The Oppenheimer Report 5/28/13

I am writing this on my new (and apparently obsolete) computer which, for the time being is running fine. Windows 8 continues to be a problem for me and I was not until yesterday could I even load a word processing software onto this computer. Everything must be done online these days, and I do not like this one bit. Basically, I was unable to write on this computer for weeks because I could not download the large MS Office file that includes the word processing software I prefer to use. I also bought a computer without a touch screen, and Windows 8 was designed for touch screen computers and tablets. It is not “mouse friendly.” Thank you Microsoft may I have another! Heaven forbid I should be one step behind in our technological race to extinction! There is simply too much for an old fool like me to learn. I need a password to open my computer, a password for my email accounts, a password to access my passwords, and I am having trouble keeping track of them all. Frankly there really isn’t much to hide on my computer anyway, so I might as well just leave it unprotected. OK, there was that one midget hermaphrodite porn site, but everyone has a few skeletons in their hard drive. I believe anybody who thinks a couple of passwords will protect them from the omnipresent threat of identity theft is barking up the wrong tree with both oars out of the water.

 On this subject of advancing technology, my favorite pet peeve, I am presently reading David Sedaris’ latest book Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls. Sedaris is by far my favorite contemporary comedic writer, and in his usual tongue in cheek fashion he discusses cell phones and their increasing ability to multi task. He said he skipped IPhones 4 and 5 and is holding out for #7, which he understand includes a Taser. Then he will be able to email someone, call someone, text someone, take a picture, watch a sports event, and defend against an attacker, all at the same time. The other day Shauna and I were in Huntsville and she realized that she’d forgotten to record some must see program, like Real Housewives of Saskatoon, on our “PVR” at home. No problem, because she has an application on her Blackberry, which by the way she loves more than she loves me, and it enables her to remotely access our PVR and program whatever recording she desires. We could be in the wilderness, if said wilderness had cell service, and be comforted in the knowledge that when we returned home we wouldn’t have missed one cat fight, one dramatic pause with music, one random murder, or scandalous celebrity meltdown. At what point do we lose control of our lives when we become so reliant on this “labor saving” technology? Do I really need an electric machine to peel my potatoes?   

 That EF5 tornado that leveled Moore, Oklahoma was something to behold, wasn’t it? Given the short warning, the path it took, and the long amount of time it was on the ground, I am surprised more people were not killed.  How strange as well that it followed basically the same path as a similar destructive tornado that hit the area back in 1999. Weather junkie that I have become, I just watched a video entitled “Inside the Tornado,” which I found on the Weather Channel website, and I could not believe what I was seeing. Somone, probably an experienced storm chaser, was able to film this tornado as it passed directly over the camera. I do not know how this was possible without having the camera destroyed, but it is the wildest natural disaster video I can ever remember viewing. What immediately struck me was how loud it was.

 
Did you see the video of that Muslim extremist Adelbolago calmly “discussing” his brutal act just after he and another man butchered a British soldier to death with a meat cleaver and knives in the streets of London? He claims the act was retribution for all the Muslims who have been killed at the hands of British soldiers. Now they’re saying this guy was deported from Kenya in 2010 and may have links to Al-Qaeda. How do we let these guys get in to our countries? Last week I spoke of the increasing use of face recognition technology in day to day life, and I had an Orwellian thought. After I watched that disturbing phone video of this man calmly discussing why he chose to slaughter another man like livestock, on the streets of a major international city, to bring attention to his plight, I wondered how long it will be before there is an application for our cell phones that allows us to target the monsters and the nut jobs. Perhaps we could call it BigFaceBrotherBook, but I’ll leave it to the twenty-somethings of Silicone Valley to come up with a catchy name. All one needs to do is take a cell phone picture and hit send to homeland security for verification. I don’t think we’re all that far from this now, because we are all being recorded almost everywhere in public. I guess this would make every public place the new battlefield. Final notes … there was a hung jury in the sentencing phase of the much hyped Jody Arias trial. They just couldn’t agree to put her to death. And speaking of face recognition, I heard the other day that actor Brad Pitt may suffer from that weird disease that prohibits people from being able to recognize familiar faces, making him I suppose a less than ideal customer for my new homeland security app.   

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 5/20/13

Happy Victoria Day! Although I heard on the news that Newfoundland had had snow last weekend, up here in the GWN we are finally experiencing the seasonal weather we have so far been missing. I put the dock down yesterday and fired up the dingy for its shakedown cruise. Flowers have been planted, trees pruned, and our rather pathetic lawn has been mown for the first time of the season.

Last Friday I played four of my songs at the musician’s showcase in Burk’s Falls and although the house was not as packed as it has been for previous showcases, there was a healthy crowd of 40 or 50 listeners, and I am told by Shauna that I did not suck. And she would tell me. Though I have played in public many times over the last thirty years, I am always a little more nervous when I know that people are actually listening. You know you’re in trouble when some drunk comes up while you are in the middle of a song and loudly asks if you know any Johnny Cash. I played four songs written over my songwriting “career” to date, and the last song I performed I wrote less than two weeks ago. It is always a challenge to play new songs in public, because I am still tweaking the lyrics, but sometimes I’ve got to leap before I look, with both oars out of the water. One of the great things about this showcase is that I have met some gifted local musicians and songwriters and have come to realize that I am not the only talented genius in the area.

One of my favorite open mics in Toronto, which no longer exists, was held at a sports bar in downtown Toronto called Grace O’Malley's. The reason it was so enjoyable for me was because of the host, a country singer/songwriter named Tim Hicks. Open mic hosts can sometimes be real jerks, largely because it’s not any musician’s first choice for work. As a host you are dealing with a lot of wannabe musicians, and some of the acts are simply atrocious. A good host must diplomatically weed out or abbreviate the worst acts while keeping everyone happy. In most cases open mics are not designed to foster new talent but rather to boost liquor sales on a slow night. If they are successful in this latter endeavor, then the performances often suffer. Tim ran a good open mic. He knew how to give someone the hook without really offending them, he was patient, and he is a very good artist as well. I was in touch with him recently and he seems to be doing well as a professional musician. That is something not many people can say. He’s had some success with several of his songs, won some regional country music awards, and is now getting some serious industry interest out of Nashville. His song and video Stronger Beer has received more than 250,000 hits on YouTube. You can Google it - it’s a tongue in cheek comparison between American and Canadian pop culture. His “new country” song Get By is an ITune top 160 right now for downloads, and I think a pretty good, radio friendly song. I never thought I’d see the day when artistic success was measured in hits and downloads, but that is the music business in the 21^st century. Last night Shauna and I watched the Billboard Music Awards, and if that is the direction pop music is taking then heaven help us. Kids these days. I wish I was cute and nineteen, I’d be famous!

Final notes. There was an earthquake late last week in Quebec not far from the Ontario border, and people as far west as Toronto and Cleveland felt the rumble. We don’t usually think of the Northeast as prone to earthquakes, but I understand Western New York sits on or near a major fault line, and if memory serves me correctly (as it does less and less often), the University of Buffalo has an earthquake monitoring station. Saw an interesting 60 Minutes segment last night on advances is face recognition technology. I always thought face recognition was something that was only used for national security, but as it turns out, face recognition technology has become cheaper and more available, and it is now being used by big businesses to target potential customers. Privacy schmivacy, when it comes to selling jeans, anything goes.

Toronto mayor Rob Ford made CNN last week after allegations there was a cell phone video showing the mayor smoking crack with a drug dealer. Channeling with former DC mayor Marion Barry are we? No confirmations either way, but Toronto media is not  giving the story a lot of airplay. Ford has a lot of enemies and bad press rolls off him like water off a duck's back. Speaking of Toronto, the Leafs broke our hearts (once again), losing Game 7 in Boston, in overtime, after they had dominated the entire game and were up by 3 points! Arrrgh!!! Finally, as I finish writing this report, an F4 tornado has just blown through Oklahoma near Oklahoma City and the damage is obviously severe. My heart goes out to all the victims of this latest natural disaster.

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 5-13-13

Go Leafs Go!

It’s feast or famine up here in the Great White North. Two weeks ago we were experiencing severe flooding and now there is a fire ban in the area because it is so dry. Half the trees I planted last season have died for lack of water, proving that I truly do have a brown thumb. As I began this report on Thursday morning, the skies were grey and the weatherman was calling for rain from a Colorado low rolling in. On Saturday the thermometer had plunged thirty-five degrees and now there are frost warnings. I make the same mistake every year; assuming that the hot dry weather means that winter is over, I go out and buy a bunch of flowers or put my germinated seeds outside to harden, and then BANG, the weather changes. Good thing I don’t try to make my living as a farmer. Conventional wisdom up here is to hold off planting until the end of May, but nobody ever accused me of being wise.

Murderess Jody Arias was convicted of first degree murder in the killing of Travis Alexander in Arizona. While I did not follow the high profile trial closely, I think anyone on a jury could see that her story did not add up. After the Casey Anthony acquittal last year and the O.J. fiasco back in the 90s, I was beginning to have my doubts about the criminal justice system in America. This time I think the jurors got it right. Back when I still lived in Buffalo, my one and only experience with jury duty was as a juror in a murder trial. Some guy had shot another guy to death in a bar, appropriately named The Peyton Place Lounge, and was pleading self defense. He claimed he’d never used a gun before in his life, yet he managed to shoot the victim in the heart and lung, in a dark bar, from a distance of fifty feet, in the back, with a handgun his girlfriend just happened to be carrying in her purse. First of all, the victim was walking away from him at the time, so it was hard to believe this murder was self defense, and secondly, it’s not easy to kill a man with a small caliber handgun, in a dark bar, from fifty feet. Beginner’s luck I guess. I sat on that jury for over a month, listened to ballistics testimony, and coroner’s reports, and police reports, and eyewitness accounts ad nauseam, and shortly before Christmas, we convicted the guy of first degree murder. Anyone who thinks that sitting on a jury is exciting has never done it. Even though this was a murder trial, it was excruciatingly boring. Ultimately, what sunk the defendant was ballistics testimony, and during jury selection the defense must have overlooked the fact that five of the jurors were experienced marksmen. Thankfully, the DA did a good job of presenting the case against the defendant. Of course, we as jurors were instructed not to watch the news or read newspapers during the trial, but after the trial we found out that the defendant had had a long history of violence. He’d kidnapped women and handcuffed them to the rafters of his attic for days, he probably shot his grandmother to death with a shotgun, although there was not enough evidence to convict, and there were several other suspicious murders that had his fingerprints all over them. In this recent Arias trial, the jurors were allowed to go home every night, and I can’t believe they were able to completely ignore all the press about the case. These days, with Twitter, and cell phones, and the internet, and all the different ways we are bombarded with information, it seems unlikely that somebody on that jury did not hear something from the outside world about this trial. Everybody loves a train wreck. What I found interesting in this Arias trial is that in Arizona, jurors are allowed to question the witnesses, including the defendant.

This coming Friday, I will be performing a few of my songs at The Village Tavern in nearby Burk’s Falls, and it should be an interesting experience. Unlike the noisy open mics I am used to playing, this showcase is a venue where people might actually be listening. I have been writing songs now for well over thirty years, and I think I will play one of the first songs I wrote, one I wrote about fifteen years ago, and one I wrote several weeks ago. The most recent song, tentatively entitled “Better” is in the polishing stage, and the lyrics are as yet unfinished. It would be much easier to play songs I am used to playing in public, but that is too much in my comfort zone. Playing a new song in public will be challenging, but it’s the only way I will grow as a performer. What is it they say … do one thing every day that scares you? I scare myself every day, just looking in the mirror. As I sign off tonight, it is Sunday night, it’s snowing lightly, and the Toronto Maple Leafs just tied up the series with the Boston Bruins 3-3. Do I dare to dream? Game 7 is in Boston Monday night, so I may not be dreaming long, but GO LEAFS GO!!!!

-Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 5/6/13

The other day I was in the retail wonderland which is Canadian Tire, or as some Canadians call it “Crappy Tire”, and I decided to buy our dog Jasper a new toy. She is enamored of a stuffed, multi-colored fish with a rope loop attached at each end, which we have dubbed “fishy rope”. We are now on fishy rope #2, but try as I might I have not found an exact replica of this toy in over five years. Jasper has a pile of toys but she only really plays with four or five of them. The rest of them she simply takes out of her toy bin and distributes around the house in such a way as to be the greatest tripping hazard. Fishy rope and “froggie” the croaking stuffed frog are her top two, and if either of these two goes missing, she falls into a spiritual decline. Fishy rope is getting pretty disgusting, and although it has been washed numerous times, it is rapidly decomposing like spoiled fruit. So, the other day I found what I thought would be a suitable replacement (I’d purchased fishy ropes 1 and 2 at Canadian Tire as well), and I thought I was buying a stuffed beaver with rope loops. What better toy for a Canadian dog than a stuffed beaver, right? When I showed it to Shauna later she started to laugh, because what I had in fact purchased was a stuffed flying squirrel. After all the problems we have had with flying squirrels, perhaps this is some kind of karmic retribution. Of course Jasper loves it and it has taken a place of honor among the other top five.

I heard a disturbing fact reported on the news the other night: 38000 people committed suicide last year America, an all time record. Men are reported to be four times more likely than women to kill themselves, and it is becoming a public health crisis. Also notable in this statistic is the alarming increase in recent veterans who are committing suicide. Perhaps this escalation is due to the recent financial crisis, or maybe it’s just getting harder for people to cope with the stress of day to day life. I’d be interested to see if there has been a rise in this statistic in countries where the quality of life is much lower. In America. people throw hissy fits when their internet service is disrupted for a day, or the lights go off during the Superbowl. Juxtapose that with a woman in Afghanistan who simply wants to avoid being raped and beaten by men who still believe the earth is flat.

And speaking of things I should not complain about but do (because I live in a free country and am spoiled rotten), I mentioned a few weeks ago that I recently purchased a new laptop, loaded with Windows 8. Once again Microsoft has produced a bad operating system, and there are entire websites dealing with complaints about Windows 8. I am now awaiting some kind of quick fix by my computer friend, who strongly recommended that switch back to the much more reliable Windows 7, a system that worked just fine for me. One of the problems, according to my guy, is that Windows 8 was designed with touch screens in mind, and if one‘s computer does not have one, it is not user friendly. Ya gotta love advancing technology. I got so sick of trying to work with the new computer that I am writing this on my old computer with the damaged keyboard. I went out and bought a wireless keyboard for twenty bucks to and now I’m back in business. The thing that irks me the most about all of this is the pathetic customer service Microsoft offers. I needed to load a word processing software onto the new computer, because for the first time ever Windows did not provide it. This is when I learned that one cannot purchase a software disk anymore - everything is downloaded from the internet. This can be a problem if, like I do, one lives in a remote area with limited internet access. Downloading 2 gigabytes of software can take forever, and in my case, after four hours of trying, I got an error message indicating that those fours hours were wasted. My internet provider charges me according to the amount of data I download, so this was a lose, lose for me. Good luck trying to get a satisfactory result from the Microsoft order taker in Pakistan. I finally cancelled my order.

Singer songwriter George “No Show” Jones passed away recently and was commemorated at the Grand Ol Opry last week. The guy wrote some great songs, and one of his friends made the point that Jones was a country song. In other words, he’d lived the songs he wrote. Before he sobered up, Jones got the nickname “No Show” because he drank a lot and was notorious for missing his gigs. 11 ½ years after 9-11 new World Trade center presently under construction was topped off last week, making it (I believe) the tallest building in the western hemisphere. Finally, it is that time of year when the bugs come out and the scratching begins. I bought a Skeeter Vac a few years ago, and that helps. Someone suggested burning Neem seed oil as an effective way to kill mosquitoes, so I‘m trying that. I also bought one of those clip on mosquito repellants made by Off. If anyone figure out how to eradicate black flies, I’m all ears. I do not like wearing netting over my head.

Jasper … go kill the flying squirrel!

-Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report - 4/29/13

Flooding has been the big story up here in the Great White North this past week. A fast thaw coupled with a lot of rain has put some people in cottage country under water. Our property is fairly well drained and runoff is diverted to the perimeters of the property, but this was a large volume of water in a short period of time and we live at the bottom of a hill. We had some flooding, largely because our sump in the basement failed, but there were quite a few people locally who had it much worse than we did. Our local marina, which lies on the Magnetawan River, is also our post office, and when I went over to pick up our mail the other day, I saw that the river had swollen well beyond its banks. All the docks are ruined, and depending on how bad this turns out, their boat ramp may be damaged as well. Large debris floating down river might catch on the ramp and undermine it. As I write this I can see out on the recently thawed lake that there are some big dock parts floating around out there, and all sorts of flotsam is floating down the Magnetawan right now. Nearby Huntsville and Bracebridge had a lot of washed out roads and on the local news it was estimated that in Huntsville alone the damage was up over $1Million. We were in Huntsville today for a doctors appointment and it is obvious from all the heavy equipment driving around town that Huntsville is in the middle of a big cleanup. Many of the stores were closed, including my beloved dollar store. They are calling this a hundred year flood, after which the term “hundred year flood plain” was derived for planning purposes, and most of the locals say they don’t ever remember the water getting this high. Rain is in the forecast, so this is not over yet. Our lake level is at least four feet above normal, and I’m just hoping that all this water flows down to Georgian Bay without decimating all the communities downstream. Last week I was in a terrible mood , because after the tease of spring, I was pumping water out of our basement, and to rub salt into the wound, we had two nights of heavy, wet snow. I was watching a couple of Canadian geese out on the lake last week, and it was almost as if they were complaining. Wife to husband: “You just HAD to be home for the first day of spring … we couldn’t have stayed in Florida for two more weeks, you schmuck!!”

Near the capital of Bangladesh the Rana Plaza building collapsed killing a lot of the most underpaid garment workers in the world. In all, there were five separate factories in the building which employed about 3000 workers. At least 400 are reportedly dead with many more still missing, and it is being called one of the worst garment industry accidents ever. The real tragedy is that many of these workers knew the building was structurally unsound but did not protest for fear of losing their jobs. Cheap labor attracts the business of Western retail companies like J.C. Penny and Loblaws. When you see those Joe Fresh polo shirts for ten bucks, chances are they’re made by workers who get paid pennies an hour and work in sweat shop conditions reminiscent of turn of the century America. While the events in Boston and West, Texas last week pretty much dominated the news, one needs look no further than page three (of that soon-to-be-obsolete newspaper) to find some international tragedy that puts all other tragedies into perspective. There was a massacre last week in civil war torn Syria in which hundreds were killed execution style.

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher passed away not too long ago, and I never knew much about her until well after she served as Prime Minister. The other night we watched The Iron Lady in which Meryl Streep played the controversial leader, and I was impressed by Streep’s award-winning performance. I never realized that Thatcher was so hated by many of the British. I suppose like some other myopic Americans, I was generally uninformed about the politics of other countries. What particularly interested me was the dementia aspect of her story. No matter how important a person may be during their illustrious life, dementia robs them of the ability to reflect upon that life. I read an article today about a book Thatcher’s daughter has written, and in the article was a discussion about our perceptions of the dementia “sufferer”. The article suggests that we don’t really know anything about what the sufferer feels, and have only our own perceptions with which to torture ourselves. And what is this about the CIA providing bags full of money to Afghanistan President Karzai “to pay off warlords” -- about $36 million over the past ten years, or, as the CIA refers to it “chump change.”

Final note. I watched Jon Stewart’s Daily Show tonight and he made me laugh with one of his rants on Congress. He coined a new word while suggesting that Congressmen seem to spend more time watching internet porn than representing their constituents. The word is procrasturbating: “using masturbation to otherwise occupy yourself while pressing matters await.” Hee hee.

　

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 4/22/13

The big news last week was the Boston Marathon bombing in which four (including the MIT police officer who was shot) were killed and hundreds injured. I have become almost numbed by the news of terrorists bombings in other parts of the world, especially in the Middle East, because this form of violence has become commonplace. But I take notice when it happens in my backyard, and I kept watching the footage on television - that old runner about to cross the finish line as he was knocked off his feet by the explosion, who then got up and finished the race - as I would stare at a train wreck. I had the same feelings of outrage that I had when the Newton massacre happened recently. This violent act is of course a little different, and the latest speculation is that two brothers involved, who had the audacity to call themselves Americans, were making a political statement. Much has been made of the fact that the older brother, perhaps the ringleader, had recently spent six months abroad in Chechnya. There is much speculation that while off the radar in Chechnya he may have become radicalized and that now Russia is exporting its own brand of jihad terrorism to the United States. When I learned he was dead I assumed it was at the hands of American law enforcement, and was surprised to learn that, though he was badly wounded, he was actually killed by his younger brother, who ran over him with the stolen SUV he was driving. My guess is that these killers had a “take no prisoners” pact and there is some evidence that they fully expected to go out guns ablazin’. It sends a chill up my spine to hear so many friends and acquaintances speak of how soft spoken and nice the younger brother seemed. How odd that he acquired his U.S. citizenship on September 11^th! I am as guilty as the next man of rushing to judgment, and of course we should wait to hear how this story unfolds, but this a-hole apparently killed and maimed a lot of people, and in my eyes he is a monster. My concern is that violence begets violence, and between the mentally ill and the political zealots (some would probably argue that they are one in the same), there may be some suicidal copycats out there who are eager to go out in a blaze of infamy. By the way, on the heels of that House defeat of gun control legislation - and don’t get me wrong, I am all for stronger background checks and perhaps a ban on assault rifles - this reminds us that there are hundred of creative ways to kill people without using guns. As one exasperated pundit asked last week, are we now going to ban all backpacks in public places? How about pressure cookers? As I said after the Newton tragedy, where there is a will there is a McVeigh. My hat goes off to all the law enforcement officials, especially the ones around the Boston area, who so bravely put their lives on the line to stop those SOBs. So many questions remain - were there others involved, were the brothers radicalized in the States …. and where was Geraldo during all of this?

The second big news event was the big fertilizer plant explosion in West, Texas which killed 14 people (that we know of right now) including a lot of volunteer first responders. The explosion was reportedly felt 45 miles away, completely wiped out 4 blocks of the small town, and was caught on video. Aren’t cell phones remarkable? Because of the close proximity to Waco, Texas and the fact that the explosion occurred (I think) near the anniversary if the Branch Davidian fiasco, and also around the anniversary of the Murrah Federal Building bombing in Oklahoma City, there was some talk that this explosion wasn’t an accident. Apparently, the ammonia compound that caused this explosion is a little less volatile than the compound used in the Oklahoma City bombing, but it will still ignite in a fire. While these ingredients are allegedly monitored and regulated (like guns?), it seems to me that this is a terrorist plot waiting to happen. I remember after 9-11 occurred, right after the second jet hit the tower, we sat in our Toronto high rise apartment feeling like sitting ducks. After the Boston bombing, and upon hearing about the West Texas explosion, I felt a similar trepidation. I guess I am a neurotic product of the times in which we live.

Finally, there was another big earthquake in the southern province of Sichuan, China. So far 188 are reported dead and well over 10,000 injured. Again, an arguably bigger disaster is eclipsed by our national headlines. At least the vultures have been diverted from that Jodi Arias trial. And comedian Jonathan Winters died last week. I thought he was a comic genius and particularly liked his Maude Frickert character. My heartfelt condolences to all the victims in Boston, Texas and China.

Written by Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report - 4/15/13

In keeping with my New Year’s resolution to become more involved with the local music scene, I met with a local songwriter last week and we bounced a few songs off each other. In my thirty years of studying and attempting to learn the craft of songwriting, I have only several times attempted collaboration with anyone other than my wife. My dormant ego tends to flare up whenever someone has the audacity to question my creative genius. In fact collaboration can be tricky, and having just met Doug, I was not immediately convinced he could provide any constructive criticism for my perfect songwriting skills. My Achilles heel, or my Achilles torso as the case may be, is my lack of education in music theory. I imagine most successful songwriters have a more comprehensive understanding of music theory than I do, and Doug was a professional musician for many years. He did come up with some good suggestions and all in all it was an enjoyable and productive meeting. If I am to grow as a songwriter, I must learn to accept constructive criticism. The creative process, for me at least, has been such a mystery, and when the muse strikes I am reluctant to muddy the waters with rules and structure. Anyone who has ever seen my desk understands that organization and structure are not my strong suits.

 I started playing guitar when I was about twelve, and my mother insisted that I take lessons before she would invest in a proper guitar. My first guitar, which I believe I ultimately “el kabonged” was a real piece of crap. It came in a flimsy cardboard box – I’m not sure it wasn’t made of cardboard -- and cost about fifteen bucks. Buddy Guy’s first guitar only had two strings, so I suppose I shouldn’t complain. I took lessons from a frustrated jazz guitarist named Joe at Sedola Music over on Buffalo’s West end, and it was not a particularly enlightening experience. Let me rephrase that, it was an abominable experience that almost turned me off the guitar forever. My lessons were held in a dingy little back room the size of a phone booth, and Joe was an unpleasant, short-tempered man, clearly incapable of the patience required of any teacher. He would yell “No, no, no, no!!!!” while I struggled nervously through some classic dirge like The Volga Boatman, then show me how Joe Pass would have played it. He seemed more interested in proving to me that he could play the guitar than he was in teaching me how to do it. Sadly, a bad teacher can really put the kybosh on musical aspirations, especially when that aspiring musician is only twelve, and I lasted through about ten or fifteen lessons before I decided that guitar lessons from “Sedola Joe” were not for me. I did take away some valuable practice exercises and scales, which I still use today to warm up. I bought a chord chart for guitar and taught myself how to play over the next several years. Certainly I could have learned faster and improved more had I found a good teacher, but my ambition was to compose songs, never to perform on a stage. Besides, it became apparent to me early on that good guitarists were a dime a dozen. Throughout college, I met a lot of accomplished guitarists, none who intended to make a living in the music industry. When I was in my late twenties and working in Buffalo, the seventeen year old parking lot attendant for our office building was an incredible guitarist who could play fugues by Bach. I knew I’d never make it as a musician, but I began to write songs, which not every musician can do.

Shauna is a classically trained pianist, who as a young woman schooled at the Royal Conservatory in Toronto. She is my biggest fan and has been trying in vain to get me to learn music theory so as to improve my writing skills. She used to teach piano and I think she is pretty good at it. At one point early in our marriage she sat me down at the keyboard and gave me some basic lessons. She told me I was not the worst student she’d ever had (I certainly was not the best), but for some reason the theory wasn’t soaking in, and I never gave it the time it requires. It may be a throwback to that first bad guitar teacher, but I seem to have no patience with learning music theory. I can follow other musicians intuitively, but for some reason, I seem to flesh out melody lines faster when I am not trying to keep the theory in my head. I think there is some math involved in musical instruction and math was decidedly not my strong point. My friend in Alberta composes with a recording software called Pro Tools, and it is remarkable to watch him build a song with a computer. I have even less interest in learning to become a studio whiz than I have in learning music theory, which I suppose makes me both a Luddite and a fool.

In his autobiography blues guitarist Buddy Guy talks about his musical illiteracy. He did a lot of session work at the famous Chess Records in his early days and was self-conscious about his inability to read music. That said, he could learn a song quickly and managed to build a career in music despite his shortcomings. In about a month, I will be performing to a rather large audience of people who may actually be listening to my songs as I play them. I think I’ve reached the point where I can present them passably. A good song is a good song, and hopefully I am closer to writing one. Buddy, are you listening? I wrote Forked Tongue Tango just for you.   Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 4/8/13

John Lee Hooker

Just finished the autobiography of blues guitar great Buddy Guy, entitled When I Left Home: My Story, and his story confirmed what I already knew about Black blues musicians. A lot of them got completely screwed by the music industry. Most rock and/or R&B musicians today, certainly any of them born before 1990, realize that guys like Lightnin’ Slim, Junior Wells, Lighnin’ Hopkins, Howlin Wolf, Otis Rush, John Lee Hooker, and Muddy Waters paved the way for most of the good rock music to follow. I’ll wager that most people have never even heard of most of these artists but for anyone interested in the roots of rock ‘n’ roll, these guys were seminal influences. In his autobiography Life, Rolling Stones ax man Keith Richards talks at length about and of the debt of gratitude he and the Stones owe to those blues pioneers. In fact, the much-touted “British Invasion,” which brought us such super groups as the Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Cream, and The Yardbirds, owes its existence in large part to the influences if Black American artists. There is a great passage in Guy’s book wherein he recalls the one and only time he met one of my favorite rock musicians, Jimi Hendrix. Hendrix was already far more popular and successful than Guy would ever become, but when they met, Hendrix was deferential, and only interested in recording with the man he considered to be one of his mentors. I’d give anything to have seen Buddy Guy play with Junior Wells in some Chicago blues dive back in the late 50s or early 60s. While Buddy Guy is still playing and finally receiving some of the fame and success he deserves (but nowhere near the success and good fortune of white performers), most of his predecessors and contemporaries died poor and relatively unknown.

I can only hope that in this brave new Wild West world of music, the talented will receive the recognition they deserve, be they Black, White, Red, Yellow, or Heinz 57 varieties. Today emerging artists can use the internet to spread the word, and in fact I’ve found most of my recent favorites online. For the past five or six years I’ve been following the career of John Butler, a very talented guitarist from Down Under, whom Shauna discovered while surfing for music on the internet. While not a superstar in popularity, Butler’s unusual style of guitar playing makes him stand out, and he has broken into the North American market largely because of his internet presence. Gone are the days when a career is made or broken by some fickle, myopic, record company. The other side of that coin is that because there is so much more talent out there, it is harder and harder to stand above the rest. I seriously wonder if some of the super groups of the 70s would make it were they forced to compete with the expanded field of talented artists we have today.   

Well the N. Korean Michelin Man, Kim Jong-un, son of and successor to deceased President Kim Jong Make-Me-il, has turned up the volume in his threatening rhetoric, and some are concerned this little putz will trigger WWIII with his polemic antics. Really? Pointing his long range missiles at S. Korea and Japan may win him some support with his starving countrymen, but his dangerous posturing strengthens international resolve to isolate his rogue state. Most agree that any effort on Kim’s part to follow through on his aggressive threats will be suicide for him and his people, and like that Iranian butthole surfer Ahmadinijad, it looks like Kim is all talk and no action. Watching that propaganda video of him firing a handgun was about as silly as watching that ridiculous photo op of then presidential candidate Michael Dukakis back in '88, dressed in combat fatigues and riding in an Abrams M1 tank. From what I’ve read, Kim is more of a figurehead anyhow. I wonder how China feels about all of this. As China’s economy becomes inextricably linked to Western economies, N. Korea must be something of an embarrassment to Mother China. It’s kind of like your drunken Uncle Charlie who, without fail, throws up at the Thanksgiving supper, but you keep inviting him anyhow. Whaddyagonnado, he’s family?! Pretty soon China (the Godfather) will be forced to take N. Korea (Fredo) “out fishing” and the next thing you know, problem solved. China annexes a new province and S. Korea is in real trouble. As I said, it’s time for an infusion of Western culture. I am suggesting an arranged marriage: Kim Kardashian marries Kim Jong-un, and everyone wins. Dennis Rodman can be the best man. It’s just a suggestion.

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 4/1/13

 

Happy April Fools Day! Did you play a practical joke on somebody? I dressed up like a giant squirrel and chased Jasper around the house. She was not amused. Seems like the big joke is on all the folks in the eastern half of the continent who are still struggling in winter’s stubborn grasp. Last year around this time I was sunbathing, but this morning I woke up to a mini blizzard. Gosh I love the Great White North!

 Of course yesterday was Easter Sunday, and to celebrate we had Hasenpfeffer for dinner. I’m kidding, but someday, when I am having a “slow news” week, perhaps I will reprise my story of the notorious “bunny lab” I experienced in boarding school. I have two amusing recollections of Easters past. First, when my sister and I were very young, my mom had us color some hard-boiled eggs and then she hid them around the house so we could have an Easter egg hunt. Mom hid thirteen eggs, but my sister and I only found twelve. The trouble was, Mom couldn’t remember where she’d hidden the last one. About a month later it became readily apparent, when the living room began to smell like a rotting corpse. Mom had hidden that thirteenth egg on top of a lampshade in the living room, inches away from a hot light bulb. It took a while to get the stench of that rotten egg out of our living room, and that was my last egg hunt. Creative genius that I am, I always preferred the coloring part to the hunting part anyhow. I remember a similar hunt that used to happen after a Seder supper at Passover: the hunt for the afikoman. The head of the household would hide a piece of matzo wrapped in a napkin and the children ran around tearing up the furniture to find it. In our household, the prize for discovering the afikoman was “gelt,” - not the real deal, but foil-wrapped chocolate coins. I think this was supposed to liven up the ceremony, but it was too little too late for this Jew. There is simply no excuse to serve gefilte fish.

 My second Easter memory was that it was a tradition on Easter Sunday for my father to take the family to the Buffalo Club for a fancy brunch. The Buffalo Club is a venerable, formerly male members-only, club in downtown Buffalo. I liked going there because the food was good and because it is a beautiful club. Unfortunately, for special occasions, the Buffalo Club featured their own special brand of entertainment known as The Travelling Musicians. As I recall they were a trio of mediocre, older musicians who travelled from room to room in the club with their instruments, serenading the guests while they ate. They were quite loud and annoying close up, and I don’t know about you, but I am not a big fan of in-your-face live music while I am trying to eat or make conversation. I’m pretty sure there was an accordion in the mix, and that was a deal breaker for me. I felt a little like I would were I to be “surprised” at a Chucky Cheese with a loud, multi-employee Happy Birthday serenade, accompanied by a cheap cupcake and a sparkler. For me, the funniest part about these guys was the bassist. He was a very small guy, and he didn’t look like he was in the best shape. After schlepping his bass fiddle around from room to room for a few hours, he’d be perspiring and visibly winded. By the time The Travelling Musicians reached our table, it looked very much like the bassist was going to vapor lock. My very prim and proper father was insistent on proper table manners at the club, but he would still laugh whenever I pointed this out. One year, to my pleasant surprise, the Buffalo Club broke from tradition, perhaps while the little bassist recovered from open heart surgery, and hired as their Easter entertainment The Pointless Brothers, a very good Buffalo bluegrass band. While they were in my opinion much better and far more entertaining musicians than The Travelling Musicians, they dressed as if they were extras from Deliverance, and to my knowledge were never invited back.       

 North Korea has been doing some sabre rattling this past week, spewing a lot of incendiary rhetoric about incinerating the Western enemy. Certainly we have heard this all before, and while most experts slough this off as Kim Jung Il’s son and successor just flexing his flabby, doughy, little muscles to garner support from his starving and destitute subjects, it is nevertheless unnerving to hear. That little ball of shmaltz seems even more unbalanced than his dad was, and while his shenanigans may simply be diplomatic posturing, he does have some powerful weapons at his disposal. What if someone calls this little Korean Michelin Man’s bluff and lobs a grenade at him, triggering some kind of escalating conflict? If we could only figure out a way to infuse some of our rich western culture into the mainstream of North Korean society, I think our troubles would be over. Hijack their televisions, and pipe in some Jersey Shore, and Real Housewives of Newark. I firmly believe Snookie, the Khardashians, and Honey Booboo are our secret weapons. The Chinese may be manipulating their currency to dump their products on western markets; the North Koreans may be parading their dubiously effective nuclear arsenals in front of the international stage, but communism is no match for mind-altering insipience of reality television. Gotta go, we’re having bunny leftovers for dinner tonight. 

 

   -Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 3/25/13

As much as I eschew technology, I am as much a slave to it as the next man. Last week, I received my new Dell laptop in the mail. I’d purchased its predecessor, an MSI notebook, at an Office Depot in Buffalo in 2008, because I needed a cheap computer to use while staying with my parents. That little laptop was a great computer for the money and it served me well. Unfortunately, it began to fail, and the most notable problem was the loss of the “E” key on the keyboard. I do not know where the “E” key went, perhaps Jasper ate it, but when the keyboard started to go, that was my red flag to look for a new laptop. I tried gluing something to the exposed key pressure point, but it was not a successful mend. I had beat on that laptop for five years and frankly I’m surprised it lasted as long as it did. At one point, the base even became delaminated, exposing wires and computer parts, and the whole thing was held together with tape and glue. Miraculously, none of this hindered its performance.

I bought my very first computer from Radio Shack, back in the late 80s and it was a laptop with no hard drive at all.  Basically it was a little typewriter with a 3.5 floppy drive and a terrible, unreadable LCD screen. It was as primitive as they come, but when I hooked it up to my noisy dot matrix printer, I began typing these reports on a computer. My first “real” computer was an Acer Acros desktop, which I bought by mail order around 1991, and it came equipped with a 40MB hard drive. These days the average photo file is ten times that amount of memory, but back then it seemed pretty cool to me. For the first time ever I could store the letters and reports I wrote on my computer. Of course, with the added convenience came the omnipresent glitches, and I quickly learned that customer support for computers is anything but. Over the years I have owned a lot of computers, probably seven or eight since I married Shauna, and I have had good luck with Dells. We still have an old Dell laptop which we use in our office, primarily for photo storage. That laptop is over 10 years old, and it is bulletproof. Now, I’m typing this my first report on the new Dell, and it seems to work fine. The only problem – and I loathe buying new computers for this reason – is that it came loaded with Windows 8, the newest version of Windows. With every new operating system comes the struggle to learn about the changes. I am sure this new operating system has more bells and whistles than the last one, but Windows 8 is very different from Windows 7. Even the new and improved version of the word processing software is completely different. As I get older my learning skills have begun to atrophy. Who am I kidding, I never had learning skills.  

A few weeks ago we had a thaw up here in the Great White North, and everyone said that was the end of winter. No so. Late last week we had two healthy reminders that while spring is officially here, so is Jack Frost. Yesterday, my buddy Harvey the snow plow guy and I drove our ATVs over to his farm in a nearby town. Among other things Harvey produces maple syrup, and we went to monitor the sap production. I’d never before seen a maple syrup factory, and it was interesting. The sun was out and it was a good day to enjoy the great outdoors. I know spring is around the corner (and down a few blocks) and I am anxious. The fishing huts are off the lake, the sap is flowing, and it’s time to start germinating some flower seeds.

Final notes. The world has a new Pope, and this one is from Argentina. Pope Francis (not a sissy) is reportedly a Pope of the people and he says he will focus on the poor. Perhaps he should also focus on moving the Catholic Church into the 21^st Century, or making its members more accountable for bad behavior. The Jewish celebration of Passover begins tonight after sundown, and tonight Jewish families around the world will be sitting down to the first Seder supper. This will be the first year in my nineteen years with the Taylor family when that does not happen for us. Happy Passover to all my Jewish friends and family.

                    -Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The OppenheimerReport 3/18/13

Did you ever have one of those days when everything just seems to be out of whack? Bad biorhythms. The 24 hour period from last Wednesday night to last Thursday night was like that for me. We had an overnight guest visiting  us at JBL from Guelph, and while she was here there was a medical problem with Shauna’s Dad down in Toronto. His blood pressure spiked and the aid did not want him to go to sleep in that condition. Usually he can have a cup of tea with some cinnamon and honey and the BP will lower, but not that night. We got no sleep that night. To rub salt into the wound, the squirrels came back and were wreaking havoc in our roof. Thursday morning the power went haywire, first causing a brownout and then causing our generator to kick in. We don’t have a lot of guests up here and it was strange to have so much go wrong in such a short period of time.

Last Friday night, at the urging of our plumber, who is a well-connected musician in the area, I went to the local watering hole in Burk’s Falls to attend a monthly music showcase. For the past several months I have been entertaining the thought of hosting my own local open mic, but the general consensus is that there is not enough demand up here. Also, I am not crazy about the idea of lending my guitar out to those participants who do not bring their own instrument. Some people do not understand guitar etiquette and can be pretty rough on a host’s instrument. I did enjoy the showcase, and saw at least two acts I’d like to see again. I also met a songwriter who lives in nearby Kearney and we have exchanged phone numbers. Hopefully we will arrange to meet again and jam. I am finding that there is a remarkable wealth of talent up here and I hope to tap into it and network.

In the news, last Monday marked the 2^nd anniversary of the earthquake that struck near Northern Japan, the one which sparked the destructive tsunami and caused the environmental disaster at the Fukishima Nuclear Power Plant. Nearly 19,000 victims died in that tsunami and approximately 300,000 are still living in temporary housing. NYC Mayor Bloomberg continues his fight to outlaw 16 oz. sugary drinks in Manhattan fast food restaurants. I’m not sure how successful he will be, because there is some question about his authority to do so. Do you think government has the right to legislate this kind of thing? It does seem rather silly because it is a random prohibition, and one can still buy huge containers of pop at any supermarket. While I understand the motivation for the controversial legislation, and while I wish there was some incentive for obese North Americans to pay closer attention to their health, I’m not sure government should be involved. The issue seems to be that junk food puts a huge strain on our health care system, and fast food indirectly costs the taxpayer money in higher health care costs. I don’t know what the answer is, or how to encourage fast food restaurants to serve healthier choices. The trick is to create the demand, and I doubt the average overweight North American will opt for a tofu burger over the Big Mac.

Pop star Justin Bieber is growing up. He’s nineteen now, and perhaps the pressures of his charmed celebrity life are catching up with him. Last week he had a bit of a melt down in London. He showed up late for a concert, angering his fans and prompting some bad press. Once again, another young celebrity learns that cute only works for so long before the predatory media feasts on his not so secret private life. Justin, of course people will be gunning for you now. You’re rich and famous (some would say young and undeserving); deal with it like a pro, or, like so many flash-in-the-pan celebrities do, OD on a speedball in some fleabag Hollywood hotel and leave a handsome corpse. A propos to nothing, who dresses that guy? Where do I buy those silly pants he wears, the ones that look like they were designed by a drunken tailor and which hang down below his butt cheeks? Who decided that was a good look? Talk about the emperor's new clothes! Last year, I watched Beiber interviewed on Letterman, and I was not all that impressed. Letterman asked him a question about Italy and made reference to the Sistine Chapel. In Beiber’s response he referred to the landmark as the Sixteen Chapel. He might want to Google Mike Angelo and learn a thing or two about a true artist. As I have said so many times before, being rich and famous ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. For damage control, I’m sure Justin’s publicist will have him on film feeding the poor in some soup kitchen, or visiting sick kids in a hospital, but the magic is gone. He's been branded as just another spoiled celebrity acting badly. And he was so cute!

As everyone prepares to go to work tomorrow hung over,  I say what I say every St. Patrick’s Day .... “Erin go bra-less.”

The Irish will get it.  

- Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 3/11/13

Last week, I talked about some of the artists I have had the pleasure to know and, while most of my creative friends seem grounded and fairly well-adjusted, there are a lot of creative people who are a few spices short of a goulash. Creativity often goes hand in hand with narcissism, or in some cases (like mine), self-loathing. The artist, or the commercial artist anyway, is putting his or her personal statement out there for others to judge. To varying degrees, when an artist starts to become recognized, it feeds that narcissism, or the self loathing. Most of the artists I have known are musicians. Playing open mics for the past twenty years, I have met a lot of good musicians; some of them are doing O.K. Most of them have “real” jobs, because making it as a singer/songwriter is about as likely as becoming successful as a movie actor. I’ve watched so many try and fail, and for a nanosecond in time, I even deluded myself into thinking I had what it takes. I think it’s the narcissism that keeps that dream alive, and I simply did not believe in myself strongly enough to chase that carrot. I’m no expert, but it sure seems like a lot of truly gifted artists are train wrecks.

I mentioned that I have been reading a lot of biographies lately, and especially some of the successful musicians seem to be high maintenance. Having read his autobiography Life, I’m not sure why Rolling Stones guitarist / songwriter Keith Richards is still alive. He certainly burned his candle at both ends. His band mate Brian Jones bit the bullet early in his career, and to hear Richards talk about him, Jones was a dickhead. I enjoyed Richards' stories and thought the book was intelligently written. I wrongly assumed he had lunchmeat for grey matter, because he took a lot of drugs. I just finished reading a biography of Kurt Cobain, lead singer and creative force behind the rock band Nirvana. I once wrote a song about Cobain, based on a newspaper article I read after his death. It interested me to follow the rise to fame of this man, a boy really, because in some ways, his downfall fit the stereotype (Club 27). I knew what most people knew about him, which is to say, not much. Cobain had a troubled family life, he was self-destructive, got into hard drugs about the time his career took off, and ended up blowing his head off with a shotgun. I was especially interested to read how many musicians that I admire are also fans of his music. I never loved grunge, but lately, I‘m liking it more and more. Really any form of visceral Rock ‘n' Roll appeals to me. I spoke a few weeks ago about the joy I derive from watching my artist friends grow. Cobain’s progress was unusual in that, as he started to grow and take off creatively, his demons swallowed him whole. According to the book, there was a lot of evidence to suggest that he was self-destructive from an early age. Watching him unravel as he achieved recognition, was a disturbing foray into the bowels of fame and fortune. Growing up, I was surrounded by creative under-achievers, and I used to envy them. I have learned that with creative genius often there is a price to pay.

We live in a culture where fame, notoriety, and fortune are deemed the products of success. Just look at Who Wants to be a Millionaire, American Idol, The Voice, the perplexing celebrity of reality television, and the strange and growing phenomenon of criminal celebrities (and if I hear Jody Arias’ name mentioned one more time, I’m gonna puke). Child athletes dream of being in the NBA, the NHL, the MBL, or the NFL. I dreamed of being Eric Clapton or John Lennon. But most of us want to do an end run around the hard work necessary to become a celebrity. The older I get, the more I am gravitating to the opposite extreme. While there is no danger I will ever be famous, my dream is to be a completely anonymous success.

Beloved Canadian country singer/songwriter Charles “Stompin’ Tom” Connors passed away last week at 77. I read somewhere that Stompin’ Tom recorded 61 albums of music. He wrote The Hockey Song, hands down the best Canadian hockey anthem, and my personal Stompin' Tom favorite. He was kind of the Canadian version of Woody Guthrie, writing songs about his vast experiences traveling through Canada’s heartland. There are not a lot of minstrels left out there.

Finally, I have made it a custom to walk out onto our frozen lake at least once during the winter, and I did so yesterday. I was a little wary, because we are experiencing a bit of a thaw right now, and the lake was slushy. I walked as far as a new house being built down the lake, and I was alone in the yellow-orange dusk light of the snow-covered lake. My own personal tundra. Shauna took a picture of me as I returned, and there I am, as I imagine myself - a speck in the universe, the anonymous success.

- Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 3/4/13

I have certain creative aptitudes but fine art is not one of them. In high school, I quickly realized that drawing was not one of my skills, and to this day, I still cannot draw a human form in anything other than a stick figure. I loved photography and spent a good deal of my youth in a darkroom. I love to write as well, but ask me to draw something and I’m lost.

Over the years, I have had the good fortune to have met and known some pretty good artists. Their personalities and styles vary considerably, but the common similarity is that they are fascinating people. In boarding school, I knew few guys who were really gifted, and one of them is now running a very successful art gallery in Manhattan. Presently, I have three friends whose art I love. One, a sculptor and multimedia artist, clearly my most outgoing, gregarious artist friend, is a guy named John Tracy. I met John in Buffalo over thirty years ago, and he opened my eyes to so many different aspects of art. He once introduced me to the bizarre performance art puppetry of a woman named Pat Oleszko. I watched her do an outrageous x-rated performance art rendition of Homer’s Odyssey once, using among other things, naked bodies for props. It could have been a disaster, but it was in my opinion, brilliantly entertaining. Among other things, John works with fired pieces and has done some amazing works in porcelain that have been displayed in prestigious galleries. One of his many styles was to make impressions in porcelain out of found objects and scrap. Anything from a child’s toy to an impression from a glass jar might find its way into John’s work, and in this way, his spectacular art becomes a sort of archeological map of the times in which it was created.

Another artist I met and befriended in Buffalo is a gifted painter named Peter Stephens. I rarely buy art but I invested in one of Peter’s painting because I simply loved his work. For me, this is the only reason to buy a work of art, because it moves you. Peter’s work does that for me and one of his beautiful paintings, done with various tints of shellac, hangs over the bed in our Toronto apartment. I’ve known Peter for a long time as well, although I’ve not seen him much since I moved to Toronto. I always had a lot of fun with Peter because he has an acerbic wit and, like me, he has little patience with fools. I caught up with him about a year ago while I was in Buffalo attending to the needs of my failing Mom. He had a show of new paintings and I went to the Buffalo gallery to see them, but Peter wasn’t there. When I saw him a few months later, I learned that his mother had passed away shortly before mine did, and we shared a consoling hug about that.

The third artist, featured in the header of this week’s report, is a guy named Frank Riccio, and I got to know him when I was attending Trinity College in Connecticut. The above work represents one of his many styles, though I am most familiar with  his prints from (I believe) woodcuts. He’s done some beautiful work in this medium. Together, we belonged to one of the cooler fraternities on campus. Our chapter of DEKE allowed women in as equal members (to the scorn of the national organization), had the highest grade point average on campus (no thanks to me), AND threw what were widely regarded as the wildest and most entertaining parties. DEKE definitely had the best live bands. Of all of my artist friends, Frank is probably the guy with whom I have spent the least amount of time. Ostensibly a quieter more peaceful human being, Frank is clearly a still-waters-run-deep kind of guy. He is, among other things, a successful illustrator of books, specializing I think in children’s books. I know he has collaborated on one or more of his own children’s books, and as we all know, that is an art unto itself. I feel I have come to know Frank better through our written correspondences after college than I ever did while we attended Trinity. As an avid collector of hand stamps, I always enjoyed a letter from Frank, because it was usually hand-stamped with an example of his art.

I realize my boring recollections of a few friends will be meaningless to most of you, but I mention them because art has changed me. A few weeks ago, I talked about meaning as something to which I aspire. I’ve been writing and performing songs since about 1982, and within the framework of that medium, I have had some measure of my growth (or stasis). Admittedly, it’s not much to hang my hat on, but it is something. It has made me more aware of creativity in others, and it has made me a better observer. To be able to monitor the tangible evidence of my changes is a great gift, and knowing these artists as I have, and watching them grow and develop, has been one of the joys of my life. I have known many artists - talkers, actors, singers, sculptors, painters, writers. Some are “successful,” most are struggling, but one thing they all have in common is that they are not boring.
  - Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 2/25/13

Last Thursday we sat in our SUV, along  with the tens of thousands of Toronto commuters heading home, racing up Hwy 400 at a snail's pace to our place up north. It was with a certain amount of trepidation that Shauna and I left her parents in Toronto, having lived with them at that point for well over 2 months. For the sake of our sanity and because we had bills to pay and business to attend to at home, we packed up the car and headed up. I am somewhat comforted with the idea that the three women we have on rotation to assist Shauna’s parents are trustworthy and competent, but we still need a reliever in the mix for scheduling SNAFUs. Of course the big hurdle, which I hope we have cleared, was to make it apparent, especially to Shauna’s mom, that the assistance was necessary. She is once again making noises about driving, and this stubborn grip on eroding independence is ongoing and problematic. Now that we are gone, the caregivers will have much more to do, and hopefully Mom Taylor will understand this and accept the help willingly. Shauna will keep in touch via Skype, a land line, and by text. This is when advances in technology pay off for us. All of our caregivers have smart phones and laptops, so we can actually see what is going on in the house. I know Shauna will be in constant contact. When my parents were at this stage in their lives, I spoke to them or their nurses every day, sometimes two or three times per day. Now that they are both gone, I still find myself reaching for the phone for a progress report.

My rant du jour involves salt. Having just spent the past two months or more shopping and cooking for elders, it was my job, among other things, to ensure that I was mindful of their salt intake. As much as I have had the evils of salt drummed into my head, it never occurred to me how much of it is in all the food we eat. From my research, a typical low sodium diet, prescribed for those with high blood pressure, is around 2000mg per day, and less for those who are more at risk. That’s not much. I tasted one of those low sodium meals once when I had a leftover from a Meals on Wheels delivery one day, and it was horrible, virtually tasteless. When I started looking at the labels on the foods I was buying, I was shocked at some of the foods containing a lot of salt. Kellogg’s Raison Bran has over 250 mg for a typical serving. Wheat Chex has even more, and a lot of sugar to boot. One sixth of a loaf of store bought pound cake - 320mg of salt. One slice of bread can have as much as 250mg of salt in it. There is salt in everything, and while I knew this, I just didn‘t realize how much. A couple of hot dogs and you’re over the limit. The real culprits are all the pre-packaged-pop-in-the-microwave-package-to-plate-in-two-minute frozen dinners. Check out the salt in a typical Stouffer’s frozen entry. Rule of thumb, if it tastes good, it has too much salt in it. So I figured I’d make meals from scratch and use the “No Salt” salt substitute. Not so fast. It turns out that the no salt substitute can interfere with the efficacy of some of the medications the Taylors both take. This is one of the problems we have had and one of the reasons to consult a pharmacist with a list in hand of all medications, vitamins, etc. the elder takes. Drug interactions become a larger issue when one is taking ten or twenty pills in a day. I understand some vitamins taken at the wrong time can render vital medications ineffective.

The Academy Awards ceremony was last night, and I watched along with the rest of the star struck world. I only watch to see who’s wearing who. Once again we have not seen any of the movies nominated. Argo won for best picture. Predictably, Daniel Day Lewis won best male actor for his portrayal of Abraham Lincoln in Lincoln. My friend Bob saw the movie and described it as follows: Lincoln talks a lot and then gets shot. Typical cut-to-the-chase Bob. Silver Linings Playbook looks like it might be good, and I’d like to see Life of Pi, having enjoyed the book. I am a little behind in my movie “to see” list. I finally saw Desperately Seeking Susan last week, which I recall wanting to watch when it came out, back in 1985. It is my ongoing quest to see a Madonna movie that does not completely suck. I enjoy movies from the 70s and 80s for the time capsule effect, because they are dated and reflect our evolving culture … big hair, glam rock, trendy music, giant cell phones, obsolete computers. Shauna hates Quentin Tarantino, probably because he is rather neurotic and a little creepy, and because his films tend to be bloody and violent. I like what he does and can’t wait to see his latest homage to the spaghetti western, Jango, Unchained, for which he received the Oscar for best original screenplay. I set the bar pretty low - Bride of Chucky is one of my favorites.

Time to begin putting my tax receipts in order. Make hay while the phone isn’t ringing.

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 2/18/13

Lemme outta here!!!! The plan is for us to go back up north early this week. We have stayed in Toronto much longer than we had anticipated, but in fact we have stayed as long as was necessary. The idea was to make sure we did not have to keep coming back every three or four days to put out a new fire. The big challenge late last week was to convince my mother-in-law that she should give up driving. At 88 she was probably still capable of operating a vehicle, but it was clear to everyone, including her doctor, that it was a good time to quit. She had not driven for two months, it’s wintertime, and she has some serious mobility issues which will impair her reaction times. With its aggressive drivers and its omnipresent rush hour mentality, Toronto is a challenging city for any driver, and it is more so for the elderly. As well, Mom Taylor should not go anywhere unattended at this point, and none of the caregivers will drive with her if she is behind the wheel. I took her out grocery shopping the other day, and she was having trouble simply putting the heavier packages in her shopping cart. We tried to explain to her that she needed to quit while she was “on top of her game,” and for her husband’s sake, but it did not go over well. While we have a potential driver/caregiver ready to help, Mom’s reaction was not unlike that of Jessica Tandy’s wonderful character in Driving Miss Daisy. Like so many of the other don’t-shoot-the-messenger discussions we have had over the past year, this one was stressful. I still have my own father’s driver license somewhere in my files, and it did not expire until well after he did. Technically, he was still legal to drive long after he was 98 and lying in his death bed! Shortly before he gave up driving - in his case at the direction of his doctor - he drove me over to the local hardware store near our house in Buffalo. I thought he drove quite well (he was about 90 at the time), but when it was time to leave the store he handed me the keys because, and I quote, “I don’t like to make left turns onto Delaware Ave.” Honestly, I cannot understand why the state or the province does not monitor elder competence more comprehensively. Elders are periodically required to submit to an eye test and a written test, but why not a road test as well? Should elder drivers not be flagged on some database; doesn’t that seem like common sense? It might prevent a lot of dangerous driving if the issuing authorities better screened at risk drivers. After the age of 80, say once every year or two, one must prove one is safe to drive. If you pass the road test, off you go. I’d hate to be one of those examiners though.

Last week in the news, Christopher Jordan Dorner shot himself to death. He was the ex-LAPD cop responsible for all those four vengeance murders. I don’t know why he snapped when he was dismissed from the LAPD in 2009; he certainly wasn’t the first black man to have a legitimate beef against the LAPD. Still, he murdered four innocent people, and I am astounded by the number of supporters who are now painting him as some kind of vigilante hero. Then again, there are a lot of people in America who think Snookie is a bona fide celebrity. Someone even likened Dorner to the Minute Men in the American Revolution, fighting for truth and justice. There are social media sites springing up all over to honor and praise him. Perhaps this is a telling sign of the times that so many people are against “the man.” Cold blooded murder is just that to me, and regardless of whether or not this guy had legitimate claims against the LAPD, or if he is deemed a martyr by some, he is in my opinion a murderer and a criminal. His advanced military and police training made him a double threat and I’m glad he took himself out of the gene pool.

Did you see the pictures and/or video of that meteorite that landed in Chelyabinsk, Russia? Reportedly more than thousand people were injured, a lot of them by glass shattering from the impact of the sonic boom. The force of that boom was so strong it collapsed a brick wall. That bang would have scared the crap out of me, and this was a relatively small rock (maybe 3 meters in diameter). Scientists assure us it was merely a coincidence that it occurred within 14 hours of when the bigger, tracked asteroid (DA14) passed so close to earth. While 27,000km may seem like a long way off, it’s a near miss relative to our solar system, and had that puppy made contact, it would have rendered global warming a non issue. Apparently they can track the big rocks but not the little ones. It’s just a matter of time (2-2,000,000 years?) before the next one becomes a serious threat to Mother Earth. When will the next big asteroid become a meteoroid and perhaps a meteorite? Just the other day I learned the difference, and am now showing off my newfound knowledge (something most inquisitive 3^rd graders probably knew already). Will it be cosmic karma that takes us all out like the dinosaurs? I look at it this this way: Snookie and Honey Booboo might be the canaries in the coal mine.

No wonder the Pope his hanging up his robe.

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 2/11/13

As I sit here beginning to write this week’s report in my “office” (Shauna’s rather tiny old bedroom in her parent’s house) it is snowing pretty hard outside and our Miniature Schnauzer Jasper is snoring loudly beside me. She sleeps beside me every night, which is no problem on our king bed up north, but becomes a little more problematic on this tiny twin bed. Jasper is a notorious bed hog, and for a shrimpy17 lb dog she has an uncanny ability to make her sprawled out body as large, heavy, and hard to move as possible. I believe this is a fundamental tenet in the K9 rulebook: “When sleeping on your master’s bed show a wanton disregard for his comfort.” This is one of those blissful, peaceful moments in two months filled with chaos, stress, emotional sucker punches, and emergencies. We now have health care workers we think we can trust, and for the moment all is calm. That will inevitably change. Bills have been paid, the house is in order, there are no appointments for a while, and I can sit down for a few hours and read my Bob Newhart autobiography. This is my fourth or fifth biography in the past few months, and I seem to favor them of late, especially those of famous musicians and comedians. I now know all about Keith Richards, Neil Young, Carl Reiner, Bob Newhart, and am about to plunge into the life of Michael J. Fox. The narcissist in me wants to explore any similarities I may share with these flawed but gifted men. So far, not all that much in common. All I need are a few tattoos, a body piercing or two, some drugs, a few emotional traumas, a sense of humor and some talent, then I’m off to the races.

Of course the big weather news last week was the huge blizzard that hammered parts of New England and New York. One town in Massachusetts got 97 cm of snow dumped on it, which for you non metrics is over 3 feet. I don’t know why but people so often ignore the dire weather warnings; a lot of motorist stranded on Long Island Expressway had to be rescued from the blizzard. Toronto got hit with what was predicted to be a formidable winter storm, but it was not nearly as bad as what the East Coast experienced. Friday morning, as it was beginning to snow and blow hard, I drove the night shift health care aid to a hub bus station. Buses near the Taylor’s house were not running, and well after what was supposed to be morning rush hour, traffic was backing up on all main streets. With its radial snows my SUV will go through almost anything, but a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and the majority of Toronto drivers were out of their league in this storm. I remember one winter in Buffalo back in the 80s when every morning for a few weeks it seemed I was brushing 5 to 10 inches of snow off my car. To me this storm was like an average winter storm for Buffalo. Child’s play. I remember one winter, maybe five or ten years ago, when Watertown, N.Y., one of those snow belt towns on the east end of Lake Ontario, got nailed with something like 6 or 7 feet of snow in a very short period of time. Now that’s a snowstorm. Lots of people remember the notorious Buffalo Blizzard of ’77. I was not there because I was on a plane heading for a semester abroad in Ireland when the storm hit. The storm was just beginning while I was on the tarmac at Buffalo International Airport, and they shut the airport down shortly thereafter. By the time I got to Ireland, the storm was over. My Irish family in Dublin was watching it on BBC news when I arrived and it so happened that the video clip that came across the screen, at the exact moment I looked, was of Chapin Pkwy, the street on which my parents lived. What are the chances?

The Canadian penny will soon be going out of circulation - it costs more to make them than they are worth as currency. Should I the consummate investor now start collecting them because, like the sheets of Elvis postage stamps I once bought, they are likely to appreciate upwards of 1.3% over fifteen years? Speaking of Elvis, last week was Elvis Week on Letterman, and every night last week Dave featured an Elvis impersonator as his musical guest. I watched them all! There was one Elvis impersonator, representing the younger Elvis, who did a pretty good rendition of Jailhouse Rock. The guy Thursday night nailed the “Later Elvis” persona, complete with the corseted gut, the garish, caped white polyester jump suit (Greaser Man from Glad meets Batman), the cracking voice, the flop sweat, and the ludicrous, spasmodic, older-guy-trying-to-gyrate movements that characterized the King of Rock ’n Roll’s final performances. It was genius. It never occurred to me, but of course some of these guys would focus on “past-his-prime” Elvis. Imagine basing your career as a performer on the imitation of a celebrity’s tragic decline.

That’s almost as pathetic as me watching, and enjoying all five Elvis impersonators.

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED