the other day called Eye In The Sky, starring Helen Mirren and the late Alan Rickman, and it dealt with the complicated issues surrounding the rules of military engagement for drone attacks. Collateral damage is of course the major concern, and as accurate as some of these attacks may be, there is usually collateral damage. My first reaction, when I turned the movie on, was that I wasn’t interested in seeing another movie about war, but this one captured my interest. What amazed me most was the depiction of the state of the art surveillance technology currently available. In the movie, there were two spy drones used, one was in the shape of a small bird and the other looked like a beetle. I don’t know if these devices exist in the real world, but the remote controlled beetle employed nanotechnology and was small enough to avoid detection. In one scene, the operator flew the beetle into a house to spy on terrorists. It gives new meaning to the expression “big brother is watching.”

After watching the movie, I was curious to consult the ever-reliable internet for information about drone attacks carried out by the U.S. By most accounts, President Obama has authorized more drone attacks than any other U.S president, and while the general understanding is that the use of drones saves lives, in fact what is not clear is the collateral damage. Depending on which spin doctor I consult the estimates range between 2% and 25%. The older I get the more out of touch I feel I am with what is going on in the world. I suppose I never really knew, but I used to believe what I heard on the news, and thus convinced myself I was informed. These days, with our President elect tweeting like a spoiled child, and the seeming fragmentation of the European Union, I am more apprehensive. War these days looks a little different than it did a few decades ago. Now, I’m going to be looking everywhere for hidden cameras.

For the past several months, I have been imploring people who listen to my radio show Lyrical Workers and to send me their song requests. Up until last week, the response has been weak. I’ve had the odd suggestions from friends and family, but not a lot of interest. This past week, I decided to post a photograph of Chuck Berry from my late brother-in-law’s photo collection, and with that photo I made another request for song suggestions. So far I’ve had eight requests and there are still four days until show time. I’ll be looking for bizarre Christmas songs as the day draws near. Final music notes:  Just received the mastered copies of two songs I recorded with producer/ singer/songwriter James Gray, and I am very pleased with the results. I think I will release them to Hunters Bay Radio soon, and hopefully they will broadcast them. As with all of my music, I haven’t really pushed it in the general marketplace. My feeling is that my music will simply get lost in the ever increasing pile of music no one has time to hear. For the time being, my CD is available at the HBR station, or through me. I am fortunate to have a songwriter-friendly radio station in my community, and I choose to give all the proceeds from the sale of the CD to Hunters Bay Radio. If there is any wider interest in my songs great, but for now, I am content if my music helps to shine a light on this great little radio station. This Thursday night, before my show, Christina Hutt, local singer/songwriter, has asked me to accompany her when she performs live on the radio from 6-7pm. Then a week Friday, I’ll be playing the Burk’s Falls 3^rd Friday Coffee House. Woohoo, Nashville, here I come!

- Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2016 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED