Monday, December 17, 2018

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

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