The Oppenheimer Report - 11/27/17

As winter slowly descends upon us here in the Almaguin Highlands, there is the usual scramble to finish all the outdoor chores that cannot be done in subzero weather. One of the Murphys Law things that happened this season, probably as a result of rising water tables from the copious amounts of rain we’ve had, is that our outside drainage has become blocked. While I clean out our receivers on a semi-regular basis, of late I’ve noticed our sump pump has been running more than usual. My jack-of-all-trades friend Buck was over for some unrelated issue and, when I told him that the sump pump he’d installed was going full tilt, he immediately inspected our outside perimeter drainage outlets. Clearly there is some kind of blockage, either above us or below us, because the water from two different culverts is coming out at a slow trickle. As the temperature plummets and the snow begins to fly, this is hardly propitious timing for a drainage problem. Last weekend, when the weather was somewhat milder, I ran a pump from the lake and reamed out the lower section of the drain, and while quite a lot of mud and debris came out of the line, the blockage is still not cleared. I’m hoping the sump will get us through the winter, because I’m not sure we can unblock the perimeter drains before next spring arrives. Ya gotta love Country livin’.

On the music front, I am proud to say that a week ago last Friday, a song I penned, The Deeper I Go Into Blue, reached the #1 spot in the Hunters Bay Radio Top 20 chart. Sung by my friend, singer/songwriter Paul Lagendyk, and produced by the well-known and much-respected Andre Wahl, this song is one of the oldest in my repertoire, and one that I am proud to have written. I have written quite a lot of songs over the past 4 decades, and up until a few years ago, it was only I who performed them. Not until we moved up here to the Almaguin Highlands did my songwriting receive any attention (thanks in large part to Hunters Bay Radio), and it has been my extreme pleasure to now hear some of the talented artists in this community cover them. Local artists like Juan Barbosa, Paul Lagendyke, Jamie Clarke, and hopefully many others over the next year have translated my songs beautifully, and better than I’d ever imagined they’d be covered. As I said during my HBR Live Drive performance last Thursday night with excellent host “Silver Lake” Joe Thompson, it’s heady stuff to hear one’s songs performed so competently.  

While I am diligently working to properly record some of my older songs, I have also been writing some new songs, and am presently recording with two local producers. First, I have just laid down bed tracks with Juan Barbosa for a song entitled New Constitution. Thematically it is, like many of my new songs, a cautionary statement about the ship of state. News of the ever-increasing list of sexual harassment scandals among public figures, along with the ongoing war between Donald Trump and the rest of the world (with the possible exception of Alabama), the propensity for history to repeat itself (Myanmar, Egypt, Las Vegas, Iraq, Sutherland Springs, Texas, etc., etc.), has made it harder and harder to ignore the troubled state of mankind. Of course, the trick is to write about politics and morality, while not sounding too preachy, and I often cross the line there. I think New Constitution is less preachy and perhaps a little more about the way many of us are feeling lately. Another new song, entitled Grampy’s House, which I will be recording with singer/songwriter Sean Cotton, is about looking back at my innocent youth through the eyes of a jaded adult. From the preliminary test recordings of the song, I am very excited about this one. As the American Thanksgiving was celebrated last Thursday, I am thankful for many things, and one of them is the serendipity that placed me in such a rich musical community.

- Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2017 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report - 11/20/17

The subject of today’s discussion is garbage. The other day, my mom-in-law E.T. called me, somewhat amused, and she told me that she had seen an article she felt was newsworthy for the Oppenheimer report. It involved a story reported in The National Post about 2500 tons of garbage, in 103 shipping containers, which had been mistakenly shipped from Vancouver, B.C. to the Philippines. Ontario’s Chronic Inc., a Canadian plastics recycling firm, is being blamed for the “mistake”, but is denying the charges. Clearly someone screwed up, and it has become a diplomatic nightmare. For some reason that waste has been sitting in a port in Manila since it was delivered, four years ago. Asked about the situation while he was in Manila recently.PM Justin Trudeau reassured Philippines President Duterte that the matter is under consideration and that Canada will “hopefully” find a solution. Justin is batting 0 with Duterte after publicly dissing him over alleged human rights violations. This is apparently not the first time garbage from another country has been “dumped” on the Philippines; Japan has apparently been guilty of a similar crime. It is illegal for a developed country to ship its waste to a developing nation.

Years ago, I heard an interview with CBC anchor Peter Mansbridge, wherein he told the interviewer that he regularly takes his own garbage to the dump. If I recall correctly, he said it kept him grounded, and he wanted to acknowledge how much garbage he was generating. I take our garbage to the Burk’s Falls Dump, partly for the same reason, and partly because garbage collection is not a viable option for us. While there are private services which will remove garbage from private residences near us, they will only do so from the curbside. If I am going to assemble all my garbage and recycling, and drive it to the top of our 500-meter-long drive, I might as well take it the extra three miles to the dump. Besides, I’ve become friendly with the staff there. Some of my more interesting conversations happen at the Burk’s Falls dump.

When I first started going to the Burk’s Falls Landfill Site, back in 1994, the profile of the landscape was quite different. In the past 25 years or so it is remarkable how much things have changed. Recycling restrictions have changed considerably in that time, and we have, for the past ten years or so, been composting our organic waste at home. I try to keep most of that stuff out of the landfill. I often joke that Shauna and I have the carbon footprint of Sasquatch, and in fact we have been very wasteful. One thing I can say about taking one’s own garbage to the dump is that it makes one more mindful of just how much waste we generate. I see how fast the landfill mound is building, and as the local population continues to grow, that mound is likely to be a mountain soon. I used to stop in the supermarket before my radio show and pick up a pre-packaged sandwich to eat while I was broadcasting, but I rarely do that anymore. Everything comes packaged in a plastic container. We have a Tassimo coffee machine, which uses plastic coffee pods (which are almost impossible to recycle). I have always wondered why, like Keurig, Tassimo does not offer a compostable pod. I just heard on the news that those plastic pods will soon be outlawed here, in favor of compostable pods. 

Cynic that I am, I doubt my little attempt to reduce our waste is going to make much difference, and certainly will not reverse the trend of developing (and growing) Third World nations to disregard our stressed planet. I believe that the horse is out of the barn and barking up the wrong tree with both oars out of the water. I suspect Mother Nature will have the last laugh, but at least I can say I was on deck when the ship went down.   

 - Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2017 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 11/13/17

Uncle Morry with (I believe) my late
sister Joanne

Because it was Remembrance Day last Saturday, I’d put out another Facebook request for war songs to feature in last Thursday night’s Lyrical Workers show. The response was, once again, overwhelming. As with the Halloween show, I learned about some great songs that I’d never before heard. Some of these war songs were quite dark, dealing with post-traumatic stress and the general hell which is war. Last year about this time – and I can’t believe a year has passed since I wrote the report – I spoke of a friend of mine named Richard, who was a Viet Nam vet. A musician friend suggested I write a song about this vet, and that will be one of my projects for the new year.

Years ago, when Shauna’s dad was at Sunnybrook Hospital, I began writing a song about his roommate on the stroke ward. Her name was Juanita, and she was obviously a very sick woman. I remember her screaming a lot, and she was clearly in emotional and physical distress. From time to time she would settle down, and we sometimes spoke during her calmer moments. She’d come from the Caribbean islands, she was herself a nurse (cruel irony), and she seemed to be quite religious. That whole Sunnybrook stroke ward experience was enlightening, to say the least, and I met a lot of interesting people that I might not have otherwise met. In fact, the experience was in large part the impetus for my decision to quit drinking. If you’ve ever been on a ward full of stroke victims, you will know it is a special kind of hell on earth, both for the patients and for their families. Exhausted one night, I remember taking a break in one of the sitting areas on the ward, not far from Dad Taylor’s room, and Juanita was having one of her waking nightmares. I could hear her angry voice from 50 yards away. It was late summer I believe, and the weather was ripe for a powerful thunderstorm. It had been oppressively hot and humid all day, and now the sun was finally going down. The sky was a weird shade of pink, bordering on orange/yellow, and there was an eerie stillness to the dusk. As I looked out the window, I had the strong feeling that something bad was about to happen. While nothing did, the seeds of a song were planted in my head at that moment, and I wrote down the following lyric: “Juanita, this wasn’t what you had planned/ Broken promises from your promised land/ Jaunita you’re doing the best that you can/ But you’re already blowing in the coming wind.” The other day I finished a ninth draft of that song, four years after its inception, and I think it’s finally nearing completion. I suppose I needed some distance from the experience to dilute the overbearingly personal nature of the song.

Back to Richard, the Viet Nam vet; he was another scarred individual. By getting to know him, I came about as close as I ever had to comprehending the bad things war could do to a person. I read a book years ago, written by news anchor Tom Brokaw, about the “Greatest Generation” of WW II vets, and it seemed as if those veterans were generally stoics about their experiences. At my real estate office in Buffalo, there was a partner who had been a paratrooper during WW II, and I think he was emotionally affected by his wartime experience. Richard was a different kind of screwed up though, and I suspect that it matters whether the cause for the war is clearly just. In World War II, the allies were fighting Hitler and the Nazis. I don’t know that the endgame in Viet Nam was as clear, and I suspect that many of the vets who fought in that war were as confused as I was. I worry about history repeating itself, as it often does.  

As a songwriter, I sometimes have no real understanding of the subject matter about which I am writing. I am an observer, and sometimes all I can do is tell the story of my experience, as clearly and succinctly as I can. Many of my songs are not written to be played to an audience. They may be the stepping stones to more universal songs, songs that might resonate with a larger audience. I write in hopes that one day I might pen that song.

- Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2017 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report - 11/6/17

Bad news out of  Southerland Springs, Texas, where another mass shooting has dominated the headlines stateside. Same old song and dance in a video tape loop: how did we not see this coming, how could this man have procured an automatic weapon when he had a history of violence; how did authorities not see the red flags? I'm not worried about Islamic terrorism; religious fanaticism is nothing new, and it spans all denominations by the way (anybody remember the Crusades?). I'm much more worried about the mentally ill ticking time bombs living among us who were born and raised here. Guns are certainly a disturbing symptom, but when you take away the guns, you still have the disease. How do we treat the disease? That's it for today's rant.

To follow is an early attempt at humour.  It's one of several soap opera spoofs I wrote back in the nineties as a writing exercise. Kinda silly, but maybe that is what is needed on this grey Monday full of bad news...

THE BALD AND THE BULIMIC ...

When Tricia finds Marissa’s monogrammed lighter in the pocket of Egbert’s bathrobe, she feels her worst fears are verified. In a jealous rage, she attacks him with an electric nail gun, pinning his genitalia to the frame of their bed, before he is able to explain that he had only borrowed the lighter from Sergei, who picked it up when he was seduced by Marissa at a “Save The Whales For Last” fundraising event several days earlier. Tricia’s unwarranted jealousy will cost her the child she always dreamed of having with Egbert. Egbert is left with one testicle and a falsetto voice.

Suzanne plots to murder Franca, whom she mistakenly believes caused her sister’s miscarriage when she served her sister bad tuna, by persuading Tony, the stuttering garage mechanic (who has a crush on her), to tamper with the brakes on Franca’s car. But, when Tony accidentally tampers with the wrong brakes, it is Judge Wilson whose car spins out of control, killing him instantly. Since it was Judge Wilson who was expected to rule favorably in Suzanne’s bitter custody battle for her little girl Trixie, fate deals Suzanne a cruel blow. The Judge who replaces Wilson is Jose Carlotta, the brother of Juanita, the abused and underpaid domestic of Suzanne’s evil mother Zelda. Judge Carlotta hates Suzanne’s family and might rule unfavorably because of this.

Meanwhile, little Tommy, the homeless urchin, who was taken in by the benevolent, rich, and powerful Thompson McCRea, after he was caught trying to hotwire McCrea’s Rolls Royce, accidentally electrocutes McCrea’s price race horse by dropping an electric mane trimmer into the horse’s watering trough while the horse is drinking. Fearing McCrea will finally disown him if he finds out, Tommy and his friend Lester, the cretin stable groom, attempt to dismember and incinerate the horse. This proves more difficult than he’d anticipated, and the boys leave behind several incriminating clues. Will McCrea discover the horseshoe encrusted with the remains of a charred hoof?

Finally, when Pansy is killed suddenly in a furnace explosion at her beauty parlor, she is revealed to be a designated organ donor, and her heart, still intact, proves to be a perfect match for the needs of Wanda, the church organist, who is on her deathbed suffering from congestive heart disease. But Wanda, too weak until now to prove that it was Desmond, not Phillip, who bilked the church out of a fortune in Bingo profits, could be in a position to ruin Desmond’s life, if she is healthy enough to testify. Desmond happens to be the paramedic charged with delivering the donor heart to Our Lady Of Perpetual Motion  Hospital, where the transplant is to take place. Does he know what she knows? Will he heed the warnings given to him by that gypsy woman who read his palms at the state fair? Tune in tomorrow.