The Oppenheimer Report 3/2/20

A couple of years ago, I was in downtown Huntsville, and I bumped into my friend Bill Stewart. He needed a ride across town to pick up his car, which was in the shop, and I was happy to oblige. As we were driving, I asked him if he was working on any musical projects. He told me he wanted to record a song in the style of Pink Floyd. Coincidentally, I’d just finished writing a song that I thought might fit that bill, and we agreed that we should record my song “Milkman”. Eventually we did so, and like every song I record with a new producer, it was an interesting journey.  Bill is a great guitar player and sound engineer and I was pleased with the overall results of our recording.  More importantly, I think we both derived something positive from the experience. I mention that song because it is about denial, and the issue of denial has been on my mind a lot over the past few months. I’m approaching the point where I no longer want to see or hear the news.

Last weekend, on Saturday Night Live, Michael Che made a joke on the “Weekend Update” segment regarding the comedic perils of joking about COVID-19, a.k.a. the Corona Virus. Che said he was afraid to make light of the epidemic, for fear that, if he contracted the virus, every network would replay his (then) ironic jokes. Throughout the day my wife listens to HBR with one ear and CNN with the other. I kid Shauna that she is addicted to CNN, which I now call TBNC, “The Bad News Channel”. In fact, most of news I watch and read these days is bad news. I guess good news doesn’t sell advertising.  By the way, does almost everyone who watches CNN have Mesothelioma, or some rare skin disease, or bladder problems?  Based on their advertisers, CNN’s target audience appears to be mostly sick people. Anyhow, I was channel surfing the other night and came across a news network which was reporting nonstop Corona Virus coverage. I got sucked in and binge-watched for at least 15 or 20 minutes, before I realized that I was getting palpably upset. The problem with too much (questionable) information is that I don’t know what to do with it. It’s one thing to be apprised of world events, but if one feels helpless to control any of the problems of the world, it can become very discouraging. I don’t know how they expect to contain and control the spread of the virus when it has already infected people in ¾ of the world. Shauna chided me, because she wanted me to turn back to the bad political news channel, but I stood firm in my resolve to watch the Corona Virus Channel. It won’t be long before every disastrous news event will have a channel dedicated to it. I wonder if CNN will develop Corona Virus theme music, like the theme music they developed for the O.J. trial. Can you imagine putting that on your resume as a composer? Oh yes, I wrote the music for the Huggies commercials that aired in the spring of 2013, and I was also the composer of the CNN Corona Virus theme.

So, I wrote the song “Milkman” about denial. The lyrics are cryptic, but the first verse has to do with the first time I saw an adult crying in distress; how I processed that. The second verse has to do with my denial over a friend’s drug addiction problem, and the third verse is about U.S. foreign policy in Libya, when the U.S Embassy there was attacked. The chorus asks the question I increasingly ask myself: will I bury my head in the sand? I’m not proud of my denial, but sometimes it’s the only thing that gets me through the day. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the negative spin, and it is a self-fulfilling prophecy. The older I get, the harder it is to keep the plates spinning. It’s difficult to imagine how we’re going to achieve all those utopian ideals for a better society when there are a thousand mutually exclusive interests vying for power. I can’t control the spread of divisiveness; I can only be mindful and wary of my contribution to it. My motto is simple: try to do more good than harm. The world becomes a little more comforting when I break it down that way. Be mindful of my own actions towards my fellow human beings (and all living things) and try not to sweat about the seemingly unchangeable nature of man. Maybe if I stop watching CVC (The Corona Virus Channel), I will be better prepared to face the day. It is a constant struggle to check that stop-and-watch-the-train-wreck side of me. I’m going to try to limit myself to only 5 minutes of the The Ebola Virus Channel tonight. Baby steps.

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer  ©2020  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED