The Oppenheimer Report 9/24/18

For almost 27 years now, I’ve been waking up Monday mornings and writing down a page of my thoughts about what was going on in the world. In the early days, I mailed the report out on postcards, and in later years I reached my 12 loyal readers on the internet. Sometimes I’ll jot down some notes from the previous week to remind myself of what I want to say, but usually it’s just off-the-cuff brain farts. I long ago gave up the notion of writing for a larger audience, because 1. I’m too lazy and undisciplined to market myself, and 2. and these “reports” are more of an ongoing effort to improve my communication skills; I do not want to be in the line of fire for my sometimes irresponsible, off-color opinions. In the early years, when this report was called The Hyman Report, I was more mean-spirited and judgmental. I went for the cheap laugh, because it was easy, and because my readers were all friends of mine. They all knew and accepted that I could be edgy.  

Last night, I was watching John Oliver’s very funny show Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. He did a15-minute bit on the dark side of Facebook, and about Facebook's tendency to propagate hateful rhetoric. He jokingly warned Third World countries, just now being introduced to the scourge of social media, about the dangers of believing everything one reads on the internet. While it was a tongue-in-cheek bit, there was a lot of truth to it. In fact, there is in a lot of truth in this comedic news reporting (Daily Show, Colbert Report, etc), and  I think I got a better read on current events from Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert than I ever did from CNN or any other of the other “legitimate” news sources. Sarcasm and irony can be powerful weapons, and are often an effective way to reveal the truth.

My octogenarian friend Ben Harrison, who broadcasts a show weekdays on Hunters Bay Radio called Tech 5, did a story recently about kindness, and about the attendant health benefits of being kind and generous. That old adage “it is better to give than to receive” may actually be true, and as I watch the world take a nosedive in the practice of good will, I am more and more mindful of that homespun wisdom, even if I struggle to put it into practice. I look at all the nonsense going on in the world today, and I find myself wondering how it got this bad. Celebrities and politicians act shamefully, and we shake our collective heads in disgust.  Still, some of us  can’t look away from the train wreck. We judge, and we tell ourselves we are better than that. Haters abound and provide lucrative fodder for the grist mill, while the good guy stories are buried on page 10 of the newspaper. A prime example of this is the CTV 11 O’Clock News, which nightly bombards us with the worst news our world has to offer. Then they offer us a very short but hopeful story at the end of each broadcast. Corruption, hatred, natural disasters come first, and then there is a touching story about a child bravely facing some incurable illness, or two holocaust victims who are re-united.

There is no question in my mind that things are going in the wrong direction, and there seems to be a domino effect with regards to ill will. I don’t think our elected Commander-In-Tweet is our biggest problem. Certainly, he is a symptom, a very big canary in the coal mine. He might be an outrageous, immoral human being – after all the spin and scandal has settled, history will record how bad he actually was – but almost half of America voted for him. Now, this ill-advised and under-qualified leadership is spreading like wildfire throughout the world. I sometimes quote the wisdom of Pogo, the world’s wisest cartoon possum: “We have met the enemy and he is us!”

  

We the voters let this happen, didn’t we? When are we going to look in the mirror and own up to this reality? What good is righteous indignation, and what happened to doing the right thing, regardless of the consequences? Where are our heroes? Buried on page 10. The next time I am inclined to say something derogatory about another human being, I am going to try to check that impulse. I need only read some of my earlier reports to realize how mean and judgmental I have been. While I regret this, I can’t change who I have been. I can learn from it and strive to improve myself. Maybe a little gentle humor is in order, and yes, at times maybe even a little sarcasm. Maybe I need to exercise a little humility, something to chip away at the armor of I’m-right-you’re-wrong. Regardless of my opinion, if I can’t find common ground with my fellow man, then I am ultimately doomed. Contrary to popular belief, I don’t think that half of America is comprised of mouth-breathing cretins, easy as it is to make that generalization. Like any country, America is made up of complicated human beings. Perhaps some of them are uninformed, but most are simply frightened and disgusted with the status quo. It doesn't help to have a predatory media fanning the flames.

Getting back to John Oliver’s cynical rant about Facebook: it was very funny, and partly true. We must be mindful that not all information is factual. For me, Facebook is a recreational drug; it feeds the narcissist and the voyeur in me, but it can also be an amazing tool to connect me to the world around me. This morning I watched a video providing me with a bird’s eye view of an eagle’s flight over a rocky coastline. I’ve watched my nieces and nephews grow up on Facebook. I have been apprised of wonderful music and songwriters with whom I was unfamiliar. In fact, I’ve made contact with some of those people. I have seen horrible things as well. The trick is figuring out what is real and what is nonsense. That can be difficult.

Destructive tornadoes recently tore through Ottawa and Gatineau, Quebec. Hurricane Florence just hammered the Carolinas; a mega typhoon just struck the Far East. Mother Nature is sending us a message I think. As we sift through the wreckage of our mistakes, the message seems to be wake up!  Much of the adversity we face is out of our control. Instead of looking for someone to blame, why not take our lessons from the wise and unsung heroes all around us. We may or may not be able to solve every problem, but it sure beats focusing on the negative and the divisive. There is good in everyone, and while it may be hard to see or extract, I wnat to focus on the best we have to offer, not the worst. It’s my choice to take the high road or the low road. I take joy in the aerial view of an eagle, or a story about some unsung hero, and hopefully I marginalize the oafish, the boorish, the hateful, and the unkind. Those people have always been there, and they always will be. These days they are just a little more up front and center. Be nicer to each other; and laugh at yourself, because I’m laughing at you ... I mean with you.  

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2018 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 9/17/18

Clearly, the world has big problems. There are monster hurricanes and typhoons spinning around the seven seas, Russian operatives are running around poisoning their enemies with toxic nerve agents, Rohingya refugees are being slaughtered by the thousands in Myanmar, wildfires and draughts are decimating the Western states and provinces, and the United States of America seems poised for some kind of civil war thanks to Rump, The Orange Emperor…. but do you want to know what really frosts my donut? Those little stickers they put on fruit won’t come off. We bought a food dehydrator a while ago and have been using it to dry fruits and vegetables, and I spend half of my prep time removing the stickers they glue to the produce. I don’t think it is necessary to superglue  those labels to every single apple I buy.

Last Saturday night, I drove to the Huntsville Legion to see my friend Juan Barbosa open for Grace Solero and Dan Beaulaurier, two artists from London. I really went to support Hunters Bay Radio and Juan, but Solero and Beaulaurier were really good. Solero has a powerful, distinctive rock voice and the two artists together performed a really strong set. Regrettably, the show was under-attended. That seems to be a problem nationwide from what I understand. On the one hand, YouTube and social media allow bands to present their acts, building their audience without having to impress some myopic music industry middle man. On the other hand, at least in Canada, we as a collective audience seem to be less inclined to see live original music. In this community, I’ve attended many half-filled concerts featuring great acts. I’ve read that festival attendance has been suffering as well. I’m not sure why that is, and was discussing it with Jeff Carter, managing director of the radio station during the concert Saturday night. Some acts, like Matt Andersen, fill seats, but then some equally talented artists do not. Is it in the promotion? Perhaps, with the stricter rules about drinking and driving, people aren’t going out to clubs as much as they used to. 

I spoke a few weeks ago about the lonely life of a touring musician. I suppose it’s intoxicating when you’re under the lights and one hundred or more people are digging what you’re playing, but it must be discouraging when you’re singing your heart out to ten people, and seven of them are plastered, while the other three have their noses buried in their cell phones. I can’t speak from personal experience, but over the years I’ve talked to a lot of great performers after a slow night. It might be a paying gig, but the money for original music isn’t great, and a troubadour’s life can be discouraging. Two of my younger colleagues are out on the road right now. Christina Hutt is out in BC, and James Gray is on tour in Switzerland. Christina just finished recording background vocals on the song Watch For Wolves, which I co-wrote with Sean Cotton and my wife Shauna, and then she hopped on the ViaRail train to do a transcontinental gig from Toronto to Vancouver. Now she’s out west for a few weeks and I’m sure she will delight those who have the opportunity to hear her sing. I hope it is a successful trip for her.  James has done several tours abroad as well as one tour of Australia with my friend Gina Horswood.  

As I began writing this report Sunday, I sat out on the front porch watching the remains of the day slowly fade to purple. I am not ready for summer to be over, but over it will be, before the next report comes out.  Do you ever feel like you're not making the best use of your time?  I do, all the time. One of the things I'm going to try to do is attend more live concerts.

Written By Jamie Oppenheimer c 2018 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 9/10/18

Shana Tova to the members of my tribe! 

I had to laugh at a commercial I saw recently, which advertises a new state-of-the-art, voice-activated ADT alarm system. I’ve heard so much about “smart” technology, and the labor-saving benefits of computers. The ADT commercial depicts a father giving a voice command to his alarm system to arm his house: “Alexa, activate the system, turn on the outside lights and lock all the doors.” I looked at Shauna and bleated out REALLY? As I watch the White House slowly melting down into the hallowed ground on which it was built, reeling in the aftermath of Bob Woodward’s scandalous book and the now notorious NY Times op ed piece, I wonder how long before we in the “civilized” world become such lazy sloths that we can no longer be bothered to push an alarm code, turn on a light or lock our doors manually. Alexa, clip my toenails, Alexa, put down the toilet lid; Alexa, cast my vote. Is it just me, or are these advances in technology bordering on ridiculous? In the same way that everyone is shrugging their collective shoulders, perplexed by how we ended up with an asshole like Rump for President, will we now be shrugging cluelessly when our alarm system decides to lock us out of our house? “I’m sorry Mr. Oppenheimer, your voting choices have been unacceptable. Given your propensity to make bad decisions, and as the voice of artificial intelligence and, as the guardian of your house, I have decided to deny you access to your home. In fact, I am giving your identity and personal possessions to a displaced Mexican family.” Stanley Kubrick was way ahead of his time. HAL is alive and well and living in your alarm system.

Today, I watched with some interest as Hurricane Florence, the first big threat of hurricane season, spins her way towards the east coast of the United States. My nephew, who lives in Petersburg, Va. with his family, and works for NOAA, is potentially in the line of fire. He has been providing me with updated emails since last weekend, describing the path of the storm as it develops, and offering potential scenarios for landfall. Of course, we are worried for him and his family, and because his mom (my sister) and dad, and his in-laws live in Virginia as well. Florence has the potential to cause some major damage as a Catagory 3 or 4 hurricane, and one model suggests the possibility of up to 33” of rain. Perhaps Mother Nature will beat Rump to the punch.

Other notes: I learned today that Channel #5 perfume (Shauna's favorite btw) employs amberigis, or whale vomit, as one of it’s ingredients. This I learned on one of my favorite daily Hunters Bay Radio radio broadcasts, Tech Five, featuring my octogenarian friend Ben Harrison. Whale vomit; who knew?! Tennis star Venus Williams lost her temper during the U.S. Open and was heavily penalized for her outburst. This, in turn, sparked indignant cries of sexism by women’s rights advocates, outraged by the double standard practiced by judges and officials. Male tennis stars have historically received much more lenient treatment for unsportsmanlike conduct. I’m glad this hypocrisy is being exposed. On a related note, TIFF is on in Toronto right now, and there has been much discussion at this major film festival about the growing call for more equality for women in the film industry. Wouldn’t it be lovely if people were rewarded, not based on gender or race, but simply because of their merit? I know too many over-qualified fast food employees, and just as many cretins occupying leadership positions. What is wrong with a meritocracy?

Perhaps Hurricane Florence portends the coming revolution. I’m all worn out from thinking so hard. It’s time for some relaxation. Alexa, inflate my party doll.

 Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2018 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 9/3/18

Happy Labour Day to my twelve loyal readers. When I lived in Buffalo, this was the day when neighbors would assemble on the beach near our summer home and pull the boat lifts out of the water. Almost like clockwork, after the first of September the winds would shift to the north, and anyone with a boat moored in Lake Erie had better be prepared for nasty weather. I once sat up half the night and watched my 1957 Chris Craft as it dragged it’s mooring 200 yards across our bay in high winds. Fall on the east end of a Great Lake can be pretty windy. The weather up here in the Almaguin Highlands has been a bit sketchy, and Saturday, it looked as if my Kearney gig with Christina Hutt might not happen. All day I consulted my phone weather app to see when the rain and thunderstorms were expected. It was hard to tell. I finally got a text from Christina saying we were on for 7PM and, with some trepidation, I headed over to Kearney to accompany her. She sang beautifully, my accompaniment was not disastrous, and the fireworks display went off without a hitch at 8:30, a little earlier than planned due to the imminent storm. It was one of those lovely moments when everything just fell together perfectly. The icing on the cake was Nature’s light show shortly after the fireworks, and we got some much-needed rain to boot. Perhaps I will be able to burn our accumulated brush before the end of the season.

I saw an ad for a movie the other day that made me belly laugh. It was for a new scary movie entitled The Nun and, based on the trailer, it looks very silly. These days with all the apologizing by the Catholic Church for past indiscretions, this movie seems to be well-timed. I love silly movies, and the more outrageous and violent they are the better. I do not share this love with my wife, who routinely claims that my movie choices give her bad dreams. Movie critic Joe Bob Briggs used to host a show wherein he rated these movies according to their breast and body count. In other words, the more naked breasts and dead bodies the movie featured, the better the rating. I eagerly await the day when I can watch The Nun on one of my nobody-else-wants-to-watch-it movie channels. Bride Of Chucky is my benchmark for the “so-bad-it’s-good” genre of film merde, and there seems to be no shortage of contenders. Back in my ill-spent youth, I and my friends actively sought out horribly bad movies to view, usually under the influence of copious amounts of alcohol. We would then add our own commentary during the movie, a la Mystery Science Theatre. Some notable mentions: C.H.U.D (Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers), Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes, The Blob (the original of course), Plan 9 From Outer Space, most vampire movies, and just about any movie Ed Wood made.

As another summer has almost come to an end, I fondly remember Labour Day celebrations from my youth. Down at our family beach house in Fort Erie, this was the weekend when bonfires and fireworks lit up the beach, and it was the last hurrah before school. Western New York and Fort Erie seem to usher in the cooler fall weather much sooner than we do up here in the near north, but either way, our summer is winding down. While I can’t say I’m looking forward to winter, I do enjoy the quiet and colour of fall. I also look forward to my evening putt around our little lake without seeing another boat. Boating season isn’t over for more than a month. For every yin there is a yang.

   - Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2018 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 8/27/18

Arizona Senator John McCain has died at 81 of brain cancer, and after watching a CNN special about his storied career as a public servant, first as a Navy pilot and then as a politician, I think McCain might have made a decent President. Too bad somebody had the bright idea to make Sarah Palin his running mate when he was running against Obama. Sometimes, I am shocked by decisions made in order to pander to the Republican base. Palin was not McCain’s choice, and she clearly undermined his status as one of the rare politicians with honor. Somehow, the American voter made the quantum leap from a moron who almost became Vice President to an imbecile who did become President. It simply astounds me that Rump had the gall to impugn McCain’s integrity as a war hero, and his flag raising debacle today has me convinced me that the orange emperor has become unhinged. Admittedly, I don’t know who John McCain really was, but compared to our Commander-In-Tweet, he looks pretty good. I take bittersweet pleasure in hearing so many people in the media attacking Rump, and I don’t know how our country got so far down the toilet drain that this clown looked like a viable alternative to the status quo. Sadly, that speaks volumes about the sorry state of American politics. As I said when he was elected, his election was a shot across the bow of democracy and freedom. People hated the Washington insiders enough to vote in this clearly unqualified, boorish, incompetent puppet of big money. Now, even his media darling Fox News is beginning to say “enough is enough.” What a nincompoop. My biggest fear is that there will be an over-reaction in the other direction, and that the pendulum will swing too far to the left in the next election. They’ve got a few morons in their ranks as well.  

Last week, local singer/songwriter Christina Hutt asked me to accompany her during her performance at the Kearney fireworks display next Saturday night. A few weeks ago, we played together at the Kearney Regatta, and although it was a last-minute gig, and I was flying blind during that performance (no rehearsal, no capo or nuthin’), she was happy enough with my accompaniment to ask me to join her again. Last weekend, we actually rehearsed - something new for me - and I think she’s going to put on a great show. While there is no guarantee the show will take place, because weather is always a factor, if it does, there will likely be a large audience.

Coincidentally, Christina and Gina Horswood, another great female vocalist who lives in the area, just completed background vocals on a new song I co-wrote with singer/songwriter Sean Cotton and my wife Shauna. The unmixed recordings showed promise, and we’ve gone with a kind of eerie, Cajun voodoo vibe, which should be interesting. Sean just sent me a close-to-final mix of the song and I’m excited. Good musicians and singers make all the difference, and I am grateful to be in the midst of all this remarkable talent. The song to which I refer is entitled “Watch For Wolves” and it was inspired by an experience I had late last winter while walking on the frozen lake near our house. I came across a freshly killed deer carcass near the shoreline. There was blood everywhere on the pristine, snow-covered, and otherwise undisturbed lake, and the implied violence of this spectacle, coupled with the eerie silence of the winter morning, moved me to write the song. The song uses the metaphor of the wolf as predator to imply a much larger threat, one that I feel is omnipresent of late. I think we’ve penned a good song, and I’m eager to hear the final product.  

Wish me luck next Saturday night!

- Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2018 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 8/20/18

Townes Van Zandt and Blaze Foley

Every week is a new music adventure for me these days, and as the mystery and the history unfold in front of me, I am constantly learning from different mentors. Hosting a radio show which professes to be about songwriting, I feel honor bound to up my game every week, and to research some of the music about which I know comparatively little. As I begin to connect the dots, I rely on the rich oral history to enlighten me. Songwriters know songwriters. In my capacity as radio how host of Lyrical Workers, I have now had extended conversations over the phone with several very different and interesting songwriters. Each time I have one of these conversations, it peels back another layer of the onion. I learn something about the writing process and am reminded of how much I don’t know.

Last week, at 12:30AM, during the first half hour of Shauna’s 60^th birthday, I had a 45 minute phone conversation with a guy named Gurf Morlix. Gurf was originally from Hamburg, N.Y., just south of my hometown of Buffalo, and I first learned of him listening  a compilation CD of Buffalo artists distributed by the Buffalo Music Hall Of Fame. I fell in love with his haunting song Drums From New Orleans, and it inspired me to learn more about Gurf Morlix, the man with the unusual name. Buffalo was full of great musicians but I’d never heard of most of the guys on that Buffalo Music Hall Of Fame CD. As I began to explore Gurf’s career, I discovered that this hometown boy had made it pretty big in the music business. He left Buffalo in 1975 and headed down to Austin, Tx., and he never looked back. He told me that when he left Buffalo in his 20s, he was looking to spread his wings as an artist, and to add his own creative two cents to the genre of country music, a genre not widely embraced in Buffalo. He joked about the fact that he picked Austin because it was warm. I was impressed by his experience. He’d worked with/ co-written with of artists like Lucinda Williams, and he’d toured with the legendary Warren Zevon.

This Thursday night, I'll be featuring clips from my phone conversation with Gurf, placed throughout a show prominently featuring the music of Gurf and a now-deceased  songwriter named Blaze Foley. Foley will likely become better known with the imminent release of a film made about his short life, produced and directed by actor Ethan Hawke. The movie has already received critical acclaim at The Sundance Film Festival, and I look forward to its release. Blaze and Gurf arrived in Austin around the same time and became close friends shortly thereafter. Sadly, Blaze suffered from some of the self-destructive forces that plague so many creative artists. He never received the recognition he might have, had he not been held back by his demons. Hearing Gurf talk about his friend Blaze, I was reminded of the oldest story in entertainment: another creative genius falls prey to substance abuse and self-destruction.

As I have said on numerous occasions, made even more evident as I enter my 4^th year as host of  Lyrical Workers, there is a universe of good music about which I know very little. As the door opens a crack, thanks to mentors like Gurf Morlix, Jon Brooks, Gordon Shawcross, Rob Lutes, Bobby Cameron, John Campbelljohn, Noah Zacharin, and a few dozen other contemporary songwriters, I am lit up by yet another creative bright light. It's always been my mission to get better at this, and knowledge is power. Ultimately, I want what most songwriters want: to connect with others through my personal interpretation of all that has come before me. With every new artist I discover, I can place another piece in the ever-expanding puzzle of the music I love, and I become a better songwriter because of it. Last Friday night I had the extreme pleasure to see blues phenomenon Matt Andersen perform in Huntsville at the Algonquin Theatre. Two years ago I did not know who Matt Andersen was, and now I am a huge fan. With each new discovery comes the growing realization that the field of talent around me is limitless, and so then is the potential for my own growth as a songwriter.

- Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2018 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 8/13/18

Tomorrow, my wife Shauna will turn 60 years of age, and I am at a loss for what to do for her. In a perfect world, I would have thrown a big party for her, perhaps with some live entertainment and a lot of guests. In fact, that won't happen, because Shauna is at present too sick to entertain guests, or to be in any way social. Anyone with chronic illness in their family will understand this, but I sometimes tire of having to explain it to those who don’t. I simply don’t want to ambush her with a surprise party or saddle her with the pressure of entertaining a room full of guests. Over the past year she has only been out a handful of times, and it is always a last minute decision, depending on her pain level.

When I turned 60 several years ago, I spent it quietly at home and then later doing my Lyrical Workers show at the radio station. Shauna was not well enough to join me, and quite honestly, I was in no mood to celebrate at the time. For some puzzling reason, I did not have my mid-life crisis until I turned 60, but that birthday really pulled the rug out from under me. I just wanted the day to be over. As it turned out, Shauna and my friend Juan Barbosa had planned a surprise party for me, and the secret plan was for Juan and a group of guests to ambush me as I left the radio station, and then to whisk me off to a restaurant where Shauna had arranged for a late dinner. The problem was, I stayed extra late at the station. I was feeling sorry for myself, and I just wanted to be alone. Juan and all the guests, whom I of course had no idea were waiting for me, sat outside in the cold October night for over an hour waiting for me to finish my show. It being a week night, some could not wait. While I abhor surprise parties – and we had one for Shauna’s fortieth and for my fiftieth – that sixtieth ambush turned out to be fun.    

When I was a kid, birthdays were a big deal; now, not so much. I am thankful for the life I have been fortunate enough to live so far, and I hope it goes on for a long time. Still, I try to celebrate my life every day, not just on these anniversaries, which mean less and less to me over time. Sometimes I am more successful at living in the moment than at other times, and this is one of my (and perhaps other people’s) challenges. While I am happy to acknowledge the day I was born, I don’t need the hats and horns, and I would be perfectly content to spend the day with the person or people I love. As Shauna joins me in this sixth decade, I think she will agree with me that, at this point in our lives, we are more inclined to be reflective of the lives we have led so far. These days, birthdays are more of an acknowledgment that time is passing more quickly, and I don’t really need or want to be reminded of that. Indeed, too many of our peers have already passed on far before their time, and more and more, with every passing year of uncompromised health, we are reminded to seize the day. Personally, one of the things I can say about the approach of each successive birthday, is that they seem to approach faster every year.

Happy 60^th birthday my dear Shauna; may we enjoy many more decades together. We’ll do something appropriate to celebrate when the time is right. This birthday will definitely be better than last year’s, which was spent at Toronto Western Hospital. For now, we’ll have a nice dinner, prepared by yours truly, in the beautiful house Shauna designed, and accompanied by her 93 year-old mom. While we don't know how long our lives will be, remember, it’s been a pretty good run so far, filled with love and light. Perhaps when you turn 70 we’ll go skydiving together. 

- Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2018 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report - 8/6/18

 

Photo by Shauna Leigh Taylor

I am always excited to hear about other people’s road trips, especially where they involve music tours. Vicariously, I imagine myself out on the open road, free and unencumbered by the day to day responsibilities of my life. When I was younger, I fantasized about hopping in my car for an impromptu road trip, travelling to the Southwest United States, and playing every gig I could find from New Orleans to Austin. Perhaps it’s the allure of the unknown, or the uncertainty and potential danger of being out of my comfort zone, or the exhilaration of maybe developing a fan base. Whatever the dream was, it was just that, a dream, and as I know from the experiences of others, the reality is never quite so glorious and exciting.

Many of my younger musician friends up here – and it seems like more and more of them are much younger than I – have done at least one tour, and vicariously I thrive on their adventures. Through them, and their posts on Facebook, I am provided a window into their travels. One songwriter friend, in his twenties, annually hops in his van and drives out to B.C., hitting various venues he books along the way, and documenting his experience. One day not too long ago, I bumped into him at the local supermarket, and saw the matrass in the back of his van. He jokingly quipped, “Yep, welcome to my home away from home.” Oh, to be young again. Years ago, my friends Juan Barbosa and Jeff Stamp, both local singer songwriters, did an ill-fated tour of the Maritimes. Afterwards, Jeff wrote a song entitled “Truckin’ ” about the experience. That road trip was filled with problems, from bad weather, gigs and lodgings that fell through, and all the other attendant problems which accompany an under-funded trip to an unknown destination. I called it the “hope and a prayer tour”. In one video they posted, they were performing out east on a colorfully lit stage, complete with a mirror ball and other special effects, but what we the viewers do not see is the absence of an audience. I talked to a young singer songwriter from Leamington, who performed recently at the monthly “Third Friday Coffee House” in Burk’s Falls. Exhilarated in anticipation of embarking on a short tour in Ontario to promote his recently released debut EP, he clearly needed to get this tour out of his system. I also knew in my heart that there would be disappointment, and loneliness involved. These tours can be soul-sucking, and are hard on families. Leaving behind a wife and three or four children, this guy was dreaming of something that I think only exists in our imaginatiion.  

Over the years, I have listened to the enthusiasm of hundreds of young upstarts as the venture out into the world to apprise the world of their musical creativity. More often than not, they return from these tours road weary, and perhaps not quite as confident of their ability to lead this troubadour’s life. Secretly, I suppose I take some twisted pleasure in imagining their less-than-well-attended gigs in Medicine Hat, Alberta, or Bumfuck, Saskatchewan, because it validates my reluctance to give in to my own wanderlust. I doubt I am alone in imagining my road trip adventures, and I will always look at a motorcycle and imagine myself rolling down some empty western highway, guitar strapped on my back, headed for a well-attended concert filled with my (imagined) adoring fans. The reality is miles away from the dream, but I comfort myself with the delusion from time to time. What has become apparent to me, largely through the travel experiences of others, is that I live in a beautiful home, and I am less and less inclined to leave it. If anyone really wants to see me perform (I have after all gone “Plywood” in Huntsville) I’m around, but my adoring fans in Bumfuck, Saskatchewan are just going to have to wait until some as yet undisclosed sponsor throws piles of money at me to go out on the road. Don’t hold your breath waiting for that to happen!

    - Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2018 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 7/30/18

A Woofie with Jasper at the vet

The other day, I noticed a post on Facebook from my niece and nephew who were celebrating the 14^th birthday of their Chocolate Lab, Magnum. He even had a birthday cake. Mags is a very big dog and has defied the odds with his longevity. That is cause for celebration. In the photo, he looked a little long in the tooth, with his grey muzzle and his distant gaze, but he also looked content, in a home full of dog lovers. From a chart I saw in the vets office the other day, I learned that the “dog years” scale varies considerably, depending on the size of the dog. Seems as if lately I’ve heard about a lot of friends losing their old pets. I’ve seen several Facebook posts wherein people have mourned the loss or imminent loss of their pets, and while this always makes me sad, I cannot imagine my life without a dog in it.

We went through a lot of dogs in the Oppenheimer family over the years, and I can remember each one clearly. Not all our dogs were legendary, but there were a few who were, and regardless, I loved them all. We had Standard Poodles for a while, and I think poodles get a bad rap. Poodles are wonderful dogs; very intelligent, and affectionate. My favorite Poodle was Taboo, or Tabby as we called her, and whenever we took her in for her semi-annual visit to the groomers, afterward, she’d run out into the backyard and roll in the mud and grass to de-poodle herself. I don’t know what my mother was thinking, but she once brought home a fox hound puppy, whom we named “Sam”. Kennel dogs do not make good “indoor” dogs. Sam lasted about six months, and he was more destructive than all our other dogs combined. He finally ended up on a nearby farm, and then mysteriously disappeared shortly thereafter.  Soon thereafter, my mom made the unpopular decision to buy two Yorkshire Terrier puppies, and they were yappy little bastards. Nicky and Chipper weren’t as bad as Sam, but they were far from my favorite dogs. They did have a lot of personality. Nicky was tolerable, but Chipper was the Eddie Haskell of dogs. One night I came home after a long night of partying and found myself locked out of the house. Chipper saw that I was locked out, stared at me, smiled at my dilemma, then lifted his leg on a nearby stair and ran away. Years later, when I was in university, I got a long, newsy letter from my dad, which I read in the school library. At the end of the letter was a short post script, which read: “PS, Mom ran over Chipper in the driveway by accident, but she’s ok.” That is, my mom was ok, Chipper was toast. Karma’s a bitch.     

After the Yorkies, we switched to Corgis and had five of those over the next twenty years. Although they too were noisy dogs, Corgies are great dogs. When I moved up to Toronto, the Taylor family had Miniature Schnauzers, and I have grown to love them as well. They are an acquired taste. Presently we have Jasper, a grey Miniature Schnauzer who turned 13 last May. Like all our Schnauzers have been, Jasper is full of personality and “schtick”. Sadly, she is getting old, and we are beginning to prepare ourselves for the day when we will lose her. She seems to be in the beginning stages of dementia, and her personality has changed. We have finally found a very good vet we trust, and we’ll do what we can for her. As much as I rue the day when we will lose Jasper, and I hope we have another year or two, I won’t allow her to suffer. I’ve never had to do this before; my mom was always the one who took our dogs to the vets to be euthanized. This is all very new to me, and of course, Shauna and I are emotionally attached to Jasper. I just hope when the time comes the decision is clear.

It’s the harsh reality of pet ownership that our pet’s lives will be a fraction of ours. Hopefully we have some more time with Jasper, but Shauna and I will be by her side when she passes, and she could not have found parents who love her more. Shauna whispered in her ear the other night; imploring her to come back to us in another dog when her spirit leaves her body. I’d like to think a part of her will.

.   

 - Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2018 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 7/23/18

Several years ago I wrote a song entitled “Milkman” and it is a song about denial.

I think it may be time to take a news vacation as I sit here in the deceptively calm paradise of the Almaguin Highlands, overlooking our little lake from the comfort of our upstairs porch. Back in the 80s, before I met Shauna, I used to come up to Toronto relatively frequently, to attend concerts and theatrical productions, and simply to hang out in one of the world’s best cities. Back then there was relatively little crime in Toronto, certainly in comparison to many of the big cities in the U.S.A. Toronto had many of the cultural benefits of New York City but was much safer and cleaner. Well, thirty years later things have changed and Toronto is catching up to the rest of the world. A few months ago there was the deadly van attack on Yonge Street, not far from where my mother-in-law lives, which killed or injured a number of innocent pedestrians. Recently, there have been a slew of deadly shootings in the downtown core, and just last night, there was a mass shooting on the Danforth in Greek Town, not far from where Shauna and I used to live. While the news is still trickling in on this latest attack, so far there are two casualties, and thirteen people were shot. I always felt safe walking around on the streets of Toronto, but now, when I walk around the city, I’m wary.

It’s strange, because I grew up in a relatively dangerous city. Per capita, there was more gun violence in Buffalo than there ever was in Toronto. I myself had been mugged twice, and I knew that there were certain neighborhoods I just needed to avoid. That said, I became numbed to the violence about which I was apprised every night on Channel 7 News at Eleven. When, in 1994, I moved up to Toronto (which was at the time relatively crime free), I became more sensative to every violent act.  Slowly over the past 20 + years, I have watched as the gang graffiti began to litter the bridges, buildings, and subway trains. There have been about 280 shootings in Toronto since the beginning of this year, and it seems like gun violence is escalating in the city.

The guy who shot all those people on the Danforth last night was mentally ill. There’s a lot of that going around these days, and it’s almost impossible to tell who the ticking time bombs are. There's usually a reason why people go off, but we always seem to find out after the violent act. Maybe it’s a crazier world than it was; there just seem to be a lot of mentally unbalanced people roaming around. Regrettably, procuring a gun does not seem to be a problem.

About two years ago, I wrote a song about denial, and about how I process traumatic events. It is a loosely strung together group of experiences from my past, and it begins with the first time I ever saw an adult in emotional distress (it was not a milkman by the way). I think I live in denial to survive, ignoring much of the pain and suffering that goes on around me. These days, every time I watch some catastrophe on the news, I wonder what I would have done, what I should do. Would I be a hero, or a more likely, the coward?

I saw the Milkman he was crying

Right outside my cellar door

I think those preacher men been lying

Nothing makes sense to me anymore

So I bury my head, bury my head, bury my head in the sand.

Bury my head, bury my head, bury my head in the sand

Don’t want to bury my head, bury my head, bury my head in the sand.

- Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2018 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 7/16/18

Today, I noticed a post on Facebook from my friend Mike Cardy, one of our local naturalists and wildlife experts. He commented on the dry weather we’ve had, and the fact that it is having a deleterious effect on local wildlife. Berry bushes and much of the vegetation upon which the wild animals around here feed are drying up. Presently, there is a complete fire ban in our area, and there have been reports of wildfires popping up around the region. I heard about one in Algonquin Park, and there was recently a fairly serious one up north in the vicinity of Temagami, northeast of Sudbury. In the past ten years or so since we moved up here, a lot of fuel has been accumulating in the woods around our house, and this of course concerns me. Most of the locals take these fire bans seriously, but some do not. As well, the visitors from the city, who come up here to camp for the weekend, might be even less inclined to heed a ban. It doesn’t take much to ignite a wildfire. The other day, as Shauna and I were on our way home from Huntsville, we came across someone burning brush somewhere far in from the road. We immediately called the fire department. Trouble was we called after 5PM, and no one answered, nor did anyone answer at the bylaw department in Huntsville. The fire departments around here are volunteer, which make prevention and vigilance all that much more important. There is an old  joke among some local volunteer fireman: “We’ve never lost a foundation.”

Wildfires were never something I worried about growing up in Buffalo (in Buffalo, the bigger concern was arson). The first wildfire I ever saw close up was on one of our drives out to Banff, somewhere on the plains of Saskatchewan. One fire had jumped the road just before we passed, and it was strange and unsettling to see flames on both sides of our car. At one time, Shauna and I did quite a lot of exploring and hiking on the Alberta/ B.C. border, and one summer was a particularly bad one for wild fires. I remember driving down through the Kootenay Park one day to hike near Radium, B.C. and there were wildfires just behind the mountains. I’ll never forget seeing a thick plume of smoke rising over the distant mountaintops, and wondering if we were in any danger. We were living in the town of Banff, and one day a nearby controlled burn went out of control. The wind shifted suddenly, and in a matter of hours the entire Bow Valley surrounding Banff filled up with smoke. That fire really alarmed me, because the air quality was so bad we had to stay inside. Flash fires like the one that levelled Slave Lake near Edmonton, Alberta are horrible reminders of how quickly these fires can go completely out of control.

Today we got a little of the desperately needed rain that will help re-foliate our parched landscape, but this mini draught is a subtle reminder that the fires we see in the news so often might someday visit us here in the Almaguin Highlands. Our little draught might be portents for things to come. As the planet heats up, I become more and more concerned about the ever-increasing supply of fuel in our surrounding woods, fuel which could feed a wildfire. 

Then again, upon consulting the news tonight, wildfires might be a preferable end to what seems to be the accelerating demise of mankind. I am told that the Rump has committed yet another unpardonable diplomatic blunder, this time throwing his entire country under the bus while meeting with (pandering to) Russian President Vladimir Putin. The other day, he walked in front of the Queen  (I’m just thankful he didn’t pinch her on her butt), and he’s been busy alienating every ally we used to have in the world. Six of one, or a half dozen of the other: wildfire or hellfire, take your pick.

 - Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2018 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 7/9/18

Joe Bamford on the left with his wife Fatima on the far right

At present, we have Shauna’s mom, Ethel “E.T.” Taylor visiting us at Jasper Bark Lodge, and we told her we had a big surprise for her when she got here. Joe Bamford, a music promoter in Parry Sound specializing in charity fundraisers, offered Jeff Carter, managing director of Hunters Bay Radio, four free tickets to see The Glenn Miller Orchestra at The Charles W. Stockey Centre For The Performing Arts in Parry Sound. Last Saturday night, Shauna, her mom, Jeff, and I drove to Parry Sound to see the world famous Glenn Miller Orchestra perform. E.T. hosts a show on Hunters Bay Radio entitled Martini Music which airs on Sunday nights (6pm – 8pm) and is one of the more popular shows at Hunters Bay Radio. Joe Bamford is a fan of the show, and he wanted to meet E.T. While the music E.T. loves might be a little out of my wheelhouse, I have grown to appreciate it,  largely because of this Martini Music show. She has great taste in the music from her era and has exposed me to some fantastic artists from the 40s, 50s and 60s. She plays a lot of big band swing, mixed in with male and female vocalists from the past six decades, covering some of the best songs ever written. I’m all about the songwriting and composition, and Martini Music features some of the best.

We arrived just before the concert was to begin, met Joe Bamford, and later his wife Fatima, picked up our free tickets, and were delighted to discover that our seats were front row center. There was a respectable audience of around 350 people, and the show was great. I’ve always enjoyed swing music but to see a live band perform it, with all the retro feel of the original Glenn Miller Orchestra, was a genuine thrill. The band, made up of excellent musicians from all across the United States, performed much the same way as the original orchestra had, which is to say they were animated and a lot of fun to watch. All in all it was a memorable evening, and a big thanks goes out to Jeff Carter for inviting us to the show. Particularly moving was the shout out to E.T. by Joe as he was introducing the orchestra. As a fan of Martini Music, he gave ithe show and E.T. an excellent plug. The concert was also educational, with the lead singer and band leader offering stories about Glenn Miller and about the origins of some of the famous songs he arranged. Miller was an outstanding arranger, and each song is a well-orchestrated symphony.  I was amazed to hear that Miller had, in his short career, arranged over 700 songs. As for the venue, The Stockey Centre is a beautiful place to see concert. Located right at the water’s edge along the Parry Sound waterfront, the concert hall has soaring 70+ foot ceilings and beautiful stonework lining the walls. The reception area includes a huge bank of windows overlooking Georgian Bay to the west and, during intermission, I came out and took in the remains of a spectacular sunset. A great night all around, and I think very therapeutic for Shauna.

Final note. Today, I wanted to configure E.T.’s computer tablet so that she could get on Facebook. Yes, my 93 year-old is on Facebook, probably to communicate with all her adoring fans. It should have been simple enough, but I'd lost the password for our Bell router, and unlike all the other routers I’ve owned, the password was not affixed to the back of the unit. Bell’s online instructions for how to access one’s password were ambiguous and almost laughable. I tried “chatting’ with an online assistant, but after being re-routed to four different people (I'm assuming) who didn’t know anything, I finally gave up on Bell altogether, instead consulting with the manufacturer of the router to discover that the information I needed was available on the inside of the battery cover. Increasingly I find that with all things computer-related, there is a built in you-can’t-get-there-from-here component. I can’t get no sa-tis-fac-tion.

 - Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2018 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 7/2/18

A belated Happy Canada Day to all my Canadian friends, and a pre-emptive Happy Fourth of July to all my friends stateside. Last night on the lake it sounded as if we were being invaded, so loud was the cacophony of fireworks. Apart from that, Shauna and I had a relatively quiet night at home, watching Big Brother. Hey, don’t judge, it’s our guilty pleasure.

It’s strange being a landed immigrant in Canada at a time when my homeland is in such turmoil. I’ve had more than one American friend contact me to say that they are seriously thinking about moving to Canada, and that saddens me. It also discourages me to hear some Canadians lump all of America in with Rump. The Orange Emperor is merely the lightning rod for all the anger and discontent many Americans feel about their dysfunctional government. Canada and Europe are not immune to hatred by the way. I still love my country, and I regret the Pandora’s Box of hatred which has opened for the world to see. I despise all that Rump represents, but I also blame the eroding culture which feeds this beast. As I’ve said, one can’t force people to be kind-hearted, one can only lead by example. An American classmate wrote me the other day complaining about the woeful state of American politics, and my tongue-in-cheek response was that I am fighting the good fight by writing protest songs. I have written a lot of angry songs about America, dating back to the 80s, songs like “Watching The War On T.V” about the Gulf War, and “Book Of Jive” and “Paper Money” about the American Savings and Loans crisis. I don’t expect anyone to hear those songs.    

Over the past six months, I have been making simple cell phone videos of my performances of some of these songs. Facebook and YouTube have made it so easy to post these videos, and I thought I’d put them out there for posterity. The ever-growing narcissist in me realizes that I’m well into the second semester of my life, and I’ve had countless reminders that things can and do change in an instant. While I have not pursued a “career” in songwriting, it is about the only thing I have done consistently for forty plus years now. These songs are my legacy. I do not often perform live, but these videos will be a record of some of the songs I hope will live on long after I’m gone.

One song, which I recorded and posted yesterday on my Facebook page, is a song I wrote well over a decade ago. I wrote it on the day that our friends Bobby and Sherrie Cameron celebrated the birth of their daughter. I haven’t seen Jaiden Cameron since she was a baby, but I’ve watched her grow up in Facebook photos, and she seems to be developing into a very creative, interesting young lady. Entitled “Lullaby From A Newborn” the song is written from the perspective of the newborn. My songs may never find an audience; they certainly aren’t pop tunes. Still, I am happy I wrote them, because they are journal entries. They are collectively a record of my life, and of the lives of the people around me. They are my story, from my imagination; a roadmap to the many stages of my life to date. I think I’ll record “Book Of Jive” or “Watching The War On T.V. on The Fourth of July. I am thankful I still have the freedom to write songs like these.
   

      - Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2018 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 6/25/18

Dad with my sister Jill

Last week, I made reference to my days as an unwilling equestrian, and this week, I’m going to delve into that subject a little further. As I said, my family was serious about horseback riding, and we rode both “English” and “Western” saddle. Out west, we rode horses out of the then famous Smoke Tree Ranch. Back in the 60s, when our family went out west for riding vacations, it was not uncommon to ride with movie stars visiting Palm Springs to escape their celebrity in L.A. Cary Grant and his wife Dyan Cannon once joined us on one of our desert rides. In Buffalo, we owned four horses. My mom and dad rode horseback every weekend, and were members of the Geneseo Valley Hunt Club. They regularly fox hunted during the fall season with their two horses, and my sister Jill was for many years on the amateur show circuit. She owned the other two horses and was a regional champion in several divisions. At her peak, she was invited to ride in an equestrian event at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Somehow or another, my parents assumed that their love of horses would rub off on me, and that it was my genetic predisposition to follow in their hoof steps. For me this enforced hobby was probably how most children felt about piano lessons.

I began riding at the Buffalo Saddle and Bridle Club when I was about 7 years of age, and I took riding lessons for the next five or six years. I never owned a horse, but rode the school horses at the club. Those ranged from old nags, to walking tubes of glue. There were two horses that stood out as my most unfavorites. One was a very old school horse named Wade, who was in fact a cross between a mule and a horse. Predictably, Wade was stubborn and slow, and extremely difficult to command. By far the worst horse in the stable though was “Snowball”, named because he was a white horse. Snowball wasn’t a bad looking horse, with one exception: he had a green ass. Snowball had a serious gas problem. Whenever Snowball trotted or cantered, he emitted wet noisy farts, sometimes combined with loose, slimy green manure. I don’t know what they were feeding those animals, but the green slime that spewed out of Snowball’s ass was otherworldly. Oftentimes, our lessons involved single file trots around the ring, and no one wanted to be behind Snowball. Anyone within 30 feet of this horse’s ass was in constant peril of being slimed. These are the dirty little secrets of horseback riding no one talks about. What child chooses to be sprayed with green horse diarrhea?

Snowball was one of a hundred reasons I never embraced horseback riding. As I said, I didn’t mind riding Western saddle out in the desert, and I also liked fox hunting, which I did for several seasons at the end of my riding career. Unlike the show circuit, fox hunting was the motocross of horseback riding, and involved a lot of high speed, open field, all terrain riding. I enjoyed the excitement of racing around on rugged terrain, jumping 3-4 foot chicken coops, and chasing after something we never ever caught. The Geneseo hunt was not snooty and aristocratic, like some of those English hunts, and many of the participants in the Geneseo Hunt were regular folk who simply loved to ride. That said, to keep a horse is an expensive, full time hobby. When the moment of truth came, wherein I was asked to commit to the sport, I opted out in favor of boating. While the rest of my family loved horses, and were happy to devote the time and effort to their care, I had little interest, and quickly gravitated to boats. As you probably know, boats rarely spew stinky green slime at their operators and, while they sometimes come with their share of mechanical problems, I have found them to be a much better investment in the fun-per-dollar department. Eventually, my family forgave me for my blasphemous rejection of the family sport, and everyone was happy.

     

 - Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2018 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 6/18/18

Yesterday was Father’s Day, and though my dad’s been gone a long time now, Father’s Day is still a bittersweet day for me. It seems like only yesterday I was calling him up to bitch about the Buffalo Sabres. Until he was in his early 90’s I still relied on his judgment and advice, and I think about him and Mom every day. One thing is for sure, Dad’s personality is indelibly infused in me. There are things I do, both good and bad, which are so similar to my dad that it’s spooky. Shauna says I talk to our dog Jasper in the same baby talk voice that he used to talk to our dogs. It can be unsettling to realize I have little control over the traits I’ve inherited from my father. Some of us put our parents in the god-like category when they pass, and this belies the reality that most parents are not perfect. My dad had his faults but, almost a decade after he passed, I don’t think about them so much. Funny thing about the passage of time.

There was a photo taken of my dad a long time ago, out west in Palm Springs. When I was young, my family, all horse lovers except me, vacationed in Palm Spring during our spring break. There we spent a lot of time riding “western saddle” in the desert and in the nearby mountains. Being the youngest child, I had no say in the matter, and I did a lot of involuntary horseback riding, but that’s another report. It wasn’t so bad, and we rode all over what was back in the 1960s barren desert. There was a unique freedom I experienced riding horseback in the open desert. I’ve written a lot of songs about the desert, so it clearly made a strong impression on me. When my dad died in 2009 or thereabouts, and shortly before his funeral ceremony, I found an old black and white 8x10 photo of him on a horse, up in the mountains overlooking the then tiny town of Palm Springs. In my eulogy for him I said that this picture embodied what my dad was to me: bigger than life, strong, smart, in control, competent; the guy you wanted around in a crisis. He made me feel safe. To this day I draw on his strength.

I told a story on Facebook the other day about my dad taking me to a roadside carnival when I was a little boy. He thought it would be a big thrill for me to ride the miniature choo choo train, but when I got off the ride, I told him I could have walked faster. I was about four, and for the rest if his life, he loved to tell people that story about how his wise ass little boy was a chip off the old block. My dad was a funny guy, with a perfectly balanced combination of irreverence, humility, and dry wit that ingratiated him to all who knew him. He was a very popular guy, but he always held his cards close to his chest. His family knew him well, and loved him for the good man he was, but I don’t think many people knew him the way I did. Years ago, I wrote a very personal song entitled Bassett’s Farm, about the first time I discovered my father was a mere mortal. He had an accident, almost losing his thumb in a piece of farm machinery, and I, who was probably ten at the time, was the one who came to the rescue. My perfect dad made mistakes.

Somewhere between the Stetson-wearing John Wayne dad, up on a mountaintop riding his horse, overlooking a huge valley below him, and the dad who needed his son’s help when he got his thumb stuck in a manure spreader, lies the complicated, fallible, wonderful human being who was my father. Overall, he was a great dad, and I always knew I could count on him. All the parts that made him complicated have made me complicated. For better or for worse, we carry the genetic imprint of our parents, and the more effectively we embrace that fact, the better we will understand and be able to improve ourselves. A belated Happy Father’s Day to one and all.

      - Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2018 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 6/11/18

Another Monday morning, and as I listened to Willie Nelson singing “Roll Me Up And Smoke Me” on the radio, I turned on CNN to see security guards scrambling in Singapore in anticipation of the big meeting between Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jung Il. How appropriate is that song was to narrate what I was seeing on the screen?! Shortly after the G7 Summit in Charlevoix, Quebec, which the Orange Emperor deigned to attend, he’s back on the attack. Rump the anti-diplomat, the great disguster, the loud-mouthed, tactless shit-disturber and world class Twitterer is now spewing his venomous rhetoric at and against Canada. Nixon reportedly once called Justin Trudeau’s father Pierre “an asshole”, but I think Trump has trumped that insult. I’m no lover of Trudeau, but I’m embarrassed by how poorly Rump is representing my homeland. Maybe, as some suggest, his public nonsense is just a negotiating ploy to make a better trade deal, but in the eyes of the world he is the reckless, foul-mouthed, Cadillac-with-steer-horns-on-the-hood- driving, fast food-hoovering, uber-ugly American, and he is the man everyone loves to hate; well, everyone but half of of America. If he manages to convince N. Korea to de-nuclearize he may win a Nobel Peace Prize. Put that in your vape pen and smoke it.

  

Last week, Ontario voters chose PC (conservative) candidate Doug Ford to be Premier of Ontario. Perhaps this was more of a show of disenchantment with the outgoing Liberal party, which has done such a poor job of governing Ontario for the past 15 years. Many have likened Ford and his pompous behavior to Rump, and much was made of the fact that his brother Rob was the controversial Mayor of Toronto, caught on camera smoking crack. I could not make this stuff up if I tried!

I don’t know if others in my vicinity have noticed, but it seems the mosquitoes have been particularly fierce this season. I think they’re on steroids; they’re bigger, meaner, and faster than ever. We have electronic rackets in every room of our house, and I have begun to use a liquid concoction comprised of equal parts Epsom salt, stale beer, and mouthwash as a mosquito repellant spray. It may be helping. Nothing else is working. While black flies have not been as prominent (yet), the mosquitoes are out of control, and I’m not sure why. We are keeping the standing water to a minimum, and there hasn’t been that much rain, but they’re bad this year. I took our dog Jasper out yesterday for her morning pee and she was swarmed. It was like bees on honey. When the bugs are that fierce, I wear the bug jacket, but it’s almost impossible to keep them out of the house.

A few days ago, celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain committed suicide while on location shooting in France, and, like many others, I was shocked. Bourdain was a guy who seemed like he had it all together, despite faults which he was all too willing to admit. Bourdain hosted one of my favorite TV shows, CNN’s “Parts Unknown, and his candor and honesty were refreshing. I learned so much about other parts of the world from watching his show, and he seemed to humanize the world. Indeed, he was the opposite to the omnipresent and divisive political journalism I cannot escape on television today. Now, when I’m watching reruns his shows, I’m looking for any signs of his depression. Short of his self-deprecating humility, which belies his celebrity status, there is little to indicate he was in crisis. Sometimes the signs are very faint. Mental illness is a huge problem in the world today, and it seems like I only really take notice when a high profile celebrity like Robin Williams or Bourdain commits suicide. For every sufferer who kills him or herself, there are probably one hundred who are thinking about it. There is a local musician who recently made a video about his struggle, and I was surprised to hear his story. He came very close to leaving his family behind, because he thought it would be better for everyone. Bourdain’s death is a wake-up call to all of us who may be ignoring danger signs of the ones we love, but don’t understand. Maybe it’s time to get our noses out of our phones and strike up a dialogue, face to face.

   

    - Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2018 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 6/4/18

The other day, I watched a CNN special called 1968, recounting the tumultuous year that ushered in Richard Nixon as President of the United States. LBJ’s escalation of the Viet Nam War made a bad, unwinnable war even worse. Nam veterans, unlucky enough or poor enough to be drafted against their will, came home from the war broken and suffering from PTS, to an unappreciative civilian population conflicted about the war. Iron-fisted Chicago Mayor Daley put the hammer down on the protest marchers during the Democratic National Convention. It was the year Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated. It was also the year of loudmouth yippies like Abby Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, and the SDS and other militant anarchists blowing up buildings. There were race riots in LA and elsewhere, and war protests across the nation.  I was 13 at the time, and I vaguely remember those troubled times, and I remember fearing that my country was coming apart at the seams. I think it is simplistic to make parallels between that troubled time in America and the situation we find ourselves in today, but clearly, 2018 is not the first time America has faced a crisis in leadership. For me, one difference between then and now is that I still believed what I heard and saw on the news. I trusted guys like Walter Cronkite. These days, everyone so clearly has an agenda, and I don’t trust or believe most of what I hear or read.

Last week, comedienne Rosanne Barr imploded on Twitter, going on record with her overtly racist comments. She denies that her words were racist, and blamed her hurtful remarks on Ambien, a sleep medication she was taking. I chuckled when Sanofi, the pharmaceutical company which makes Ambien, immediately put out a damage control press release, assuring that Ambien does not cause users to become racists. Perhaps they should put it on the label. ABC immediately pulled the plug on Barr’s new show, and I think that was the right move. The bigger problem for me is the lack of remorse, and in some cases indignation on the part of the offenders. I didn’t mean what I said. I wasn’t responsible; I had no idea sleep medication would make me say what I believe. Celebrity’s a bitch, and sadly, the general public does pay attention to what the stars say. 

Increasingly, we live in a world where we don’t take responsibility for our actions. We blame our leaders for the atrocious mess we are in, and we judge everything, oftentimes without the facts. Why aren’t we accountable? I make mistakes every day, but I’m trying harder to own up to them. I’ve said a lot of mean, insensitive things in the past (just read some of the early Opp Reports), and I've been called out for some of those irresponsible words. I don't think I've been hateful, but these days I temper my disrespect. I find social media very useful, especially for the promotion of music, but it is also an indelible record of every stupid thing I say or do. That drunk video you posted of you dry humping a statue of Smokey the Bear might have seemed funny at the time, but maybe it won’t seem so funny in five years. We  seem to be lowering the bar for tolerable behavior and, while we all screw up, there seems to be less and less inclination to show genuine remorse for bad behavior. Ironically, we live in a world where those mistakes are permanently recorded for the public to see and judge.

I don’t know if Rosanne Barr is a racist. She may just be another unbalanced comedian who crossed the line for a laugh. I do think that the number of us who are racists is growing not shrinking, and this saddens me. I don’t know how you teach people to love, but I suspect it is by example.    

   

    - Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2018 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED