Who is Jeffers Dodge? Critical but not Crazy
By Vivian A. Summers December 2006

Who is Jeffers M. Dodge and why did he leave the entertainment industry and submerge himself into political activism?

The answer is easily understood once you know what transpired after his son was born.

First, just a little background; Jeffers was born and raised in a very conservative family full of successful economists, lawyers, doctors, architects and artists. The 1960’s happened and dragged his rebel self into the morally dirty waters of liberalism followed by a twenty-five year artistic/technical fascination with the music business.

It is important to list some of his accomplishments here because the rest of his story is so overwhelming yet full of courage and hope. With out knowing how productive and innovative he is and without knowing how his life was full of love, joy and happiness you may walk away from this with just half the story. God had some intense lessons for him and a purpose that He has not yet revealed for him.

Briefly, at the age of twenty Jeffers moved from Jacksonville, Florida to Hollywood, California to become a recording engineer. After 12 months of assimilation into the Hollywood music scene he got his first job utilizing his architectural and construction skills building a major facility in which Donna Summer recorded her widely successful string of platinum albums during the seventies. His talent was immediately recognized and was asked to train under Toby Scott at Clover Studios where he learned his trade as a second engineer and met and worked with some of the finest musicians including most of the members of Toto and Bruce Springsteen. He was even a character in a Doonesbury comic strip.

In 1978 he was offered the position as staff engineer, producer and A&R Rep at Elektra Records. Here he recorded Motley Crüe, Richard Pryor, Robin Ford, Nancy Sinatra and many other famed artists. In 1984 Jeffers worked as an independent engineer with many different producers, record companies and studios including Tom Peterson and Cheap Trick, Kill Culture, Motown and Warner Brothers Records. In 1983 Jeffers invested his savings in a little known computer company called Apple Computer. He bought 500 shares that split twice by 1987. He got married in 1985 to Meralie Adams. He margined his portfolio and together they bought a house in Hancock Park, which doubled in value by 1998. He then borrowed against the house’s equity and built a major recording studio in Burbank called Dodge City Sound. Jeffers was divorced in 1991 and in 1993 asked Greta Nelson to marry him. They had to postpone their wedding plans because Greta would become pregnant with his son Taz who was due to be born around the time of the nuptials. Taz was born that New Years Eve. Shortly after Taz’s first birthday Jeffers sold his studio to a composer that immediately recorded the soundtrack to Desperado with Antonio Banderas. In June of 1995 Jeffers collapsed and was hospitalized for 2 weeks with an unknown illness that seemed to be attacking his lungs, kidneys and liver. It was diagnosed as Pulmonary Hypertension.

In 1997, emerging from his funk and tired of not working Jeffers received some film editing training from a variety professionals in advance of a lateral move into music video production. He invested with a partner in the development of a postproduction suite in Malibu called Malibu Bay Editorial. The partnership was short lived when his friend suggested they take on some pornography clients to pay the bills. Jeffers moved his equipment to his house and began freelancing in music video production.

In 1998 Jeffers launched one of the first online record companies in Los Angeles. It was first called Foxi Music after his son’s cat and later became Third Planet Records. He had signed nine artists and was promoting these acts locally as well as online with music and video downloads. It was with ThirdPlanet.TV that he developed music presentation software called the DVI, which is an acronym for Digital Video Interface. This software was the predecessor to Apples iTunes and feature the artwork, music, lyrics, video, web links, credits, membership, contact info and a merchandise store. It seemed that Mr. Dodge was ahead of his time.

All in all Jeffers worked with and recorded over 1,000 musicians built several major recording studios won numerous awards for his studio, recording and videos, and despite his conversion to the conservative party he has been able to maintain a good reputation in the industry.

Jeffers virtue as an traditional American Innovator is exampled by the following:

1. The Grav-A-Tone – An automatic digital tuner system he developed in 1982 for the recording industry to ensure accurate pitch throughout the recording process.
2. The auto sound security system
3. The novel “Illusion”
4. iAuction Music “On your way up you buy and on your way down you sell”
5. The Global Song Archive “A New Music Industry”
6. Command and Control Wear “Electric Attire”
7.

Now back to the story: How did Mr. Dodge transform from a Democrat to a Republican? A few very important steps the led him back to his conservative roots. In 1993 his favorite sister died months before his son was born new years eve. In 1995 two tragic events happened: he was diagnosed with a fatal lung disease and his son’s mother broke up his family, in 1997 his father died and two years later his mother died — all in a span of seven years. “Facing my own death, during all of this, was a very temporal moment for me.”

In 1997 after his father died and at the insistence of Greg Hill, a conservative cigar shop owner friend of his, he joined a men’s organization and quickly realized that he was mostly an unfinished puzzle with all the pieces mixed up with other people’s screwy notions of life. The rules were that once he committed to attend this extremely intense tribal band-of-brothers, he could not leave.

Mr. Dodge described the experience this way, “As a professional skeptic, I tried my hardest to find fault with this organization, however, in the process they identified and forcibly revealed all my faults that were tied up in all the fallacious notions I collected from various and conflicting points of authority throughout my life.”

After the exhaustive initial 3-day seminar there was a series of weekly team meeting to continue the process of shedding these false notions. He explained, “The team also worked at strengthening the principles, values and personal truths that were bred into me as a child by my father, his father and his mother’s father. The bottom line was during the last 5 years I was a son, a father and a husband living in a highly feminized and dysfunctional world. By 1998 my conservative maturation started to conflict with a majority of the men on my team, of which I was the leader. So I said adios and moved on.”

His step-cousin, who recognized his new language as the inherent influences of the industrious men in his family, introduced him to Objectivism, saying that his stories echoed the true essence of Ayn Rand’s philosophy. For the next year he studied the Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged with his cousin and his father. Shortly thereafter he reregistered as a Republican. Mr. Dodge acknowledged, ‘Objectivism tied everything together for me, my roots in conservatism, my past liberal self-indulgences, my becoming a father and the issues of mortality I was facing with my own life and the deaths of my sister, father and mother – everything that is except God.”

“At the age of 43 the men’s organization taught me firmly about the principles of commitment, honor and integrity while Objectivism taught me values and how to observe and prioritize them. I was a latecomer but I felt as if I arrived. Through this process I was able to set up my own personal code of conduct that I have been following ever since.”

In terms of his faith, contrary to Objectivism, He accepts as true a moral God. Why? “After the birth of my son, after the death of my father, after the experience with the men’s organization, after I registered Republican, and after 9/11, I read a paper on God called “In Self We Trust” which rationalized my belief in God as a Metaphor. This opinion has changed because of an irrefutable out of body experience, the miracle of his son, reverse engineering, cause and effect, the belief in good and evil and a slew of other incremental steps in my path to Jesus.”

However, he lives in a constant dilemma.

A progressive fatal lung disease called Primary Pulmonary Hypertension (PPH), for which there is no cure, has claimed his respiratory system and will probably kill him. But he resolutely states, “not without a fight.”

The disease made itself known in 1995 with doctors giving him, at most, two years to live. In 1998, as the disease became better known in the medical community he was able to beat their predictions and astound the medical skeptics with his stubborn un-wiliness to subjugate himself to their dire and somewhat morbid predictions.

Two years later in 2000 when he was still alive and able to moderately function without treatment, they called his survival a miracle. Then in early 2002 the PPH made its move and aggressively attacked his pulmonary arteries trying to fulfill its promise of yet another victim. His medical team gave him three months, four at best and suggested he get his affairs in order. It seemed that his processing of staggered grief from the deaths of his family members, the breakup of his family, and his own pending visit with the reaper finally caught up with him.

Three months later President Bush fast-tracked a promising medication that did not require a life-long surgically invasive drug delivery system and was immediately inducted into a government mandated experimental drug therapy program.

“Over time, as I suffered through many different variations and drug cocktails, my doctors found one that seemed to be working – so far. I have been using it for 24 months and with growing confidence I will be able to live a few more years — maybe.”

During the first three years after being diagnosed he had gone through all the phases of mortality; denial, fear, disappointment, anger and acceptance. During this time there was no treatment and to the dismay of his medical team he kept on living. After the first two years they first said it was a fluke, two years later they said he have beaten all odds and finally they said it was a miracle and asked him what he thought was responsible for his continued existence. He simply replied, “It is because of the immense joy I receive from raising my son Taz.”

“You see, after surviving all the different phases of mortality there are two survival techniques one is sure to learn; to prioritize that which is the highest of importance and how to shed what is not. I learned to prioritize and focus on what I can do, in the short time I had left, to leave a legacy, something that my son can be proud of.”

This is the key to his actions and motivation. “I do not have time to waste. My definition of Heaven and Hell is the quality of the memories we leave behind.”

Now for the fine points of this dissertation.

From the moment his son’s mother said she was pregnant he started noticing the character of the people around him. The music business had been generous but he came to realize his friends and people he was hanging around with were a reflection of who he was as a person.

“Their lack of values and principles were underscored by their actions. They did nothing to contribute to the environment I wanted to create for my son and my social life became very repugnant to me. I shed them as I shed those crazy notions based on false premises.”

Now couple all of this with the day the beast raised its ugly head on 9/11 and what you have is a father very concerned about the future of Freedom, Democracy and the community where his 8 year old son will be growing up.

“War was in the air and I wanted to serve. My passion in music quickly transformed to politics.”

His dilemma is that when he was first told he had two years to live, “It took the wind right out of my sails. I no longer had a future, the need for a career, for a savings account or to look forward to retirement.” His son’s mother left him shortly after the bad news making it a double hit.

“It took me six years to get over Greta only because I had to see her about every day. I swear when we battled it out over custody I thought she was trying to kill me. The way I see it now is I believe she made a good choice. She needed to secure her future with our son and she has done just that. I commend her for it and I can only say this in hindsight. She is now in a semi-state of marriage (don’t ask) and seemingly happy. My son is doing just fine and has a strong Conservative foundation. He can smell a liberal a mile away.”

Mr. Dodge was ordered by his doctors not to do anything to elevate his heart rate, which included sex…. So the short time he has left cannot be spent with a woman. “It would be a dishonor to go deep with a woman and just up and die… probably while having sex. It would not be fair to her nor to my son.”

In 1995 after he had gotten out of the hospital he could not work – “I could not breathe.” Fortunately, he had a large savings account. He figured it was enough to sustain him for six years at his accustomed lifestyle. The problem was he lived, hence the constant state of dilemma.

When he signed up for the experimental program his insurance company refused to pay the $5,000 p/month prescription cost. He had acquired his insurance in the early Seventies and back then a $15,000 cap on prescription benefits seemed adequate.

In reality though the insurance company had to be forced into picking up the tab. “I had to get a lawyer to negotiate a settlement whereby the insurance company agreed to pay 60% of the prescription cost and not retroactively which was a caveat they put in at the very last moment. All in all I had to pay about 14 months of prescriptions and lawyer fees. This occurred right after I had to spend oodles of cash in the 6 figures to maintain 50% joint custody for my son.” Apparently Greta’s lawyer was one of her boyfriends who told Mr. Dodge, “I will paper you to death.” Well he was wrong.

Mr. Dodge was doing minimal work during this time recording music, directing videos, and building web sites but his inability to hide his illness really crimped his style. The work started to suffer and his clients dried up.

So in summary of part one of this biography, shortly before his son was born his favorite sister died of a three year bout of cervical cancer. A few years later his father was diagnosed with cancer. When Mr. Dodge discovered he was stricken with a fatal lung ailment his fiancé split and tried to take his son permanently with her. When his father died his mother was stricken with cervical cancer while he was battling with his insurance company. His Mother died and soon after that he was told he had three months to live. The president came through for him so he in turn fought for him. He survived three different therapies and answered the call to duty. He committed to work for his community for 4 years and if he survived he knows he can survive anything. He has two more years left to his commitment with the Republican Party.