~Letters, Notebooks, Paneling

I should be sleeping....but just like I have had for the last 3 years....I have insomnia and I'm awake...tomorrow I'll be sleepy in the daytime and won't be able to sleep cause I have stuff to do....so I'll write....

First, I have not forgotten, there are 3 Reader appreciation blogs that I owe you guys...I promise to finish those soon!!! you guys rock...

I had 2 AMAZING compliments given to me over the last couple of weeks...you know, the kind that actually do really flatter you....one friend of mine said "you've inspired me to write".....love ya girl! the second one said, "I'm staying on MySpace and not Facebook just for your blog"...ok....you know? that's like really awesome....Ms. Willig in 10th grade English would be proud! "Rudy Landa inspiring ANYONE to write???? I did'nt know he could spell inspire?"....ok maybe I"m exaggerating....but the whole writing thing for me (other than music of course) has been something that blossomed really late in my life....

As any blogger would tell you....a blogger blogs whether or not he/she has readers...when you blog.....truly blog.....the content falls somewhere between, journal/diary and essay/creative writing....but no matter how you approach it...it's the writer sharing his/her heart....if that writer is as lucky and blessed as I am....he has 2 readers that give a hoot about reading his blog! I am extraordinarily blessed to have you guys!!! I treasure EVERYONE of my subscribed readers...

I am a packrat ya'll....it's not that I pack away a lot....for some reason I get attached to things...if I was a chick I would probably scrapbook....but I"m not, I'm a guy, extremely straight, and I just end up with a lot of stuff in boxes that has followed me for years....

Tonight I looked in a corner of my office and saw a small box that was on top of and behind a bunch of boxes that I brought from Charlotte when I came back to Miami....(there's still a bunch of boxes in my garage in Charlotte!) anyways, I don't know why I took interest in this box...it was smaller than the rest I guess, and (even now as I type and look around my office) I can probably guess with pretty good accuracy what's in the other boxes...my effects processor box with manuals, my homeowners papers, school books of the kids from their kindergarten year, BetaSp tapes of my years producing Real Videos and working for Programming at INSP...but that little box was staring at me....and I did't have a clue...

So I opened it......pretty mundane stuff....I actually remember packing it about 2 years ago...my only 2 remaining year books...my 8th grade yearbook and my senior year yearbook....(the others were destroyed in Hurricane Andrew)...at the bottom of the box though there was a generic looking notebook that read "Subject Notebook"....it was in surprisingly good condition....I picked it up and opened it to flip through the pages....pressed inside, I found a handwritten letter....several pages long...it was from back in the days before home computers...before email, unlimited long distance, and Instant Messenger...back when we used envelopes and stamps and when keeping in touch was reserved for those who really cared to.

The letter was a letter that my mother wrote to me on the eve of my move to Nashville....I could almost hear the tears in her eyes through the writing as she selflessly wrote....go out there and give it your all....and if it doesn't work at least you'll always know that you tried....mom and I had become very close then being that we had just spend a year and a half rebuilding our home after Hurricane Andrew....I had taken over the contractor duties and did most of the woodwork in her home...we'd spent a lot of time together either arguing about how she could never just be content she wanted it MORE VICTORIAN!!!....or laughing together and telling goofy jokes or just listening as she lectured me about letting go of my anger that I had dragged through my teen years, and how God expected better than that.....it was hard for me to leave to Nashville, but it was my destiny, I knew it, and so I went....

....and so on the Aug morning when I woke up at 4 am...my minivan was already packed with.....boxes.....3 of them, my amp, my effect rack, my clothes and of course, my guitars....I drove out before dawn hugged my family and my best friend and I was off to conquer the world....a pivotal moment in my life. As I started to drive off, my mom gave me her letter and said, "read it when you get there...." tonight it all came back....so real, I was so there at 4 am a few yards from where I sit right now....and yet my life is so drastically different now....did I come back to Miami successful? I don't know, who defines success? and if so how do they measure it? I came back more weathered and hopefully wiser....(either way I did't come home empty handed, 3 little children came back with me)

Aside from the letter, that notebook also had random thoughts, songs I wrote in the early 90s, boy, my mind was in other places back then....I can so read the innocence and naivete in my writing from then....it was so long ago, so much has changed and yet it seems so recent...so much I'd love to do over, so much I'd love to change, so much I'd just love to live again.

At the end of the notebook....my to do list on our home before I left to Nashville...

-Finish the baseboards on the hallways upstairs

-Finish all paneling

-Check all waterlines for leaks

-put up lattice around back deck

-Paint all remaining unpainted wood

Some of that never got done, which is why I'm redoing the whole living room now! the other day I pulled a 15 year old piece of panneling and came face to face with my handwriting that read, "I love you Mary", "Bill Clinton Sucks" and "Elena 305-756-**** " ....the past never goes away ya'll....it's in boxes and under panneling.

The last page of the notebook read "My Nashville Check list" and it read just like this...

NASHVILLE CHECKLIST

Transportation

Equipment

Housing

Spending money

1.Tune up car $100

repaint? $300 (where was I gonna get it painted for $300!!??? lol)

UHaul or Ryder (evidently I thought I had very big guitars)

Gas and Travel $100 (ok this is just depressing, I can't get to Orlando on $100 dollars of gas now!)

2. GPS2101- $800 (no not a GPS tracker, this was a guitar processor that I felt would be my key to getting to the top of the nashville guitar scene.....SHA!)

EMGs $300 (guitar pickups)

Sonic Max $250 (honestly folks.....NOT A CLUE! some kind of flavor of the week gadget for the guitar I'm sure)

Cabinet $300 (I wanted a 4 X 12 cab really bad....

*this is my favorite one.....

1st, 2nd, and last month rent @ $300 a month...$900

phone $100

Life was simpler then......the little notebook, the letter, and the yearbook now go back in the box, we'll see when they resurface...me ?I'm going to bed....I have to finish the paneling in the morning....who knows?....maybe in the morning I'll write under the pannling, "Rudy Giuliani in 08"...........I like his name.

** if you read this before I revise it for grammar and sentence structure, I apologize...It's late and I'm going to bed....I will clean it up later, please come back and check it out again**

~ Hey Gretchen

I'll return soon with more of my reader appreciation blogs....I promise...I've been slammed, it's quarter to 3 am, I have a flight to catch in a couple of hours, and I'm wide awake~! Poor Bryce will pay for it tomorrow! and wouldnt you know it? I feel creative....so please pardon the impromptu creativity...

GRETCHEN

Hey Gretchen, I knew you as a child
life was simpler, troubles mild....
It never rained in June
Hey Gretchen, do you ever wonder still
what the landscape of your fields
would've looked like with me painting all the dunes...
release, don't sit and wonder why all day
please, cause you're a big girl now and you've got the rent to pay

Gretchen can you feel me through the years...?
A boy, behind his fears...the secrets that he was dying to reveal
Gretchen sometimes when I really try
I bend the cloth of time....I see you standing there in front of me...
and then you walk away....then you walk away....

Figures, don't you know destiny is cruel?
it treats us all like fools, believing that we have a say in this....
Maybe, the plans the maker throws...hold better when it snows,
and we're better for receiving....
I'll begin, to question less and less
I'm in deep....and I'm swimming for my life in this whole mess....

But Gretchen can you reach out through the years?
and tell me how it'd feel....if it was me that you were holding....?
and just once can you break the weave of time...?
detangle what ain't mine, and set my feet to calmer waters...
Before you walk away....before you walk away....before you walk away....
Words and Music Rudy Landa
3 Lil Bugs Music/ASCAP
Copyright 2007

~Review of the Winger Ft. Lauderdale Show Feb 11, 2007

15 Years ago I went to see Winger (arguably one of the 3 top bands of all time to influence my musical life alongside Giant and Damn Yankees) on that hot May night in Sunrise, FL I was with my closest long haired buddies of the day and the love of my life, Mary. After the show that night Mary and I broke up, it was literally our last date(sigh)...As for my friends,ironically enough, only one of my long haired buddies from back then remains in my life today here in Miami, that one friend is Julio (the others are either in Nashville or no longer in my life)...so last night Julio, myself and our buddy Dave attended the show in Ft. Lauderdale...ironically enough though, at the show last night, I met next to me in the front row of the concert, a very friendly and outgoing total stranger with the most beautiful eyes I've seen in a long time, she was a flirt (harmlessly) and we danced (banged our heads really) next to each other during the show, we also sang just about every word of every song they played at full volume so much so that I lost my voice..............her name? believe it or not...........she said Mary.............spooooooky. (It really wasnt Mary, I'm sure it was something else but that's what she said)

The show was at a tiny Ft. Lauderdale concert hall called The Culture Room, very small venue, yet the best possible place for a band to do their comeback show here in Miami...2 opening acts, Crooked Hat was the first and then there was the second one (I don't remember the name of it but they really warmed up the crowd)....then Winger came out....

So much has changed since the last show of theirs that I went to back in 91...the median age in that show back then was probably 23........last night, I'd say was probably 35...regardless, it was still rock and roll all the way...........I'll tell you one thing, the one thing has not changed in the least bit....Winger's ability to rock our faces off...the show started with Blind Revolution Mad from the Pull record (in my opinion their best record, completely eclipsed by Nirvana and Pearl Jam's success to all but the loyal fan base)...for the next one and a half hours they would proceed to do all of their hits and only played 3 songs from the new record...The body of the set consisted of Blind Revolution Mad, Can't Get Enough, Easy Come Easy Go, Rainbow In The Rose (Julio's answered prayer), You are the Saint I am the Sinner, Miles Away, Junkyard Dog (no Tears on Stone), Down Incognito (with Reb shredding the harmonica solo),

As I look back at all the years of being a Winger fan, I can't help but to think that one of the biggest absurdities of life is that these talented guys were cursed with being good looking guys and great entertainers, this made them the butt of many jokes back in the Beavis and Butthead days thanks in part to an idiot called Lars Ulrich who in all unbiased honesty could really use about 6 months of daily lessons from Berkley PROFFESSOR and University of Miami GRADUATE...Rod Morgenstein who is not only a drummer's drummer and dare is say? virtuoso but one of the humblest people you'll ever meet...He shredded a drum solo which not only featured his prowes as an incredible drummer but showed his versatility by playing a fusion tune from a project with educated musicians who have only mentioned Lars Ulrich while having ADT installing a home security system. These guys are musicians through and through, the kind of musicians that in all actuality were probably slumming by getting into the hair metal scene being that they are all legitimately trained MUSICIANS not HEADBANGERS.

Kip went back and forth between keyboards and bass guitar the whole evening...filling-in the large workboots that Paul Taylor left behind oh-so-long-ago...the boots he left on the stage the last night that I kissed Mary. I did notice something very cool, something that I had thought about for a long time..........the last time I saw them, my concert seats were not that good, and I always wondered if Kip could really play those very intricate and complicated bass lines live while singing at the same time...........well, last night I found out.....yes, he can. The other thing about Kip, his live voice has not left him in 15 years....he sounded incredible and hit all of the high notes at the right times (though I noticed that John Roth did help him out a couple of times on some crucial screams.........no harm in that......I'll take that over pre recorded vocals any day...)

Reb, what can I say? WOW...I'm convinced that he can play all of those RIDICULOUS riffs in his sleep...after all we're talking about the guy who during his life away from Winger, successfully filled the shoes of George Lynch in Dokken and those of Steve Vai and John Sykes in Whitesnake...the guy stood there looking like he was having the time of his life while he proceeded to put on an absolute clinic. Something that might have helped Kirk Hammet with his very stiff and boring guitar playing had he attended and paid attention....and without being drunk....

Though I don't know much about John Roth, he did fill in the gaps sonically and seemed to have a very strong voice...ok dude, I accept you as a Winger....he did a great job too.

The show was closed (encore) with what in my opinion are their 3 best songs ever, Seventeen, Madelaine, and Who's The One?....they high-fived all of us on the front row...and said good night.

Up to about 5 years ago, I had a hard time letting go of the hair metal genre and hair metal years, (many of my friends used to tease me about this) but more than anything I guess, I've just always resented the 90s on many levels, musically and personally...when the 2000s rolled around, and I turned 30, life took on a different perspective... I've embraced and celebrated my 30s, and have let go of those days... which is what made last night so special. Though I could obviously tell that the Winger guys are no longer "kids" they have such a youthful demeanor to them which gives me the insipiration to never lose mine...After the concert, out in the parking lot where their large tour bus was parked, they came out one by one starting with Reb Beach who was stilled drenched in sweat from the show, and not only took the time to stand around and take pictures and sign autographs with the fans, but they took the time to hang and chat, sure there was security present but it wasnt a bunch of meatheads creating a chasm between the band and he fans (kudos to the Culture Room on this)...out came Kip, out came Rod, who mentioned to some of the people there that being in the South Florida night air brought back so many memories of going to school at the University of Miami...."Something in the Air" he said...you really have to spend time here to know what he's talking about....and he's right....the coming out and hanging with the fans after the show...this was, in my opinion, the coolest and most unassuming thing that I have seen a band do in a long, long time...it was as if to say, thanks for sticking around after the show...and for the last 15 years...

As Julio and I turned to leave, after Julio got his last picture taken with Rod, I saw last night's "Mary" walking with her friends out of the parking lot and into the night and like that ended another terrific Winger show and another "Mary" walked out of my life...