Social Networking-Life Beyond the Dark Ages

Do you remember where you where the first time that you came across your very first instance of social media?....for me it was shortly after getting married in 1997....I came across this banner that said "Classmates.Com"....I thought it was an interesting idea to have sort of a "rallying point" online where the past could catch up with the present so-to-speak...but at the time I remember thinking...."this would be pretty amazing and pretty practical if somehow word could get out about this place to everyone that I went to highschool with and we could all reconnect!!.....but c'mon.......how would you get word out to them? we're scattered to the four winds and besides.....I'm making the huge assumption that everyone has a computer and is internet-savvy....not everyone is on America Online like me!!"

At the time I did not realize that I was witnessing the birth of social-networking (as it was knon then).....I might actually have even paid the $$ premium to be notified if anyone else from my high school joined... at the time we had'nt even had our 10 year reunion yet but I paid it, made a profile and actually found a couple of people....I finally unsubscribed from their email updates about a year ago....(do they not know about Facebook!?!?).  Deep in my heart I kinda had this ideal mental scenario where every friend that I ever lost or lost touch with after high school somehow made his/her way back into my life.  It might have been a prophetic thought...I would have to wait about 7 more years before my friend Heather (then Hiers) Shelton would introduce me to MySpace.....truth be told, at this point I had kinda lost the "vision" for what once  excited me about what would come to be known as Social networking.....I definitely fell into the category of people that rolled his eyes for a while and said that this was a waste of time and another avenue for "online Hookups" as well as "spam highways"................well although technically I wasn't wrong, it would'nt be for another year or so until I would join MySpace and it would really become a part of my social M.O. and I would understand that social media was just another major landmark on the human timeline of communication.  It took me a while to remember that MySpace (and Facebook for college kids only then) was just another medium of communication much like the Telephone, the telegraph, the carrier pigeon, and smoke signals....... basically, another way of communicating using the tools of the times.

It took me a little while to even connect the dots that I was sitting on the front row of the perfecting of the technology that I'd been teased with 7 years earlier for about $40 a month.....(which I dropped after about 4 months).....I did the MySpace thing for a while finding a whole lot of creative expression in decorating my page and really expressing myself through it.......found a lot of friends from high school and beyond....BUT...........what happenned the summer of 2008 was unbelieveable.....in a matter of 2 months I'd reconnected with about 70% of just about anyone that I ever cared to reconnect with from my youth...

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that my age demographic, those who graduated high school somewhere between 1987 and 1994 were the first to TRULY get the full benefits of social networking....let me elaborate.

If you look at the age brackets of the users as well as time frame of events in general you will find that  those who graduated slightly earlier than1987 were among the "older" crowd that was intimidated by the internet boon....and while they've obviously caught up by now.....it took them longer to lose that intimidation........those who graduated after that were more than likely still finishing college, thriving in their post highschool/college social circles, and the nostalgia of fleeting youth had not hit them full-force yet.............my demographic? we had settled down, we were starting families, paying off student loans and meeting life head-on......we had started to get nostalgic......enough time had passed since high school to honestly and truly wonder......"I wonder whatever happened to .......".  All of a sudden we had the opportunity to have "fun high school" all over again........without the school work to get in the way of our socializing, without our parents to tell us it was a school night......without even having to leave the privacy of our homes.........and unfortunately sometimes, without an authority to tell us what was and is acceptable behavior!!

Almost as if a living and breathing organism came to life....Facebook squashed MySpace..... seemingly overnight!! it was amazing how it went viral.....a few weeks and you were interacting with hundreds of people that you had not seen in 10 to 15 years!!!!! it was literally MONTHS of catching up....the IM windows were working overtime!................

it was SUCH an AMAZING experiment in human behavior.  Allow me to share a couple of anecdotes.

ROMANCE
All the "unfinished business" of highschool flared up....I heard of a bunch of marriages that became strained (or a few even terminated) because someone from high school was all of a sudden back in a spouses' life...a few even left their husbands/wives for unfinished high school romance! for another shot at the one who got away...
All of a sudden the grown up boys and girls who were too scared or insecure to have ever made professions of affection to classmates in the teen years were all of a sudden saying...."hey I never told you this but I used to like you SO much in highschool....but I'm telling you now"
People were trying to rekindle highschool love all over the place... these are just the people I knew of....imagine the numbers world wide!!!

PLASTIC
Then there was the demographic that felt the need to prove to us all how financially successful they were... pictures of cars and fancy attire and mansions......there were obviously those who DID in fact do well for themselves and they were just being their successful selves......nothing wrong with that.....but then there were the others........mercifully that kind of behavior gets boring and that ended a few weeks into that summer.
Some of the girls (and guys) could not bring themselves to face their fellow ex-classmates because they had gained weight or gotten a few wrinkles on them.....some sadly to this day still wont post pictures of themselves, for this reason!! (again, I could but never will, name names)

OLD SCORES TO SETTLE
Man! People can hold grudges !! you have no idea how many times I heard friends of mine say....."I wish he/she would try that (@#^*) now!!!" .............or........"he's lost his hair and gotten fat....." or ......"pop out a couple of kids and you're not so hot anymore are you sweetheart?..............all of a sudden a lot of us found out that we were still carrying around some unresolved anger issues, that we had either felt  that we had been or actually had been bullied in some capacity during our school years,  and in a couple of occasions (that I'm privy to), I heard of friends of mine sending MySpace and Facebook messages that read "you hurt me but I'd like to see you try to hurt me now" or things to that effect.
I actually remember that summer after a particular girl joined Facebook, someone commenting  ...."Well Jane Doe (name withheld) is on Facebook now....let's have highschool again.

SURPRISES
Then there was the flip side of the coin.......people who reached out to other people and out right said "look, I was a total jerk in school......I wanna tell you that I'm so sorry for that...." .......I personally actually got a couple of those.....and they were appreciated.
"OH! so and so is gay!??..........oh I totally did NOT see that coming!!!" OR "duh!! we all knew that"
"so and so is doing WHAT with his life!?!?!?!? are you kidding me!? he was such a slacker in school!!! good for him/her!!!" OR ".....that ticks me off!!! I studied so much harder than him/her"...........again, I heard both!!
Perhaps the dearest surprises to me personally came in the manner of some people who I was distantly acquainted with in school that on this side of Facebook and (the dark ages before it) have become essential friends that I cannot imagine my life without............a few come to mind and I'll only name Donna Brown because in naming more people I'll leave someone out and offend everyone.......Donna has become one of my best friends in the whole world and we've both weathered some very tough times in our lives together via COUNTLESS hours on the phone over the last few years.....she's an amazing woman and I'm so proud of her for all that she is and continues to become............

And there are SO many others.....people that I knew but didn't necessarily consider close friends until now because on this side of life they cared to reach out or reach back when I reached out to them..........ironically and sadly enough many of them I've not seen for 22 years or as is the case with Donna....just once since then.

Back before social networks, when you finished highschool you were mature and old enough to know that for many many many of your friendships this was in fact "the end".......this generation will never know that feeling... my generation DID.........................and the web gave them back to us from the unknown.  Social networking  has taken me back to experience all of the above to some degree or another, from romance to drama, from births to deaths, from hapiness to mourning..........all I know is that now my life is richer and fuller for having been given my old world............to complete the one that I built after high school. Much love!
~Rudy

THROW THE TAPES AWAY

I was insubordinate...I admit it....I stood there looking at a pile of over 200 tapes that had taken 3 years, hundreds of man hours, machine time, and effort to compile...I heard my boss say...."throw them away..."

... we had just lost our budget for this licensed footage....it was stock footage from the AP wire...hundreds of hours of it............in essence, we just could not afford the VERY expensive yearly subscription and therefore........those tapes were pretty much useless given that using the footage on them could get us as a company sued for a lot of money............"throw them away" ........that was the only legal and sensible thing to do...... (kudos to my company for following the letter of the law)...not only was it the sensible and legal thing to do....it was now a direct order from my boss.........................

"But what if we get the money to re license it some day?" was my question.........."we're not in the news business Rudy....we wont....throw the tapes away"....

I sighed...I pouted and I started to collect the tapes onto a large box....as I grabbed each box...I couldn't help but think, think, and overthink.....I was obsessed.....I started to wonder the little ramifications of what we were about to do....thinking about little things like.... how the tapes got here...the effort that had gone into compiling all of this........ what was the tape operator doing each day as he recorded each one of those tapes....was he stressed out to pull down the feed on time?? did he sit there and watch the footage and the news stories as they came down unedited? and not only that....how much money had we spent on that effort....?

With each tape that I picked up my convictions grew stronger....I finally went to my boss and said...
"I'm sorry, I just cant........wont.........do it........it literally hurts and I'm just so convicted about this, this is something good on our hands and we're about to just throw it away. What's in here can somehow be salvaged.....let's not jump the gun without counting the cost...we'll regret it someday if we can afford it again..."

At that moment my boss did what I was having a hard time doing...........he followed his instructions from HIS boss and said....
"I understand that you have a problem with this....dont worry about it......"

then he looked at my friend and said....."you do it....", and my friend did.


I've noticed that I have a hard time letting go any time that I feel that something in my life is either savable, salvageable or unfinished business... and it wasn't until recently (very recently) that I sat down and analyzed the "why" of this...

I sat there with my eyes closed and just meditated on it....and it dawned on me that what I feel in those situations............ is a sense of defeat........I really really really don't like to lose...

The Bible calls this "pride".......and its a sin......................then I started to further analyze my pride...

I looked at my life and how I've usually stayed around way too long in relationships after they were clearly over all along thinking that I was sticking around because I was "fighting for" something only to eventually come to the painful realization that maybe there wasn't anything to fight for at very least, and at very best, that I was fighting alone........otherwise someone would have been fighting alongside me.

but wait!!!.....this is NOT a relationship bashing post.....not at all......this is a painful realization that I have a hard time listening to the command of those above me those who say........"Throw the tapes away"..................or when it's God talking to me.............."Let go and move on".

This character flaw is no one's fault but mine and I alone suffer the consequence.....(emphasis on suffer.) My biggest mistakes often times, are just that I don't follow directions the very moment that I first hear them, without stopping to question them............and sadly then after many sleepless nights and heartache I realize that had I listened the first time I was talked to without questioning......... I would have saved myself a whole lot of aggravation.

but I don't..............I argue about what's "worth saving"...................throw the tapes away............we're not in the business of holding on to things that no longer serve a purpose..........we're in the business of following instructions when we claim to "trust in God"...................and I've been so bad about that.................in the time that I waste fighting against God and His will, I lose precious time in my lifetime, time that I will never get back, time that I could have spent serving Him....and doing what He asked me to do........................but no....I keep fighting to not throw the tapes away.

Sadly, my friend at work listened to my boss, he picked up the tapes and took them to get recycled.....a quiet shame fell on me to hear my boss say........."never mind............I'll have someone else do it..."

.......I wonder how many things God has had in store for my life every time He told me to move on from something that I was wasting my time on? ............and I didn't.

I wonder how many times he shook his head at His stubborn child and said............."never mind..........I'll have someone else do it..."

I don't know and probably never will, but I've made a habit of it since I was 19 years old...........pride is destructive....learning is long overdue.

Lord, I'm sorry, help me to roll up my sleeves and only focus on doing what You want me to do so I can serve you............please, please, please............................ redeem my time.

"3 AM Magic" posted NOV 3, 2008

I was on about to meet up with The Ben Cerullo boys to go to Brazil....I was living in Miami so I met them at the airport and had a great trip with them....of all the blogs I ever wrote this one truly represented a turning point in my life...
3 AM Magic

It's 3 AM and 48 hours to election day.....it can't get here fast enough.....by now, everyone's made a choice and hopefully they'll pull their respective levers for their respective candidate and then we can get on with life for better or worse.....

Regardless of outcome, tonight, nothing can rob me of the magic that I find myself wrapped and enveloped in.....I have spent the better part of 2 weeks in a makeshift edit bay where I've been editing my reality show....Thunder Road....I'm actually in a maddenning deadline crunch because we leave to Brazil on Tuesday afternoon to shoot 4 more episodes which will also be the last 4 episodes that I will be producing...though it's a little bitter-sweet, I'm doing it because in doing so, I'll be able to pursue other things that will enable me to bring my children to Charlotte in January and move into our old home and start our new life together, as a little family....

Over the last few years I went missing, I made the wilderness my home....I found safety, comfort and security in uncertainty.....I made airports, airplanes, and rental cars my natural habitat.....at one point I could honestly not remember my mailing address and did not know that even if I gave it out that my mail would eventually find it's way to me.......I've been a gypsy.......I can't count the amount of kinks in my neck from waking up in a rest area somewhere, freezing and over-due on arriving somewhere..........I figured out that I was trying to outrun something that I knew was always on my heels, always about to dig it's nails and fangs into my neck, if I did not hide on an interstate, a rest area, the middle east, the jungles of Nicaragua, or in the darkness of my little apartment in Florida City....regardless......never did it occur to me that I was running away from myself.....I did not like myself.....I felt like a failure and like my best years were behind me....I basically wasted my mid thirties in depression from a broken marriage, I put on a happy face to avoid the concerned speeches,looks and sympathy from those around me, and to avoid making those around me who loved me concerned in the first place.....my depression was severe and life threatening at one point, but that passed......my depression evolved, and instead of driving me to alcohol abuse or drugs, simply drove me into a safe place inside of myself where everything was perfect.........I basically "invested" 2 years of my life seizing on every opportunity to be alone, with my thoughts, with my laptop, wasting time in photoshop picture montages for MySpace, blogging my thoughts for anyone who would listen, wrestling with God, finding myself with insomnia at 3 am and investigating totally random things like the accounts of the execution of Benito Mussolini after World War II; Googling just about anything that EVER interested me....

Sure, at face value, one might say, "what's so wrong with that?" and my answer is, I was running.....I was running, I was running......granted, that some of my best songwriting came out of those days, so it wasn't a complete waste.....but I despised pretty much every other aspect of my life except for my children and family.....I hated real life....and like I said, I would escape into the reality in my mind, where I controlled everything.....I retired into that place where I could be as artsy and strange and safe as possible

I hated the Television industry.....I got to the point where working became a chore.... I did it and did it with obnoxious precision because I did not want to be exposed, that I was really a mess inside and that it was affecting my work.....some of my best work came out of those years......but to me it all seemed hollow because with every detail that I paid attention to, I hated it more........I ran out of gas......I ran out of ideas, I ran out of steam.........

God was there.....in the middle of it all, in the middle of the deadly storm of silence that 19 hours driving-time creates on that drive from Charlotte to Miami.....thankfully, little by little the self inflicted torture of seclusion became an open line to heaven.......and one day things started to change.....what exactly triggered the moment I will keep to myself, but it just as easily could have been anything....it could have been seeing and hearing the unbriddeled laughter of playing "tickle tummies" with my kids, or it could have been having lunch with a highschool friend that I had not seen in forever, or maybe it was seeing my friend bawl his eyes out while standing on the mount of Olives crying over the son that was taken from this world so prematurely and unexpectedly, and crying right along with him and truly being able to share someone's grief......so many things, so many moments.....I have come to find that there is beauty, even in pain.....and at times, I never felt more alive then when I witnessed or endured pain, because little by little it awoke that need to hope again, the need to dream again, the need to live again.....yes, there was a specific turning point.....but some things are best kept unsaid.....

Over the last 3 weeks, while sitting here in this little room in front of a computer and over 87 hours of video tape, editing this series that is quite literally my interpretation of the footage acquired by 7 different cameras, I felt so proud (in the humblest of ways) that as a 37 year old man, I had actually learned editing software to the degree that I was cutting a network television show myself........yes you can teach an old dog new tricks.........and this trick served as the kick in the ass that I needed to get excited about my career again......to get excited about my life again, to get excited about the future........not of what it holds for me, but of what I am yet to contribute to it...........at 37, for the first time in a very long time......I feel that the best is yet to come.........this is not me "thinking positive", this is me legitimately excited about putting up a fence around my backyard next summer......about putting in hardwood floors.....about finishing a CD project that I started and never finished.....about Christmas.......about my faith in my Heavenly father who's been carrying me for 37 years.....about being the best friend that I can be to those who bless me with their existence in my life......and to catching up with my highschool friends who are all of a sudden back in my life.....most of all.........to being the best father that I can be for my children...............

it is now 3:27am and I want to keep editing but my eyes are getting heavy, so I'll start again in the morning......I leave you with a song that truly embodies how I feel tonight.......never did someone get it so right for me...........I'll update my blog when I return from Brazil........much love!

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  • 
    Liliana Landa-Rivera

    I love you and I'm so proud of you! You are truly one of a kind!
    PS
    This guy is timeless and gorgeous! Thanks for the video =)

    • Reply

    3 years ago
  • 
    Jeff Hockman

    Love ya buddy! You're in my prayers.

    • Reply

    3 years ago

"Goodbye Miami" originally posted Jan 2, 2009

I dont normally wish that I could go back in time as I find it a futile desire....i normally choose to learn from the past for the future..............but this one? this one I wish I could do over again....I wish I could get 2009 back.....so many things I'd do ............not necessarily different.........just better.....anyways.....found this and it really took me back to where I was that night and what I was feeling...I even included the comments from the original post.....looking back is cool.

Goodbye Miami.

It always happens to me right after the holidays.....I remember that just a few weeks ago I was saying "wow....the holidays will be here in no time...." and just like that they came and went. Now it's a new year, and as much as we like to use the cliches like "New begginings" and "blank slate".....the truth is that in some ways we might have the resolve to start new things and have fresh attitudes and approaches, but realistically the things from last year followed us right through December and right through the champagne and fireworks of the new year.

As most of you know, I'm in and out of Miami as if the Turnpike,I-95 and Miami International Airport were a revolving door...most of you also know why this is, the demands of my job.....some of you also know that by virtue of being a single dad this was the life that I had to take on.....juggling the work/travel schedule with the responsabilities of being a dad, etc......

The truth is that in 2006 I came to Miami to be a refugee....from the yuckiness of life, from the reality of a dismembered relationship, and the futility of trying to be a good father in that condition......the truth is, I needed help.....yes, I needed help in the logistics of my career on the road and the care of my kids, but the truth is, I needed my family.....I needed to be able to be at the weakest and most transparent moments of my life in the seclusion of the efficiency apartment next door to the people that cared and loved me the most in this world......much like a substance abuser, I needed to detox my life from bitterness, anger, unforgiveness, insecurity, and depression........I was blessed with a support group that was there for me through all of those things.........when I needed to lock myself away and write pages and pages or eccentric nonsense, that in hindsight show me how messed up I was, or wheather I needed to spend 8 to 10 hours on the piano playing every possible sad or angry song that I could remember the lyrics to, or whether I chose to stay awake until 5am designing a MySpace collage.....or whatever I chose to do during those first few months back in Miami.....I was blessed beyond measure to have the support that I had.....

The days started getting better when my second summer here came, my clients were on "down months" and  during those "down months" when the work load is practically non-existent, being on a "retainer" is a beautiful thing.........I chose at that time and during those months to remodel my parents living room....this was a special time for me because I was able to sink myself into being "creative" again, and it was a creativity that  was able to excersize with carpentry, power tools and wood, instead of musical instruments or cameras.  This time was my turning point.........

Well, here it is again, as much as I have left Miami a million times going somewhere.....on Saturday morning I'll be.............leaving Miami.

I say here it is "again" because I did this leaving in 1993......I packed up all of my things and set out to "conquer the world"......well.......my ideas of "conquering the world" are much different now...and though I still have "worlds to conquer", they are more personal goals than anything else.....the pressures of "making it" are off me.....because the only "making it" that I'm interested in, is to successfully balance out being a single dad and making a living in a career that's been very good to me.  I've taken a staff producer job for a network in North Carolina, it's a dream job and I know and absolutely love every person on the team that I'll be on........at the end of the school year, my kids will join me full time in Charlotte and hopefully we'll pick up where our lives left off in April of 2005.........

I leave Miami healthy, strong, and on my feet....I don't say this braggingly, I say it thankfully........what I owe to so many people would take me lifetimes to repay.  Among a myriad of lessons learned over the last few years, one of the most important ones for me has been that God, family, and friends.....true friends.......are really what it's ALL about....another lesson that I've learned is to not stay gone for 15 years.....and to not lose touch.....with the internet, now there's no excuse.  So many of you have been here for me and as I leave I pray that I won't let you down............It's hard to leave the "safety" of Miami........but it's time.............and tomorrow starts the rest of my life.

8:01 AM

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  • 
    Liliana Landa-Rivera

    I love you and I'm so glad you came down for the time you did. You are a wonderful person and I couldn't be any prouder to have you as my "Big Brother". You are one-of-a-kind!
    
    I miss you.

    • Reply(1)

    3 years ago
    • 
      Rudy Landa

      what you and Mo and the whole family have done for the kids and I, I could not repay in 10 lifetimes....thank you for every thing and most of all for redefining the word 'love' to me.

      3 years ago
  • 
    Jay Shennum

    Rudy,
    Don't say goodbye. Say something like "until we meet again." I made that mistake when I left Nashville.
    
    Rather, I suggest that you ask your friends to embrace the move as the best thing for you and your loved ones.
    
    Welcome back to Charlotte. Welcome back to the family. Welcome home.
    
    Jay

    • Reply(1)

    3 years ago
    • 
      Rudy Landa

      Hey Jay,
      totally agreed bro....you have gone out of your way to make me feel welcome back here and I do appreciate it more than you know.....you're a great friend.....let's grab some coffee next week sometime ok?
      Thanks again bud.
      Rudy

      3 years ago
  • 
    An-D

    Like i said..... sounds like some of what you wrote came right out of my heart and mouth, only if i could say it so well. love ya Rudy!!! Have a safe trip, and I will waiting to hear and see more! the world would be a better place if people were more like you......

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    3 years ago
  • 
    Alex Arguelles

    Many blessing brother.

    • Reply

    3 years ago