The Oppenheimer Report 12/11/17

First it was Halloween, then Remembrance Day, and now I have put out my third Facebook request. This time it is for Christmas songs people want to hear. On December 21^st my Lyrical Workers show will air many of those requests, and I really like doing these all request shows. They tend to be a little more work, because I have to locate the songs, many with which I am unfamiliar, but it’s great fun to see some of the bizarre tunes people choose. So far, I have received about ten requests, and I’m sure the list will grow. For my Halloween show, there were sixty songs requested, many which I’d never heard before. I never cease to be amazed at the number of people who have an encyclopedic knowledge of music. I do not have that, about anything, and I have forgotten much of what I once knew. Especially some of my fellow songwriters and musicians seem to have a photographic memory of album and song writer details, as well as concerts they have attended. I never used to pay attention to the lyrics, and I am finding is that many of the songs I loved from the past were chorus-based, not particularly strong lyrically. I have come to respect good songwriting as I write more songs myself. I still like bad songs as well. This year, my addition to the Hunters Bay Radio database will be an album entitled Redneck Christmas Party, and there will be gems sprinkled into upcoming shows, like “Let’s Fry Up Alvin And The Chipmunks”.

Never a fan of Christmas myself, I know Christmas is a big deal for lots of people. I get that, and I liken it to the way I used to feel when the American Thanksgiving rolled around. This was a time when my family convened in Buffalo, and it was always an adventure in familial dysfunction. No matter how screwed up some of my family members are, it is important to exercise the increasingly atrophied muscle of tolerance and acceptance. I used to bite my lip every time Uncle Fred would ask me to “feel my butt, I've been doing exercises.” To this day, I’m not sure why a ninety-year-old man needs a firm butt, yet he was very proud of his. Aunt Ida would always bring up what big ears I had. Alcohol was of course the great lubricator, and it was not uncommon, in a fit of “thankfulness”, for someone at the Oppenheimer Thanksgiving feast to inappropriately French kiss a nonagenarian aunt, or to let everyone know about his or her bizarre sexual anomaly. I suspect I committed a few alcohol-related indiscretions myself. Al Franken would have fit right in. Roy Moore – not so much. We make amazing allowances for our family, don't we?

As a somewhat nihilistic Jew, to me the idealistic notion of Christmas as a time of generosity and goodwill seems a little far-fetched. Cynic that I am, I always gravitate to the scenarios that lampoon Christmas. I am reminded of the scene in that movie Trading Places, wherein a drunken Dan Akroyd, sitting on a crowded city bus, dressed like a disheveled Santa Claus, ravenously chows down on a giant whole salmon with only his hands. Another Christmas classic: Bad Santa with Billy Bob Thornton. I have my own personal reminiscences of the yin and the yang of Christmas  -  a guy dressed in a Santa suit, obviously pickled to the gills, peeing on a Toyota in the Galleria Mall parking lot in Cheektowaga, NY. I once saw a fistfight in Miami, Florida around the holidays, over a parking space in a crowded mall. Really, they should have Christmas cams in all the mall parking lots –  all the nonsense that takes place would make a funny movie. The simple fact is, it’s easy to see the hypocrisy in a holiday that focuses on goodwill, and I don’t like any holiday wherein the ever-widening disparity between the Haves and the Have-Nots is so glaringly apparent. I know lots of people who, rich and poor, celebrate Christmas for the right reasons. As I said, I’m Jewish; I have a black belt in guilt. As it becomes increasingly difficult to find the good side of human behavior, the trick is to become better at recognizing it, and of course, to become a more generous and tolerant person myself.

If you've got a bizarre Christmas song you'd like me to air in the December 21st show, let me know on Facebook or fire me off an email to jamieoppenheimersongwriter@gmail.com. Seasons Beatings!

 - Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2017 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED