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.

 

 

 

A poker tell, if you’re not familiar with the game, is when someone has a tick or habit they always do unconsciously with a good hand/bad hand.  If you’re up against a player enough times, you begin to learn these signals.  A lot of players wear dark sunglasses so you can’t see their eyes.  I don’t think it should be allowed, but then again I don’t play poker so … I don’t care.  The point is, the energy has to go somewhere.

These kinds of signals appear in life on every level.  I study people so it’s interesting to me, the body language, choice of words, tone of voice, emotions, levels of anger, the anatomy in general…

For instance, when a politician gets into office, especially high office… one tell I’ve learned is that if they didn’t truly earn it?  If they were somehow ushered in by some powerful money and flushed out the competition unethically or unlawfully, the tell is that they show no true emotions of victory.  In fact there’s an arrogance to their words and their wins.  They have something to teach us all now and have little shame in being preachy or indignant against any opposition.

A true showing of victory, like climbing Mt. Everest or winning an NBA championship would be falling to a knee or welling up with tears, a break in the voice, the face turns flush.  It’s a hard thing to hold back. But it transfers to those witnessing because it’s real.  Only you know how hard you fought, and how much strength, commitment and discipline it took.  You want to drop to the floor and profess….’There is a God and he loves me!’  And the entire audience feels it, not just those who are on the team or benefit from the win.

Too often we’re faced with someone we fight for in the voting box, only for them to get elected, then stand up before the world and tell us what we’re about and what we’re not about.  They show little emotion.  Like aliens reading cue cards… ‘laugh here’.  ‘smile big’.  ‘act strong and sincere’.  It’s pathetic.

There’s also a poker tell when you know you can’t lose.  I learned this from the desk side of the music business.  In my early days of making records I thought it was luck or un-luck.  I’d get down on myself for not scoring big.  Then I became a manager and learned, some are connected.  To who?  That’s for another time.  But connected to real power.

They can be mean, vulgar, short, stout, homely, or downright disgusting in appearance… even half witted (though few of them are).  Doesn’t matter.  They know they’re ‘made’ men & women and cannot be fucked with. They don’t get shaken by threats, and they deal death blows where you don’t even really know who killed you.  They exude nothing but confidence at all times.  And why wouldn’t they?  They know they can’t lose.

There are poker tells by those most under mind control.  Whether it’s a cult like Scientology who’s members believe they’re saving the planet, or ones faithful to a news network, newspaper or website who’s feeding them agenda-driven information.  They’re told what to think every day, every hour… who to love, who to hate. They get daily doses of soundbites with narrative.  Video clips edited with voiceovers telling us what we’re seeing.  Over time this indoctrination makes us angry to witness opposition.  “Don’t you fucking get it you moron!” we think.  We start to believe that if all these blind cult followers would just die, somehow the planet would be a better place. We don’t know we’re deep in a cult of our own.

This is a tell.  If you had an open mind and original thought… if you saw people believing in a God you didn’t pray to, or loving a country they came from that were our sworn ‘enemy’… would this enrage you?  If so, i’m sorry for you.  It must be hell on earth to feel this way.

If you found a friend was voting for a candidate you didn’t believe was good for the country, would it make you hate your friend?  That’s where we’re at now, and from my perspective, this is a poker tell.  It means you’re deep, deep under mind control.  You are fighting for your abuser.

Do with this information and perspective on human behavior what you will… or I will destroy you!

🙂

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