The Oppenheimer Report 7/29/13

 

Dad Taylor is still in about the same condition as he was in last week, with perhaps some minor improvements. While we keep our hopes up, he still cannot swallow and now the question becomes, how do we provide him with sustenance long term? Right now he has an NG tube running through his nose into his stomach, but this is only a short term solution for delivering liquid food (somewhat similar to Ensure). So far two attempts to insert a PEG, or feeding tube in his stomach have been unsuccessful. To complicate matters, his out-of-control roommate (who was moved after the incident) yanked out his NG tube a few weeks ago, necessitating the insertion of a new one. As well, he has tried several times to pull it out himself, probably because it is terribly uncomfortable. Inserting an NG tube is not an easy procedure, and has caused him some distress. He has had the procedure done three or four times now. The next option for the longer term PEG insertion is a more invasive surgical procedure, requiring a general anesthetic, and this is of course more risky. We are not even sure yet if a surgeon will consent to do it, and there are no easy decisions at this point.   

There is a distinctive odor which emanates from the stroke ward, and every morning when I walk through those double doors it hits me like a junk yard wind in summer. It is the subtle perfume comprised of human waste, disinfectant, medications… and body odor. I noticed the body odor the first day I was there and thought to myself, “don’t these visiting friends and family members wash?” Then it dawned on me. As I was running myself ragged, transporting people to and from the hospital, arranging for meals, dealing with household hassles, the banking, the bill paying, and the thousand loose ends which were left unattended to when we rushed down to Toronto three weeks ago, I hardly had time to eat, much less to take a shower. After a few days that caught up to me. One day, shortly after we arrived in Toronto, as I sat on Bayview Ave. in the humid summer heat, in what seemed like a never-ending maze of road construction, detours, and traffic jams,, I realized that I had BO, and did not have time to do anything about it. When I had the chance I addressed the problem, and put a deodorant stick in my backpack for future ten second body fragrance tune ups. While hardly a substitute for a shower, perhaps it would somewhat mask my future odiferousness (is that a word?). On the high crisis days – and there have been plenty of those in the past three weeks - an extra half hour of sleep trumps a shower. And yes, I have since found time to wash, as things have “settled down” to a nervous waiting game.  

It seems that there have been periods in my life when troubles converge in a perfect storm that threatens to drive me out of my mind. One of those periods was 1978 just after I had just graduated from college. My dad was diagnosed with colon cancer and was firmly convinced he was going to die. I began my new job at the family real estate firm, where everyone likely hated me because I was the privileged son of the then absent president. To ice the cake, my older sister, visiting my ailing dad from out of town, experienced a severe brain hemorrhage and fell into a coma for about three weeks. The neurologist told us that it was unlikely she would ever walk or talk again (she was driving a car within 18 months). My mother and I were left to tend to her two young boys, who did not understand what was wrong with their mom, as we dealt with my father’s myriad of post- surgical complications, and visited my comatose sister in the hospital every day. That was one messed up summer. I became something closer to a man that summer, and the experience steeled me against lesser travails to come. There were so many little annoyances that cropped up concurrently that summer. For instance, I remember the painters who were painting the next door neighbor’s house, dropped a bucket of white paint on our driveway which splattered all over my mom’s black Buick. In that time of family crisis, when so many things went wrong in s short period of time, I remember my mother and I laughing about this accident as we wondered, “What next?!”

In Royal news, it’s a boy! Kate had her baby boy, and they have named him George. Why not Tony, or Iggy, or Felix? King Felix has a nice ring to it, don’t you think? Two notable train wrecks in the past several weeks: First there was the Lac-Megantic, Quebec train wreck which involved the explosions of tanker cars, killed 47 and left a big hole in that town. Then, last week about 80 died and many more were injured when a high speed passenger train derailed in Spain. The conductor has been arrested for negligence because it was reported he went into the turn where the derailment occurred at around twice the speed he should have been travelling. Yikes! Was there a mechanical failure, or was this guy related to the captain of the Costa Concordia?

Back to the hospital.     - Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 7/22/13

 

Dad Taylor has shown some miniscule improvement, most notably that he seems to acknowledge his loved ones. He is still mute, we do not know what he is thinking or if he is thinking, and he is still essentially paralyzed on his right side. This is a very confusing time for our family, because lthough the neurologist has painted a grim picture of Dad Taylor’s future, we have already seen clear evidence that he can understand us in some basic ways. Shauna and her mom are worn out, and there is little I can do to help them through this troubling time.  

After two weeks in the stroke ward, one becomes familiar with the inmates. There is a lot of down time for family members waiting in a hospital, and we have begun to talk to some of the other patients and their families. Tom down the hall, a man I’d guess is in his late sixties, lives up north not far from where we live. Shauna told me he introduced himself as “Lord Tom,” but lest I think he was a Royal, he confided that any putz with sixty bucks can buy a square inch of land in Scotland online, fill out some paperwork, and become an official lord. Sounds fishy to me, but it would not surprise me if he is right. Lord Tom was in the early stages of hip replacement surgery when he had a stroke during the operation. The doctors had to cement his mangled hip back together, the one they were in the midst of sawing apart. They sewed him back up, and sent him down to Sunnybrook. Needless to say, Tom was in excruciating pain and he was screaming and ranting whenever the morphine ran out, which it often did. I felt badly for his bedmate Boris. Then again, Boris was fairly well out of it and did not complain much.

Then there was the Notebook Couple a few rooms away from us. They appeared to be very old, and the man, who always wore those big, all-encompassing, post-eye-surgery sunglasses, hardly ever left his mate’s side. She looked as if she might be suffering from some form of dementia, and he always seemed caring and attentive. He was there in the morning and did not leave until late at night. On one rare occasion, when the man was not in the room, I watched her for several minutes as she stared blankly at an egg salad sandwich she was shakily holding inches away from her mouth. I wanted to help her, but on top of the fact that the hospital would not allow it, the man was fiercely protective, allowing only nurses to enter the room. I later discovered why he was insulating them when she called me into the room to ask who was in charge. She told me she got better food when she was living in the concentration camp. I had a déjà vu moment and for an instant saw my mom in her advanced stages of dementia. I suddenly felt bad for sunglass guy. It all comes down to the lack of control, and one quickly learns that, in a hospital, one is almost completely out of control. Living with dementia and brain trauma is extremely challenging.

I made friends with an elderly lady named Betty, who was in a nearby room. She was born in Timmons Ontario, in the Great White North. She’d had quite a few strokes which had left her half blind but in control of most of her other faculties. She was funny and intelligent and I think quite alone. She was also unfortunate enough to be in the same room with a guy whom we dubbed Ghandi. He really looked like Ghandi and chanted incessantly at full volume. Ghandi quickly won the most-annoying-patient award, prying the honor away from Lord Tom. I think one of the nurses must have killed him in the middle of the night, because one day he simply disappeared. Everyone had a story, most of them were interesting, and each was living in their own square inch of Hell.

Final notes on the nation-gone-mad department: I could not believe George Zimmerman was found innocent in the murder of Trayvon Martin! Once again justice is deaf, dumb, and blind, leaving me and a lot of other baffled onlookers more than a little concerned about the state of the criminal justice system in America. What is with Florida; if you decide someone is threatening you, you automatically have the right to kill him or her? Talk about a stupid law that encourages vigilantism. And Boston bomber Tsaranov is on the cover of this month’s issue of Rolling Stone Magazine. It doesn’t make him man of the year, but it does seem a little weird and yellow journalistic. Why give a misguided zealot so much press? Is anybody still covering the victims? In Great Britain, The Royal Bun is almost out of the oven, and Kate, the Duchess of Whatever is about to pop out a monarch. There are reports that the Queen has arrived at the hospital today with The Royal Catcher’s Mit.

 More notes from my altered universe next week. Hope you are all enjoying your summer.

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 7/8/13

 

(

Written earlier in the week):

This week I begin this report with a discussion about what a gullible fool I am. We bought a couple of those bright green Pocket Hoses you see so heavily advertised on TV, and they seemed like a great idea at the time. In the ad it boasts they don’t kink and they are much more manageable than conventional garden hoses. Of course they came with some kind of guarantee, and what cinched the deal for me was that they use the handyman from Home Improvement as their point man. Naturally, I assumed this was going to be a good product. The Home Improvement guy wouldn’t steer me wrong right? Guess what, he isn’t really a handyman. I should have known as soon as I ordered these things over the phone that something was odiferous in Denmark. The person from Bangladesh who took my order was doing a lot of fast talking in broken English. When I order a Pocket Hose I am theneligible for an incredible discount on the solar powered nose hair trimmers. I said “No thank you, just the two hoses.” But when I declined the nose hair trimmer, there were literally ten other deals which I was forced to decline as well, and the person taking the order was talking so fast I almost slipped up and ordered something else I did not want. By the end of the conversation I was getting really annoyed and almost cancelled the order altogether. Almost. Anyhow, within three weeks my hose arrived, probably from China, and I was so excited. After hooking it up to our outdoor faucet, it seemed to be everything the ad promised it would be. Then it sprung a leak after about three uses. The second hose also sprung a leak – actually five or six leaks – the first time I used it! When I called to complain to the company, which has a Van Nuys, California address but whose customer support is in Tibet, they were just a little too familiar with the complaint. After providing my original order number, they immediately agreed to send two more hoses free of charge (original shipping was $17). My problem is that I now know the product is crap and I have two large useless synthetic piles of fluorescent green landfill, and will presumably have two more to throw out in about three weeks. It’s not as if I’m some Birkenstock-wearing peace creep environmentalist, but even a wasteful sloth like me can be sensitive to my Sasquatchian carbon footprint. I feel taken, I feel violated, and I wish I had not acted so impulsively when I spontaneously phoned PT Barnum Inc. and purged with my little plastic magic wand. Of course I did a post mortem on the internet to find out that I was not the only patsy to be hosed by the Pocket Hose bandits. There were literally 78 pages of complaints listed when I Googled Pocket Hose complaints. As is my motto: Life is a hosejob, but at least it’s a job. Word to the wise, do not waste your money on a Pocket Hose.

It is 11:53 PM Monday night and we are in Toronto. We got a call Sunday night that Shauna’s dad had had yet another stroke, and this one was far more severe than any of his previous strokes. We have had little sleep and understandably Shauna and her mom are pretty beat up. Syd is unable to speak two days after the stroke and is severely impaired on his right side. He may not recover from this one, but if he does, his health care will become exponentially more complicated. Today, as I was heading home from the hospital to take Jasper out for a walk, the heavens let loose and Toronto had a thunderstorm of biblical proportions. Streets were flooded, cars were stranded on the Don Valley Pkwy, power was out all over the city and people were stuck on the subway during their evening commute. In short, there was chaos in the city. I crept up Bayview at a snail’s pace, through the major intersections without traffic lights, and I thought to myself, this too shall pass. Syd, wherever you are in that mental prison from which you cannot escape, I’m saying a prayer for you on this stormy night.

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 7/2/13

A belated Happy Canada Day to all the Canadians among my twelve loyal readers, and an early Happy Fourth of July to all my friends stateside! Our little lake was lit up with fireworks Sunday night and coincidentally, a lot of people lost their dogs that night. Over the years we’ve had several dogs that were petrified of fireworks. Weather wise it was a bit of a bust up here in the Great White North, but even rain beats a sunny week spent visiting someone in the hospital. I hope my father-in-law is going to recuperate, because this latest stroke knocked the stuffing out of him. Once again, I am thankful we have caregivers in place and more and more it looks as if they are doing a pretty good job. That is the big thing I have to be thankful for this week. All the other stuff is gravy.

Last Saturday, my plumber and local get-off-your-ass-and-see-some-music influence called me and reminded me about the Burk’s Falls Rodeo happening last weekend. It wasn’t really boating weather so I hopped in the car and drove over to the nearby Burk’s Falls fairgrounds to see what was going on. Not much as it turned out. When I got to the entrance gate, the bored girl selling tickets took one look at me and gave me the senior citizens discount. It is the second time this has happened to me locally, and I’m not sure how to feel about this.Still, I never look a gift discount in the mouth. When I drove in there was a bandstand set up similar to the one I described at the Stisted fairgrounds a few weeks ago, some concession stands selling cowboy stuff, and about 100 yards away there was a horse ring and a lot of pens stuffed with livestock. The event was badly under-attended, perhaps because it was not properly promoted, but there was live music before and after the rodeo events, and I’m always up for seeing the local talent. The sound man was a local musician whom I wanted to meet and I had plenty of opportunity to chat with him during the shows. He knows a lot of the best local musicians and is a good guitarist himself. He’s been known to produce, and I’m hoping he can help me record proper demos of some of my songs. I’m in the middle of writing a theme album and I could use some guidance. After the rodeo events were over it was time for the two main acts: Mike Lynch and Jamie Warren. Both were pretty good, and although I’m not a huge country music fan, more and more lately I am impressed with the songwriting. It’s all about telling a story, and the country guys seem to be doing that best right now. I talked to Mike Lynch after his set and he knew my buddy Tim Hicks (Google Tim Hicks' “Stronger Beer” ) because they both hail from St. Catherines in the Niagara region of Ontario. All in all it was a successful outing and I’m glad I went. I only wish more people had been there to listen to the music.

For well over a decade, Shauna and I drove out in Banff, Alberta every summer, and our stay always coincided with the running of the Calgary Stampede. The Stampede is a big rodeo, but we never went. Somehow the prospect of driving back out of the mountains to attend a crowded event down in Calgary was not all that enticing to us. I would have enjoyed seeing some of the musical acts, but frankly, I’ve never been particularly interested in rodeos. That probably has something to do with my parents. They were horse lovers and they strongly felt that some (not all) of the rodeo events were cruel to horses, and probably to other animals as well. Indeed, it seemed as if every year during the Stampede, there was some news story about a bad accident involving the chuck wagon races, wherein a horse was badly injured and had to be destroyed. Mom and Dad also did not like thoroughbred racing for the same reasons. I used to joke that the only reason I might have wanted to attend the Calgary Stampede was to disgust Shauna by sampling the local delicacy, Rocky Mountain Oysters, A/K/A bull’s balls.   

Final notes … It’s wildfire season, and fires are blazing all over North America. There was a tragic story the other day about an entire elite team of firefighters from Prescott, Arizona, the Granite Mountain Hotshots, wiped out when a shift in the wind left them with no escape. Nineteen of Arizona’s finest died in that fire, and no one is sure yet exactly what happened. Those guys were the Navy Seals of firefighting, and they were well trained to handle almost any emergency. In last week’s abbreviated report I failed to mention that actor James Gandolfini, A/K/A Tony Soprano from The Sopranos, died suddenly of a heart attack while vacationing in Italy. I loved that show! Apparently the opposite of the character he played on the Sopranos, Gandolfini was not only a great actor but a generous and humble guy as well. He was 51. Last but not least, Egypt is once again in the international headlines as crowds of protesters gathered once again in Tahrir Square, this time calling for Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Morsi to step down. Sounds like the military is about to step in, and if I can believe the Western Satan Dog media, this is what Egyptians want. Are they back to square one?           Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 6/27/13

Sorry folks, this one will be brief. No pearls of wisdom this week. I have been down in Toronto for the past week, and just returned yesterday. My father-in-law had another stroke and was admitted to the hospital. If ever there was a question about whether my parents-in-law needed the assistance of caregivers, all doubts have now been removed. Now we move on to the next and more complicated phase of their life at home. There is nothing like an extended visit to the hospital to reinforce my thankfulness for my good health. I might even cut down on cheeseburgers.

Certainly one of my greatest concerns this week, aside from my father-in-law, is for all my friends in Alberta who are just now recovering from a devastating flooding in that province. Friends in Canmore and Exshaw had to be evacuated and the flooding took out a chunk of the Trans Canada highway near Canmore. That highway is really the only way in and out of the mountains, and I am sure that detour severely impacted the flow of goods and services to the people who most desperately need them. The destruction in High River and Calgary has been unbelievable and I was shocked to hear that the water level rose to something like the tenth row of the Calgary Saddle Dome. Our friend Jim, who does road work in the Canmore area, just called to say that just today they have re-opened one lane of the Trans Canada. Jim’s house in Exshaw was flooded and there is presently seven feet of water in his basement. As well, he told me that there is a foot or two of heavy silt everywhere around his property. Water can be pumped out but the heavy silt is a little harder to remove. What a mess! Years ago, when Shauna and I were still going out to Banff every summer, we stored our cookware and other household items in Jim’s basement. I presume it’s all still there, floating around along with all the other ruined stuff. I called him today and jokingly asked if we could have our stuff sent back to us. With friends like me, who needs enemies.   

Hopefully, I will be able to provide a more carefully written report next week.

 

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 6/17/13

The weekend before last I attended a few hours of the quarterly and much-anticipated Katrine Jamboree at the local community center. I might have been the youngest person in the audience; there were certainly a lot of geriatric hoofers on the dance floor.  In my never-ending quest to sample the local musical talent, I sat through three or four acts before I’d had enough. I will say this, the finger sandwiches were quite good.  When it comes to live music I’ll listen to almost anything – I’ve sat through some pretty lame open mic acts in my day – but this was a less than spectacular set of performances. By contrast, last weekend I attended the 7^th annual music festival known as  “The Family Traditions Hoot” held  at the nearby Stisted Fairgrounds, and that was pretty darned good. My only problem was locating the Stisted Fairgrounds.

 Advertised on Moose FM, one of the local rock stations, this hootfest sounded like something I’d like to see, and it came recommended by our plumber, who is a pretty good musician in his own right. Unfortunately, like most of the locals around here, my plumber assumed I knew the area better than I do, and his directions were less than helpful. “It’s at the Sisted Fairgrounds … you know, a mile or so past Sprucedale and then south about ten miles, until the road changes to Yearly, then you make a left on this side road and a right on that one, etc.” I consulted my local map, and of course there was no such location to be found.  I finally did what I always do; I drove aimlessly in the general direction I was instructed to go, and assumed some kind pedestrian would provide guidance once I got close. Men and directions, right? As luck would have it, and after several wrong turns on dusty back roads, in the middle of nowhere, I found a tiny sign directing me to the elusive hootfest. As the crow flies, it is relatively close to Huntsville, but it is one of those you-can’t-get-there-from here spots. It’s a wonder I found it.  

 When I arrived I had a deju vu moment, because the event brought back memories of an annual pig roast we used to attend in Western New York. Lots of tents and campers and a lot of cars parked in a field.  This get together was a little less unruly than those crazy pig roasts were. There amidst the trailers and concession tents was a mobile stage set up and a band was playing. The vocals sounded pretty good, but the rest of the band was weak. Fortunately, their set was almost up. As the next band set up a couple of guys that looked like very old hippies got up and played some filler tunes on very out-of-tune acoustic guitars. The next band up was a bit of a disappointment as well and I was beginning to think this adventure was going in the been-there-done-that catagory. I hadn’t brought a lawn chair, or mosquito repellant, or anything to eat or drink, and quickly realized that I was completely unprepared for any long term listening.  But I stayed and I’m glad I did. Eventually my plumber showed up, and he had an umbrella, lawn chairs, refreshments, and the much needed mosquito coils. I’d already missed four bands but did see four more, and two of them were really good. Even the bad ones were better than those at fossil fest the week before. I recorded some of the better stuff and as I listen to it now, I’m glad I made it.  

 Final notes … Disturbing video of those riots in the streets of Istanbul and Ankara, Turkey. Istanbul was the first exotic city I ever visited, back when I was a teen, and what an eye opener that was for me. Jury selection has begun for the George Zimmerman trial down in the rogue state of Florida. Zimmerman is the vigilante neighborhood watch guy who shot and killed Trayvon Martin, a teenaged African American man. Zimmerman claims he acted in self defense, but no one really knows what happened. Why did Zimmerman follow Martin even after he’d called in the 911 alert? Much has been made about the fact that Martin was not a bad kid, and Zimmerman may have over-reacted. This one has all the makings of a race riot if Zimmerman is acquitted.  Florida’s “You-Snooze-You-Lose” law basically allow the “threatened” victim to use deadly force, so it will be interesting to see how the jury rules on this one. Assault weapons aside, do you think that there would be less victims and less crime if all victims were packing heat? Hero or traitor: now the spin doctors are saying that NSA leaker Ed Snowdon might have been spying for China. Of course there’s going to be a smear campaign against this guy. I don’t know how I feel about this one. I can’t imagine whistle blowers at the NSA are favorably treated, but did Snowden cross the line? This story calls into question how we control information, or fail to do so. With everything from banking to shopping  to filing income tax returns, all your information is in cyberspace whether you know it or not.  I’ve been wondering, exactly how does one control information and police the internet? In an autocracy perhaps it’s a little easier, but we live in a free country. I think that horse is out of the barn and didn’t look before he leaped.

                                                                                                                                                             

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 6/10/13

The past week was a fretful one as once again Shauna and I are faced with difficult decisions relating to the health of her parents. There have been caregiver issues and this part is not all that uncommon. We faced this when my mom and dad were being cared for. Different caregivers have different methods of treating their patients and sometimes those methods clash. It should be the worst problem an elder has that the people charged with their care are passionate about their approach and want to do the best job they can. That said, sometimes the squabbles are about trivial things. This one left the wastebasket full after her shift, that one di not clean up properly. 24-7 care can be a volatile situation when, as in our case, one of the elders is still ostensibly “in charge.” The caregivers – and we have three at present – are faced with the complications of negotiating with two fiercely independent elders as well as each other. This can be tricky, and it’s a bit like a dysfunctional family. Add to this the fact that none of the caregivers speaks very good English and the problem becomes even more complicated. Communication is important, and diplomacy is a big part of the job.

 Right now, one of the problems with which we are faced concerns diet. Shauna is in contact with the caregivers all day, through text messages and Skype, and in this way she can monitor her parents’ care on a regular basis. Last week Dad Taylor’s blood pressure became very erratic, spiking to well over 190 at one point. At some ungodly hour of the morning we were afraid we were going to have to take him to the hospital. Dad had already suffered several strokes and he could not be allowed to go to sleep without lowering his blood pressure significantly. A visit to the hospital is not without its problems, as Dad could end up more traumatized by a long wait in the Emergency Room. One of our caregivers, the one who was on duty during the spikes and who is probably the most medically competent of the three, insisted he immediately drink large amounts of tea with honey and cinnamon. He was not happy about drinking a lot of fluid, because every trip to the washroom is an ordeal, but eventually her actions brought his BP down to a marginally acceptable level. Then we consulted the patient notes and came to the conclusion that there was likely much too much salt in both parents’ diets. Over the next few days we began to scrutinize their meals and realized that their salt intake was well over double that which is recommended for an elder. We restricted Dad’s salt intake over the next several days and the results were remarkable. His BP was down substantially and has stabilized. He is an 88 year old man, and there are other factors affecting his health as well, but why stack the deck? And why is it so difficult to regulate salt intake?

 I never used to be a label reader, but after cooking for both sets of my elderly parents, I became more aware of their salt ingestion. So much food, especially canned foods and pre-packed meals, are absolutely loaded with salt. Mom Taylor was buying a lot of things that were easy to prepare, and which she assumed were nutritious; things like canned salmon and instant rice. It turned out much of the food she was preparing was off the scale for salt content. A package of flavored rice, something she often served, had almost the daily allotment of salt for an elder.

We all hear and read the warnings about too much salt, but especially here in North America, salt is a much bigger problem than most of us realize. It is linked to strokes and hypertension, heart attacks and even kidney disease. I knew it was an issue with fast food, but never realized how widespread the problem is. Because of Shauna’s medical conditions, I am perhaps more conscious of our salt intake than the average person, but what makes me angry is that it is virtually impossible to avoid over-salted food if one buys prepared food in the supermarket. Try to find no salt ANYTHING these days, and you might be surprised. A box of crackers might advertise no salt, and yet, when you read the ingredients, it turns out it does contain some salt. I couldn’t believe how much salt there is in cereal and bread. Check out the salt content in Kelloggs raison bran. It seems like everyone is jumping on the organics bandwagon, and there seems to be a growing demand for more healthful foods. I am happy about this trend, but too much salt might be just as bad for our health as the chemicals we spray on our vegetables. I think there is a growing market for stores that cater to the elderly. Perhaps someone will develop a codger friendly supermarket, but so far, I have not seen one.  

Speaking of codgers, Queen Elizabeth celebrated the 60^th Anniversary of her coronation last week. Hubby Phil looked a little worse for wear, and I understand he was in the shop afterwards for some “exploratory” surgery. He’s almost 92 and still pretty active, so good for him. I thought the Queen looked pretty good as well. I’ll bet someone watches her salt intake.

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  

The Oppenheimer Report - 6/3/13

Last Wednesday marked the 19^th anniversary of the day Shauna and I wed, and to commemorate the event Shauna put together a Facebook album of nineteen photos whose chronology spans the length of our relationship so far. I knew her back when I had hair, and it was black, not grey! One of the last photographs in the series was taken recently as we got our cars serviced at the local Honda dealer. How very romantic! But they say one picture speaks a thousand words, and what I see when I look at that photograph is contentment. I also see a codger. Shauna looks better than the day I married her, and I thought men got better looking with age. Not me ... I’m Festus. Let us have a brief moment of silence to acknowledge the swift passage of time. Most of all, that series of photographs reminded me of all that Shauna and I have seen and shared to this point. There is the photo of us standing outside Ron’s Fish N Chips in Blind River, Ontario where we had a delicious meal one hot summer night driving home from Banff. I remember meeting Ron and learning a little about his colorful life, and I remember photos lining the walls of his restaurant, showing Ron and his buddies on their many fishing adventures. There were the timer shots of the two of us on mountaintops overlooking the Bow Valley and the turquoise glacial lakes of Alberta, and British Columbia. Over the years, Shauna and I hiked hundreds of miles over the trails of the Canadian Rockies – no mean feat when one considers that Shauna has several chronic disabilities. There is the photo of a much younger (and wilder) me wearing a Lady Godiva wig at a party in Rochester, N.Y., making a silly face as the then unmarried Shauna looked at me with an embarrassed and confused smile, and perhaps just a smidgeon of disgust (I still get the same look from time to time). There is a timer shot of the two of us standing in her father’s boat in Katrine, with our 6’cardboard cutout Mountie “Dudley” whom we “liberated” from the Chateau Lake Louise one night after a long hike. We walked right through the main lobby of the hotel and into the parking lot with it. In that photo we were just about to go out on the lake and scatter some of her brother Jordan’s hair on the lake to commemorate his recent passing. Before he died he implored “Don’t postpone joy,” and that has been our motto ever since. Jordan had a great, albeit twisted sense of humor. One day, shortly after his unsuccessful brain surgery to remove a malignant tumor, he was sitting in a car waiting for his mother to come back from some store, and a vagrant came up to the window next to him and begged for money. Jordan rolled down the window, pulled off the bandana he was wearing to reveal a nasty unhealed incision on his head, and he said something like “I’d really like to help you out, but I’m saving up for my next surgery, and this time I think I’m going to let a doctor do it!” We brought Dudley along for comic relief. In fact there have been many photos of us taken with Dudley, from all across Canada, and he now stands in a place of honor overlooking our great room from the loft. Indeed we rescued him from his undignified sentry position outside an overpriced jewelry shop in the hotel. Mounties do not hawk jewelry. There is a photo of the two of us looking suntanned and relaxed, I believe standing outside a goofy restaurant called “Le Tub” in Hollywood, Florida. I remember the grounds of this restaurant were littered with old toilets and other bathroom fixtures and I also remember they were known for their burgers, if one could maintain one’s appetite.   

 

That photo series was a good idea, because it jogged my eroding memory. I find that as the years pass more quickly now, it is more important than ever to reflect back on the journey. Don’t live in the past, but certainly acknowledge it. Our marriage has not been perfect, what marriage is, but when I see these snapshots of time’s passage I am reminded how much richer the trip is with a companion. Thank you Boo for these past two decades, and I hope you can go all nine rounds with me, because it has been pretty interesting so far.   

Somebody mailed a letter to NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg which was laced with the deadly poison ricin. It might have had something to do with Bloomberg’s stance as a gun control advocate. There has been an outbreak of a Sars like virus in Abu Dhabi which could become a worldwide threat. I remember how frightening it was when SARS surfaced in Toronto, and how it decimated the local Asian business community. Antibiotic resistant viruses scare the hell out of me. Is it the death of the Tea Party? U.S. Congresswoman Michele Bachmann has announced she won’t seek re-election. To me she and her TeaBagger buddies were the nail in the coffin of the Republican Party, but the elephants had been paralysed by boneheads and extremists long before the Teabaggers became a political force. Yet another super cell storm blew through Oklahoma last week on the heels of that devastating EF5 Tornado that leveled Moore. And finally, a moment of silence, Edith Bunker died! Actress Jean Stapleton (no relation to Maureen Stapleton) passed away last week at 90. I loved Edith. Comic genius.

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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