Wall of Paul

See that exorbitantly hairy guy wearing the exorbitantly expensive headphones? That’s Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, who you might recognize as the guitar player for the Doobie Brothers, back when they were riding high on such blandly-realized FM radio hits as “Minute by Minute” and “What a Fool Believes.” Baxter also recorded with Eric Clapton, Joni Mitchell, Donna Summer, Carly Simon, Ringo Starr, Rod Stewart, and Barbra Streisand, among others, and played the solo on Steely Dan’s smash-hit, “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number,” to name just one. Back in the 1970s, Skunk practically slept under the consoles of L.A. recording studios.

By now, some of you have undoubtedly looked at the picture and are thinking: “Hey! I remember that dude! Whatever happened to Skunk, man?! Me an’ my old lady sure did have some good times gettin’ down to the Doobies. I remember that time at that festival at the speedway in Charlotte…”

Okay, that’s enough. Anyway, since you’re wondering, Skunk is now doing what every other semi-retired southern California rocker does in the twilight of his years— he’s a missile defense consultant for the Pentagon.

Honest to God. I just read about it, and almost choked. It seems that in the mid-1980s, Skunk - who, as you can imagine, is really into guitar equipment - started wondering what kind of music technology might have originated, under a far different guise, in the defense industry. I’m guessing several beers were involved, if not something smokier.

By sheer coincidence, Baxter’s next door neighbor was a retired engineer who had worked on the Sidewinder missile program, and he kindly got Skunk a subscription to an aviation magazine.

From there, it was a hop, skip, and a boogie shuffle to writing a paper proposing that the anti-aircraft Aegis missile could be transformed into a rudimentary missile defense system. The paper was handed to a nearby Congressman, and that’s how our little Skunk became a defense consultant.