The Oppenheimer Report 1-28-13

This morning I woke up to commotion as the shift change was taking place for our healthcare workers. Yes, we are still here at the Taylors house, still sleeping on twin beds in Shauna‘s rather small (especially with all our junk in it) childhood bedroom, still working on getting the proper team of people together to make sure the Taylors are as safe as possible. We started out a new caregiver last night for the evening shift, and as if to test her abilities, Dr. Taylor immediately came down with a puzzling fever. That fever was a little higher this morning, and while not an alarming temperature for a healthy adult, it was more worrisome for a senior. We seem to be making headway convincing Shauna’s parents that they do in fact need the help we have put in place; that need has become fairly obvious. Luckily his fever abated and Dr. Taylor is back to his usual irascible, codgerly self (ever notice that codger and badger sound a little alike?), but it’s been a bit of a kick in the pants these past few weeks.

With reference to last week’s report discussing my not-to-sincere interest in pontoon boats, I Googled “high speed pontoon boat races” and came up with more videos on YouTube than I could possibly watch in a day. Ya gotta love YouTube! Indeed there are pontoon boats that have reached over 100MPH, and in one video I was able to experience the ride, from the passenger’s seat of one of these overpowered floating tubs, boasting a 600 Horsepower engine. Six hundred horses powering a 25’ pontoon boat! Believe me, that was one fast trip around the lake. I couldn’t tell for sure, but it may have been propelled by high performance surface piercing drives. Apparently pontoon boat design has advanced to the point where some of these tubs handle pretty well, and I was amused and surprised by how many people with too much time on their hands are doing exactly what I joked about doing.

What’s new in lifestyles of the rich and ridiculous? I once penned a soap opera spoof I called The Bold and the Bulemic, but I digress. It stands to reason that, in a shortened season, it wouldn’t take as long for the Toronto Maple Leafs to begin their nosedive down the toilet, and they have proved consistent. After an encouraging win against Crosby’s Penguins earlier last week, the “old” Leafs returned last Saturday night. Sitting on a 2 goal lead until the third period, they choked defensively, left their goalie out to dry, and allowed New York to score five unanswered goals. Thank you sir, may I have another. One of the Leafs’ star forwards had been badly injured in the Pittsburgh game, and their other overpaid big gun has yet to score his first goal. Same sh-t, different season. So glad they’ve all settled their money disputes … now what was it again we were paying you millions of dollars to do? Once again, bi-weekly performance reviews sound like a good idea. Ontario’s first (openly) gay Liberal Kathleen Wynne is the new Premiere of Ontario, at least until the next election is called. Former Italian PM Sylvio “Hound Dog” Berlusconi is in hot water (again) for his remarks praising Mussolini. Hey Silvie, remember the part about how he was a fascist and an anti-Semite? Who does that man's public relations?

Last night I watched Tony Robbins interviewed on Piers Morgan, and I used to make fun of the guy. In fact I am skeptical of most celebrity self help gurus, but I have changed my opinion about Tony Robbins. The guy makes a lot of sense. The basic theme of the interview was what can we do to heal America. The show featured various Robbins “clients” who had overcome great adversity in their lives. There was a teenaged kid who had been shot, I think at Columbine, a shell shocked marine who looked like the personification of trauma …. they talked about what they had learned from Robbins to help them turn their lives around. The common thread was that all of them found a way to get past their pain and self-pity in favor of some inexplicable drive to survive, and they did this by finding something bigger than their problems on which to focus. In most cases this involved helping others. Robbins pointed out that of all the things he could hope to have, money, fame, power, “happiness” … the one thing he aspires to achieve is meaning. I hear you brother! Me too! One does not find meaning by focusing on oneself. I watch so much television and read too many infotainment newspapers, and a lot of the “important” people covered are not role models. Lance Armstrong, Barry Bonds, Lindsay Lohan, Berlusconi, the Kardashians; some over-hyped singer on American Idol - these are not role models, and very few of them are heroes. For the most part they seem to be dysfunctional often egotistical human beings (just like you and me) held under a microscope. Perhaps true heroes are not all that interesting, because selflessness is not something people broadcast. Anyhow, that’s my rant and I’m sticking to it. A little meaning to my life is all I want.

Meaning .... and maybe a pontoon boat, with a jet engine, that goes 135 mph.

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 1/21/13

Another banner week in the Taylor household. We are still interviewing aids and have tried out three unsuccessful candidates (out of seven or eight we’ve interviewed) so far. There is a live-in caregiver program wherein a Canadian family can sponsor a foreign candidate to live with them while he or she applies for permanent residency and eventually citizenship. In theory it is a win win for everyone, but it doesn’t always work out that way. First of all, there is a waiting period of several months before a sponsored candidate is actually placed with a family, and there have been reported abuses on both sides. Families sometimes expect too much of the caregivers, who receive minimum wage and are sometimes treated unfairly according to accepted employment standards. Subject to a 2 year probationary period these candidates sometimes become trapped in an unpleasant working situation. As well, some of the candidates are not suitable for the job. Shauna has had an abrupt education on the many challenges to hiring a responsible caregiver. Some lie on their resumes, others want to be paid in cash to avoid paying taxes, and some are simply not very good at what they profess to do. It takes a special kind of person to be a good caregiver.

Denial. It’s not just a river in Egypt. One thing that has been on my mind a lot of late is that I seem to have skipped my mid-life crisis, and now find myself suddenly dropped on the outer fringes of that phase. I didn’t buy the sports car, or cheat on my wife. I didn’t get a hair transplant, or take up rock climbing, or whatever mid-lifers do when they see codgerdom creeping up in them. I simply got older and ignored it. As I get crankier and creakier, and as old age taps me not-so-gently on the shoulder, I stare perplexed at the salt and pepper-bearded codger looking back at me in the morning mirror, and I see my id fighting for its life. The denial I so criticize in my elders is the same denial creeping into my own life. The devil on my one shoulder is beginning to look like an atrophied little nebbish, as the “angel” on my other shoulder evolves into a bullying nag. More and more I fight a losing battle with the tyranny of common sense, and I foolishly long to lead my life with the reckless abandon of my 28 year-old self. Sadly that bad boy is disappearing like newly spilled invisible ink, and what is left is the Dr. Oz-your-health-is-your-wealth-no cholesterol-watch-your-salt-two-beer-limit-early bird-special Jamie. The last five year over-exposure to that which, if I’m “lucky”, represents the next twenty or thirty years of my life has made me hypersensitive to the aging process. More than once I heard my nonagenarian mom say she wished she were dead, and I find myself asking the imponderable questions, questions too dark for even politically incorrect me to discuss in an open forum.

Last Thursday, my longest running partner in crime and best friend Bob had to drop someone off in Toronto, and afterwards we attended the Toronto Boat Show together. It was a welcome break from what I have been doing for the past month. I must say the show was a disappointment, and every year there seem to be less and less hot boats to spark my marine fantasies. This year we spent a lot of time waiting in line to walk around shoeless on obscenely expensive luxury cabin cruisers. When I go to a boat show, I seem to gravitate to the fast, dangerous, overpowered little boats - boats one could envision naming “Suck My Wake” or “Oar-gasm,” and which have absolutely no practical value to a codger like me. In his typically insulting way, Bob suggested that I am “over the hill” so I should embrace my inner codger and buy a pontoon boat. You know, one of those floating living rooms. He thought that would be a suitable alternative for our little lake up north, taking into consideration that I am reluctantly entering that stage of my life wherein a floating living room even resembles real boating. By my definition, that is rafting. Although I am perfectly happy with the boat I have now owned for over 22 years, I did some pontoon boat comparison shopping just for fun. If I am going to consider one of these floating living rooms I want it to be stupidly overpowered, so I can annoy all the other cottagers by speeding around on this cumbersome blob of welded aluminum. One pontoon boat - I cannot remember the make - boasted a respectable top end of over 55 mph. There was a video of this 22’ pontoon boat making hairpin turns and blasting through rough chop with ease. High performance pontoon boats, now there’s a concept! Pretty soon they’ll start selling them with flames painted in the sides. Bob tells me that there are pontoon boats which can reach speeds of 100mph and that there are in fact pontoon boat races. Who knew?!

One of my nephews periodically texts me photos of his latest accomplishments souping up his Mustang GT. I think he’s got his 0-60 acceleration down to below 4.6 seconds. I suspect he wants to rub it in my face what a wimp I have become. Paranoia is one of the telltale signs of aging, by the way. I’d like to send him a photo of me cruising along in my new high performance pontoon speedboat at 80MPH, with “Ahoy Vey II” emblazoned on the side in fire engine red, while I’m driving with one hand, playing cards with the other, and watching television. This is how your fossilized Uncle Jamie does it.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS

The Oppenheimer Report 1/14/13

Last Friday was a good example of the chaos by which I presently find myself surrounded. Shauna had to drive her mom to her two doctor’s appointments, and I stayed at home to watch her father, who now requires constant supervision, especially during his frequent visits to the lavatory. While I was on “the dad shift” an installer from Sears finally showed up, a day late, to install our new cook top, after the previous installer flaked out and didn’t bother telling us he wasn’t coming. Then of course there were complications with the installation, as there always seem to be, and I had to make an executive decision to allow a modification which could potentially have ruined the existing countertop. Fun fact: installers used by big retailers like Sears will not always do cabinetry and countertop alterations in order to make an appliance fit, so make sure you cover this when you buy your appliance. While I was pleading with the installer to mangle our countertop with a reciprocating saw, in the two minutes during which I took my eyes off the video monitor, Dad Taylor had disappeared from view. I then ran down the hall to find he was trying to sneak in an unsupervised bathroom visit. Then, as I was attending to him, the phone rang, and it was a potential caregiver calling to schedule an interview. When we are over our heads as caregivers, sometimes we can‘t catch a break. As I mentioned in last week’s report, we were forced to dismiss a health care aid last week - our day shift caregiver - and that left us shorthanded. Incompetence is in my opinion a huge problem in geriatric care, and while the woman we fired did not physically abuse our parents, she was decidedly incompetent, and could have done (and almost did do) them harm by misrepresenting her capabilities. I don’t think we North Americans are doing a very good job of protecting our most at risk elders from substandard care. I also think elders are low on the food chain for medical care. Populations are expanding, people are living longer, many do not have the means to fund proper care, and many doctors are over-burdened … you can see why the aged might get swept under the bus. Once again I ask, what good are medical advances, if we increase the quantity of life without any quality?

One thing I have noticed, both with my parents, when they were near the ends of their lives, and now with the Taylors in their late eighties, is that old age seemed to jump them like a mugger in the dark. One day they were doing just fine, the next day they were overwhelmed, and in a cloud of denial so thick you could cut it with a knife. All four of my parents said the same thing: they said didn’t see it coming. Then comes the anger and depression, and guess who takes that heat? Dementia is only one of many ways old age gets ugly, and believe me, I have seen the ugly side of old age. Senility is a psychological minefield, and for the children, or for any inexperienced caregiver, it can be a real emotional kick in the ass. I only wish more people would talk about it. Learn from my mistakes, because believe me, I’ve made them all! There seems to be an unwritten taboo against discussing the mental decline of one’s loved ones, as if it’s some horrible family secret which, if revealed, will erase all the dignity and goodwill that loved one has earned in his or her long life. I never bought into that. My mom was as crazy (oh, how politically incorrect of me to say that) as she could be before she died, and I don’t mind talking about it. It doesn’t change the good and charitable woman she was. It wasn’t her at all, it was mental illness, but it was who she became. While it is hard not to take the whole thing personally, I could not do so and survive emotionally. In some indirect way, maybe this is why we have all these gun-toting lunatics floating around undetected among us. Not enough people are talking about it. There are a lot of mentally ill people out there, old and young. After the Newtown, Ct. shootings, which so appalled the entire world, I read a gripping article which began “I am Adam Lanza’s Mother.” It was written by the mother (not Lanza’s) of a violent, mentally ill child. She was becoming afraid of her uncontrollable child, and eloquently recounted the complicated hell she faces every day. Caught in the catch-22 of medical and law enforcement bureaucracy, she was pointing out how hard it is to know how to protect her child from harming himself or others around him. I made a comment in a recent report that the families of the mentally ill bear some responsibility for their bad behavior, but this woman made me realize how hard that can be. Her boy may not be on anybody’s radar until he acts out. The challenge is figuring out how to respond proactively rather than reactively.

Final notes. We can all breath a sigh of relief (he sneers sarcastically), because the NHL owners and players have reached an agreement, and will now play about 48 games to complete this truncated season. To rub salt into the wound, the geniuses (two of Canada’s media giants) who now own the Toronto Maple Leafs decided now would be a good time to fire Leafs GM Brian Burke. I don’t know if Burke was an effective manager, and much was made of the fact that he could not turn around the Leafs’ downward spiral in the 4 years since he took the reins, but I suspect that other forces conspired to scuttle this cursed team. One last time, for this season anyway, I proclaim my utter disgust. How one of the richest franchises in the NHL could so horribly fail to provide a suitable and competitive team for so many years is far beyond me … I mean Uranus is closer (and I’m not talking about Gary Bettman).

The other day I saw on the attention deficit disorder news channel that an asteroid is scheduled to pass close to earth in 2036 and may even make contact. Let’s see, that’s 23 years away, which makes me 80. That should be about right. Screw the nursing home, I’m going out with a bang. Divine intervention!

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 1/7/13

Did you all whoop it up this year? I spent the evening stone cold sober, for perhaps the first time in almost forty years. My sparkling beverage was a delicious pomegranate and blueberry lemonade concoction, with just a hint of raccoon. Intoxication quickly loses its appeal when every five minutes there is another geriatric crisis. Both in-laws are just now recovering from the flu, we have had nursing conflicts, scheduling snafus, a fall necessitating a 911 call, a nurse who had to be let go after it turned out she’d completely misrepresented her credentials (the one nurse who had come to us through an agency). Dad Taylor got sick enough at one point that we called in a doctor to put him on an antibiotic. Our First Night celebration consisted of a simple meal I prepared and which we served in the formal dining room of the Taylor house. While dinner was anything but fancy, the psychological benefits of eating a proper dinner, for the first time in three weeks, cannot be over-emphasized. Indeed this was head and shoulders above life in a hospital bed, with lights switched on and off and loud speakers blaring every half hour. Everyone appreciated the meal. Little pleasures we take for granted become monumental when put in the proper perspective.

Last Saturday was the first time since December 12^th that Mom Taylor had been out of her house. I took her out to do her banking and some shopping. She has been pining to get out of the house for weeks, and although Metro Toronto is now experiencing a widespread flu epidemic, I made the probably ill-advised decision that an outing in disease-infested Toronto might be a preferable alternative to the psychological torture of being homebound. Our mission was to buy a new cook top. The one in her kitchen needed to be replaced, and after we researched our options on “your internet” ( as in “go on your internet and find me a new cook top”), we set out to a nearby Sears to place our order.

Sears was packed last Saturday. After ten minutes searching for a suitable parking spot, we bravely threw ourselves into the mayhem which is Sears around Boxing Day. In the large appliance section we began inspecting some of the ceramic cook tops on display when a salesperson named Brian came up to us and asked us if we needed any help. I told him we’d decided on a cook top unit and just needed to buy it and arrange for installation. From that point on we entered the twilight zone. First, he tried to persuade me to buy a different product from the one we’d chosen online, with features we did not want or need, for more money than we intended to spend. Having done my Consumer Reports due diligence, I already knew what I wanted, and I politely held my ground. Strike one against Brian. At this point I took a good at the guy and did an involuntary double take. He looked like a malaria victim, suffering from a high fever, exuding an almost palpable aura of sickliness. He was a man probably in his forties, well spoken, and likely over-qualified for the position he was in, but he looked completely disheveled. His shirt was half out, his hair looked unwashed and uncombed, his bespectacled eyes were bugged out and red, and he was holding what looked like a handkerchief against his perspiring face and neck. As he rather persistently attempted to sell me something I did not want to buy, he went into a convulsive coughing fit. He made a feeble effort to cover his mouth with his arm, but the cough was so violent that he lost all control. My mother-in-law recoiled as if she’d just been exposed to the Bubonic Plague, gesturing frantically to me, and in full view of Brian, that she wanted no part of this Typhoid Marty. Brian was oblivious, likely due to his 103 degree fever, and I, figuring that by now I’d been exposed to whatever toxic germs had been spewed into the surrounding 2000 cubic feet, just wanted to complete the transaction with as much grace and expediency as possible. Had there been another salesperson available I would have dropped Brian like a hot potato, but I just wanted to get this transaction done and to get out of there. As my mother-in-law looked on horrified from a safe distance, I watched Brian, in his fevered delirium, bumbling confusedly through the necessary paperwork to complete the transaction as he babbled his fever-fueled frenzy of nonsense. At one point he was standing inches away from his manager at the cash register when he coughed directly into the guy’s face. At this point I began to laugh, and I turned around to see my mother-in-law looking as if she had just swallowed rat feces. Brian was still yammering on as I pumped a blob of the omnipresent hand sanitizer into my hand, gingerly grabbed the one corner of my invoice he had not touched, and beat a hasty retreat. The piece de resistance was that, as I was leaving, I noticed that the handkerchief with which Brian had been blotting his face was full of blood. On top of the laundry list of other disgusting things about Brian, he was bleeding from an open sore on his neck. I turned to my mother-in-law and asked: “How can I find out if I’ve contracted leprosy?” - Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 12/31/12

Happy New Year to my twelve loyal readers!

I failed to mention in last week’s report that, although not an avid gift-giver, I couldn’t resist buying Shauna a holiday gift at the Dollar Store. In the dental hygiene section ( I know, I know, the Dollar Store has a dental hygiene section!) I found a Justin Bieber - I call him “The Beaver”, to acknowledge his Canadian roots, and because he is just so cute - musical tooth brush. Not only is it a perfectly functional manual toothbrush, but it also plays two different Bieber hits! Who needs an Ipod, I can just play the toothbrush when I want to dance?!

Of course, tonight is New Year’s Eve, and while some of you will be guzzling champagne in gala Gatsby-esque soirees, or attending some fancy tux n’ gown first night celebration to watch a ball (or transvestite if you live in Key West) drop, I will be doing a 5-11 pm nursing shift to cover a gap in our as yet imperfect nursing rotation. We have not been able to leave this house for three weeks other than to shop in supplies or to check in on our house sitters up north. For all of you aging codgers out there deluding yourselves that you can live forever, or put off any contingency plans for unanticipated medical care, shame on you. You will fail; it’s not if,  it’s when, and you should not put the burden on your kids to drum this into your heads. Those kids may be faced with the same nightmare Shauna and I are now facing, one I have now faced twice, wherein they find themselves behind the eight ball (in our case during the worst week of the year to find assistance), scrambling desperately to enlist the necessary care to keep your parents safe. Just for the record, that care does not easily fall into place, and it will be your kids who suffer immeasurably.

In the news, Sen. John Kerry is being vetted to be the new U.S. Secretary of State to fill Hillary Clinton’s post when she steps down. Mrs. Clinton is presently on injured reserve and visibly spent after a recent fall and resulting concussion sidelined her from her stately duties. I understand she is again back in the hospital with a blood clot related to that concussion. Last Saturday marked the 105^th day of the NHL lockout and I’ll be shocked if those bastards manage to begin the new year without scuttling the season. Bad press is bad press, and in the public relations game, regardless of who is more “in the right, they should ALL be ashamed of such prolonged bad faith. Too much money is going to the wrong people, don‘t you think? In a perfect world both the NHL players and owners would be forced to hand over some of their ill-gotten gains to all the lower tier businessmen and women who have been so negatively impacted by this fiasco. I would love it if this dark stain on professional hockey deflected some of the abused fans and obscene money away from those overpaid fools and back to some of the more exciting amateur leagues, or maybe even indoor lacrosse; I hear that’s exciting.

Here’s my final rant for 2012, because this past year’s big stories have already been covered ad nauseam. There were the Olympics stories, the hurricanes, and tornadoes, and floods, and the resulting debate about our control of climate change. There was the aftermath of the Arab Spring, the civil war in Syria, the ousting of Momo Q. in Libya, the turbulent changes in Egypt, the ever-changing threats to Israel, and the tragedy of Palestine. But in my myopic view 2012 was the year American politics officially went completely off the rails. Of course, like the ever present extension agreements that stave off inevitable cuts to services and painful tax increases, that derailment is subject to periodic reinterpretation. What will be the new normal in ten years? Socialism? Theocracy? Spin the wheel. While the Chos, and the Kaczynskis, and the Loughners and Lanzas flow like a quiet lava burning through the core of our society, politicians and high end money changers seem to be incapable of leading us out of this mess we’re in. We intoxicate ourselves with inane television, which these days includes most of the news. Doubtless it is easy to succumb to the feelings of alienation that can poison our civilization. I’m going through a rough patch right now, and forgive me my angry self righteousness, because I know I’m just as guilty and clueless as the next guy. I know one thing only - right now I am where I need to be: helping and loving my family. I have no idea what will happen in the next several weeks, much less the next four years. I don’t care about exercising more, or swearing less, or even being nicer to the French as I annually resolve to be. My resolution is ongoing, it involves trying to do a better job of loving. I’ve got a long way to go.

Do you think they make Metallica toothbrushes?

       Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 12/25/12

I was in the dollar store the other day, where I do all my Christmas shopping (because nothing says joy to the world like a present from the dollar store) and I could not believe what I discovered. The dollar store now sells condoms! Can you believe it?? I ask you, is there a better way to practice safe sex than to use a dollar store condom? And such a deal - two bucks for a box of twelve! You can rest assured your boys won’t swim with one of those puppies on! So, if you’ve had a bit too much eggnog at the office Christmas party, and that gold-digging bleached blond with the basketball-sized fake boobs from reception pulls you in to the copy room for a quickie, make sure you come armed with proper protection, because she may offer to supply one of those party balloons from the dollar store. You could find yourself polluting the gene pool with another Honey booboo, and I think we can all agree that’s one booboo you don’t want to make.

We are still scrambling to arrange caregivers for Shauna’s increasingly needy parents. After Syd’s most recent stroke a few weeks ago, things went south very fast. Last week there were assessments by health care workers, interviews with caregivers, and hours of phone calls to arrange for the various senior services they will need. All the while there is the ongoing debate, the arguments, and the stubborn resistance we face about what they do and do not need to be safe in their home. Since the most recent stroke, Shauna’s dad has become exponentially more in need of round the clock care, and this has been traumatic for both parents. Shauna’s mom was overwhelmed -the same thing that happened to my mom - and she still has not fully accepted the reality of her situation. Few of them do. Once again I somewhat helplessly watch this transitional phase unfold, wherein strangers take over, privacy and dignity are compromised, and denial manifests itself in anger towards the “messenger.” For any of you who are in the throes of this phase, or have recently experienced it, you know that it is fraught with guilt and frustration for the children. There is ambivalence prompting a host of complicated emotions associated with taking the reins. Are we doing the wrong thing? Can we trust this or that person? Are we over-reacting, should we back off? The answer is almost always NO! Of course the kids are going to take the heat when we start making life changing decisions for our parents. In our case, it has become glaringly apparent that assistance is needed. These days Shauna and I are constantly exhausted, and even the dog is picking up on the tension. I have been spending a lot of time in holiday traffic, procuring the necessary tools for geriatric care in the house. By the way, for anyone who might not know this, one of the first purchases should be a baby video monitor, invaluable as an extra set of eyes. They come with portable, rechargeable video monitors that can be carried with you. We used one for my mom and dad, and in the five years since we bought that first one, the technology has improved considerably. For under $200.00 I just bought a Levana (model LV-TW502), with night vision, a color monitor, and which can be expanded to accept up to four cameras. Just this once, I am not going to bitch about advances in technology.

Thankfully, the latest deadline for the end of the world came and passed and mankind has not been wiped off the face of the earth as predicted. Give us a few more years. I’m not a betting man but I’d say we’ve got at least a few more decades before we 86 ourselves as a species. A notable obituary I failed to mention last week: Ravi Shankar passed away. I’d never even heard of a sitar before Ravi turned me on to its exotic sound back in the 60s. Stand back United Way, there’s a new charity in town: Toys for Tatas. I saw on the news the other day that The Platinum Cabaret, an exotic dancing establishment, offers a two for one lap dances if you bring in a toy for the kids. Now that’s getting into the holiday spirit.

According to what I’m hearing, this year it is politically correct to say “Merry Christmas!”, so Merry Christmas to all twelve of my readers. And be nice to Grandma and Grandpa; growing old is not for sissies.

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 12/17/12

This week I had intended to impart my usual inane nonsense, about the criminal element at the North Pole, about elf gangs, and reindeer substance abuse, and Mrs. Claus’s most recent forays into the bowels of sordid adultery; and then the latest outrageous tragedy befell America, this time in Newtown, Ct. Twenty little boys and girls and six adults, slaughtered by a madman who then took his own life. It all happened in a couple of minutes. As I begin this report on Saturday, it seems as if the unthinkable has become commonplace and that evil is winning. Watching the faces on the television screen last night, I saw a country on the brink of despair, and from some of the messages I received, and from what I am seeing in the media, there is an unbridled rage welling up in my society. Opinions are like assholes; everyone’s got one. Here is mine …

I don’t have any solace to impart here; I’m definitely no man of G-d, and I am certainly as confused and outraged as the rest of you are. What startled me almost as much as the senseless violence was some very angry messages on my phone, directed at my country, and at people who as it turned out had nothing to do with this horror. The anger and fear is completely understandable, especially from parents, and that unbridled rage, well I felt it too. While I do not have children, I can only imagine the fear in every parent’s heart upon hearing every news source broadcast that the world has just been proven to be that much more dangerous. But every time I have experienced rage, either in my personal life or on the news, it seems to me that it is often misdirected. I’m not saying that the people who decry gun violence are wrong. I’m not a gun lover. No doubt there too many guns in the streets of America, and it is far too easy for an unbalanced killer to acquire them.

Whenever an atrocity of this magnitude erupts, people suddenly want solutions to complicated problems, and there is an angry outcry against the perceived cause. But where there is a will there is a McVeigh. Tim McVeigh killed 168 people and injured about 800 others in Oklahoma with a bomb he made out of readily available ingredients. Should we then outlaw fertilizer? Madmen and deranged zealots will continue to find ways to do great harm if they remain hidden among us. The question I ask is how do we shine a light on them; how do we diffuse these time bombs? When Cho went nuts and killed thirty plus people at Virginia Tech, I said the same thing. You will never remove all the guns in our society, no matter how logical and practical that may seem - it’s about as likely as Al Gore’s hubris-inspired march to reverse the relentless cycle of nature. While it is certainly a worthwhile crusade to make it much harder for the wrong people to own guns, I think a more effective approach would be to figure out a better way to target and disarm the time bombs. If we re-directed half of the money we have so far spent on the embarrassingly ill advised war on drugs and diverted it to mental health care, I’ll wager that many of the above mentioned tragedies might have been averted. It is shameful how badly we have failed the mentally ill in our society. If we took the embarrassing amount of money spent on the most recent U.S presidential elections and opened a few thousand walk-in mental health clinics, if friends and family became a little bit more proactive and responsible for the ticking time bombs in their own families; if we could somehow address and stem the tide of alienation and hopelessness that so many feel, perhaps we could stop at least some of this tragic killing. Remember, it was Ted Kaczynski’s brother who blew the whistle on the infamous Unibomber, finally ending his killing spree.

One of my nephews sent me a text shortly after the Newtown rampage, and in it he said he feared for his little daughter’s future in such a troubled world. Words cannot express how that saddens me. I am saddened that evil exists in the world and that it can shatter the lives of so many families, in Newtown, in Aurora, in Columbine, in Afghanistan, in Congo, in Syria, and in all the other parts of the world where the good and the innocent are preyed upon. I have no answers for the senseless violence that takes place in our world, but I remain hopeful that love is the most powerful weapon in our arsenal. I haven’t learned yet how to live my life without fear, but as I responded to my nephew, demonstrating and accepting love might just keep my fear in check. I told him I loved him and his whole family, and I asked him to hug his little girl for me. This is a battle we must win, and I am still hopeful we will. May you find some solace with your families this holiday season.

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 12-10-12

Aunt Rose Shumacher, Syd, and Ethel Taylor

This week was a challenging one as we struggled to provide adequate care for my in-laws. At present, we are finally down in Toronto after a crazy week. It is our worst case scenario, the one about which we have been warning Shauna’s parents almost constantly for over a year now. Shauna was too sick to travel, I could not leave her, and now both parents are in the hospital. We came down to Toronto after Shauna’s oral surgery in Barrie, and hopefully, both parents will be released from the hospital soon. I suppose it is unrealistic to hope that old people, so used to living with their independence, will be proactive and cooperative about their health care needs. Regardless of who it is, we often hear the same excuse: “We didn’t want to be a burden on anyone; we don‘t need any help.” It is maddening, but I can’t really imagine what it’s like for them, so I shouldn’t be judgmental. Shauna is rightfully very worried about their well being, and she has been on the phone nonstop for four days trying to coordinate the necessary after care and therapy her dad will need. She is worn out because most of her energy is spent debating the need with her parents. No good deed goes unpunished.

There was some discussion last week on the news about global warming, and CNN, that bastion of liberal hogwash, reported that Republicans are more likely than Democrats to deny that global warming exists. I’d like to know from where they glean their statistics. I do not deny global warming exists, only that mankind is the primary cause. We might be the tipping point, but the global warming argument is a little like saying dinosaurs were responsible for the last ice age. Certainly greenhouse gases contribute and as populations in industrialized countries grow, they will continue to worsen the problem. How about being proactive about how we deal with the changes? Adjust to nature, don’t spend so much time and energy trying to alter it. Don’t build houses 100 yards from the ocean, use light reflecting roofing material; figure out how to more effectively harness solar energy. Only CNN could transform this into a political issue. And leave the Republicans alone, they’ve got enough problems trying to extricate themselves from the Dark Ages without this kind of nonsense. Speaking of the Dark Ages, kudos to bible-thumping Rick Santorum and his pointy headed cronies for scuttling that latest international handicap treaty. Speaking of bad press and climate change, The Weather Channel reported last week (again) that an unusual volume of ice is melting in Greenland, and it was suggested that if the rapid melt persists, Santa might need to find a new headquarters. Of course the goings on at the North Pole are top secret, but my sources tell me that a significant number of elves have drowned in unexpected ice flow disasters. Great, another move offshore. What happens when Santa starts to outsource; I mean, do they even have elves in China? Fun fact: Did you know they EAT reindeer in Finland? Tastes a little like chicken I’m told.



What else … Jazz pianist Dave Brubeck died last week, just short of his 92^nd birthday. Perhaps he didn’t have the “chops” of Tyner or Peterson, but he was a good composer. I have a rare recording of Brubeck playing The Tralfamadore Café in Buffalo back in the mid 80s, which I taped from a radio broadcast. Buffalo sax great Bobby Militello was playing with him in that concert and it is one of my most prized live recordings. As for the economy, I’m told we’re about to do some financial base jumping. Although I don’t really understand the “fiscal cliff” I know one thing. All that political grandstanding to make the other side look bad makes both sides look like children. If you believe the news, the end result will be that these buffoons send the global economy into a tailspin. Big storms in the Philippines (250,000 in shelters) an earthquake in Japan, 500 km north of Tokyo, flooding in Beunos Aires, snow in Brussels and France … and rain in the Great White North. With Georgian Bay a little warmer than normal, we could see some serius lake effect snow over the next few months. Prince William and Kate are expecting, 19 months after they wed. What took them so long? Wasn’t that a horrible story about that nurse who was fooled into believing that a couple of mischievous Australian Djs were royals? While she may have erred in providing the sensitive information, I can’t understand why someone would commit suicide over the mistake. Final ray of sunshine … 43 % of the NHL hockey season has now been scrapped. Ho friggin‘ ho.

Wouldn’t it be weird if Santa were Finnish?

　

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 12/3/12

They say when it rains it pours, and that certainly was the case Saturday night. Shauna is very sick right now, suffering from an abscessed wisdom tooth which has become a serious infection. For any of you out there who have experienced this kind of dental pain, you know it can be excruciating. She is presently on an antibiotic and hopefully, when the infection abates, we will see an oral surgeon next week to have the tooth extracted.

When we called her parents in Toronto over the weekend, as we do every day to check in on them, we discovered that there had been a serious medical emergency. Of course, had we not called they would not have told us, because “We didn’t want to upset Shauna.” Shauna is not well enough to travel and I can’t leave her alone right now. Nevertheless I or both of us may be forced to go down soon, if the situation does not improve. We managed to arrange for an ambulance, and some assistance for my mother-in-law from some wonderful out-of-town cousins, and now my father-in-law is in the hospital receiving (we hope) proper medical care. He would still be at home had we not called!

Once again it starts, and my biggest concern is their almost complete lack of common sense about their health care and safety. The same thing happened with my parents; one minute they seemed to be doing all right and almost overnight, all common sense went out the window and everything changed. Once again comes the stubborn refusal to listen to reason, once again comes the remote lobbying for necessary healthcare, the negotiations, the worry and tough decisions about “the right thing to do.” Albeit in their late 80’s two competent adults living in their own home cannot be compelled to do anything against their wishes, and the process of negotiating and arguing is both exhausting and frustrating.

Final whine before I sign off on this abbreviated report ….

Now that it is officially December and the countdown has begun until joy comes raining down on all of mankind like little packets of 100 dollar bills (for one day), it is time once again that I, the anti-Santa, remind my readers, with my usual self-righteous bluster and indignation, that goodwill is not seasonal. Be thankful if your family is safe and healthy, and try not to have a conniption fit if the reindeer cookies get burned or because Walmart sells out of Crack Whore Barbies.

Hope to be back next week …

Jamie

The Oppenheimer Report 11/26/12

　

I hope all of my friends south of the border enjoyed their Thanksgiving celebrations last Thursday. Early last week I awoke to a strange sound outside, and when I looked out the window, I saw 16 wild turkeys walking around on our lawn. The photograph from last week’s report caught a small group of them. Sometimes I’ll see the odd one or two running across the road, but never so many in one place. Maybe it was a message from my mom and dad. I really miss them when the American Thanksgiving rolls around. So many golden memories! Nothing stays the same, but after so many great celebrations in Buffalo, that holiday has taught me some important lessons. For one thing, giant hot air-filled balloons parading down the street never get old. The important lesson I have learned is to be thankful, and I make an effort to show some genuine form of thanks every day. Thank you Shauna, for being such a loving and tireless soul mate. Thank you to friends and family, who enrich my life by making it so much more interesting than it otherwise would be. And of course, thank you mom and dad, for teaching me humor and love, and for providing me with the tools to cope with life’s challenges.

Did you happen to hear that there is a new documentary coming out on the Investigation Discovery channel, suggesting that a serial killer named Glen Rogers and not O.J. Simpson killed Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman back in 1994? Rogers, who is on death row in for killing five other women, has confessed to the bloody crimes. He claims O.J. hired him to steal some jewelry from Nicole and that Simpson was nearby when the murders took place. This would explain why there is physical evidence of Simpson’s presence on the crime scene. Rogers and his brother Carl, who is the focus of the documentary, may have an ulterior motive here: if the case is re-opened, Glen could get a temporary stay of execution in order to re-open the California murder investigation. Hard to believe a guy named Mr. Rogers is a serial killer.

In my distracted, attention deficit disorder-driven ritual of channel surfing the other night, I turned to CNN long enough to hear the ever insightful Dr. Phil offering his advice on child discipline. I’m not exactly sure why, but I simply can’t stand Dr. Phil. He might be an effective therapist, but his whiny, plaintive southern drawl, and his omnipresence on television just rubs me the wrong way. I had to laugh when I heard his following pearls of wisdom (and I paraphrase): “How many times do you have to tell your child not to set the cat on fire before he or she stops doing it; you have to be consistent in your discipline, every time this happens.” My immediate reaction to this sage advice was, if your child sets the cat on fire more than once, either that cat is made of asbestos or that is otherwise one tough kitty.Nine lives my ass.  I know I did some pretty weird stuff when I was a kid, I even remember a few bouts of pyromania, but I don’t recall ever setting the family pet on fire. As for parenting skills, my parents would not have let that happen more than once. In our household at least, pets were much higher up on the food chain than children, and any attempt to harm an animal would likely have resulted in my castration.

The starting gun has officially fired ushering in a month of retail madness, so whip out that plastic and buy. On one of those “making a difference” segments on the news the other night I watched a story about some teacher of preschoolers, who tried an experiment. He took away all the toys in his kindergarten class and replaced them with cardboard boxes. His idea was to inspire the children to use their imaginations and to create a plaything out of the boxes. Kids came up with fortresses, and pirate ships, and all sorts of creative things, and surprisingly didn’t seem to miss their conventional toys. At a time when most people are struggling financially, perhaps this is an important lesson to impart.

Final notes. Actor Larry Hagman, A/K/A JR Ewing died last week. He was 81. I remember him from I Dream of Jeannie. That Jeannie was hot. Yesterday marked the 100^th Anniversary the Grey Cup, Canada’s answer to the Superbowl. Toronto hosted the event this year and the Toronto Argonauts prevailed over the Calgary Stampeders 35-22. I’m sure there are some hung over Toronto fans this morning, because last night the city went nuts. With no Leafs to watch, and no other major league winners, of course the fans are going to seize this opportunity to celebrate. Any port in a storm.

Sweetie, how many times have I told you not to light Mr. Jingles on fire; if you continue this bad behavior I will have no choice but to take away your cell phone for a week. Now tell Mr. Jingles you’re sorry and paste this fake fur back on him.

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 11/19/12

Wild turkeys in front of our house

After a miserable October and a lousy start to November, last Sunday up here in the Great White North was just spectacular. I put up our glass storm windows on the front porch, planted a few more trees and generally spent as much time outside as I could. The retractable dock is up - I love that thing, because I can be the last guy on the lake to take up my dock and I don’t need to get wet doing it - the hoses are drained, coiled, and put inside, and all the outside water lines have been shut off. By last Monday, conditions had once again deteriorated, and I predict that the ground will soon be frozen. I don’t mind winter so much, and in fact I enjoy the odd snowstorm; it’s the transitional phase from fall to winter that I do not like. My body has not yet adjusted to the cold, damp, rainy weather, and now in my late 50s, the bones are beginning to creak and moan a bit. That said, every time I complain about the weather, I remind myself of the present condition of the Jersey shore. There but for the grace of Mother Nature go I.

The other night, we had another wildlife adventure in the house. We were eating dinner in front of the television and heard Jasper’s uncharacteristically muted growl. Usually, if she’s in the house and sees an animal outside, she transforms into her alter ego, the convulsive, unstoppably noisy hound from hell, barking, frothing, and lunging at the window. She hates all rodents, dislikes most other critters as well, and only really tolerates us. The last time I heard her make that muted sound was when there was a flying squirrel in the house, perched on one of our higher curtain rods. Sure enough, Jasper was warning us that there was another flying squirrel in our house, clinging to the wall near the ceiling of one of the turrets. Believe it or not, those particular squirrels are protected and I am not supposed to kill them. Once they enter my house, all bets are off. Shauna brought me the pellet gun, but I wasn’t too keen on firing even that pop gun inside the house. I ended up catching it in a butterfly net and flinging it out in the yard. It took three tries to catch it, and I probably should have 86ed the little bastard, but I gave it a second chance. Any more home invasions and we’re adopting a scorched earth policy.

The Gaza Strip is back in the news, after an Israeli drone attack took out a top Hamas leader. Of course Hamas fired a barrage of rockets back at Israel, and that has been ongoing since before the drone attack. Much is made of the Israeli attacks on the innocent Palestinians, and if last week’s media coverage was any indication, the spin seems to favor the Palestinians. Certainly Hamas is trying to rally the Arab world to support their crusade for a Palestinian state (and the annihilation of Israel). Meanwhile, Syrian despot Assad and his thugs have exterminated 30,000 or more of their own countrymen as the world stands on the sidelines. I wonder now how Egypt will react to this latest escalation, now that her leadership is controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood. Will they jeopardize billions in U.S. aid to support Palestine? I would not want to be someone charged with keeping the peace in the Middle East. When asked about the seemingly hopeless nature of this conflict, one expert on international affairs brought up the fact that no one thought the bitter conflict in Northern Ireland would ever end, and essentially it has. While I understand the point he was making, peace in the Middle East seems unobtainable to me.

Last week, I mentioned the latest dive into the deep end of junk food lust as Pizza Hut announced its new hotdog-filled pizza. In the yin and the yang of America’s love affair with junk food, Hostess announced that after 82 years, it is closing down the Twinkie factory. No more Twinkies!? Forget the jobless rate, this will officially throw Americans into a deep depression. What a blow to American culture! Of course this announcement immediately led to a run on Twinkies, with five dollar boxes of the little golden logs of lard selling for eighty bucks or more on eBay. Great gift idea for the upcoming holidays. Buy your loved one that very collectible last box of Twinkies. In fifty years, you can have it appraised on Antiques Road Show; I’ll bet its value will skyrocket. To hell with Wall Street, discontinued junk food is the new gold standard. In the Hostess arsenal, Snowballs were always my favorite - those cream-filled, wobbly, gelatinous, coconut-covered blobs of pink and white which, when I was a child, vaguely reminded me of boobs.

One final story was eclipsed by coverage of the recent hurricane … I send a belated don‘t-let-the-screen-door-hit-you-on-the-way-out farewell to colorful Italian hound dog ex-Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi who, having resigned his leadership role, now faces four years in jail for tax fraud. Oops.

What would be the Italian equivalent to a Twinkie? Just wondering.

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 11/12/12

For all the Veterans

While watching the news the other day, I saw an ad that left me incredulous. Pizza Hut is introducing their new pizza featuring hotdogs folded into the perimeter crust of the pizza. Really, do the guys at Pizza Hut just look for the crappiest food to add to their pizzas? Hmmm, what salt-infused, artery-clogging, quasi food can we stuff into our pizzas this week?! Spam? Head Cheese? Pork sausage? Deep fried chicken wings? How about Snickers bars? I thought it was ridiculous when they filled those crusts with extra mozzarella; I mean, isn’t there enough cheese on the pizza already? Now it’s hotdogs. I‘ll bet this is a big seller with Honey Boo Boo and her grey-matter-deprived family. And speaking of Sodom, on to the elections ...

Let’s call it what it was, an ass whooping. The Republicans got their collective asses whooped, and perhaps that was overdue. I’ve been complaining since the Bush years that my party was hijacked by the religious right, and I think they finally drove the pope mobile over the cliff. Perhaps this wake up call will usher them into the 21^st Century (or even the 20^th for that matter) -- you know, that era when women have the right to decide what to do with their bodies and tolerance is favored over marginalization? Hard to believe, but not all Republicans are boneheads. Not unlike the Muslim extremists who have sullied Islam, so have those bozos on the extreme right undermined the Republican Party. I think Obama’s victory in former Republican strongholds sent a message to those afore-mentioned nut balls that the rest of America is not buying their brand of tuna. In a perfect world, both parties would now move to the center and do what is best for America, averting the imminent fiscal nosedive we are warned of daily. I am doubtful. It's time to stop this horribly irresponsible behavior and LEAD, and while we’re aspiring to do the impossible, perhaps we can figure out a way to implement election reform. A billion dollars spent for nothing; what a shameful display of waste! As for the yeah-we-showed-the-Republicans comments about a decisive victory, certainly this was a shot fired over the bow, but hardly a definitive national consensus. The popular vote indicated a divided country. As for the disrespectful nonsense I read and hear from both sides, I have this to say. We are all to blame for this mess, not Republicans or Democrats … all of us. The sooner we accept this and deal with it, the sooner we start the onerous process of digging ourselves out of this fiscal mess. BTW, I am a registered Republican. There, I’ve said it. This does not make me an ignorant, filthy rich, greedy, homophobic, evangelist, or a misogynist. Shame on those who would suggest this, directly or by inference. I have friends who are respected economists, doctors, employees at the Chevy plant in Buffalo, teachers, even women, who vote Republican. We are all Americans. We have differing beliefs about the course of the ship of state, and intolerance is childish and ugly be it from the left or the right. We wonder how so many of our public servants became so foolish and divisive … they pander to their electorate. It’s called politics. Final election comment. Polling results in Florida, where one humorist suggested Cubans go to live and Jews go to die, were still outstanding days after the election. WTF Florida, good thing the election did not hinge on your vote! Next time, let’s give Floridians a two week head start, you know, kind of an election handicap.

It’s been about two weeks now since Sandy washed away parts of the East Coast, and from what I’m reading and seeing, things are still pretty grim in the hardest hit areas. Ask a Long Islander what he or she thinks of Long Island Power and Light and you will likely get an earful. To add insult to injury, a N’or Easter just walloped the same areas devastated by Sandy, dumping snow on some of the worst hit areas. Did any of you see the 60 Minutes segment last night on the Queens community of Belle Harbor? Wow, talk about a group of people with a backbone.

Finally, and speaking of courage, yesterday was Veteran’s Day in the U.S. and Remembrance Day here in Canada. To the 118,000 Canadians who have lost their lives in the line of duty, and to the countless Americans who have died to protect our freedom, thank you for your sacrifice. As ridiculous as our society and our democracy sometimes seems, we share the greatest privilege in the world and I never take my freedom for granted. And to the victims of Sandy, may your lives resume some sense of normalcy soon.

　
Now who wants pizza?

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report - 11/6/12

ELECTION DAY ....

First of all, Happy Birthday to my best friend Bob, who turned 108 yesterday (ha ha). His birthday is about a month after mine, and to celebrate both birthdays, this year we decided to forgo the wax museums of Niagara Falls and make a pilgrimage to the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. Great timing, right after Sandy, but we called ahead and Cleveland was in fact still standing. Driving down from Buffalo we saw a lot of uprooted trees as we reached the Ohio border. Side roads were washed out and Shauna told me that there had been some damage to the Hall of Fame building. We arrived in Cleveland Friday night, and as we were checking in to our hotel, Bob ran into one of his wife’s colleagues from Buffalo. She asked if we had any use for one ticket to see rock band The Tragically Hip in a small venue (House of Blues). That band is one of my all time favorites; Bob’s as well. We agreed to take the ticket if we could buy one more scalped ticket. It was a cold blustery night, but we walked over to the House of Blues and made a deal with “Downtown Dan” to purchase an extra ticket for this sold out show, not knowing until the doors opened if what we had purchased would get us in. I have sold tickets to scalpers before, but had never before purchased one. There was a nervous half hour wherein we waited in line to get into the club, but Downtown Dan did not disappoint, and we were treated to one of the best rock performances I have ever seen close up. This fortuitous event, coupled with the pilgrimage to the Hall of Fame the following day made this trip one of the best I have made in a long, long time. I could have spent the whole day looking at hand-written lyric sheets.

Certainly Hurricane Sandy and the swath of destruction she cut through the East Coast has been front line news for the past week, eclipsing even the election coverage. The last damage estimates I heard were as high as $50 Billion, and as always, when a natural disaster of this magnitude hits, I was astounded by pictures of the destruction. The Jersey shore looked like a war zone and even my sister in Western Connecticut will be without power for and estimated week or two. There were so many things about this storm which were anomalous -- the fact that a stalled high pushed it west where it would do the most destruction, and the bitter cold winds and snowstorms it spawned -- but certainly the massive destruction was due to the unprecedented storm surge. This one will go down in the record books as the big one that hit the East Coast. Had this been Haiti and not the U.S., I’m quite sure the story would go away in one news cycle, but I think we will be hearing about this bitch for a long time.

Yes, today is election day, and I honestly haven’t a clue which candidate will be the best choice. I scoff at all the partisan zealots who are so sure they know. So many things about both candidates frighten me for the welfare of my country, and I have grown so mistrustful of both parties. The spin and the money have just gone off the rails, and I sympathize with all the as yet undecided voters out there. I voted absentee ballot a week or so ago, but no matter which way I voted, Obama is a shoe-in for the electoral vote in my overwhelmingly blue state. I predict a close race, and although I am told by the pundits that the majority of voters had made up their minds a long time ago, I think the incumbent got a game-winning bump from Sandy. If the election had been three weeks later, and had the typical Washington paralysis and dysfunction delayed necessary relief, perhaps things would be different. My cynicism has been amplified steadily since the voting scandal in 2000. I am appalled at the obscene campaign spending, which I feel should be capped at a small fraction of what it is, but I pray that whoever wins tonight will be able to unfreeze Washington. I really don’t care anymore who is (most likely mistakenly) perceived to be a leader, I just pray that a leader emerges from this cesspool of unproductive prevarication. Through it all, I remain blindly hopeful, because I believe in my country, and despite all its faults I am proud to be an American. I just hope that we can generate a few more Harry Trumans and a few less Harry Reids.

Colonel Tom What's wrong? What's Going On
You can't tie yourself up for a deal
He said" Hey North you're south shut you big mouth
You gotta do what you feel is real."
Ain't got no picture postcards ain't got no souvenirs
My baby she don't know me when I'm thinking about those years 

My memory is muddy what's this river I'm in
New Orleans is sinking and I don't want to swim 

   - From New Orleans is Sinking by The Tragically Hip

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report-10/29/12

A pre-emptive Happy Halloween to my twelve loyal readers. I wonder what this year’s most popular costume will be. Hillbilly beauty tyke Honey Boo Boo has been in the news a lot of late; if I was the ninja costume designer I once was, I’d dress up as Honey Boo Boo, after a botched liposuction job. Think of the possibilities!

Last week we began to wind down what has turned into a larger than expected landscaping project. Our guy Marty did the work, and has done wonders to make the approach to our property look much more presentable. One of the many things he did for us was to plant a lot of trees on the property. Last week he borrowed my landscape trailer and brought over about 200 evergreens and a few birches in various shapes and sizes that he’d been hired to clear from a nearby property. The larger ones I needed assistance to plant, but in the past week I probably planted 80 or 90 of the smaller ones myself. Now we have white, red, and scotch pines, several kinds of spruce (blue are my favorite), cedar, some willows, and some birches. We have also transplanted from the woods a few baby oak trees. Oaks are one of my favorites. I have only recently begun to genuinely appreciate the beauty of trees, and perhaps this is part of my stop-and-smell-the-roses transformation from the self-absorbed-constantly-rushed-stress-puppy I once was. Tree planting is very therapeutic and meaningful to both Shauna and me. On the lakeside of this house are three healthy maples - two planted by Shauna’s dad and one planted by her brother shortly before he passed in 2000. While nothing lasts forever, those trees are a reminder that Mother Nature will endure long after we are gone.

In the backyard of my childhood home in Buffalo there stands a giant Sycamore tree which I was told is one of the oldest in the city. I always thought of it as third base for our pickup softball games. In those difficult last years, when I was down visiting my parents near the ends of their lives, I remember looking out at that tree from my old bedroom window and deriving great comfort from its newly appreciated majesty. I hope the new owners can appreciate it as half as much as I learned to.

As Shauna’s parents reach the stage in their lives when they struggle to maintain their independence and dignity, once again with trepidation I watch the challenges that both parent and child must confront. I mentioned a few reports ago that for her birthday I purchased tickets for Shauna and her mom to see Barbra Streisand perform in Toronto. This might be Streisand’s last tour, making it all the more special. Both mother and daughter are huge fans, and it made me happy to give them this gift. Several days before the concert there was a heated disagreement over one of the ever-increasing issues of independence. I was worried that this might tarnish the mother daughter experience, and by extension, the memory I hoped to create. Thankfully, and a credit to both mother and daughter, they got past their differences, and last Tuesday they attended the concert together. I know they appreciated the experience. Music is one of the best and most memorable gifts. A tree was planted.

I have spent too much time disagreeing and harboring ill will towards others - family members, friends who disappoint me, complete strangers. Sometimes that ill will is a toxic byproduct of love, sometimes it’s not. I have been as guilty as most of these indiscretions, but I think I am getting better about letting the bad stuff go. Perhaps the trees I planted last week can soak up some of that poison. With “perfect Storm” Hurricane Sandy imminent, and the contentious elections a few weeks away, I take solace in trees.

Abandoned yellow Chevy, left along the side

Pink dusk paints the windows and there’s not a soul in sight

Who was the driver, on his desert drive

White lines on the highway a rhythm for my sight

A windmill in the distance is a ladder to the sky

And it’s so peaceful, on my desert drive

These monuments to nothing, but I’m looking for a sign

Looking for some answers, on my desert drive.

 

from Desert Drive (c1992)

                                                 Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2012 All Rights Reserved                                

The Oppenheimer Report-10/22/12

As most of my friends know, I am a huge fan of moose. I’m not talking about Moosehead beer (which BTW not too many Canadians really drink), or the Moosejaw Warriers hockey team, or Moose FM, a popular radio station up here in the GWN. No, I’m referring to the real deal, one of Nature’s uglier behemoths, and I love it when I can spot them in the wild. I have seen a few in Alberta, but up until this year, I had never before spotted one here in Ontario. About a month ago, I came upon a (moose) cow on the side of the road as I headed into town to do some grocery shopping, and I got very excited. Hey, this is the Great White North; this is what we do up here. Last Wednesday around dusk, I took my folding boat out for a frosty putt around the lake, and as I was returning to our dock, lo and behold, there was a very large bull moose sauntering along the shoreline in ankle deep water. I could not believe that after all those moose-less years in Ontario, I spot a giant, I mean giant, bull moose, walking along the shore right in front of our house! I immediately called Shauna on my cell to let her know, but by the time I had done this, the moose had turned up towards land and was headed for the woods through the gap between our neighbor’s house and ours. Shauna ran around to the back of the house and tried to get a picture of it as it plodded off into the woods, in no particular hurry, but in the dusk light all she got was a big brown blur. She even dug up our moose caller and attempted to lure it back, although I’m not sure she is fluent in moose. This might be the biggest animal I have ever seen in the wild, and I understand why they are considered a formidable  road danger. Hit one of those beasts at high speed and it’s going to be a serious collision. We know a woman up here who was severely crippled because she and her boyfriend hit a moose while driving. I’ve got those deer alert things mounted to the front bumper of my car. Apparently they emit some kind of high pitched whistle at when the car is traveling at high speeds and this is supposed to alert the animal. I think they help, because several times driving I have passed deer on the side of the road, and they seem to look up when my car passes. Knock on wood, we’ve traveled extensively in areas where moose and deer abound, and we’ve never had one run out in front of us. Perhaps we’ve just been very lucky. Brief aside: everyone remembers Captain Kangaroo, and his sidekick Mr. Greenjeans, but how many of you remember the loveable Mr. Moose, the other seminal member of that children’s show ensemble? I adored that moose.

We do not have garbage collection at Jasper Bark Lodge, because there is no municipal pickup on the road where we live and all the private services require me to leave the garbage at the top of our drive. By the time I schlep it to the top of our 500 meter driveway, in animal proof garbage bins, I figure I might as well take it all the way to the dump. Besides, going to the dump is an adventure. There are black bears there during the summer, sometimes within spitting distance of where I throw my garbage, and as well the people who operate the yard are all colorful, interesting characters. Don’t ask me how I did it, but I inadvertently dropped something valuable into our plastics recycling bin last time I was there, then realized it about an hour after I’d emptied it out at the dump. Have you ever rummaged around inside a giant plastics recycling bin before? Well, now I have. It’s a little like those play bins they have in kids play areas filled with the multicolored plastic balls. Kinda fun, but sticky. You should have seen all the odd looks I got from people dropping off their recycled goods. “Look Gord, that city fellah has finally snapped!” This is how people guage dementia up here; if they see someone in the recycling bin, rummaging through the crap, they know he or she is a few spices short of a goulash. Shauna was with me, with her cute little yellow raincoat, daintily picking out one bottle at a time, as I frantically flailed through yards and yards of the stuff.

What else. Last Sunday, Austrian skydiver and daredevil Felix Baumgartner jumped from space and plunged a record 23 miles, freefalling to Earth from a manned helium balloon. That was a pretty cool video to watch. U.S. Senator Arlen “Wild Card” Specter died last week at 82. Seen by many in the Republican Party as a turncoat, Specter began his career as a Democrat, changed parties in ‘65, and then went back to the Democrats in 2009. I’ll bet that’s something a lot of moderate Republicans are contemplating these days, that or becoming Independents. Cell phone giants Apple and Samsung settled their much-publicized phone dispute. Apple had sued Samsung for illegally copying its products, and won. The dispute may not be over, because now Samsung is threatening to call for a new trial, claiming that the foreman of the jury had undisclosed biases against Samsung.

That Mr. Moose, he cracked me up.

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report -10/15/12

　

Scary Pete

At present, I am reading the second autobiography by a famous musician/songwriter. I recently finished Keith Richards’ Life, which I read on the recommendation of a fellow rock fan, and I am now almost finished reading Neil Young’s Waging a Heavy Peace. I am a slow reader, always have been, and I do not generally read as much as I have of late, but I am really enjoying these life stories. I do not usually consider autobiographies to be page turners, but the stories these guys tell interest me because 1. They involve sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll, and 2. I am interested in the craft of songwriting. Richards said he wrote the famous Stones hit Satisfaction in his sleep. Young wrote his famous song Old Man about the former caretaker of the ranch he owns in Northern California. While I have always assumed Keith Richards was a drug-addled punk with the IQ of a turnip, his story proves him to be anything but (stupid I mean … he was definitely drug-addled). Along with fellow songwriter Mick Jagger, Richards penned some of my favorite rock'n' roll hits of all times, songs like Jumpin’ Jack Flash, Honky Tonk Woman, Sympathy for the Devil, Shattered, and Brown Sugar. The Rolling Stones album Beggar’s Banquet is one of my top ten favorite albums of all times. To me, it was fascinating to read the context in which many of these songs were written. Young’s book is of course written in an entirely different voice, but I feel I know both these men a little better for having read the accounts of their personal lives. One thing is clear, the muse of rock'n'roll is ever demanding and both of these fortunate songwriters have suffered some serious challenges in their personal lives. Richards has been clean (not sure about sober) for about ten years, and as of the writing of his book, Young had just quit drinking and smoking. Apparently, he liked his weed. He wasn’t sure if the muse would revisit him clean and sober, but I don’t think he will ever quit.

There was a segment on 60 Minutes last week about a forgotten Mexican American songwriter from Detroit named Sixto Diaz Rodriquez (Rodriguez for short), who had a brief career in music back in the late 60s and early 70s. Like so many talented songwriters, he was doomed to obscurity, and for the past thirty years, had lived as a common laborer in Detroit. Unbeknownst to him, his albums caught fire across the sea, in places like South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. He was likened to Dylan, and he became a legend when rumors surfaced that he had committed suicide while performing onstage. When he was re-discovered, living in poverty in Detroit, he became an instant star again, achieving fame beyond what he had ever before known. He’s over 70 now and this sudden and long overdue recognition seems to come as a surprise to him. Famous and humble are not two words I usually put together, but this guy is the real deal. I watched him perform on Letterman not too long ago, and he really does have something special. Not knowing anything about him, Shauna and I were both impressed and thought he was one of the better musical acts to play on that show. He reminded me a bit of Leonard Cohen. The funny thing is that he had no idea of the impact his songs had had on a generation of South Africans. What a shame. Better late than never.

When I started to write songs back in the early 80s, like so many other pie-in-the-sky wannabes, I wanted to become famous. That aspiration quickly evolved into a simple desire to be heard. Not unlike many other “artists” I still want recognition, but after having wallpapered my bedroom with rejection notices from music publishers and record companies over many years, I became more realistic. I’ve been performing on the open mike circuit for over 25 years, I can safely say there is a lot of unrecognized talent out there; 95% of it performs better than I. Yes, I still seek recognition, but often that can be the death of creativity. Lucky for me, this is the age of information and I can put my songs out into cyberspace to be ignored by the masses. The trick is not to get discouraged. I suspect I will be writing songs as long as I am able.

Speaking of songwriting, I noticed on YouTube there are some pretty funny NHL lockout songs floating around. Today I listened to a few of them, and my personal favorite so far is Shut the Puck Up by Scary Pete. You can Google the song title or just go to Pete’s website (http://www.scarypete.com) if you want to see the video. It gave me a belly laugh. This disgraceful NHL display of unbridled greed and ego should be lampooned for all to see, and I hope this public relations nightmare somehow negatively impacts those shameless NHL owners and players at least half as much as it has the loyal fans and the hundreds of thousands of hard working people whose jobs rely on professional hockey. How about putting a cap on ticket prices you greedy sons of bitches! Perhaps it’s time for me to throw my as yet unwritten NHL-bashing song into the ring.

      - Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report - 10/8/12

Today, I turned fifty-seven years old, and seriously, I don’t feel a day over fifty-six. The fact is, somewhere along the line, birthdays stopped meaning all that much to me, other than to re-affirm that I am thankful to be alive. Appropriately enough, today also happens to be the Canadian Thanksgiving, so to all my Canadian pals, take the day off! Birthdays used to be such a big deal. I remember when I was eight or nine, one of the popular birthday celebrations was to throw a mega party at a roller skating rink, with fifty to seventy guests attending. Those parties were especially popular, because of course the more guests one invited, the more gifts one received. I’m not sure how many yo-yos, Hoola Hoops, or GI Joe dolls (Barbie for the girls) one boy or girl needs, but with that many guests, there were bound to be a few repeat gifts. In those days, before big box toy stores, most of the mothers in Buffalo probably did their toy shopping at Clayton’s Toyland on Elmwood Ave. A lot of my favorite toys came from that store and I used to love to go to Claytons with my mom, A.K.A. The Bank of Betty. Almost without fail, I walked out of that store with something. Back in the day, I loved cap guns and it was always a good excuse to ride over to Clayton’s (conveniently located just around the corner from our house) and replenish my supply of caps. These days, “popping a cap” means something different and entirely more violent. Generally, I liked anything that was noisy and/or tactile. I remember one silly toy made by Mattel called a “Varoom”. Anybody remember the Varoom? Basically, this was a battery-powered plastic noisemaker, which attached to one’s bicycle under the seat, and vaguely resembled a motorcycle motor. This was a somewhat lame improvement on the universally annoying playing card in the spokes noisemaker. The Varoom made some kind of cheap synthesized noise which sounded more like bad radio reception than a motorcycle engine, with some kind of “accelerator” that I could control from the handlebars. I’m sure I was a big hit with the neighbors on Sunday mornings, tooling around on my bicycle with that thing blaring. These days, my toys are bigger, more expensive, and even noisier.

Last Saturday, we attended an early Canadian Thanksgiving celebration with some of Shauna’s long lost cousins. They had invited us and Shauna’s parents to a big dinner - twenty or so guests - and that was particularly meaningful to me. We weren’t sure if that would be too much traveling for Shauna or her parents, but everyone rose to the occasion and we made it there on time. As well, we were all somewhat apprehensive, because that gathering represented a lot of strangers getting together to celebrate what is traditionally a family gathering. Now that there are no more American Thanksgivings to celebrate at the Oppenheimer household, and given that this was by far my favorite holiday of the year, I was hoping this Canadian version would be a success. Rather than wallowing in the past, I felt it was time to make a new tradition, and I very much wanted this celebration to be like the dinners I remembered. As it turned out, the stars aligned, the people were all wonderful, and we all gelled like a true family. There was a lot of history there, some of it not so happy, and in some ways this represented a lot of broken families coming together to form a new unit. Family can be complicated, and I have come to realize that it changes and evolves over time. Sometimes it expands, sometimes it contracts; there are schisms, conflicts, miscommunications, illnesses, deaths, second and third marriages, new boyfriends, new girlfriends, hurt feelings, mended fences, sorrow, and great joy. One thing I’ve learned in my 57 years is that this long strange trip is infinitely richer and more rewarding with the unfolding drama and constant evolution of a strong family. At the Oppenheimer household, Thanksgiving was legendary for its goodwill and joy, and we usually took in a few strays along the way. I will always remain thankful for that gift my Mom and Dad gave me. Thanks Mom and Dad! More so than any other holiday, this one bespeaks community to me, and it annually reminds me that if we can stay connected, regardless of the dysfunction, the misunderstandings, and the drama, then we are richer for the experience. In turn, that spark goes out into the world and indirectly enriches the lives of others. It’s called love, and in my opinion, it is highly under-rated. It may be on injured reserve these days, but it still exists in plentiful supplies, sometimes in the strangest places. The trick is to be receptive, and I suppose that comes with practice. Thank goodness I am blessed to have known so much of it in my life to date.

I made the sweet potato recipe my mother had served on Thanksgiving for forty plus years, because some traditions should never change. On this, the beginning of my 58^th year, I am sincerely thankful for all the good fortune I have known. Thank you friends and family for helping me feel this way.
- Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report - 10/1/12

Last Tuesday, on the eve of Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, Shauna and I walked down to the dock at dusk and recited our prayers. While I am not a religious man by any means, and far less observant than most Jews, I find this particular high holy day relevant, and we usually acknowledge the day by fasting. When I was a kid, Mom insisted I and the family attend temple services with her on the high holy days, and I never really got it. I didn’t like all that standing up and sitting down, reciting prayers that had little meaning to me, and listening to a cantor whose voice I never liked. Even though I knew generally what the services were about, I‘d rather have been almost anywhere but in temple. As religions go, I think Judaism is a pretty good one. My lack of religious conviction has nothing to do with any kind of devotion that my parents failed to instill in me, or because I am in any way ashamed to be Jewish. I am simply at odds with all the bad things done in the name of G-d, regardless of the religion, and I am particularly wary of all religious fundamentalism. That said, I stop short of declaring myself an atheist, and there I found myself reciting parts of the Kol Nidre by the lake. We stood among Mother Nature’s congregation, with the multi-colored landscape of Fall surrounding us, washed in a golden light from the setting sun, and we acknowledged those whom we’ve lost in the past year. We also reflected on our shortcomings. It’s not a bad idea to take stock of the things I’ve done wrong in the past year, and to express hope that I can be a better person in the new year. I’ve rarely seen a sunset so beautiful. Crepuscular is I believe the term, with rays of sunlight beaming through the clouds and a soft pink light across the sky.

That was a beautiful night, unlike most of the week before when it was so miserable up here I saw a chipmunk scamper by our window wearing foul weather gear. He had that whole Nor’easter thing going on; boots, hat, everything. I think this is how The Farmer’s Almanac predicts things; they just look at what the animals are wearing in the Fall. We have one final building project slated for before the snow flies and at present, the deck of our carport is torn off. Admittedly, this is not great timing, but as one quickly realizes up here in the GWN, contractors up here work on a different time clock. And if it’s moose hunting season, fuggettabbottit. Should the November rains come early this year, we will be screwed.

I think we all assume that teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa “sleeps with the fishes”, but since he disappeared without a trace 37 years ago, no one knows exactly where he went. Rumours abound as to how it happened, and last week, there was yet another tip, this one suggesting he’d been buried in the driveway of a Roseville, Michigan home. I’m pretty sure this will turn out to be yet another dead end. Perhaps he’s embedded in the end zone of Giants Stadium, or he’s long since been digested in the belly of some alligator down in the Everglades, but more than likely, his body was disposed of in some even more untraceable way. This was a high profile hit, and this is the mob we’re talking about. When those guys want to make someone disappear, they usually succeed. Why would the mob bury him anywhere he could be dug up? Without a trace means without a trace. Unless some credible mob snitch makes a death bed confession, I think this one is a bona fide cold case. Someday, perhaps Geraldo will do a 4-hour special on it: In Search of Jimmy Hoffa‘s Teeth. My theory? I think he was made into hotdogs; you never know what goes into some of those discount dogs.

Crooner Andy Williams has passed on after a battle with bladder cancer. When I was a little boy, our housekeeper/babysitter/ surrogate grandmother used to make me watch The Andy Williams Show with her. Mr. Moon River himself. Sadly, that show wasn’t the worst thing we watched; I also sat through many an episode of General Hospital, Gomer Pyle, USMC, The Lawrence Welk Show, Petticoat Junction, and countless other examples of 70s TV drek. Perhaps this explains my present day love of bad T.V.; I’ve been trained to enjoy it! Who knows what that did to my development? Thanks a lot Mary, and if you’re up there in heaven reading this (because everybody does), smoking your Pall Mall non filters, I forgive you.

After all, that’s what a good Jew does on Yom Kippur.

-Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED