The Oppenheimer Report

Monday, August 26, 2019

The Oppenheimer Report 8/26/19

Are you a collector? When I still lived in Buffalo,NY, I collected historic postcards, with special emphasis on cards relating to that city. I belonged to a postcard club and regularly attended the annual postcard shows in Cheektowaga, NY. I suppose that officially makes me a nerd. Over the years, I collected three or four albums full of old postcards. Some of those cards are quite rare. Eventually, I stopped collecting, but every so often, if I find an unusual postcard, and if the price is right, I’ll buy it. If I want to send correspondence that is particularly memorable, especially to a fellow songwriter, I’ll include one of those old, postmarked cards. While I used to search for pristine cards with no markings on them, sometimes it’s more interesting to have a card which was previously postmarked and dated. It’s also entertaining to read what someone else wrote on those cards, sometimes over 100 years ago. Before the era of texts and email, postcards were the popular mode of abbreviated correspondence. “Having a wonderful vacation; yours ‘til Niagara Falls!” Back in the day, I used to be pretty good at appraising the value of an old postcard, but now that I’ve been out of the collecting business for 25 years, I have no idea what my cards might be worth in today’s market. Back then, I discovered that the cards I’d collected early on had doubled in value within a few years. Some of the rare postcards might fetch $25 or more today, but most are likely not all that valuable. For a while, I only looked for old cards from Crystal Beach, On., because those cards are difficult to find.

In keeping with my love of correspondence, the other things I’ve collected over the years are rubber stamps and other hand stamps. If you’ve ever received a letter or postcard from me, it most likely included a rubber stamp imprint. I enjoyed collecting these from the different places I’ve travelled, and they are enduring mementos. Whenever I use one of these stamps, I am reminded of the place where I purchased it. While I have not actually counted all the stamps I own, I probably have close to 100.

To those who responded to last week’s report about the break-in and arson fire at Hunters Bay Radio’s transmitting station, thanks for reading the report. My intention was not to fuel controversy, but merely to point out that it was a very suspicious fire and that, in my opinion, it deserves to be further investigated. Everyone is certainly entitled to express their own opinion, but some people insinuated that I or Hunters Bay Radio had an alternative agenda. We simply want to know who would choose to destroy a communications tower. I hope the $1000 reward offered will lead to a tip as to who committed that deplorable crime.

Jamie Oppenheimer, Songwriter, Author, Blogger, Radio Producer, & Host has been writing THE OPPENHEIMER REPORT every MONDAY since 1992 and has published the articles on his blog since 2006. We are including Jamie's weekly reports, as a new feature of #HuntersBayRadio, The Bay 88.7FM.
#GotLocal? HuntersBayRadio.com #WeAreMuskoka #WeAreAlmaguin

Friday, August 23, 2019

The Oppenheimer Report 8/19/19

Around 10:45 p.m. on Shauna’s birthday last week we got a text message from one of our friends and fellow volunteers at the radio station, informing us that he was unable to tune in to the FM signal for Hunters Bay Radio and it appeared to be off the air. He asked if in our location we were experiencing dead air, and indeed we were. When we called Managing Director Jeff Carter to inform him, he quickly logged in and determined that there was no transmission from the radio tower. Early the next morning, Jeff and Grant Nickalls drove up to the tower to discover that someone had broken into the building that houses our broadcasting equipment, and that there was evidence of a fire. After further investigation, Jeff learned that the fire had occurred roughly one week earlier, but the station had never been informed. It was the thick black smoke and soot from said fire that had eventually damaged our equipment. There was evidence that an accelerant had been used, and clearly that would indicate that this was not an accidental fire.

The following day, on the Hunters Bay Radio Facebook page, Jeff posted a notice along with photographic evidence of the damage. He learned that the police had inspected the scene of the crime, shortly after it had initially been reported by the person who had discovered it. Oddly, the police had come to the conclusion that this crime was a simple break and enter, and not arson. The tower is in the middle of nowhere, almost a kilometer past a locked gate which had not been opened. In other words, someone had to have driven to that remote location, parked a vehicle, walked with a container of accelerant, probably with a crowbar as well, pried open a heavy-duty steel door to the transmission building, and set a fire which in turn damaged thousands, maybe tens of thousands of dollars in broadcasting equipment. My understanding is that this is, by definition, arson, and a Federal offense. Our station, along with the owners of the building, have offered a $1000 reward for information leading to the arrest of anyone involved in this crime. It seems suspicious to me that someone would travel such a great distance into the middle of nowhere to break into a relatively well-secured building, carrying a flammable substance, simply to perform a random act of vandalism. I was at the building with Jeff on Saturday and personally witnessed the destruction. The stench from burned electrical equipment was almost unbearable. It is puzzling and frustrating that no one thought to contact our radio station to inform us about the crime, so that we could have inspected our equipment earlier. Perhaps if we had been afforded a little lead time the resultant damage could have been lessoned.

Of course, there are those who think this might have been an attack on our station, but I really have no idea who would do something this despicable. There are other businesses who operate equipment in that tower building; perhaps it was someone with a grudge against one of them. Regardless of the motive, a Federal crime was committed in our community, and we urge local law enforcement officials to find the people responsible. These officials publicly criticized our station for representing this fire as an act of arson when, by definition, it was. Not only did this cowardly crime destroy thousands, maybe tens of thousands of dollars in valuable equipment, but someone out there in our community probably knows who did it. We didn’t even realize there had been a crime committed until our equipment failed, a week later. Whether our station was the target or not, the end result is that our community radio station, which has pumped over $100,000 back into local businesses and charities, and provides countless other services to the local community, is for the time being, compromised. We are now forced to use our limited funds to get back up and running at full steam. You may have noticed that the FM signal is weaker than it was previously. Hopefully, that will be rectified soon. Shame on whoever is responsible. You did a very bad thing to many good people.

Monday, August 12, 2019

The Oppenheimer Report 8/12/19

Shauna and I watched an interesting movie last night, entitled Can You Ever Forgive Me?, starring Melissa McCarthy in an uncharacteristically dramatic role. Based on the novel by the same name, it is the story of author Lee Israel, who was infamous for having forged around 400 letters she pretended were written by famous authors and celebrities. She then sold these forgeries to collectors, with remarkable success. Eventually she was caught, but then after receiving a relatively lenient punishment, she went on to write a successful book about her con. I found the story fascinating, and her forged letters were clearly works of art. She went so far in her quest for authenticity as to use typewriters that would have been used by the authors she was impersonating, and she was masterful in her ability to mimic the voice and tone of the authors she copied. I heartily recommend the movie to anyone who might be interested in the subject of letter-writing; admittedly a small group. The story was really about a frustrated, troubled writer who could not make ends meet. Israel had received some early recognition for her original work but, like so many creative artists, she was her own worst enemy. I found her character fascinating and complex

I used to be an avid correspondent, and I loved sending and receiving letters and postcards. Back when I was taking a lot of photos I even had some of my own pictures printed as postcards. When I was actively pursuing a music publishing deal, I’d send out my submissions to various publishers and record labels, along with one of these cards, self-addressed for a response. Most of the time the people to whom I submitted my work wouldn’t write back, but sometimes they did. One of my favorite rejections notices, I think from Capital Records, read: “This song goes on and on and nowhere! Pass.” I was so deluded that I was encouraged that a big record company even wrote back!

I think letter writing is a lost art, and I receive precious few these days. I still write them from time to time, perhaps as a tip of the hat to my dad. He was a great letter writer, and he could make a mundane story into a hilarious adventure, simply with his wit and his uncanny ability to embellish. I think it all boils down to telling a good story. The other day, I was ranting in this report about the death of creativity and storytelling. So many of the blockbuster movies are remakes of old stories, or else they are animated. I find it ironic that the animated films are often better written than the films with real actors. To me, this is a sign of the times. While I am hardly a scholar of the English language, I am more and more impressed when people who correspond with me, show even a modicum of communication skills. My bar gets lowered every day. In these times when people cannot be bothered to speak in complete sentences, I think of my letters as a way of exercising my decaying communication skills. When I write letters, I am forced to consider what I am about to say, rather than texting the first misfire that comes into my addled brain. I am also likely to edit what I wrote (or have my long-suffering wife edit it for me). I’m not sure the world would be a better place if we became better communicators, but like, um, ya know, it like, couldn’t hurt. RU feelin’ me?

Monday, August 05, 2019

The Oppenheimer Report 8/5/19

As I tend to do on Thursday evening, I came in early for my Lyrical Workers show, so I could attend the “Live Drive Show”, hosted by my friend and fellow music lover, Silver Lake Joe Thompson. Every Thursday night, from 6pm-7pm, there is a live performance in the Hunters Bay Radio studio, often featuring local musicians. Last week’s guest was a local singer/songwriter, Trixie Freebird, whom I have come to know peripherally over the past several years. Accompanying her onstage were her son Sawyer, an up and coming young singer/songwriter, and two of my musical colleagues, Jeff Stamp and Juan Barbosa. I enjoyed their show. What I find particularly rewarding about these Live Drive shows is that I have a front row seat to the development of talent in our community.

I’ve known Stampy and Juan personally for over five years now. Both of them are musicians and songwriters I respect. There are a dozen or so other local artists about whom I feel the same, and I love watching them develop their respective crafts. While I don’t know Trixie well, I’ve spoken with her a few times over the years as we watched her son Sawyer perform. I remember seeing him busk in a local supermarket a few years ago, and Trixie seemed resigned, if not thrilled, that Sawyer hoped to make a career out of music. The performer I saw last Thursday night has grown by leaps and bounds, buoyed in part by the support of this local community. Sawyer was playing the new, handmade dreadnought guitar gifted to him by local luthier Claude St. Denis. I too own one of Claude’s beautiful guitars, and it made me smile to think that he gave one of those precious works of art to a young, upstart musician in our community. Who knows, maybe Sawyer will be the one to achieve his dream; I’m just happy he has one. Hunters Bay Radio and the volunteers who donate their time to it are doing so for one reason: to support their community. The one thing we have in common is that we do it together, and the collective effort gives a voice to the creative and talented. Everyone has a chance to participate in the dream of something bigger.

I fear the concept of community is on life support. The sad news stateside includes two mass murders within 13 hours of each other. One took place in El Paso, Texas and the other in Dayton, Ohio. To say the least, these atrocities are worrisome. We talk so much about the enemies we face outside our borders, and the Orange Emperor would have us believe that it is those outsiders we need to fear. I blame his irresponsible, ignorant rants for unleashing, in fact validating, the worst that America has to offer, but he’s just the gasoline. Like the infamous Senator Joe McCarthy, he’s just one misguided fool in a position to stoke the flames. The fact is, the U.S is indelibly divided, and not just in two, but into a hundred factions. It seems apparent to me the cancer comes from within, and I wonder where it all began to spin out of control. Hatred is as old as the hills; but what will neutralize it? When did families break down? When did social media become our reality? How and when did we become so intolerant and hateful?

I don’t know the answers those questions. I think there is nefarious going on here. Trixie, who is very spiritual, suggests it has something to do with the moon and the alignment of the stars. I’m not sure about that, but last week I felt the weight of the world upon my shoulders. Music is my community. Shauna and I feel strongly about its ability to heal and unify. What brings YOU together?

Monday, July 29, 2019

The Oppenheimer Report 7/29/19

A message flashed across my computer screen the other day, and it read something like: “July 2019 will go on record as the hottest month ever recorded in weather history.” I’m not sure whether this is a fact or not, but it does seem like a red flag. There have been more than a few stories on the news over the past month about the scorching heat wave presently inundating Europe. As well, over the past two or three summers, the devastating wildfires in Western North America have been a wake-up call that Mother Nature is pissed off. I don’t know if it is still in effect, but last week there was a complete fire ban in our region. Yesterday, I read a notice from one of the local campsites near us, stating that 7000 litres of water had been drawn from the campsite’s water source in less than a day. The notice went on to say that the well would require a day or so to recover. All these things are warnings, but are we heeding them? I don’t think so.

In the early 80s, I wrote a song entitled Waters Gone about a dream I’d had. When I wrote the song, I suggested that it was a metaphor for the Savings and Loan crisis which had just sucked $500 Million out of the American economy. In fact, it was nothing more than a song about the desert. I used to have a lot of dreams about the desert, maybe because, as a little boy, my family used to vacation in what was then the sleepy little town of Palm Springs, California. Even back in the 60s, we were reminded of the scarcity of water in that region. I distinctly remember riding horseback out in the desert, and in the middle of a bone-dry desert, we came upon a lush, 18-hole golf course. It seemed bizarre. “I have seen oases, I have seen jeweled caravans …”

Clearly the effects of climate change are now being felt across the earth. Soon large populations of people, especially in places like sub-Saharan Africa, will likely be forced to move or perish. I don’t deny that climate change is real, I think only a fool would, but I am skeptical about the notion that man can change its course appreciably. The best and most logical advice I glean from economists and scientists, is that we need to better adapt to the inevitable changes. I doubt we’ll come to a global consensus on greenhouse gas emissions. First World and emerging Third World nations are not going to suddenly comply with onerous (and economically devastating) emissions standards. I think that ship has sailed. As populations expand, the planet gets hotter, and fresh water becomes scarcer, we humans are running out of time. The Mother Nature has a brutal way of evening the playing field. I think the two biggest issues we face as a species are how to manage our exploding populations, and how to protect our fresh water supply. I also think that how we deal with these two issues will determine the survival of our species. The sky may not be falling, but the sands of time are.

“I was walking through the desert and a stranger came from nowhere out of the sun

He was tall and gaunt and dressed in black and he had eyes that were on the run.

And I asked him: “Stranger where did you come from?”

And the told me, “I am from no where and I am no one.

I am here to tell you your time has come;

We are all just prisoners of the sun, now that the water’s gone.”

Monday, July 22, 2019

The Oppenheimer Report 7/22/19

About a year ago I got an unusual request from an old friend of mine, someone with whom I’d grown up in Buffalo. He wrote me to inform me that one of our old classmates, a friend named Willard Uncapher, was very ill and undergoing treatment for brain cancer. He asked me if I had any healing music that I might want to add to a list of songs he was compiling for Willard. I sent a few songs on and shortly thereafter wrote Willard as well. I’d lost touch with him over the years, but on occasion, we’d been in contact by email or Facebook. My last message from him was around November of last year, and it was one of those brief exchanges, a Thanksgiving greeting and the mutual wish for good health. However brief, those short messages were a comforting connection for me to someone whom I knew to be a good soul. The other day, I received word that Willard had passed on, and the news hit me hard. I wasn’t present in his life to follow his struggle. Knowing Willard, and reading the post his daughter and primary caregiver put up to announce his death, I don’t doubt that he had faced his journey with dignity, grace, and courage. Willard was quite different from my other classmates in school. I am so very thankful that we got to know each other better when we were young adults. It was then that I came to realize what a kind, gentle and loving soul he was. I can’t say I knew him very well, but I am a better person for having had him in my life.

About a year ago, around the same time I heard that Willard was sick, I came across an old photograph of me as a little boy. Sometimes, when I find old photos that are not in an album, I paste them into one of my song notebooks, perhaps for inspiration. I can’t seem to throw out old photographs, though lately I’m beginning to wonder why I keep them. That photo is etched in my mind, because I was looking at it when I got the news Willard had passed. I was perhaps three years-old when the photo in question was taken at our beach house on Lake Erie. I was sitting in my very first boat, a tiny little red wooden boat that my grandfather gave to me. The boat was filled with water (a metaphor for my journey?). I look at the child in that picture and can’t believe that almost 61 years have passed since it was taken. Now, so many of my friends, have died before their time. A girlfriend with whom I was close died at sixteen, taken by Hodgkin’s Disease, a friend from boarding school was killed in a car crash shortly after we graduated, and an alarming number of other peers have fallen, especially in the past ten years. For some it was misadventure, for some it was genetics, but for some it was simply their time to die. As much as I search for meaning in all of this, I have found none. The only thing I can glean from all this loss is that it reinforces my resolve to assess the journey as I take it. I know Willard had a rich life, because I knew Willard, and that in turn gives me something for which to strive. His was a life well-lived, and I think I owe it to people like him to make the most of mine.

I wrote a song, perhaps 30 years ago entitled “Curse Of The Sea”, and it is about the unbridled anxiousness I felt at the time. It was a somewhat preachy, pseudo-intellectual examination of the existential questions many of us ask ourselves. No matter where I was or what I was doing, I dreamed I was somewhere else. I still have those feelings from time to time, and sometimes wonder what I am doing or could be doing to improve my life, or the lives of others. I can’t say I have figured this out yet, but the older I get, the less I worry about it. Meanwhile, I rush through time’s rapids, and no matter what course I take, there are rocks and snags everywhere. My contentment seems to come with the moments when I acknowledge my lack of control. People come and go in my life; I still have dozens of answering machine messages from ghosts. And then there are the photographs. There are good, positive lessons to be learned everywhere, from the people I meet, and from Mother Nature. I think I’m beginning to pay closer attention. Sometimes those prophets of love and understanding are alive, sometimes the voices are from the hereafter. Regardless, I will live out the second half of my life with the comforting notion that there is something good to be learned from all the souls that have touched me. Willard, I am grateful to have known you in life, and I am starting to believe we’ll catch up with each other again someday.

"I read a story about a maiden
Who lived by the sea
She used to stare out of a big bay window
Longing for what would never be.

Infatuation
No destination
No reservations
It's just the curse of the sea."

Monday, July 15, 2019

The Oppenheimer Report 7/15/19

Of late, I haven’t been eating properly, and the older I get, the less forgiving my body has become when I neglect it. Over the years, I’ve learned a bit about nutrition, and I’m beginning to listen to my body. While I’m no expert, I know a lot more about t now than I did when I was younger. Lately I’ve been reading up on the gut and the digestive process. I now understand that the gut is command central for the body’s auto-immune system. Because Shauna has Crohn’s Disease, and a series of perplexing auto-immune illnesses that are likely related to the Crohn’s, I am trying to learn what foods are both nutritious and not hard on her digestion. Of course, there is no substitute for good, nutritious foods, preferably organic, which are low in harmful fats and preservatives. That said, it’s getting harder and harder to figure out what foods are good for us to eat. While we’re getting better at producing larger quantities of food, we are in some cases sacrificing quality. With a growing number of genetically modified foods, and the use of potentially harmful chemicals and fertilizers to grow those foods, it’s getting harder and harder to I know what is good for my body. Wheat is a good example and wheat products seem to be a bigger problem today than they used to be. I never heard about gluten allergies thirty years ago, but now I hear about them all the time. Again, there seems to be some correlation to the gut and to autoimmune health.

Like a lot of people, I don’t eat enough vegetables or fibre, and of late I have been adding inulin to my coffee (brand name Benefibre) and a green powder dietary supplement that I mix with fruit juice. That powder includes things like spirulina, wheat grass, and a bunch of ingredients that I can’t pronounce, but which allegedly provide some of the phytonutrients that I am lacking in my diet. It also turns whatever I mix it with into an unappetizing army green colour. I am constantly trying new fruit juices that I mix with the powder. I like lemonade, and on a whim bought a bottle of lemonade with watermelon mixed in. That is not a good combination, but just about any other fruit juices work well. It seems to be helping, and I have come to realize that preventative medicine is the best medicine. I don’t delude myself by thinking that dietary supplements will ensure my good health; there are plenty of environmental and genetic factors that are out of my control. That said, I’ve spent a lot of time attending to other friends and family in hospitals over the past twenty years, and I’ll do anything I can to avoid ending up in a hospital.

When I still lived in Buffalo, I was the long-time board member and volunteer for Meals On Wheels of Buffalo And Erie County. The organization fed over 1400 home-bound clients per day. In the ten or more years that I was actively involved with that organization I learned a thing or two about geriatric nutrition. A lot of the seniors I served were on low sodium diets, and that’s a deal breaker for me. One day, after I and my server had finished our route, we had one low sodium meal left over. I’d been delivering these meals for years, and had never sampled one myself, so rather than let it go to waste, I ate it. It was awful. It is remarkable how tasteless some foods are without salt. That said, I’ve begun to read product labels in the supermarket, a habit I got into when I was buying food for Shauna’s elderly parents. There is too much salt in just about everything, even in some desserts! One can of a soup I used to buy contains the maximum recommended amount of salt a person should ingest in a day. As we all know, too much salt and sugar can be killers.

As Joni Mitchell so wisely pointed out in her song Big Yellow Taxi, “you don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone.” Like so many others in my ever-expanding demographic, as I approach my golden years I am increasingly mindful harmful effects of bad food and a sedentary lifestyle. I know what to do. The trick is to practice what I preach.

Thursday, July 11, 2019

The Oppenheimer Report 7/8/19

Last Friday, I made an unexpected trip into Huntsville. I’d left my laptop at the radio station after my Thursday night show, and I didn’t want to leave it there all weekend. During the summer months, I try to avoid Huntsville on the weekends, because it turns into Toronto north. In the hour or so that I was in town, I had three people tailgate me, one nearly t-boned me at an intersection (when I clearly had the right of way), and at least one person rudely pushed in front of me in the supermarket. I’m not used to these weekend warriors; for them it’s business as usual to drive aggressively and rush to go everywhere. I spent much of my life in cities, impatient and anxious, and probably acted the same way. When we moved up to the bucolic Almaguin Highlands, my tolerance for crowds and traffic gradually eroded. What the locals jokingly refer to as “citiots”, racing around to “have fun” with their limited free time, reminds me of who I was twenty years ago.

As some of you may know from Shauna’s Facebook posts, we recently had a memorial service for our dog Jasper. We buried her out front where she will forever overlook the lake she spent most of her life surveying from our front window. I don’t think I have ever missed a dog as much as I miss Jasper. Someday, hopefully soon, we hope to have another Miniature Schnauzer in our home that brings us as much joy and laughter as that little gremlin did. Throughout Jasper’s life, we kept in touch with her breeder, Carla Borrelli, who is well known in breeding circles for her award-winning show dogs. While Jasper was not by any stretch of the imagination a show dog, she was a healthy, wonderful member of our family for her entire life, and we credit Carla for counseling us on how to keep her that way. Like so many purebred dogs these days, Miniature Schnauzers can be a problematic breed. Our dog prior to Jasper was a very sick girl for much of her life. In part, I blame the irresponsible breeder from whom we bought her. Shauna discovered Carla after much research and after we had learned that she had selectively bred out many of the diseases that plague Miniature Schnauzers. Recently, we were in touch with her, and hope we are lucky enough to acquire another one of her dogs. Carla may retire soon, and this next one might be the last litter she offers. Regardless, we value her friendship and guidance. She truly loves all animals and her humanity is palpable.

In a recent phone conversation with Carla, we discussed her various accomplishments, and Shauna and I learned that, not only had she been a successful dog breeder for much of her life, but she had led another, incredible life as well. We told her she should write a book, only to find that she was part way into writing her autobiography. The other day, she forwarded to us some of what she’d written so far. Shauna, her mom, and I have read it and were all astounded by this woman’s journey.

I sometimes speak in my songwriting show about the art of listening. These days, because I am bombarded with so much information, my attention span is shrinking. As a songwriter, the most important asset I have is my ability to observe, and to listen. In this fast-paced world, it can be a hard skill to master. It seems as if the boorish and the well-promoted command our attention, while so many more worthy stories go unrecognized. Reading Carla’s unfinished autobiography reminds me that there are so many wonderful, untold stories, stories that connect us all. Every so often I get a glimpse of my impatience, and I try to keep it in check. Perhaps even one of those stress puppies tailgating me in Huntsville has a good story to tell. It doesn’t take a genius to recognize the erosion of compassion and empathy in our world today, and I struggle with this daily. I try to remain open and listen to the quiet heroes and role models that drift through my life. They give me hope.