From the opening piano, stumbling gently down the stairs of time like a sad old barfly… “Funny How Time Slips Away”, the George Jones 2005 masterpiece encapsulates everything signature about the old, authentic Nashville.

Ever love a song for years then realize you have no idea what they’re singing about?

Some songs can bring us to tears.  Some make us want to fight, get romantic, or maybe tell a story.  A lot of lyrics these days are like a dox.  He cheated on me!  She’s a gold digger!  Personal, universal, gender power, inner struggles, outer struggles… lots of angles.

Then there’s Donald Fagen.  He’s in his own sandbox at the far corner of the playground.  Nobody can really tell what he’s building over there, but with black rimmed glasses taped on one side, button up shirt with pencil in pocket,  topping his creation off with a 1/2 pint of milk and pyramid made of cheese slices from the cafeteria… tada!  pure gold!

“I.G.Y.” stands for International Geophysical Year, and is the first track from his 1982 LP “The Nightfly”.

A four chord Fender Rhodes beginning with swirling electric piano notes and 2& plucks, like a cheap sci-fi alien aircraft cruising in from another planet to an immediately infectious jazzy/reggae influenced groove… enter the horn section to a down modulation and first verse.  One thing is clear with Steely Dan and Fagen alike, they sound like no one else, ever.

Even McCartney, likely the greatest songwriter of our time shows influence.  We can hear a mixture of 50’s rock & roll & British skiffle music with even more musical references to the 20’s.  I’m not a theologian of Beatle bibles, but would bet young Paul had exposure to much 20’s era music growing up.

With Fagen you just can’t tell.  We know he loves Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Miles… and it’s evident his jazz influences are greater than his pop… but what pop did he listen to?  There’s no Beatles, no Stones here.  No Hendrix or Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.  There’s R&B, but how rare for a jazz/R&B lover to have this much pop success when it appears he didn’t really listen to or even care for the genre?

His drum and percussion tracks are always perfectly recorded, perfectly in the pocket, even isolated.  Ringo’s like that.  Check out a solo Beatle track sometime and you can feel the song even before all the bells and whistles.  This is the foundation of a hit song, and Fagen/Becker know when they have it.

Probably why Steely Dan would cast sessions with all different players to get a panoramic soundscape of the best direction to go.  Genius if you’ve got the budget.  Few do.

‘You’ve got to admit it, at this point in time it’s clear‘.  So much predictive programming on the subject made people think we must already have the technology.  Certainly in 30 years time (the 80’s) we’ll be real life Jetsons.

‘On that train all graphite and glitter – Undersea by rail’.  -Such cool imagery, and scores a kind of futuristic ‘Virgin Railway’.  We’ve had the concept for high speed rails that could move us under oceans for years.  They’ve yet to appear, but still fun to think about.  And what an image, “all graphite and glitter.. undersea by rail”.

‘Ninety minutes from New York to Paris, well by ’76 we’ll be A-ok’ -He’s truly marching to the beat of his own drum.  I’m so happy to read lyrics that don’t need to explain themself.  This is a totally random inspiration you can read about in an interview or make your own interpretation… anything goes.

Why does it work?  Because the chorus.

“What a beautiful world this will be   What a glorious time to be free”

That’s universality.  That’s driving a convertible to summer beach.  Flying to Costa Rica or parasailing over Hawaiian shores.  Skiing down powder slopes in the California sun. Fine Columbian (Hey Nineteen) at the Hollywood Bowl with your friends before the lights go down.  The crowd cheers, and Fagen’s chorus is what everyone hears no matter the band, no matter the song.  This groove with these words are everyone’s best time.  It’s part of his genius.  It doesn’t matter what he’s talking about in the verse because yeah, what a beautiful world it will be.  Let’s make it now!

People love to leave their best impression.  IG, FB, TikTok & X are filled with good fortune.  Good folks on lavish vacations, new cars, remodeled homes, infinity pools, pricey ‘fits’ for every day of the year, perfect bodies, or even just “# blessed I found the love of my life.”  If social media were a gauge for human success, we’d want for nothing.

I try not to use it as a ‘show & tell’ for adults, but sometimes my lack of revealing personal issues lead some to believe I don’t have any.

And that impression couldn’t be farther from reality.  The truth is, the last 6 years have been the most challenging of my life.  I don’t talk about it publicly other than broad-strokes… because it’s ugly.  It has to do with people.  Trust.  Betrayal.  I chalk it up to paying a karma from long ago, and some beliefs that may need an adjustment.

Back in the 80’s there was an SNL skit with Al Franken playing a character named Stuart Smalley… an insecure, effeminate man in pastel blue and purple sweaters looking sheepishly in the mirror, reciting things like ‘I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it people like me!’

It was pretty funny actually, but as I got older I realized it was also a little sad, because it ridiculed and laughed at something most people desperately need… and now more than ever.  Positive reenforcement.  Positive beliefs.  Positive affirmations.

Before I had a hit song on the radio, I was in a state.  My first record had gone straight to the ‘has-bin’ and my deal with Warners was in jeopardy.  I struggled to make rent.

Funny side note… one day Michael Bay, the director was still in college and you know… a rich kid from Brentwood, all that.  Anyway he visited my apartment because our girlfriends were friends, and as he stepped inside he looked all around, up and down along the walls and ceiling in amazement.  I wasn’t sure what he was going to say but finally he opened up his mouth and laughed ‘you live here??’.  Ha!  Funny I was kind of proud of that apartment until that day!

Anyway, a dear friend and sort of guru handed me a copy of the Louise Hay book ‘You Can Heal Your Life’ and said ‘Jude I think you need this’.  I did.

One message from the book was that whatever is wrong with you is due to your very own belief system.  True or false I liked it.  It left me in control, not anyone else.  It also came with a tape of daily meditation/affirmations.  I did it every day.  Until I felt a shift.  And you know, it worked.  Not only then, but every time I’ve had to reinvent or realign myself.

The next record ‘A View From 3rd St.’ wasn’t exactly Dark Side Of The Moon on the richter scale, but it did a few significant things to change the quality of life.  I created my own signature sound… plus ‘Baby, It’s Tonight’ was a huge radio song and earned a good deal of money from airplay.  It also allowed me to keep my record deal.

Coming from a fairly healthy amount of dysfunction… little play on words there… I like what Tony Robbins says about self calibration.  He likens it to a pilot with a navigation system.  The plane drifts and constantly goes off course.  The navigation system adjusts repeatedly and brings the aircraft back to a place where you can literally land it on a dime.

That’s most of our brains, emotions and life.  Constantly going off course and in eternal need of calibration, realignment and self-care.  It’s like our bodies and the gym.  We don’t go to a gym and work out for 6 months, then say ‘ok i’m good!’.  We have to eat right and constantly work our body parts with motion and muscle.  The same is true with ‘E’motions and mental health.

In my  Fresh Coffee YouTube page, I’ve created 10 videos with subliminal affirmations.  This is music you can put on and just go about your business, but the messages are heard through the subconscious.  There will be more in the next year with real voiceovers.  It’s fun to create, and well… I do it because I need it.  Feel free to check them out sometime, or there are many others online.  Consistency is key.

https://www.youtube.com/@freshcoffee6879

I’d open up about the pineal gland and what TV, film, music and graphene oxide, aluminum, fluoride and wi-fi are doing to us, but it would make this post conspiratorial and too long, so will have to save it for another time.  Cheers!
Jude

I just don’t see Kamala in there.  I don’t see democrat puppeteers sticking with her.  This is a formality… a sequence of getting Joe out, having him do the ethical thing by choosing his VP, then causing a reason she can’t continue.  Somehow, some way, they’re going to make Michelle come out of hiding, incensed with anger, proclaiming she didn’t want to do it at first, but now (due to recent events) feels a calling that she must do it.  Must do it for minorities, for black women everywhere.   The nation will go wild and it’s Obama 2.0.   Newsome will be her running mate.

If I’m wrong i’ll eat my post

Both sides are well aware of the fact that Americans have the attention span of a gnat.  They love to jump on the latest trends as if they’re on the cutting edge of facts.  Remember the viral photo of Zelensky and his wife?  I saw it about 100 times in one day at the beginning of the Ukraine conflict.  Where are they now?  So in 2024 it’s best to catch people pretending they know before too many facts are revealed.

Whatever they do, I pray they don’t resort to the usual ‘lone gunman’.  Everyone’s onto it.

In my high school years, I became friends with an older kid by maybe 2 or 3 years…  his name is Joe Soliz.  He played guitar in a rival band, and we started hanging out together, just jamming and trading licks in the ol’ Quad Cities in Illinois.

A brief time had passed, and the next thing I knew Joe moved to Southern California.

I, on the other hand was experiencing the effects of smoking too much weed, failing high school, no job, no girl… basically feeling like the biggest loser on the planet.  I was overweight, breaking out in my face from so much junk food, and so low in self-esteem I couldn’t take looking at myself in the mirror anymore. A re-invention was needed.  No idea how to do it, but knew something had to give.

I reached out to Joe and asked if I could come visit him for a month to see how I liked it.  He graciously agreed, so I sold my car to buy my very first plane flight to Los Angeles.  Never forget it was a prop plane that brought me those two thousand miles.  A loud flight it was!

When I arrived, he and his roommate had a kind of spare room they’d throw clothes and old towels in, and I got to sleep in there… probably on the floor.  I honestly don’t recall.  What I do recall was the taste of freedom.  The taste of California climate.  The sun, the palm trees, the girls…  I’d walk down the street in the early afternoons, always barefoot, to a place called Licorice Pizza and shuffle through all the new releases and listen to music through my new So Cal set of ears.

The first album I bought was Dixie Dregs ‘What If’.  Steve Morse’s guitar work was just incredible, and still being a fan of the band Kansas, they sounded a bit like an instrumental version.  Next was Karla Bonoff’s first record.

Both of these were playing in-store and I had to buy them immediately after hearing.  I have both copies to this day, and though the Dregs have kind of been abandoned by my musical taste as an older man, I will hold Karla’s record as a lifer.  Whenever it comes back into rotation it’s like hearing it again for the first time.

Anyway, I was enjoying California just for the sheer presence of it.  Loving beyond words a brief month I got to feel like I had no past… no definitions of who I was.  Literally soaking up and sucking up any sunshine and air I could get, I was happy to be alive for the first time in a long time.  As silly as it may sound every living thing… even a palm tree in the middle of a street median… would make me think ‘wow… that’s a California tree… it looks so different and cool’.  I was almost jealous of the tree!  That’s how much I loved it here.  That kind of feeling is absolutely priceless.

My mind started to work overtime as to how I might be able to make a go of it here.  What would I do?  Joe’s roommate played in Vegas on weekends and was always saying the casinos paid really well if you could get a gig.  So I set out to do that.  My days were spent soaking up the California dream, and the nights were spent playing guitar with Joe and talking about how we could get gigs.

One day Joe got a call from a service he belonged to called The Musician’s Contact Service.  It was a way for musicians to meet other musicians and form bands, find players etc.  On this particular evening I could hear Joe pick up the phone.  “Hi, yeah I play guitar.  What’s that?  No, no sorry man I don’t sing… but you know what?  Let me pass the phone over to a friend of mine who’s visiting.  He sings really good and can play too”.

As he passed the phone to me he whispered  ‘Jude this guy says he has a record deal but listen man, most of these people are full of shit so beware’.

I took the phone as a quick-study-street-smart imposter and said “Hi” (almost disbelieving before even giving him a chance)
The guy on the other end of the phone very nicely said “Hey! My name’s Moon and I have an album out on Capitol Records.  I’m looking for guys to be in my band for some upcoming tours.”  “So I hear you can play and sing really well?”

“Yes I can do that”

“Well, what do you sound like… or I mean, can you give me a description of your voice?”

“Hmm… let me put it this way.  I can sing anything Paul McCartney can sing, ok?”

“Haha, wow that’s pretty confident.  I guess I’ll have to hear you now!”

So to make a long story short, he sent a friend down to Anaheim to pick me up, take me to Sun Valley where he was renting a house, I auditioned for him in his living room,  then spent the next 3 years of my life on the road, traveling every city of the US and 2-3 times a year to Europe.

This was a Godsend.  I couldn’t have worked it out better if someone gave me a ‘blueprint your future kit’.  For someone like me, an untrained musician who grew up on radio and rock & roll, to get this kind of experience… let me put it this way.  I’ve heard we have angels in life, and I believe Joe Soliz was one of mine.

My life forever changed.

So the point of this very personal story? Sometimes we need to experience the edge.  We also need to put ourselves in a place where we appreciate every small thing.  Then we have to give our troubles up to God, the Universe, or whoever you happen to pray to or believe in.  We think worrying will help, but it doesn’t.  It only begets more worrying.  Miracles lie in faith, gratitude and appreciation for this life.

So next time you’re in a tight spot, know there’s a way through… and one that’s better than you could ever design yourself.

And thank you Joe Soliz, Moon Martin… and quite a few other angels that have been there along my yellow brick road.

Love, Jude