The Oppenheimer Report 12/31/18 Happy New Year

My last post of 2018 … Happy New Year to my 12+ loyal readers! Though I have mentioned it many times before, it bears repeating every New Year. I began writing this report in January of 1992, as a resolution to write a page of my miscellaneous ramblings each Monday for one year.The report was my simple exercise in the discipline of writing consistently. I resolved to write, whether I felt inspired or not, about whatever sprung into my empty head that Monday. Sometimes it was about current events, or it might be a rant about the misbehavior of celebrities or professional athletes, or about the rising cost of corn flakes. Twenty-seven years later, here I am ushering in the infant 2019, and I’m still writing these weekly reports. At 63, my point of view hasn’t changed all that much; I still look at the world with bemused detachment, I still view all political and media information with skepticism, and I am still deplorably judgmental. On the rare occasion when someone asks me “Why don’t you write a book?”, I respond that I have, it just took me 27 years.

What a year it has been. I keep thinking I'm going to wake up from this bad dream and mankind will reset as a peaceful global community, nurtured by harmony and growth; you know, the utopia that so many of us imagine. How it ever got this crazy I will never know, but for those who are even remotely familiar with the crooked path of history, you have probably noticed that cruelty, ignorance, wretched excess, violence, and abominable behavior are nothing new for mankind. There are probably still as many good things happening in the world as there were 50 years ago, it’s just that now, in this golden age of too-much-information, we hear about every bad thing that happens. I sit here, dumbfounded about what to write for the last report of this unusual year. I suppose I’ll do what I always do and just wing it. Here are some off-the-cuff memories of 2018 …

Rump the Orange Emperor might have dominated the headlines with his ego-driven budge for center stage, but there were a lot of noteworthy events that occurred in 2018 which far outshine the Commander-In-Tweet. Destructive hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, wildfires, and now volcanos reminded us that Mother Nature is boss. While I think there is a growing realization that climate change is a real threat, I don’t see mankind dealing with it in any effective way. That horse is barking up the wrong tree and it didn’t look before it leaped. Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein, Charlie Rose, Les Moonves, and a laundry list of other powerful men, were all brought down by their mistreatment of women, and the resultant “Me Too” movement created a tsunami of cathartic female rage. It will be much harder going forward to assault a woman (or man) with impunity, especially if the one assaulting is a public figure. Sadly, racism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and hatred in general seem to be on the rise, likely fueled by leaders who legitimize their spread. History repeats itself, again and again, and it seems we as a species will never learn. Notable deaths: Anthony Bourdain, CNN host of one of my favorite shows, Anthony Bourdain:Parts Unknown, killed himself in a Paris hotel room. That shook me. I loved his show because it introduced me to exotic places all over the world and de-mystified foreign cultures. I enjoyed his irreverent narrative, and mistakenly presumed that he was an imperfect man who had prevailed over his demons. Clearly, he had not. Other notable deaths: former Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, Barbara and George HW Bush, Vern Troyer, Stephen Hawking, Aretha Franklin, Burt Reynolds, John McCain, Margo Kidder, Stan Lee (the founder of Marvel Comics), and Ray Sawyer (lead man in the band Dr.Hook & The Medicine Show). R.I.P. to one and all.

  

I remain cautiously optimistic about 2019 (because it hasn’t started yet!). My personal goals for the upcoming year: write ten good songs, continue to write this report for another year, and find great  new songs to present on my radio show in the coming year. Spread the music, give your love generously, and do your part to contribute to peace on earth!

Wishing you a Happy New Year, one and all!

The Oppenheimer Report - Christmas 2018

Merry Christmas to my twelve loyal readers! I did not feel the frenzied consumerism this year that I have felt in years past. That’s, a good thing, right? Christmas should be about family, and reunions, and selfless good deeds, and wretched excess followed by both hands on the “porcelain bus.” Funny, because last week, I posted a report from the distant past, wherein I decried the rise of materialism, and the uselessness of items like the Ronco food dehydrator. Twenty-one years later, not only do I own a food dehydrator, but I use it frequently. I draw the line at salad shooters though. Remember those things? And what ever happened to the “Flow-Bee”, those suck-n-cut vacuum hair cutters?

Last night, as is my Christmas tradition, I watched “It’s A Wonderful Life” for about the two hundredth time. I cry every time I see that movie, and every year I notice something new. My sister bought me a book about the filming of the movie, which I read with some interest and then proceeded to forget. It’s full of interesting facts about the cast and interesting anecdotes about production. For instance, H.B. Warner, the man who played Mr. Gower, got a bit tipsy to be “in character” for scene wherein he’s supposed to be drunk. Now that’s devotion to your art. Anyhow, tonight I was watching the movie, and somewhere near the end of George Bailey’s nightmarish epiphany, wherein he discovers what the world would have been like had he never been born, there is a scene that always makes me chuckle. George runs out of the bar after he confronts and terrifies the “old maid” Donna Reed, and Burt the cop starts shooting rather recklessly at him as he runs desperately down the street. Burt just shoots away, completely disregarding public safety, and people are ducking because they’re in the line of fire! Talk about bad police work; thank goodness there were no cell phones back then. So much of that film is probably considered offensive by today’s standards. The portrayal of the lovable Bailey family cook Annie is overtly racist. Alcoholism is, at least in Uncle Billy’s case, considered amusing and acceptable behavior. Talk about your Irish stereotype.

Every year around the holidays, there are photos and videos of houses lit up for the seasons, and every year the displays seem to get more elaborate. I heard a story on the news about one guy who was forced to shut his light show down because the controller which coordinated the lights and music was somehow interfering with air traffic controllers. Some of those LED displays are quite spectacular. Christmas lights are my favorite part of the season.

As we approach the New Year, of course the year-in-review shows have begun. Last Sunday, CNN’s Farred Zakaria featured “experts” debating the pros and cons of 2018. Are we headed for Armageddon, or is this The Golden Age? Right now, thanks in part to the Orange Emperor’s irresponsible use of social media, the stock market is tanking, the Federal Government has shut down, Defense Secretary General James Mattis, arguably the last adult in the room, has quit over differences with the bellicose Commander-In-Tweet, and natural disasters abound, the latest being a volcano-precipitated tsunami (who knew that was a thing?) that wiped out hundreds in Indonesia. In general, the world seems to be coming unhinged. Santa, if you’re listening, I have the same request as last year (and every year before that): peace on earth, a lot less hatred, and a little more love. Oh, yes, and could someone point me toward the truth? One last request: a fistful of itching powder sprinkled into Rump’s briefs just before his next self-serving public rally. To all my loyal readers, I hope you have a Merry Christmas today, and many more happy healthy ones to come. 

Ho,Ho,Ho! and don’t be one!

- Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2018 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 12/17/18

For anyone who has followed this report for a while, below is a report I wrote a little over 21 years ago (I started writing them weekly in 1992). Some of the dated references are interestig (i.e. the Canadian postal strike just before Christmas). I was a little grumpier back then. Usually we get grumpier as we age, go figure....

11/12/97 - It seems as if the Christmas season starts a little earlier every year, doesn’t it? No sooner has the Halloween candy been marked down than Christmas chaos kicks in. The elevator music shifts to “Silver Bells” and the elves aggressively pass out free pantyhose at the mall. Forget the day after Thanksgiving, the starting gun has sounded, and the premature spew of Xmas lunacy has begun in full force. Rudolph leaps across frosted store windows, candy canes adorn the artificial trees and, as Santa gleefully rides his Norelco shaver into this year’s red and green retail rodeo, we brace ourselves for another season of frenzied materialism. Ladies and gentlemen, start your credit cards, let the games begin. Since we’re jumping the gun on mirth and goodwill, the following are a few items you might want to add to your ever-growing list of obligatory gifts for the hopelessly unsatisfiable:

Can you go wrong with a Ronco food dehydrator? I watched the hour-long Ronco infomercial the other night (because I don’t HAVE a life), and I must admit, that Ron Popeil is one persuasive guy. I understand his dehydrator has been marked down drastically, and at a fraction of its true value, can you really afford NOT to buy one of these beauties? Do you have any idea what sun dried tomatoes cost these days? Ron does, although he doesn’t seem to know what his food dehydrators cost ... someone has to keep correcting him. “No, Ron, you pathetic cretin, they’re only $40 now,  last week they were $250.” If you already have enough dried food, you may want to consider the ever popular Veg-O-Matic, the Bagel Cutter, the Egg Scrambler (give me a break), the Sausage and Pasta Maker, the Pocket Fisherman ... to name but a few more of Ron’s “must have” items.

Barbie is experiencing a make-over, and your little girl (O.K. ... let’s not be gender specific ... whoever among your friends and family collects dolls) will definitely want the new and improved “Rad Barbie.” She’s a little lighter in the breast department, has a bigger waist, smaller thighs, shorter hair, and a new attitude.  They’ve wiped that big dopey smile off her face, and now she looks like she’s on medication. Perhaps she is. Ken turned out to be a two-timing adulterous embezzler, Skipper contracted AIDS from a dirty needle, and Midge, severely disfigured in a motorcycle accident, has become an embittered recluse. It’s been a rough year for Barbie, and it’s no stretch to assume that she might have had a little elective surgery to cheer herself up ... it’s the California version of buying a new hat.  By the way, for the little soldier in your platoon, may I suggest the new and contemporized  GI  Joe ... GI Paulo. He’s a little less macho, a little less bloodthirsty, but he’s much more sensitive. “Civie” ensembles sold separately.

Speaking of sensitive, talk show host Jerry Springer has a new video out, and I’m sure this one will be a hit. Entitled “Too Hot for T.V.,” this video contains all the out-takes of Springer’s show that were too racy for prime time.  If you want to watch a three hundred pound Amazon beat the crap out of her spineless, emaciated,  two-timing boyfriend (whom she recently caught screwing her mother, after he’d knocked her out with a date rape drug), or a fist fight between two lesbian devil worshipers with multiple body piercings, or the countless spontaneous exposures of genitalia by people whose genitalia you didn’t really need to see, this is the video for you ... check Aunt Bessie off your list, this one is a slam dunk.

Nothing says “I care” like a Weekly World News “Bat Child Escapes” headline tee shirt. The graphics are superb and the novelty can’t be beat. You can see the twinkle in his beady little bat eyes, and if you look closely, you can even see a hint of drool rolling off his pointy little canines. I bought one of these shirts for my friend Bob’s birthday, and I think he was impressed.  He probably thought I was going to get him something useless, like a book of Canadian postage stamps or something.  If bat children aren’t your cup of guano, there are several other astonishing and equally revolting headlines from which to choose.

In the news the other day, Saddam Insane was waving Anthrax and other chemical weapons around with the zeal of an Amway representative. Then, after he’d successfully hidden all his weapons of mass destruction, he agreed to allow the U.N. weapons inspectors back into Iraq. Stop this guy! I have no doubt he’s prepared to do something very evil - he already has, to his own people (ask the Kurds). Just a spoonful of Anthrax makes the enemy go down. What I want to know is, why hasn’t one of his own countrymen taken him out yet?  Oops, friendly fire accident ...  I thought the gun was jammed. Sorry!  Say hi to Allah for me.

There was a major slaughter of innocent tourists at the site of the Luxor Temple in Egypt last week. Ambushed as they got off buses in this, the southern end of ancient Thebes, seventy people were murdered. More than likely it was one of the more radical factions of the growing fundamentalist Islamic lobby in Egypt. Terrorism is always so unbelievably savage. The world was outraged ... this kind of thing couldn’t happen in the States, right?  And certainly not by one of our own citizens, right? Oklahoma was just an exception, right? Hmmm. This kind of incident is not going to help Egypt’s tourist trade one bit. As some of you may already know, there is a Canada-wide mail strike going on, just in time for the holidays. My reaction to this is to investigate alternative and more timely methods of paying bills and corresponding with friends. With the advent of electronic banking, virtual shopping malls, fax machines and E-mail, perhaps it’s time to reevaluate the need for a mail system that costs so much money and seems to be so inefficient. Canada Post gives new meaning to the term “snail mail”. Perhaps private delivery companies could handle all the heavy stuff, and if it costs a little more to send a package, we’d probably still save money in the long run. Eliminate the catalogues, save a bunch of trees in the process, and get all your information from cheap Internet access through your television.  Ads don’t have to be printed on paper ... imagine using your T.V. remote control to browse a catalogue.  I bought a book through the Barnes and Noble Web site a few weeks ago, and, other than the book, no paper changed hands. People worry about sending financial and personal information through a phone line, and that’s a justifiable concern. Security will become of increasing importance as the Internet catches on, but snail mail gets lost and stolen too.

I know that I am speaking blasphemy here, and if any disgruntled mailpersons read this- and we all know there are a few of those out there - I’m a dead man.  If I’m found in a vacant alley, beaten to the consistency of an over-ripe cantaloupe with an undelivered Ronco Sausage & Pasta Machine,  just remember me as a martyr for the next generation of information dissemination. I know Santa is online now ... I just put in my online order for a Veg-O-Matic and some Ronco G.L.H., as in Great Looking Hair paint spray.    

- Jamie Oppenheimer c 1997

The Oppenheimer Report 12/10/18

There was much discussion last week about a popular Christmas song Baby It’s Cold Outside. For any of you out of the loop, the song, written in 1944 by Frank Loesser, gained widespread popularity when it appeared in the movie Neptune’s Daughter in 1949. It has been a Christmas classic for well over half a century, but it has recently come under fire because some think it portrays a man incarcerating a woman and plying her with alcohol with the intention of having sex with her. I weighed in on Facebook last week, and clearly this song has sparked some controversy. One woman, for whom I have great respect as the director of an organization which works with abused women, felt that it was “tacky” to play a song which made light of the idea that “no means NO”. While she was not suggesting the song be banned, she felt it opened a wound, with so many women coming forward in the past year about their personal stories of sexual abuse. The MeToo movement has really shaken the fabric of our society, and I for one am happy this abusive behavior is finally being exposed. I spoke about Loesser’s song on my Lyrical Workers show, a show about songwriting, and I approach this controversy from a different angle.

Someone who responded to my Facebook post sent me a link to a re-written version of the Loesser song, with more politically correct lyrics. The whole tone of the song was changed. I can’t speak for Frank Loesser, but as a songwriter, I would be upset if someone did that to one of my songs. In my opinion, the original song is a cheeky poke at the boundaries of another era, and it stands as a somewhat anachronistic example of the mores of the time. In my opinion it is a beautifully crafted, clever, well-written song. I read somewhere that Loesser wrote the song to sing with his wife at a housewarming party in NYC, and it was instantly a hit. Five years later, it became much more widely exposed when Loesser sold it to MGM. I read that Frank Loesser’s daughter Sue felt the song became controversial when it was used cynically to spoof disgraced sexual predator Bill Cosby in the cartoon comedy show South Park. The song is from another era and should not be judged by today’s sometimes ambiguous standards of decency. It has remained a popular song for over 70 years, and while it may seem inappropriate to some, I don’t think it crosses any lines, especially by today’s standards.

I’ve written a lot of songs over the years that, were they ever to become popular, might offend people. Someone in our community took exception to Mr. Softee Man because it’s about selling drugs to kids. While there is little likelihood that Mr. Softee Man will ever reach a mainstream audience, I am not condoning the bad behavior about which I speak. I wrote the song to reflect an actual news story. The band Foster The People had a big hit with the song Pumped Up Kicks, which is really about gun violence. As offensive as these songs may be, it is up to the public to determine if they have value as art. Freedom of expression presupposes that we can pick and present our art, no matter how offensive it may seem. Over time I have changed my point of view as a songwriter, but one of the things I value about my songs is that each one represents a point in my life. I don’t want anybody changing that, and I think it is a slippery slope when we sanitize or censor art. Individuals may choose to ignore what offends them, and I am not suggesting that all lyrics are ok to air in public, but I also think it is wrong to censor that which might offend. Baby It’s Cold Outside was and is a popular song, and I don’t think it is hateful or mean-spirited. Regardless of my opinion about the meaning of the song, I suggest we let the public decide what they choose to hear. What is it they say about the best intentions?       

- Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2018 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 12/3/18

We haven't had all that many newsworthy earthquakes in North America, at least not in my lifetime, so I took notice last week when I heard there was a magnitude 7 quake (whatever that means) near the City of Anchorage, Alaska. The last two big quakes I can recall were both near San Francisco. The first one, in 1906, was a whopper. It registered a magnitude 7.9, destroyed over 28,000 buildings, burned down 500 city blocks, killed around 3000 residents and, after it was over, it left three quarters of the city in ruins. I wonder what would have happened if that quake had hit the more densely populated San Francisco of today. While the city is more prepared now than it was back then, who knows how it will fare if another “Big One” hits? Buildings are more earthquake resistant now and the disastrous fires which so characterized that 1906 quake would likely be better managed today than they were then, but what do we do when a chunk of California falls into the sea? How do you fix that?

I remember the second major San Francisco earthquake, the one that hit just before game three of the World Series in 1989. My cousin Ted lives in San Francisco, and somewhere in my photo archives I have a photo of Ted, shortly after the quake, standing in front of a collapsed building in the Marina District, near where he lived at the time. Much of the most obvious destruction was in the Marina District, and this area of San Francisco was, if I recall correctly, built largely on landfill. It was weird timing, because it struck just before game three of the World Series. The Oakland Athletics were just about to play The San Francisco Giants in Candlestick Park. Now we have this earthquake near Anchorage, and this was not Alaska’s first. The “Good Friday Earthquake” (another eventful day) hit the Alaska coast, March 27, 1964, by some reports measuring 9.2 in magnitude. I don’t remember hearing about it at the time – I was 9 years old and more impressed by Lloyd Bridges and Sea Hunt on TV - but I learned a little about it when I was reading about this latest earthquake. The ’64 quake originated fifteen miles below Prince William Sound, and the resulting tremors and tsunamis did major damage to Valdez, Whittier, Kodiak, Seward, and Anchorage. The photo above is a small example of that damage, and this and other photos of the damage are compelling reminders of how incredible these quakes are. I know I’m being a fatalist, and perhaps it’s the dismal, rainy weather of late, but doesn’t it seem as if we don’t really have much control over nature’s fury? Is it hubris to assume that if we reduce our output of greenhouse gas we will have an appreciable effect on the direction this train is heading? While I’ll certainly agree the climate is changing for the worse, I do not agree that man will have much control over its current trajectory. I’d like a climate scientist to give me evidence we can change the same cycle which has befallen earth many times before.  Mother Earth is a bitch and she takes no prisoners. Enjoy the ride. Singer Songwriter Jon Brooks wrote a great song for his most recent album No One Travels Alone. It is entitled Proxima B and it is about a planet that has been discovered several light years away which resembles Earth. His point is that hope lies elsewhere, and he implores his listeners, “Baby, pack light.”

Fun fact, there are over 4000 earthquakes per year in Canada, although most of them are too small to feel.

Elsewhere in the news, 41st President of the United States, George H.W. Bush, died last week at 94. Today, there was a quote from Ronald Reagan’s daughter Patti Davis. In essence it said, we mourn the death of the last dignified president. Ain’t that the truth. I don’t know if George H.W. Bush was a good president or not; he was certainly vilified during his term, as was his son “Dubya”during his tenure as POTUS, but both of these guys will go down in history as saints compared to the Bonehed-In Chief who currently holds the office. 

Remember, pack light...

- Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2018 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED