ME:
"....nobody tells me what to do!"... I dont say it but I think it; maybe even subconsciously, as I walk to this "talk" we're about to have.
"Why have you been ignoring me?" ....oh father, so frustrating! again with this...
"I have not been ignoring you!", I can't help but feel aggravated.
"I've reached out over and over again, and I get nothing. You know I really don't like it when you dont even acknowledge me, you kow how much I don't like being ignored."
"UGH!..."
Its a no win situation! if I get an attitude then I'm being a bad child, an UNGRATEFUL child...I'm being "disrespectful"....and yet, sometimes I just don't care and I ignore him...i just go on doing what I was planning on doing anyways because.... because I'll just deal with it later. I know deep in side that I should not say it, not probably not even think it, but at the end of the day...I want things MY way. Why is that so bad!?
Why should I not be able to do what I want?
.....look....I get up every morning, I work hard, I come to work and have to put up with so and so with their "details"....with their "ideas"...their "schedules"...
"I need for you to please do it how I want it, I need for you to please move faster, I need for you to do it over again..." I have to smile and look at them and say, "no problem! let me take care of that for you!, no worries! I'm happy to do it over for you! oh you want more of that? what a great idea!".... when I have already made up my mind that your idea is actually a DUMB idea...in fact I'm probably going to rememeber your idea for when my friends and I are talking. So i can make fun of your idea AND of you. Thank you genius!
If I have to put up with this, day in and day out, then I'm sorry, the last thing I want on my life are more limitations!
I need you to understand, its not that I don't love you. I do. You've done so much for me. YES I KNOW, you have sacrificed SO MUCH for me... I don't need anyone reminding me of that! yes yes yes...you have sacrificed! Its not that I don't get it...I do!
I just feel misunderstood! I was handed a hard life...a lonely life...where there were supposed to be a man and a woman doing a job, there was only a man...my family life was incomplete! I cried myself to sleep many many nights... I had to witness what other "normal people" had every single day knowing that was not my life and truthfully, in a way I kind of resented my life.
(don't say it out loud... "he's SACRIFICED SO much. You're gonna hurt his feelings", as I roll my eyes)
Listen, I'm sorry, FINE!... FINE! I'll be more "accountable"....I'll follow you "rules" because I'm sick and tired of the guilt trips all the time....FINE! I'll be the good little child that You want me to be!.
~~~~~~~~~~
Jesus: Rudy, I'm not keeping you... I don't want you to be a rule follower, I want your love. I want your love for me to show you what hurts me and what breaks my heart... Rudy, I don't make rules to squash your fun, I don't make rules because I want to add weight to the parts of my plan that you don't fully understand nor are willing to accept.....Rudy, this is the hardest thing that a father can ever say to His child...if you really want to go...you have free will. I'm here, and while there is daylight I can be found. My love for you will never waine...my love for you will always remain...if you would rather walk alone, I will not stop you...but I'd die for you all over again if that's what it took to win that type of love.
Wednesday, March 10, 2021
Monday, December 29, 2014
THE LAST WALL
December 30, 2014,
I went through some blog drafts earlier tonight...this entry was originally written in the spring of 2010...I didn't publish it and my guess would be that it was way too transparent and even vulnerable, I feel that at the time people would have known what it was about and it would not have been good nor flattering to post....in hindsight it seems silly now, though I can't help but be intrigued at the amount of passion that I had for what I was going through....in any case, I'm glad to say I'm not there emotionally any more and I can see it objectively now for what it is..... some pretty creative writing (if I do say so myself) much love!
May 17, 2010
Walls...they keep us safe...they separate us...they keep the roof over our heads...they hide us...they enable us to reveal...they cut off....they partition, they isolate....they liberate.
For every season of my life there has been a prescience of a wall and it served the purpose of the day...in the wintery and windy nights they kept me separated from the cold...in the hot summer I slept in the shade under the wind of the blades of a fan...and then the storms came and wreaked havoc...and the walls were there again like brick chameleons...each day looking different, each day serving a different purpose...one day they gave me the solitude that my heart and soul longed for as if somehow to need it to lick my wounds and to heal...but in other days my walls were a prison...they kept the world out when I desperately needed the world....anyone....someone.....to reach out to me....
One day I realized at the most inopportune time that the walls that I had created were about to cost me dearly...for I found myself entertaining reinforcing them and keeping something so beautiful outside of it's boundaries...and so I started to pound...started to push....started to tear at the mortar grain by grain as its sand got under my fingernails and made it bleed....I mended my sore fingers and used every hour of the night to dream of the next morning that with a sweet voice on the phone I would keep finding a way to remove another brick...to loosen the glue a little more....to push and kick until the walls no longer defined me......and I finally took a chance.
Where are my walls?....I need them again....for in the wake of the crumbling of my walls I have no hand to hold.......and alas, I have no walls to trap me, surround me, nor hide me when I cry. I search for bricks for hay for straw and mud...I long to build those walls again....the ones who hid me, the ones who kept me safe....and only one wall stands...my back is straight against it...and I dare not turn around lest the world take from me the only thing that's left to hold...............................................my last wall.
I will not tear it down....not for her, not for you.......not for anyone....because I now see that the walls that fell were dear to me....they kept me safe and sound.......they kept me sheltered from the fate.....that seems to have my number....and is all too content to call. Again, and again and again.....and in irony I rest my back on my one and only wall....and dream of all I could do....do I run away.....and leave my wall right here with all the rest? or stay right here...back to the wall petrified to move.....
I went through some blog drafts earlier tonight...this entry was originally written in the spring of 2010...I didn't publish it and my guess would be that it was way too transparent and even vulnerable, I feel that at the time people would have known what it was about and it would not have been good nor flattering to post....in hindsight it seems silly now, though I can't help but be intrigued at the amount of passion that I had for what I was going through....in any case, I'm glad to say I'm not there emotionally any more and I can see it objectively now for what it is..... some pretty creative writing (if I do say so myself) much love!
May 17, 2010
Walls...they keep us safe...they separate us...they keep the roof over our heads...they hide us...they enable us to reveal...they cut off....they partition, they isolate....they liberate.
For every season of my life there has been a prescience of a wall and it served the purpose of the day...in the wintery and windy nights they kept me separated from the cold...in the hot summer I slept in the shade under the wind of the blades of a fan...and then the storms came and wreaked havoc...and the walls were there again like brick chameleons...each day looking different, each day serving a different purpose...one day they gave me the solitude that my heart and soul longed for as if somehow to need it to lick my wounds and to heal...but in other days my walls were a prison...they kept the world out when I desperately needed the world....anyone....someone.....to reach out to me....
One day I realized at the most inopportune time that the walls that I had created were about to cost me dearly...for I found myself entertaining reinforcing them and keeping something so beautiful outside of it's boundaries...and so I started to pound...started to push....started to tear at the mortar grain by grain as its sand got under my fingernails and made it bleed....I mended my sore fingers and used every hour of the night to dream of the next morning that with a sweet voice on the phone I would keep finding a way to remove another brick...to loosen the glue a little more....to push and kick until the walls no longer defined me......and I finally took a chance.
Where are my walls?....I need them again....for in the wake of the crumbling of my walls I have no hand to hold.......and alas, I have no walls to trap me, surround me, nor hide me when I cry. I search for bricks for hay for straw and mud...I long to build those walls again....the ones who hid me, the ones who kept me safe....and only one wall stands...my back is straight against it...and I dare not turn around lest the world take from me the only thing that's left to hold...............................................my last wall.
I will not tear it down....not for her, not for you.......not for anyone....because I now see that the walls that fell were dear to me....they kept me safe and sound.......they kept me sheltered from the fate.....that seems to have my number....and is all too content to call. Again, and again and again.....and in irony I rest my back on my one and only wall....and dream of all I could do....do I run away.....and leave my wall right here with all the rest? or stay right here...back to the wall petrified to move.....
My thoughts on 2014 and an early look at 2015
At about the time that 2013 was coming to an end I felt an uneasiness about several things in my life...I felt an unhealthy type of complacency about all of it....I am blessed with a job that I absolutely love, alongside people that I absolutely love and doing something that I absolutely believe in. Yet I felt complacent. I play guitar in arguably one of the best music communities in the country....I am playing out more I ever have in my entire life combined.....and yet I still felt complacent...these days the months seem to be flying by like seconds and consequently the years also....it's those one of those moments when you look up and realize that what you're feeling, if kept unchecked, could become a mid-life crisis. Since my life fell apart in my 30s, the last decade has been all about rebuilding it, therefore thankfully no midlife crisis for me...so what was it then? what was my sense of unrest-fulness/discontent?
Through a series of rather mundane events it became evident to me that God was speaking to me about making 2014 a year of taking chances....hmmm...taking chances, taking chances......what in the world did that mean?
I wasn't sure but I was ready to find out...I thought maybe it was relationally speaking, as in... pursuing certain romantic interests...so I tried... things that looked promising didn't work out... some ...because I struck out, some because I lost interest and sabotaged them...point being....it wasn't about romance...and somehow I'd known all along that this was bigger than romance....much bigger.
So what was it then?... it took a soul-searching trip and some long conversation with some dear friends to realize that I had lost track and sight of what I had set out to do when I left home 20 years ago and I had also lost track of who I was created to be in the first place...
Sure sure, I'm a father first and foremost, no denying that and no flippantly brushing it off..... but as I've said so many times about other aspects of my life...I'm a much better father when I am a balanced individual...when I am the best me that I can be I am a much better everything...and my kids know this about me.
In the TV industry and among fellow producers there is a common consensus that success as a producer is not only found in the knowledge and awareness of the things that we're good at...but rather the things that we're not good at.....I'm not a guitar player, I'm not a singer....I am a songwriter who also plays guitar, I am a songwriter who also tries to sing...the guitar player thing I do ok....the singer thing I sometimes do ok and not very often..... my friends who know me....who truly truly know me....the ones that I can bare my soul to and be completely transparent and vulnerable with will attest that being a writer goes right in tandem with every aspect of my personality.....to a fault.
Even in this, my strongest attribute...I have to find balance from time to time...because if I don't find balance those very traits betray me, overtake me, and they become hindrances....
So with this in mind I decided to jump back in the waters of songwriting as a priority at the beginning of 2014...I went back to my original music destination where I'd ventured out to 20 years before....I met with several successful writers in all genres...friends who have tasted the glory of a songwriter's dream...country writers, rock and roll writers, gospel and jazz....I swallowed my pride and took the approach that I really don't know much of anything and decided to start all over with a fresh approach and a fresh heart and eyes.
The first step was to be intentional about my songwriting, and of course that began with writing infinitely more than I had been in 2013. In 2013 I probably wrote 10 songs...I was determined to double that in 2014, not only did I do that but I actually quadrupled it.
A friend of mine took a chance on me and got me an "in" with a songwriter showcase that ,next to playing The Bluebird in Nashville, is the second longest running writer's showcase in town...when you get booked for this showcase it happens months in advance, which was a good thing for me seeing as how I live in Charlotte after all....it quickly became my motto to never repeat songs when I play there....always show up with fresh material......this year I played 3 times there and each time it was a worthy worthy experience......I digress....this friend who got me booked there also had quite possibly the most important conversation that I needed to have this year....
She was brutally honest about my writing....specifically as it pertains to writing for country... the little things...you know...."Cowboys don't reference drinking wine unless it's with a woman, otherwise its hard liquor or beer".....or....."too poetic Rudy...no metaphors...say what you mean mean what you say"....I was kind of offended at first after all....it's not like I've never written a song, "I'll have you know that this year I've had 3 or 4 co-writing credits recorded for indy releases!! I'll have you know I co-wrote half of Nichole Broome's record with her... I'll have you know that..."..but then I thought about it and stepped on the throat of my pride that day....she went on to give me priceless advice about how Nashville has changed, how the rat race has changed, she told me about how the most important tool of an aspiring songwriter in Nashville is a knife or scissors, to know how to and be happy to cut the proverbial publishing pie....she confirmed some things that I already suspected like how much more of an insider crowd the songwriter circles have become and how it takes an act of God to have your music listened to ....(and by the way, your demos? they have to sound almost like albums)......
As all of these words were falling on my ears a horrible thought crossed my mind..."Why?........why am I doing this??....why bother...? it's bad enough to try to pursue this for those who live in Nashville every day of their lives....what makes me think that I'm going to have any kind of success at this, living in Charlotte and making the occasional/quarterly trip to Nashville?...." Suddenly I felt silly, irresponsible both fiscally and as a parent...."Grow up already!! did we not do this 20 years ago and it went nowhere Rudy??.....did we not get this out of our system yet?...this is a young man's game....grow up already!!!"............it was in the middle of all of this that I found my clarity.....in a moment I found my answer, my directive, my marching orders for the next phase of my music career.....I almost audibly but yet in a small still voice heard God tell me......."...you worry about your due diligence because nothing beyond that is in your control but mine......you might NEVER get a song cut or even listened to...but you know what you CAN make happen? you know what IS in your hands??.....................the journey""
It was as if in an instant the lights came on, the fog lifted.....All of a sudden it made sense...
God wants me on the hunt....pursuing, working, learning, growing.......all of a sudden there was a huge shiny door knob in the dark room of complacency.
And just like that I was back in the rat race.....except that unlike before, I didn't have the pressure of HAVING to make it as a songwriter, I have the backing and support of 20 years of industry contacts and a full-time career in the television industry....what it DID mean was less sleep..... a LOT less sleep....using my expendable time for more constructive purposes....the balancing act never ends, I have 3 kids in high school, they need my time, my support, my guidance, and yet I feel stronger than ever that God wants me to balance even more,be a better dad, be a better TV producer, sleep even less, work even harder as a songwriter and pursue it even harder, become a better guitar player and yes....even a better singer....if you see any room in there for complacency please let me know so I can fill that time with something else.
After that meeting, I started to take chances....I took a chance and reached out to some of my favorite writers...the ones that I've looked up to all of my adult life...you know? its a amazing, in this age of Facebook where with a little bit of luck you can make it through the cracks in the windows of life right into the laptop of your idols....and no I don't mean hacking....I mean reaching out and saying... "Hi i've always been a fan of your work, I'm not a psycho fan but a student of your craft and your work, can I have 10 minutes of your time?".....you would be surprised....sometimes taking a chance births relationships and dare I say, friendships.....even with the people that seem "unreachable" and unattainable.
My poor daughter is the guinea pig of my songs...I always serenade her with them and she is brutally honest about their pop appeal as only a 13 year old girl can be. In the summer I played a song in Nashville, a song I had written and played for her a couple of months earlier, and once I was back in the hotel that evening I called her to say goodnight and told her about having played that song....she said to me with the innocence and optimism of a 13 year old girl...."Does someone want to record it now?"...I had to explain to her that this road to success will be a long one, full of up and downs, with trips that will seem like nothing was accomplished....but that in the end that's what the journey is about....
Taking chances in 2014 rekindled some sweet friendships that had been dormant for so many years....pointlessly...I realized that there had been people in my life waiting for me to notice that they were still there...waiting to advice me, point me in the right direction, blah blah blah.....most importantly.....to love me and be my friend. Oddly enough, my friends that have the most capability to "be a good connection" are the avenues that I least care to explore....because they are the friendships that matter most....and in this industry those types of friendships can easily be destroyed by business.
This year I saw that first-hand....I was on the receiving end of someone who tried to use me as a stepping stone in their career and what had for 5 minutes looked like a rather attractive relationship all of a sudden was a major turn-off and let down and oh-so-unattractive.
I NEVER want to be that. Friends are friends, not stepping stones.
So as 2015 starts what are my eyes set on......? first and foremost...to keep writing, improving, growing....
2. being intentional about my writing and realizing 2 things...when I'm writing for commercial purposes, to do so with that in mind. Taylor Swift and Carrie Underwood don't really care very much about what I 'Have to say'.....they want a song that sells lots of downloads!!
In the instances when I write for myself or because I have "something to say", to do so with that in mind and not confuse the 2......SOMETIMES and I mean SOME TIMES VERY VERY FEW TIMES, you can accomplish this both successfully with mass appeal and message integrity.....but not often.
3. Demo, Demo, Demo....record my best material and have it ready at a moment's notice to put a link or an MP3 in someone's inbox when the opportunity arises.
4. This is a huge one.... making wise investments... to love others is a commandment to be followed without pre-requisites, it's not a suggestion, it's a mandate from Jesus Himself...however...knowing how much of yourself to invest into others is discretionary and historically I've been a terrible investor at times. Our time is a resource with a serious cap on it...every second that is wasted it is literally time we have KILLED...we will never get it back....money you can replace, and to quote The Beatles, "I don't care too much for money...money can't buy me love'.....more money can be made..... but time? ...how am I investing that resource?....is there an ROI on that investment? don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating being a friend who is always looking for something in return, notwithstanding, relationships are a 2 way street and historically there are too many instances in my life where I have overly invested myself in people who come looking for me when they need something and nothing else....or in ambitions and initiatives that are just dead on the ground and truthfully reek of decay...time to let them go and let them go for good.....meanwhile there have been scores of people constantly going out of their way to invest themselves in me.....and I've under-appreciated their investment.......I will do better. I will do better...I will.....DO better! In God's name I will do better... You can't be someone's press box, when you are their cheap seats...it's not fair...it's just dumb.
We live we grow, we learn we go....and here I am,,, a year later and what do I have to show for 2014? OH SO MUCH.... so many seeds planted, so many relationships rekindled, so many memories and it's only the beginning.... I keep reminding myself to never quit looking around as I pursue....because this is where LIVING is HAPPENING....and it's always such a thrill and a rush to know that the best moment of my life could be waiting right around the next corner...I'm locking and loading........(and writing about it).....c'mon 2015, I'm ready for ya.
Through a series of rather mundane events it became evident to me that God was speaking to me about making 2014 a year of taking chances....hmmm...taking chances, taking chances......what in the world did that mean?
I wasn't sure but I was ready to find out...I thought maybe it was relationally speaking, as in... pursuing certain romantic interests...so I tried... things that looked promising didn't work out... some ...because I struck out, some because I lost interest and sabotaged them...point being....it wasn't about romance...and somehow I'd known all along that this was bigger than romance....much bigger.
So what was it then?... it took a soul-searching trip and some long conversation with some dear friends to realize that I had lost track and sight of what I had set out to do when I left home 20 years ago and I had also lost track of who I was created to be in the first place...
Sure sure, I'm a father first and foremost, no denying that and no flippantly brushing it off..... but as I've said so many times about other aspects of my life...I'm a much better father when I am a balanced individual...when I am the best me that I can be I am a much better everything...and my kids know this about me.
In the TV industry and among fellow producers there is a common consensus that success as a producer is not only found in the knowledge and awareness of the things that we're good at...but rather the things that we're not good at.....I'm not a guitar player, I'm not a singer....I am a songwriter who also plays guitar, I am a songwriter who also tries to sing...the guitar player thing I do ok....the singer thing I sometimes do ok and not very often..... my friends who know me....who truly truly know me....the ones that I can bare my soul to and be completely transparent and vulnerable with will attest that being a writer goes right in tandem with every aspect of my personality.....to a fault.
Even in this, my strongest attribute...I have to find balance from time to time...because if I don't find balance those very traits betray me, overtake me, and they become hindrances....
So with this in mind I decided to jump back in the waters of songwriting as a priority at the beginning of 2014...I went back to my original music destination where I'd ventured out to 20 years before....I met with several successful writers in all genres...friends who have tasted the glory of a songwriter's dream...country writers, rock and roll writers, gospel and jazz....I swallowed my pride and took the approach that I really don't know much of anything and decided to start all over with a fresh approach and a fresh heart and eyes.
The first step was to be intentional about my songwriting, and of course that began with writing infinitely more than I had been in 2013. In 2013 I probably wrote 10 songs...I was determined to double that in 2014, not only did I do that but I actually quadrupled it.
A friend of mine took a chance on me and got me an "in" with a songwriter showcase that ,next to playing The Bluebird in Nashville, is the second longest running writer's showcase in town...when you get booked for this showcase it happens months in advance, which was a good thing for me seeing as how I live in Charlotte after all....it quickly became my motto to never repeat songs when I play there....always show up with fresh material......this year I played 3 times there and each time it was a worthy worthy experience......I digress....this friend who got me booked there also had quite possibly the most important conversation that I needed to have this year....
She was brutally honest about my writing....specifically as it pertains to writing for country... the little things...you know...."Cowboys don't reference drinking wine unless it's with a woman, otherwise its hard liquor or beer".....or....."too poetic Rudy...no metaphors...say what you mean mean what you say"....I was kind of offended at first after all....it's not like I've never written a song, "I'll have you know that this year I've had 3 or 4 co-writing credits recorded for indy releases!! I'll have you know I co-wrote half of Nichole Broome's record with her... I'll have you know that..."..but then I thought about it and stepped on the throat of my pride that day....she went on to give me priceless advice about how Nashville has changed, how the rat race has changed, she told me about how the most important tool of an aspiring songwriter in Nashville is a knife or scissors, to know how to and be happy to cut the proverbial publishing pie....she confirmed some things that I already suspected like how much more of an insider crowd the songwriter circles have become and how it takes an act of God to have your music listened to ....(and by the way, your demos? they have to sound almost like albums)......
As all of these words were falling on my ears a horrible thought crossed my mind..."Why?........why am I doing this??....why bother...? it's bad enough to try to pursue this for those who live in Nashville every day of their lives....what makes me think that I'm going to have any kind of success at this, living in Charlotte and making the occasional/quarterly trip to Nashville?...." Suddenly I felt silly, irresponsible both fiscally and as a parent...."Grow up already!! did we not do this 20 years ago and it went nowhere Rudy??.....did we not get this out of our system yet?...this is a young man's game....grow up already!!!"............it was in the middle of all of this that I found my clarity.....in a moment I found my answer, my directive, my marching orders for the next phase of my music career.....I almost audibly but yet in a small still voice heard God tell me......."...you worry about your due diligence because nothing beyond that is in your control but mine......you might NEVER get a song cut or even listened to...but you know what you CAN make happen? you know what IS in your hands??.....................the journey""
It was as if in an instant the lights came on, the fog lifted.....All of a sudden it made sense...
God wants me on the hunt....pursuing, working, learning, growing.......all of a sudden there was a huge shiny door knob in the dark room of complacency.
And just like that I was back in the rat race.....except that unlike before, I didn't have the pressure of HAVING to make it as a songwriter, I have the backing and support of 20 years of industry contacts and a full-time career in the television industry....what it DID mean was less sleep..... a LOT less sleep....using my expendable time for more constructive purposes....the balancing act never ends, I have 3 kids in high school, they need my time, my support, my guidance, and yet I feel stronger than ever that God wants me to balance even more,be a better dad, be a better TV producer, sleep even less, work even harder as a songwriter and pursue it even harder, become a better guitar player and yes....even a better singer....if you see any room in there for complacency please let me know so I can fill that time with something else.
After that meeting, I started to take chances....I took a chance and reached out to some of my favorite writers...the ones that I've looked up to all of my adult life...you know? its a amazing, in this age of Facebook where with a little bit of luck you can make it through the cracks in the windows of life right into the laptop of your idols....and no I don't mean hacking....I mean reaching out and saying... "Hi i've always been a fan of your work, I'm not a psycho fan but a student of your craft and your work, can I have 10 minutes of your time?".....you would be surprised....sometimes taking a chance births relationships and dare I say, friendships.....even with the people that seem "unreachable" and unattainable.
My poor daughter is the guinea pig of my songs...I always serenade her with them and she is brutally honest about their pop appeal as only a 13 year old girl can be. In the summer I played a song in Nashville, a song I had written and played for her a couple of months earlier, and once I was back in the hotel that evening I called her to say goodnight and told her about having played that song....she said to me with the innocence and optimism of a 13 year old girl...."Does someone want to record it now?"...I had to explain to her that this road to success will be a long one, full of up and downs, with trips that will seem like nothing was accomplished....but that in the end that's what the journey is about....
Taking chances in 2014 rekindled some sweet friendships that had been dormant for so many years....pointlessly...I realized that there had been people in my life waiting for me to notice that they were still there...waiting to advice me, point me in the right direction, blah blah blah.....most importantly.....to love me and be my friend. Oddly enough, my friends that have the most capability to "be a good connection" are the avenues that I least care to explore....because they are the friendships that matter most....and in this industry those types of friendships can easily be destroyed by business.
This year I saw that first-hand....I was on the receiving end of someone who tried to use me as a stepping stone in their career and what had for 5 minutes looked like a rather attractive relationship all of a sudden was a major turn-off and let down and oh-so-unattractive.
I NEVER want to be that. Friends are friends, not stepping stones.
So as 2015 starts what are my eyes set on......? first and foremost...to keep writing, improving, growing....
2. being intentional about my writing and realizing 2 things...when I'm writing for commercial purposes, to do so with that in mind. Taylor Swift and Carrie Underwood don't really care very much about what I 'Have to say'.....they want a song that sells lots of downloads!!
In the instances when I write for myself or because I have "something to say", to do so with that in mind and not confuse the 2......SOMETIMES and I mean SOME TIMES VERY VERY FEW TIMES, you can accomplish this both successfully with mass appeal and message integrity.....but not often.
3. Demo, Demo, Demo....record my best material and have it ready at a moment's notice to put a link or an MP3 in someone's inbox when the opportunity arises.
4. This is a huge one.... making wise investments... to love others is a commandment to be followed without pre-requisites, it's not a suggestion, it's a mandate from Jesus Himself...however...knowing how much of yourself to invest into others is discretionary and historically I've been a terrible investor at times. Our time is a resource with a serious cap on it...every second that is wasted it is literally time we have KILLED...we will never get it back....money you can replace, and to quote The Beatles, "I don't care too much for money...money can't buy me love'.....more money can be made..... but time? ...how am I investing that resource?....is there an ROI on that investment? don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating being a friend who is always looking for something in return, notwithstanding, relationships are a 2 way street and historically there are too many instances in my life where I have overly invested myself in people who come looking for me when they need something and nothing else....or in ambitions and initiatives that are just dead on the ground and truthfully reek of decay...time to let them go and let them go for good.....meanwhile there have been scores of people constantly going out of their way to invest themselves in me.....and I've under-appreciated their investment.......I will do better. I will do better...I will.....DO better! In God's name I will do better... You can't be someone's press box, when you are their cheap seats...it's not fair...it's just dumb.
We live we grow, we learn we go....and here I am,,, a year later and what do I have to show for 2014? OH SO MUCH.... so many seeds planted, so many relationships rekindled, so many memories and it's only the beginning.... I keep reminding myself to never quit looking around as I pursue....because this is where LIVING is HAPPENING....and it's always such a thrill and a rush to know that the best moment of my life could be waiting right around the next corner...I'm locking and loading........(and writing about it).....c'mon 2015, I'm ready for ya.
Tuesday, April 15, 2014
Kodak Film
I'm a horrible blogger....in fact I'm pretty horrible at anything that requires discipline....ask me when the last time was that I kept a songwriting appointment? .....not "everyday" like I said I would!!! ask me the last time that I drank a gallon of water a day like i said I was going to?? .........one thing that I am pretty good at though is to take action when inspiration GRABS ME....therefore although I have not songwritten by appointment....i have written music when I've been inspired....in that spirit...since insomnia has GRABBED ME tonight..........here I am.......blogging.
I know you've been there...you've started just by looking at a funny youtube video that your buddy sent you and then it ends......... and DANG those stupid little previews at the end of each youtube clip!!! Before you realize it, you've watched 3 hours worth of randomness........for me it always starts with something and ends up in a completely different place than I started......earlier tonight a friend of mine sent me a demo of an AMAZING camera that sees light practically in total darkness......
"Rudy works in television so impressive things must be shared with him" seems to be the mantra of many of my non tv industry friends, and so they send me stuff like this every every other day and I must admit...pretty dang cool....although this one I ran into by total chance on Facebook.
So this clip it led to a curiosity induced Google search to read up about how the optics work in digital world format to simulate traditional ISO in contrast to actual film cell etc....... 2 hours of this led to reading up on the evolution and development of actual color film in the early part of the century, although common "in color" film would not become the standard for several decades later, the original color motion picture film was seen by human eyes as early as 1902!!!!! in fact here is a still frame from that particular film ...
So I kept reading on....my mind absorbing this stuff like a sponge...mesmerized by a vicarious excitement of what it must have been like for the first chemist/nerds/explorers that ever replicated a moving image in actual color......I started looking through YouTube for early color films and what I found was amazing... this is thought to be the earliest surviving footage ever captured on film cell....black and white obviously....this is not too long after the end of the civil war folks! yes....a nerd i am.
and then I happened upon this clip....and now I'm blogging...
There were several Kodak test subjects in this clip.....The woman in this clip that I'm absolutely smitten by has surely passed on and probably died a grandmother or more of old age...but the day they filmed her, she had to have been in her mid 20s......pops in at 1:37 into the clip and she's absolutely beautiful. For a second I was completely transported to the probably thoughts of the man who captured her image on this fateful day in 1922 (or at least I wondered what I would've thought had I been the camera man).....nothing more endearing than the image of this beauty being flirty and just beautiful for the sole sake of an experiment in color film acquisition.......its almost as if this guy thought..."I'm crossing a new frontier of technology here......and I want someone nothing short of absolutely beautiful to be immortalized in the cell of this film.....I want her spirit and her youth to live on forever into 100 years from now.....into the next century....into the eyes of a man who will wonder so many things about who she was and what she felt that day in 1922 as the camera caressed her roaring-20s beauty....." Mission accomplished sir......job well done....
Can you imagine? what sense of pride? what sense of accomplishment? to be the man who brought film to life in that dimension? the man or men who said....."that thing she just did? we want to see it once again.....but we want to see her do it again the way our eyes did.....in color! and we want her to see it too".....can you imagine how heroic they must have felt lying in their bed imagining all of the things that their new invention would lead to?.....did they know that Kodak cameras and film would travel to the moon and capture Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin hopping around in outer space and zero gravity?.....probably not....lol.....but I bet you they dreamed big!! could they have known that their technology in that state of infancy would someday not only ride shotgun into outer space but also into the deepest darkest abysses and explore inner space as well?......or what about Chroma Key and Compositing.......surely they didn't remotely imagine epics like Lord of the Ring or The Matrix....but I'm pretty sure many of these guys lived long enough to witness Ben Hur and Charlton Heston's The 10 Commandments (although more than likely at a really old age).........I'm SURE they dreamed big....I'm sure every baby step taken in film technology in their lifetime dug up that sense of accomplishment at seeing the fruit of their labor growing exponentially through the decades...
I honestly don't know much about the men who developed color film.....i started to read up on it but I chose to stop.....I don't want to know......i want (much like the blonde on the film) to leave her and them a mystery........maybe they were motivated by money (and that might hypocritically disappoint my capitalism loving butt).....maybe she was just a stage actress who had no idea what the funny looking box in front of her was as she blew kisses, posed and winked for the camera....I dont need to know nor do I need to de-romanticize destiny/history.....but I can say this...this was my take-away at 3am...
We've all got an innate desire to see things for what they really are....we all want to see in color and not in black and white.....we all want to be part of the experience but watch it in replay too and if pictures speak a thousand words....films and videos speak a million....
Where does this fascination come from? I wonder if it all goes back to that breath of God blown into us in our spirit...i wonder if God in His righteous and holy pride wants for us to see ourselves and each other the way He does.....in full color....in full reality....the Bible speaks of mirrors "Anyone who listens to the Word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in the mirror and then forgets what he looks like...." James 1:23..... Mirrors have been around for literally thousands of years looking at us in reverse each time we stand in one of them.......Point being...we've always wanted the vantage point of seeing what others see when they look at us!
And so in my insomniac condition this led to more thinking.....I mean REALLY thinking.........."man! what DO people see when they look at me.!?!!?" ........................I thought a lot about this..... that was no fun.........what do I want people to see?.
......over the last few years I've gotten really convicted about getting in the best physical shape that I can get (after ignoring this the majority of my life)....more than for any vanity reason...I don't want to hit 60 (a long time from now!!) and start falling apart.....I want to be around when my kids are in highschool and college....when they get married and make a granpa out of me (again many years from now).....but i can honestly say that vanity has not been the biggest motivator....so I went out there....changed my eating habits and live in the gym.....65 lbs down It's been worth it.......sure I like wearing cool clothes (especially on stage)....but that's such a small part.....as a guy in my 40s I'm the more confident and comfortable in my skin than I have ever been....I have goals set for myself and my family....but its just that....goals for myself and no one else.......BUT....what do I want people out there in the proverbial street to see???....beyond cool clothes and a healthy dude...yes my appearance and image DO matter to me.....but that's not enough!
I guess if I REALLY listen to my spirit....what I want people to see is a real person......in color.....not in black and white.....I want them to see a man who falls on his face everyday and yet realizes that his mistakes do not define him....a man who knows that he is forgiven for every possible shortcoming that he could ever commit and that he does and will, in a perpetual state of being the poster child for grace and trying to do better....I want to let people in, close enough to call them friends and be vulnerable so that they know my weaknesses and let them speak life into me .......let them lift me up if they so feel led.......and even keep me accountable ,if we're ever that close, if I'm going over board in any area of my life........ above else that others hopefully find inspiration for their own lives.......that they may realize that if God loves Rudy Landa enough to sacrifice His Son for the screw-up that he is...that surely God loves them too........and he can forgive people who have committed lesser sins than I have.
Boy if there's someone who's thankful for grace its me......I'm hot tempered sometimes when I see people getting abused especially if its directed at women....verbally or physically....I don't do well with road rage...I've been known to shoot my mouth off at authority figures in the past....I've been known to be in a brawl here or there in my younger crazier days.... (always with a good reason) .....I've been known to do things that I'm not proud of.....but....I've never, never-ever, tried to conform God to my lowest moments nor my sins by saying..."well God's ok with that because this is just how He made me"......no way.......I KNOW enough to know when I've done wrong and I need forgiveness......but I also know that God sees me blameless in His eyes because He sees his fallible and stubborn flunky of a child beneath the reminder of the price that He paid for me...........and infinitely more than my fascination with the blonde on the 1922 Kodak Test footage..... God is in crazy...total and absolute love with the inner ME that says "Father forgive me YET AGAIN because today I don't like what people must have seen, today I wish I had been a black and white silent film because I blew it.......please help me to show the world a better me that reflects who you are and what you want me to be........ and then get up and do it.........in full HD Color.
.... I'm a guitar player....what do I know? :)
I know you've been there...you've started just by looking at a funny youtube video that your buddy sent you and then it ends......... and DANG those stupid little previews at the end of each youtube clip!!! Before you realize it, you've watched 3 hours worth of randomness........for me it always starts with something and ends up in a completely different place than I started......earlier tonight a friend of mine sent me a demo of an AMAZING camera that sees light practically in total darkness......
"Rudy works in television so impressive things must be shared with him" seems to be the mantra of many of my non tv industry friends, and so they send me stuff like this every every other day and I must admit...pretty dang cool....although this one I ran into by total chance on Facebook.
So this clip it led to a curiosity induced Google search to read up about how the optics work in digital world format to simulate traditional ISO in contrast to actual film cell etc....... 2 hours of this led to reading up on the evolution and development of actual color film in the early part of the century, although common "in color" film would not become the standard for several decades later, the original color motion picture film was seen by human eyes as early as 1902!!!!! in fact here is a still frame from that particular film ...
So I kept reading on....my mind absorbing this stuff like a sponge...mesmerized by a vicarious excitement of what it must have been like for the first chemist/nerds/explorers that ever replicated a moving image in actual color......I started looking through YouTube for early color films and what I found was amazing... this is thought to be the earliest surviving footage ever captured on film cell....black and white obviously....this is not too long after the end of the civil war folks! yes....a nerd i am.
and then I happened upon this clip....and now I'm blogging...
There were several Kodak test subjects in this clip.....The woman in this clip that I'm absolutely smitten by has surely passed on and probably died a grandmother or more of old age...but the day they filmed her, she had to have been in her mid 20s......pops in at 1:37 into the clip and she's absolutely beautiful. For a second I was completely transported to the probably thoughts of the man who captured her image on this fateful day in 1922 (or at least I wondered what I would've thought had I been the camera man).....nothing more endearing than the image of this beauty being flirty and just beautiful for the sole sake of an experiment in color film acquisition.......its almost as if this guy thought..."I'm crossing a new frontier of technology here......and I want someone nothing short of absolutely beautiful to be immortalized in the cell of this film.....I want her spirit and her youth to live on forever into 100 years from now.....into the next century....into the eyes of a man who will wonder so many things about who she was and what she felt that day in 1922 as the camera caressed her roaring-20s beauty....." Mission accomplished sir......job well done....
Can you imagine? what sense of pride? what sense of accomplishment? to be the man who brought film to life in that dimension? the man or men who said....."that thing she just did? we want to see it once again.....but we want to see her do it again the way our eyes did.....in color! and we want her to see it too".....can you imagine how heroic they must have felt lying in their bed imagining all of the things that their new invention would lead to?.....did they know that Kodak cameras and film would travel to the moon and capture Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin hopping around in outer space and zero gravity?.....probably not....lol.....but I bet you they dreamed big!! could they have known that their technology in that state of infancy would someday not only ride shotgun into outer space but also into the deepest darkest abysses and explore inner space as well?......or what about Chroma Key and Compositing.......surely they didn't remotely imagine epics like Lord of the Ring or The Matrix....but I'm pretty sure many of these guys lived long enough to witness Ben Hur and Charlton Heston's The 10 Commandments (although more than likely at a really old age).........I'm SURE they dreamed big....I'm sure every baby step taken in film technology in their lifetime dug up that sense of accomplishment at seeing the fruit of their labor growing exponentially through the decades...
I honestly don't know much about the men who developed color film.....i started to read up on it but I chose to stop.....I don't want to know......i want (much like the blonde on the film) to leave her and them a mystery........maybe they were motivated by money (and that might hypocritically disappoint my capitalism loving butt).....maybe she was just a stage actress who had no idea what the funny looking box in front of her was as she blew kisses, posed and winked for the camera....I dont need to know nor do I need to de-romanticize destiny/history.....but I can say this...this was my take-away at 3am...
We've all got an innate desire to see things for what they really are....we all want to see in color and not in black and white.....we all want to be part of the experience but watch it in replay too and if pictures speak a thousand words....films and videos speak a million....
Where does this fascination come from? I wonder if it all goes back to that breath of God blown into us in our spirit...i wonder if God in His righteous and holy pride wants for us to see ourselves and each other the way He does.....in full color....in full reality....the Bible speaks of mirrors "Anyone who listens to the Word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in the mirror and then forgets what he looks like...." James 1:23..... Mirrors have been around for literally thousands of years looking at us in reverse each time we stand in one of them.......Point being...we've always wanted the vantage point of seeing what others see when they look at us!
And so in my insomniac condition this led to more thinking.....I mean REALLY thinking.........."man! what DO people see when they look at me.!?!!?" ........................I thought a lot about this..... that was no fun.........what do I want people to see?.
......over the last few years I've gotten really convicted about getting in the best physical shape that I can get (after ignoring this the majority of my life)....more than for any vanity reason...I don't want to hit 60 (a long time from now!!) and start falling apart.....I want to be around when my kids are in highschool and college....when they get married and make a granpa out of me (again many years from now).....but i can honestly say that vanity has not been the biggest motivator....so I went out there....changed my eating habits and live in the gym.....65 lbs down It's been worth it.......sure I like wearing cool clothes (especially on stage)....but that's such a small part.....as a guy in my 40s I'm the more confident and comfortable in my skin than I have ever been....I have goals set for myself and my family....but its just that....goals for myself and no one else.......BUT....what do I want people out there in the proverbial street to see???....beyond cool clothes and a healthy dude...yes my appearance and image DO matter to me.....but that's not enough!
I guess if I REALLY listen to my spirit....what I want people to see is a real person......in color.....not in black and white.....I want them to see a man who falls on his face everyday and yet realizes that his mistakes do not define him....a man who knows that he is forgiven for every possible shortcoming that he could ever commit and that he does and will, in a perpetual state of being the poster child for grace and trying to do better....I want to let people in, close enough to call them friends and be vulnerable so that they know my weaknesses and let them speak life into me .......let them lift me up if they so feel led.......and even keep me accountable ,if we're ever that close, if I'm going over board in any area of my life........ above else that others hopefully find inspiration for their own lives.......that they may realize that if God loves Rudy Landa enough to sacrifice His Son for the screw-up that he is...that surely God loves them too........and he can forgive people who have committed lesser sins than I have.
Boy if there's someone who's thankful for grace its me......I'm hot tempered sometimes when I see people getting abused especially if its directed at women....verbally or physically....I don't do well with road rage...I've been known to shoot my mouth off at authority figures in the past....I've been known to be in a brawl here or there in my younger crazier days.... (always with a good reason) .....I've been known to do things that I'm not proud of.....but....I've never, never-ever, tried to conform God to my lowest moments nor my sins by saying..."well God's ok with that because this is just how He made me"......no way.......I KNOW enough to know when I've done wrong and I need forgiveness......but I also know that God sees me blameless in His eyes because He sees his fallible and stubborn flunky of a child beneath the reminder of the price that He paid for me...........and infinitely more than my fascination with the blonde on the 1922 Kodak Test footage..... God is in crazy...total and absolute love with the inner ME that says "Father forgive me YET AGAIN because today I don't like what people must have seen, today I wish I had been a black and white silent film because I blew it.......please help me to show the world a better me that reflects who you are and what you want me to be........ and then get up and do it.........in full HD Color.
.... I'm a guitar player....what do I know? :)
Monday, August 19, 2013
The Journeyman.....
It was 1993 when I took the big plunge....finally putting the final touches on the rebuilding of my parent's home and lives from the tragedy that was 1992 and Hurricane Andrew, I felt that it was time to set out and conquer the world....I had learned a few country licks, I had played on a few local recordings, and of course I was ready to be a "studio musician"......looking back on it now and knowing what I know now....oh if you only knew what a delusional state of mind I was in!!! ...........not because there's anything with dreaming but because I felt that I was ready to show up into town and have the audacity to call myself a studio musician....after many many years of researching this, I'm here to tell you that the A-List session players are not made......they're born. The job description of a studio/session guitar player to walk into a studio that costs $150 -$300 an hour and on the spot play a song that you've never heard nor played before just by looking at a chord chart....except that it's not like piano music where it's all written out for you...you have to INVENT a part...ON THE SPOT....a part worthy of becoming a pop staple for thousands if not millions of guitar players to study for hours to try to replicate well enough to post on YouTube and brag that they "learned it note for note"........and by the way....you only get 2 or 3 takes at best, because in the studio time is money...lots of it......and then you need to invent good and fitting solos for these songs... etc etc.... Suffice it to say....this was NOT me.....the good news? there were about 10,000 other idiots who thought the same thing, so I wasn't alone in Nashville.
There was one thing that I DID have a very good grasp on at that time though.....one thing I HAD CHOPS !! lots of practice and intuition.... one thing that I was able to march into Nashville and demand work on........................................... a construction crew :)
I had just spent 2 years helping my parents rebuild from the hurricane damage, and not only at my parents' home but several other places in Miami, with friends, etc etc......I knew how to use my hands and work tools....so when I moved to Nashville in the fall of 93 I found construction work with a trim carpenter named John Ezell.... It was a fun (NOT) winter...Mr. Miami with his little tan and long curly hair in my first Tennessee winter.....oh boy. I remember a day that I had to help another contractor pour a cement footer....(trim carpentry?) the high temperature of the day was 9 DEGREES!... i was manning the portable cement mixer....water hose in hand and covered in cement dust I stood there next to this little clunker....it was rusty and made this squeaking sound as it turned....the squeak and cadence of the turning mixer got ingrained in my brain....I can still hear it to this day......I'd swear it was saying..."Welcome to Nashville, Welcome to Nashville, Welcome to Nashville..."....I was so cold and wanted to literally cry and run back to the sun and mosquitoes in Miami.....but I kept reminding myself ..."no one's making you be here....you're here because you want to be....you're here because this is a stepping stone to bigger things...." and somehow the passion of youth and my dreams kept me there through the winter time until I got my first TV gig pulling cable for a camera crew....another story for another blog.
During that long winter with the trim carpentry crew I learned so so much (I should mention that I had done construction in one form or another for almost every year during the summers since middle school).....still....I learned more than I ever dreamed from those guys....bunch of crass and rowdy rednecks....and I miss them til this very day.....to put it mildly, a cultural shock for Mr. Dade County.
Around the second month that I worked with this crew I started hearing a word getting thrown around by the contractors and carpenters.......this word was "journeyman"....this word revolutionized the way that I saw myself as a musician and a person. The reality is that growing up, as many of my closest friends will attest...I worshiped Dann Huff''s work....him, Chris Rodriguez and Terry McMillan....I wanted to be them....I bought entire record collections based on their presence on these records....to this day you might wanna avoid getting me going about Dann Huff....and to top it all off now he's a superstar producer. More on that at the end....when I realized that I was NOT studio player material (maybe being a bit hard on myself at the time) I was very demoralized...I was ready to hang it up and go home......
it was about Christmas time and Bic (one of the site supervisors) said something about a "Journeyman".....I think the context was...."Well if he can't handle it then find me a journeyman who can...."..........my curiosity was piqued......I pulled Bic aside and said....."Hey man, at risk of embarrassing myself......what the heck is a journeyman?" Bic, who normally would have seized on the opportunity to tell me a story to set me up for a prank of some kind actually took a moment to educate me......
"A journeyman is a term we use around here for a carpenter who has enough years in the business to not only be entrusted with most any job but to not embarrass the contractor or master carpenter by being unprofessional in front of a client....he knows enough about tools to know what's expected on the job, he knows enough about current trends and styles to field questions from the clients if the contractor is not around, and most importantly he does not need to be a master carpenter, just a damn good journeyman.".......................I know I used quotes and although it's not 100% word for word....it might as well have been....because that explanation changed my view on playing guitar forever.
Master carpenters in the state of Tennessee back then had to take a test to prove that they were in fact masters at the craft....no faking that. Journeymen did not have the pressure of having to prove anything to anyone other than the clients... and really to themselves...all of a sudden there was a new breath of life for my future as a guitar player.....all of a sudden the reality of all-or-nothing didn't seem as ominous to me....I wasn't even 100% sure why, but I knew that God was trying to tell me something.
It took me close to 20 years but I figured it out one day........
I'm about to be very transparent about my guitar playing.....we're all our own worst critics (if we're smart) because it's best to find our weaknesses in private and work them out, than to walk onto a stage and have 1500 people witness them first-hand. I'm a pop-rock-blues guitar player....I'm a product of the 80s and this is at the core of what I play....blues, pop, rock....after all is at the center of most guitar music....I've been blessed with the opportunity to play on a lot of studio projects through the years....some better than others, but a "session player".....I am not......that's the honest to goodness truth...I'm not a jazz player, and although I can play the modern country stuff, you're gonna see me break a sweat in concentration......but I love the challenge.....I'll be glad to learn a jazz song, country song, or even classical if you need me to. Somewhere along the way I was blessed with the opportunity of learning to play piano, harmonica and a couple of other instruments that will hopefully help me to serve the client better....maybe make the stock a little higher? who knows? simple business practice....no ego.
The challenge is to listen to what the client wants and try my hardest to give them exactly what they want...to get out of my own way and recommend when appropriate but not insist on getting my way...I want to strive to become good enough as a guitar player that you throw me into any situation and I will make you look good....not because I want to be recognized as a good guitar player, but because I want to be recognized as the guy who you feel comfortable and safe standing behind you as you sing. I strive to learn each day how to "serve the song" and consequently..you! ....how to not overplay nor underplay.....not to try to show every trick in my bag of tricks every time I plug my guitar in, and most importantly, when to learn to just NOT PLAY....and understand that my part in this particular moment....is absence. I try to ingrain into my heart...conviction, that if you're paying me to play for you I NEED to spend time preparing this song for you, because even if I've played it 1000 times, you're needing me to play it imagining you singing it.... touching the strings in a way that complements your phrasing and voice timber and dynamic.....I love to look back and realize that I was stressing out at the prospect that I did not give myself enough time to get to the gig in case there was traffic...I love looking back and saying, "I should've set 2 alarm clocks in case one did not go off"..........I don't ever want to lose the element of service, reliability and dependability.
Does this always happen?? not often enough!...I mean after all, no one likes being told not to play here, or not to overplay there.....but that's life, especially in a position of support and service....it's not about you....it's about the end product.....and so every time that I think about the fact that I started playing guitar at the age of 12 I've trained myself to remember 2 things...."After all this time, I should be so much better than I am" and "I need to improve more".......this will forever be a work in progress...but one I'm determined to master.
The difference between the master carpenter and the journeyman is the focus on whom is served....the master carpenter has to live up to his title....the journeyman wants to live to hear his phone ring again.
Am I a journeyman guitar player? who knows, if I am, that's for others to determine, not me......and it's probably best for me to never know how far or how near I am to this undefinable goal.....lest I feel that I've arrived at a level of some kind and ease up on my desire to become better..........the truth is that out there somewhere.....there is a journeyman who's been doing it a few years longer than I have......and what's the urgency in knowing anyways?, as long as the phone keeps ringing and someone somewhere needs you then a wise man should just enjoy the ride and make memories of the journey............like a seasoned journeyman.
oh.....and I wanted to share this about Dann Huff and Keith Urban's work together. Enjoy the work of this Master Carpenter....Dann Huff.
There was one thing that I DID have a very good grasp on at that time though.....one thing I HAD CHOPS !! lots of practice and intuition.... one thing that I was able to march into Nashville and demand work on........................................... a construction crew :)
I had just spent 2 years helping my parents rebuild from the hurricane damage, and not only at my parents' home but several other places in Miami, with friends, etc etc......I knew how to use my hands and work tools....so when I moved to Nashville in the fall of 93 I found construction work with a trim carpenter named John Ezell.... It was a fun (NOT) winter...Mr. Miami with his little tan and long curly hair in my first Tennessee winter.....oh boy. I remember a day that I had to help another contractor pour a cement footer....(trim carpentry?) the high temperature of the day was 9 DEGREES!... i was manning the portable cement mixer....water hose in hand and covered in cement dust I stood there next to this little clunker....it was rusty and made this squeaking sound as it turned....the squeak and cadence of the turning mixer got ingrained in my brain....I can still hear it to this day......I'd swear it was saying..."Welcome to Nashville, Welcome to Nashville, Welcome to Nashville..."....I was so cold and wanted to literally cry and run back to the sun and mosquitoes in Miami.....but I kept reminding myself ..."no one's making you be here....you're here because you want to be....you're here because this is a stepping stone to bigger things...." and somehow the passion of youth and my dreams kept me there through the winter time until I got my first TV gig pulling cable for a camera crew....another story for another blog.
During that long winter with the trim carpentry crew I learned so so much (I should mention that I had done construction in one form or another for almost every year during the summers since middle school).....still....I learned more than I ever dreamed from those guys....bunch of crass and rowdy rednecks....and I miss them til this very day.....to put it mildly, a cultural shock for Mr. Dade County.
Around the second month that I worked with this crew I started hearing a word getting thrown around by the contractors and carpenters.......this word was "journeyman"....this word revolutionized the way that I saw myself as a musician and a person. The reality is that growing up, as many of my closest friends will attest...I worshiped Dann Huff''s work....him, Chris Rodriguez and Terry McMillan....I wanted to be them....I bought entire record collections based on their presence on these records....to this day you might wanna avoid getting me going about Dann Huff....and to top it all off now he's a superstar producer. More on that at the end....when I realized that I was NOT studio player material (maybe being a bit hard on myself at the time) I was very demoralized...I was ready to hang it up and go home......
it was about Christmas time and Bic (one of the site supervisors) said something about a "Journeyman".....I think the context was...."Well if he can't handle it then find me a journeyman who can...."..........my curiosity was piqued......I pulled Bic aside and said....."Hey man, at risk of embarrassing myself......what the heck is a journeyman?" Bic, who normally would have seized on the opportunity to tell me a story to set me up for a prank of some kind actually took a moment to educate me......
"A journeyman is a term we use around here for a carpenter who has enough years in the business to not only be entrusted with most any job but to not embarrass the contractor or master carpenter by being unprofessional in front of a client....he knows enough about tools to know what's expected on the job, he knows enough about current trends and styles to field questions from the clients if the contractor is not around, and most importantly he does not need to be a master carpenter, just a damn good journeyman.".......................I know I used quotes and although it's not 100% word for word....it might as well have been....because that explanation changed my view on playing guitar forever.
Master carpenters in the state of Tennessee back then had to take a test to prove that they were in fact masters at the craft....no faking that. Journeymen did not have the pressure of having to prove anything to anyone other than the clients... and really to themselves...all of a sudden there was a new breath of life for my future as a guitar player.....all of a sudden the reality of all-or-nothing didn't seem as ominous to me....I wasn't even 100% sure why, but I knew that God was trying to tell me something.
It took me close to 20 years but I figured it out one day........
I'm about to be very transparent about my guitar playing.....we're all our own worst critics (if we're smart) because it's best to find our weaknesses in private and work them out, than to walk onto a stage and have 1500 people witness them first-hand. I'm a pop-rock-blues guitar player....I'm a product of the 80s and this is at the core of what I play....blues, pop, rock....after all is at the center of most guitar music....I've been blessed with the opportunity to play on a lot of studio projects through the years....some better than others, but a "session player".....I am not......that's the honest to goodness truth...I'm not a jazz player, and although I can play the modern country stuff, you're gonna see me break a sweat in concentration......but I love the challenge.....I'll be glad to learn a jazz song, country song, or even classical if you need me to. Somewhere along the way I was blessed with the opportunity of learning to play piano, harmonica and a couple of other instruments that will hopefully help me to serve the client better....maybe make the stock a little higher? who knows? simple business practice....no ego.
The challenge is to listen to what the client wants and try my hardest to give them exactly what they want...to get out of my own way and recommend when appropriate but not insist on getting my way...I want to strive to become good enough as a guitar player that you throw me into any situation and I will make you look good....not because I want to be recognized as a good guitar player, but because I want to be recognized as the guy who you feel comfortable and safe standing behind you as you sing. I strive to learn each day how to "serve the song" and consequently..you! ....how to not overplay nor underplay.....not to try to show every trick in my bag of tricks every time I plug my guitar in, and most importantly, when to learn to just NOT PLAY....and understand that my part in this particular moment....is absence. I try to ingrain into my heart...conviction, that if you're paying me to play for you I NEED to spend time preparing this song for you, because even if I've played it 1000 times, you're needing me to play it imagining you singing it.... touching the strings in a way that complements your phrasing and voice timber and dynamic.....I love to look back and realize that I was stressing out at the prospect that I did not give myself enough time to get to the gig in case there was traffic...I love looking back and saying, "I should've set 2 alarm clocks in case one did not go off"..........I don't ever want to lose the element of service, reliability and dependability.
Does this always happen?? not often enough!...I mean after all, no one likes being told not to play here, or not to overplay there.....but that's life, especially in a position of support and service....it's not about you....it's about the end product.....and so every time that I think about the fact that I started playing guitar at the age of 12 I've trained myself to remember 2 things...."After all this time, I should be so much better than I am" and "I need to improve more".......this will forever be a work in progress...but one I'm determined to master.
The difference between the master carpenter and the journeyman is the focus on whom is served....the master carpenter has to live up to his title....the journeyman wants to live to hear his phone ring again.
Am I a journeyman guitar player? who knows, if I am, that's for others to determine, not me......and it's probably best for me to never know how far or how near I am to this undefinable goal.....lest I feel that I've arrived at a level of some kind and ease up on my desire to become better..........the truth is that out there somewhere.....there is a journeyman who's been doing it a few years longer than I have......and what's the urgency in knowing anyways?, as long as the phone keeps ringing and someone somewhere needs you then a wise man should just enjoy the ride and make memories of the journey............like a seasoned journeyman.
oh.....and I wanted to share this about Dann Huff and Keith Urban's work together. Enjoy the work of this Master Carpenter....Dann Huff.
Friday, August 16, 2013
Each and Every Highway....
So yeah...its pretty obvious that I've been introspective the last few weeks....its evident by the stuff I've been writing both on my blog as well as the music I've been writing....I guess we all have those times when we think and think about everything......you think about your life, about the things you've lived, the things you've done and the things you've seen....
Without sounding like I'm bragging, I've been blessed with the opportunity to see some pretty amazing things....and had the misfortune of ending up on the wrong end of life just as many times.... I've flown in a helicopter over the slums of Rio de Janeiro, I've walked with a $65,000 camera through the most crime infested and gang riddled streets of Mathare Valley in Kenya, I've stood on the border between Mongolia and the Siberian desert watching the sun beating down on me at 11pm....I've stood at the base of the Acropolis in Athens, Greece....I've felt the brush of alligators on my bare legs in the swamp of the Everglades.....I've sat and chatted with Palestinian gunmen who begged me to film them and let them tell their side of the story of the Israeli Palestinian conflict... I've swam in the Indian Ocean waters of Mombasa....I've been inside an actual chamber of Parliament in London literally in the shadow of Big Ben....I've rolled tape in the middle of a riot in Chiapas, Mexico....and speaking of riots, I watched Woodstock 99 go up in flames quite literally in front of me....walked the dusty streets that my grandfather walked on in San Javier, Bolivia....I've been in the control and command room of a fully operational Navy Destroyer and once walked into Donald Rumsfeld's office in the heart of the Pentagon.
I've driven miles from here to the moon and back....I know backroads and shortcuts in at least 5 states...I've driven through the rockies, through the backroads of Nicaragua, the streets of Honduras, the curves of the Smoky mountains and the blue Ridge parkway....Blizzards in Pensylvania...taken a Greyhound with my best friend from Philly to Miami and learned the meaning of frustration through it....i've witnessed the oceans of bicycles in China, and sipped the worlds most awful coffee in Manila....
So so so much more...overflown the lines of Nazca... watched hysterical mothers looking for their missing children after the earthquake in Pisco, Peru....smelled the stench of the mass graves in Haiti....overflown the carnage left behind by hurricane Katrina all over the gulfcoast....I've been hit with bottles in east Jerusalem, punched in Miami, Mexico, Charlotte, etc.... shot at in Beit Jala, arrested in Bethlehem, detained in France.....and had a 30lb buzzard fly through the car window and land on my lap in Recife, Brazil.
I've lived a life that's full.....said Elvis Presley....I've traveled each and every highway...and the one thing I've always walked away thinking was....."I feel like a Forest Gump class idiot ...." and "Boy have I got a story to tell...."....every time that I think that I've seen it all I realize that I so have not......I realize that once God knows what the future holds....there have been a few times that I have found myself negotiating with God....."Get me out of this and I'll.......(Fill in the empty promise).......
A little tidbit of idiosyncrasy about me is that I ALWAYS have had music with me wherever I go....be it a walkman back in the day, a portable CD player or an ipod ....and the one common song every single time was this one with these lyrics.....it made that midnight sun in Mongolia all that much more of an introspective experience....I never felt so far from home like I did that sunlit night. I hope you like it and I hope you'll answer my question at the end :)
So what about you? what's your craziest experience where you thought you'd be lucky to be alive the next morning....?? (all I ask is that you keep it PG-13 at worst) lol :)
Without sounding like I'm bragging, I've been blessed with the opportunity to see some pretty amazing things....and had the misfortune of ending up on the wrong end of life just as many times.... I've flown in a helicopter over the slums of Rio de Janeiro, I've walked with a $65,000 camera through the most crime infested and gang riddled streets of Mathare Valley in Kenya, I've stood on the border between Mongolia and the Siberian desert watching the sun beating down on me at 11pm....I've stood at the base of the Acropolis in Athens, Greece....I've felt the brush of alligators on my bare legs in the swamp of the Everglades.....I've sat and chatted with Palestinian gunmen who begged me to film them and let them tell their side of the story of the Israeli Palestinian conflict... I've swam in the Indian Ocean waters of Mombasa....I've been inside an actual chamber of Parliament in London literally in the shadow of Big Ben....I've rolled tape in the middle of a riot in Chiapas, Mexico....and speaking of riots, I watched Woodstock 99 go up in flames quite literally in front of me....walked the dusty streets that my grandfather walked on in San Javier, Bolivia....I've been in the control and command room of a fully operational Navy Destroyer and once walked into Donald Rumsfeld's office in the heart of the Pentagon.
I've driven miles from here to the moon and back....I know backroads and shortcuts in at least 5 states...I've driven through the rockies, through the backroads of Nicaragua, the streets of Honduras, the curves of the Smoky mountains and the blue Ridge parkway....Blizzards in Pensylvania...taken a Greyhound with my best friend from Philly to Miami and learned the meaning of frustration through it....i've witnessed the oceans of bicycles in China, and sipped the worlds most awful coffee in Manila....
So so so much more...overflown the lines of Nazca... watched hysterical mothers looking for their missing children after the earthquake in Pisco, Peru....smelled the stench of the mass graves in Haiti....overflown the carnage left behind by hurricane Katrina all over the gulfcoast....I've been hit with bottles in east Jerusalem, punched in Miami, Mexico, Charlotte, etc.... shot at in Beit Jala, arrested in Bethlehem, detained in France.....and had a 30lb buzzard fly through the car window and land on my lap in Recife, Brazil.
I've lived a life that's full.....said Elvis Presley....I've traveled each and every highway...and the one thing I've always walked away thinking was....."I feel like a Forest Gump class idiot ...." and "Boy have I got a story to tell...."....every time that I think that I've seen it all I realize that I so have not......I realize that once God knows what the future holds....there have been a few times that I have found myself negotiating with God....."Get me out of this and I'll.......(Fill in the empty promise).......
A little tidbit of idiosyncrasy about me is that I ALWAYS have had music with me wherever I go....be it a walkman back in the day, a portable CD player or an ipod ....and the one common song every single time was this one with these lyrics.....it made that midnight sun in Mongolia all that much more of an introspective experience....I never felt so far from home like I did that sunlit night. I hope you like it and I hope you'll answer my question at the end :)
So what about you? what's your craziest experience where you thought you'd be lucky to be alive the next morning....?? (all I ask is that you keep it PG-13 at worst) lol :)
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
Changes.
You know?, I'm into my fourth decade of life on this wonderful ball of mud we call home...I've noticed that we live in a series of cycles...I could tell you from personal experience how every 5 to 7 years things blossom, bloom, and die...and on the 8......new beginnings....heck...it's Biblical....
You can pretty much see how every generation in the rock and roll era defined it's own musical identity every 10 or so years....but really it's not 10...it takes a year or so for something to catch on...and on the other end of the decade it takes about a year or so for something to get so annoying, overdone and baseless and yes a year to flush it all away and make room for something else....
Take the 80s for example....pop rock got so ridiculous that it had no choice but to die away and get re-incarnated (for better or worse) with everything the former was not....out of tune, basic, under produced, and raw....the antithesis of everything 80s rock was....
for example.....by 92 this was dying...(for obvious reasons)
and it was being replaced by this....
"Stupid and contagious" as the song says.....well it was contagious and music once again redefined itself for the next decade and so forth and so forth....
I used to think that the rock and roll of my high school years was invincible and would never die...."pop-metal will never die" I used to say.....and to a certain degree it never does...because it lives in the hearts and ipods of millions of overgrown juveniles like me....but I digress....
The reality is....NOTHING is safe from change....in fact....change is one of the only earthly things that are a sure bet....there is nothing new under the sun and nothing man-made will last forever....change is just a part of life.
I HATED Nirvana and grunge......with a passion....so much so that I practically boycotted the 90s.....my attitude was "I refuse to give up all my time of practicing scales and arpeggios to go and purposely play out of tune and sloppy...." so I became a fan of country music because they still gave a rip about making skilled music....
During these years Nashville was booming....Reba, Garth, Diamond Rio, Vince Gil....they were happening!!! and I was right in the middle of it.....I made the quintessential move with 2 suit cases and 2 guitars to Nashville to "make it".
In all reality and looking back.....grunge wasn't only inevitable....it was NECESSARY....and if I could relive history and know what I know now, I'd probably embrace those changing times....change is unavoidable....necessary....BUT... sometimes (often) hard as nails.
If I have an Achilles heel in my character it would be... being sentimental....I am prone to remembering details about good and happy times, down to the scents, the feeling of butterflies in my stomach, sunshine on my skin and everything that makes me savor a happy and unforgettable moment. I often find myself thinking about the people that move in and out of my life....the ones that somehow affected and helped shape my life or character, and then just disappeared into their destinies.....and man, how much it means to me every now and then when an old friend tracks me down.....just to say...."man I was thinking of you and just HAD to see how you're doing......
I don't like it when change is brought about by losing the people I love....this last year I lost a friend and mentor....a brother whom I admired and respected and shared SO much life with....meaningful people have come and gone....some by life some by choice......change....it comes in all sizes and flavors.
You can pretty much see how every generation in the rock and roll era defined it's own musical identity every 10 or so years....but really it's not 10...it takes a year or so for something to catch on...and on the other end of the decade it takes about a year or so for something to get so annoying, overdone and baseless and yes a year to flush it all away and make room for something else....
Take the 80s for example....pop rock got so ridiculous that it had no choice but to die away and get re-incarnated (for better or worse) with everything the former was not....out of tune, basic, under produced, and raw....the antithesis of everything 80s rock was....
for example.....by 92 this was dying...(for obvious reasons)
and it was being replaced by this....
"Stupid and contagious" as the song says.....well it was contagious and music once again redefined itself for the next decade and so forth and so forth....
I used to think that the rock and roll of my high school years was invincible and would never die...."pop-metal will never die" I used to say.....and to a certain degree it never does...because it lives in the hearts and ipods of millions of overgrown juveniles like me....but I digress....
The reality is....NOTHING is safe from change....in fact....change is one of the only earthly things that are a sure bet....there is nothing new under the sun and nothing man-made will last forever....change is just a part of life.
I HATED Nirvana and grunge......with a passion....so much so that I practically boycotted the 90s.....my attitude was "I refuse to give up all my time of practicing scales and arpeggios to go and purposely play out of tune and sloppy...." so I became a fan of country music because they still gave a rip about making skilled music....
During these years Nashville was booming....Reba, Garth, Diamond Rio, Vince Gil....they were happening!!! and I was right in the middle of it.....I made the quintessential move with 2 suit cases and 2 guitars to Nashville to "make it".
In all reality and looking back.....grunge wasn't only inevitable....it was NECESSARY....and if I could relive history and know what I know now, I'd probably embrace those changing times....change is unavoidable....necessary....BUT... sometimes (often) hard as nails.
If I have an Achilles heel in my character it would be... being sentimental....I am prone to remembering details about good and happy times, down to the scents, the feeling of butterflies in my stomach, sunshine on my skin and everything that makes me savor a happy and unforgettable moment. I often find myself thinking about the people that move in and out of my life....the ones that somehow affected and helped shape my life or character, and then just disappeared into their destinies.....and man, how much it means to me every now and then when an old friend tracks me down.....just to say...."man I was thinking of you and just HAD to see how you're doing......
I don't like it when change is brought about by losing the people I love....this last year I lost a friend and mentor....a brother whom I admired and respected and shared SO much life with....meaningful people have come and gone....some by life some by choice......change....it comes in all sizes and flavors.
It's so easy to go down pity party road.....I have been the worst at this....and with the exception of a few close friends who REALLY know me.... I can have a pity party without anyone knowing it and with a smile on my face........even if I'm bleeding to death on the inside...all in the name of not losing my dignity...
Psalm 103:2 says... "Praise the LORD, my soul, and
forget not all his benefits--" ....
I now believe with all of my heart that change is easier to cope
with and it's easier to deal with when we remember the things that God's brought us through and how He never fails (in spite of how often we fail Him.)
For reasons that are pointless to bring up...this has been a tough year for me....in some ways one of the toughest ever.....I found myself in the old familiar place of the knot in the pit of my stomach and blurred vision about the future.......it seems like I've constantly had a choice to make.....go down pity party row again and some more....or see it for what it is.....another change in my life.....Sure enough.!!...it's been 7-8 years since the last major, catastrophic and painful change in my life.....and here, all of a sudden, here I am looking at the future....
7 years ago I quite literally felt like I would not make it....God's love and my children literally saved me from self destruction and I learned so much....or so I thought....until I found myself again questioning God in the same pathetic and faithless ways....I found myself blaming God for problems that I got myself into and that He warned me about.... me....me... me....selfish and at the same time the very cause for all of my troubles.
Sometimes when I get overwhelmed, in the evening after business hours I sneak into the chapel where I work and I'll sit at the piano and just play......I grew up Baptist as a child and somewhere filed in the back of my mind are a hundred old hymns that somehow I remember word for word........ I've always found comfort, when there's none to be found, in just going back to the basics of my spiritual make-up and rebooting....old hymns do that for me....they comfort me.........a couple of weeks ago it was Friday night and I wanted something that I could not have.....home was the last place I wanted to be......and I started thinking of some very silly choices of what I could do with a perfectly good Friday night because I could not get my way.......thankfully I ended up in front my keyboard and somehow found myself quietly playing in the dark..... "Count your blessings, name them one by one....count your blessings, see what God has done....count your blessings, name them one by one....and it will surprise you what the Lord hath done...."
Man those words sunk into me...like a rock in a lake....I was humbled and embarrassed at the same time.... 7 years ago it felt like my life was destined to suck forever.....and yet God got me through.....7 years ago I was terrified that my children would grow to be troubled and dysfunctional people....and they're not...they're happy and creative and mischievous and funny and loving........7 years ago I thought that I would suck as a single father and that I was too ignorant to raise them on my own.........we're doing just fine....and in ALL of that I see nothing but God's hand and grace....God gave me another chance to get behind my guitar and play more over the last 4 years than ALL of my other 27 years playing guitar combined!!.....to live my dreams....to have the most amazing musical community that I have ever had....to have the best friends that any person could ever dream of having......to live out dreams that I never thought I would.....
and yet I was thinking some very ridiculous things because I could not get my way in one little area of my life.......
I wonder what God thinks about such non-sense....."How can you possibly be falling apart at the end of another 7 year cycle!!?? have I not proven to you that I'm bigger than any of that??? have I not proven that I will forgive you and carry your sorry butt every time YOU screw things up??.....what's it gonna take"???
I was ashamed.....I started counting my blessings......... health, career, friends, healthy happy kids, a car that's been making a horrible knocking sound for 3 months and is still running......etc etc etc.....SO MUCH!! and in counting my blessings I found that I had absolutely no moral leg to stand on to throw any more pity parties.......
I'd like to tell you that I learned my lesson that night......I did......ask me if it has changed my life and now i'm living from victory to victory.........no. I have my moments....the ups and downs that we all do.....but I HAVE a new sense of excitement about tomorrow....about the possibilities that come with every sunrise.....about the grace that will find me every morning......and about the life that I get to live with the people who love me......so many of them....another blessing to count.
and so the cycle starts again.....and the challenges now for me....are to continue to count my blessings and be thankful....and to make choices that make the next cycle not a new start but a continuation of all the great things that my Father has done for me and in me......no more new beginnings....I'm not "starting" anything over again...I'm going to ride the momentum of the life that God has given me...the pretty and the ugly....and keep swinging for the fences because I believe this will make God proud. Day by Day, minute by minute, challenge by challenge.
but then again, I'm just a guitar player.....what do I know?...............Jesus love me......this I know.
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