Blog Archive

Thursday, July 23, 2009

life history (01) portrait of the artist as a young man

Since I started this site, I’ve received tons of E-mails asking about my past, where I came from, what got me to this point, what I was like as a younger person. I plan to elaborate on a lot of the events I mention here, but for now, you get the short and sweet version.

I was born in Sacramento, California in 1986. I'm Irish mostly, my roots don't go much further past the dustbowl, both sets of grandparents had the Steinbeck experience in Oklahoma. I was the second child to my parents, my father a truck mechanic and my mother a corrections officer at the time. In the hospital I was given a little stuffed lamb I still love. I have very few early childhood memories, probably my first being an earthquake that shook our house while playing Atari with my brother. My parents got divorced when I was seven years old, my Dad kept the house and my mom kept my brother and I. I stayed with my father every other weekend for most of my young life, I don’t feel comfortable writing about him, so I won’t. I went to Christian school until the divorce, my head was full of religion and I thought the world was a safe place, until my Mom could no longer afford it and I transferred to Public School in the slums of Rosemont.

I went from an 99% upper/middle class private school to a dog-eat-dog environment of ruthless bullies, meth-head teachers and prison yard segregation. We moved around all over the Sacramento area as my mom tried to build a new life for us, her and the man that would become my ex-stepfather were always working so my brother and I learned to fend for ourselves, Latch-Key kids in the purest sense. I went to at least 7 different elementary schools, some for as little as a week. Every new school had new bullies looking to victimize fresh fish, and my short, skinny stature and glasses made me easy pickins. I learned how to joke or talk my way out of beatings, and how to hold my tears when they came.

We eventually started to settle down in a central location, my Mom remarried and I started middle school. My stepfather was a drunk, mentally but rarely physically abusive, he’s responsible for my love of art and film, as well as many of my insecurities. My brother and I were programmers at a very young age, building computers and writing code before going to sleep-over’s or summer camps. Queer-boys my stepfather would call us, and racism, government paranoia, chauvinism and homophobia became a part of my life during stay in the family, I was toughened up and taught that nothing is beautiful and everything hurts.

In 8th grade a popular, over-sized and particularly heartless bully in my gym class picked me up out of the locker room in my underwear and carried me outside for the whole world to see. I was helpless, and as we got outside I struggled enough to make him throw me down a small flight of stairs, breaking both of my wrists. I could no longer program, and was ostracized for “crying like a girl” and getting the kid in trouble, they never fully healed due to the constant “accidental” bumps and stray footballs and basketballs my wrists endured. I still to this day can’t type for more than an hour, I went from a straight A student in the accelerated classes to barely passing, and my Mom still considers that incident to be“the day I stopped giving a fuck”. I started focusing on extracurricular, primarily Drama, and started to get back to good with the social crowd after doing a few plays and stand-up comedy at talent shows. At the beginning of 8th grade, I was dog meat, a crippled wimp, and by the end I was the “will you remember me when you get famous?” kid. This is also when I started to realize that I really liked girl things, and the cycle of guilt had begun.

I know life seems kinda depressing, but I've always believed you learn more from sadness than happiness, and as Oasis said, don't look back in anger.

More tomorrow, thanks for reading.

4 comments:

Arachnis said...

You know, they say that people who had a more troubled past are drawn to theatre, so it's no surprise you're fascinated with drama/film. Then again, it's an amazing art to begin with...

Ronan Lowe said...

Yeesh. And they blame Marylon Manson for school shootings ... Good girl surviving that nightmare and being solid enough to be as public as you are. ;)

Gaven_McLaren said...

It is a touching story. Mine is similar. I found this site from your other site. I am glad for you that you are being your true self

Snugglebug said...

I suspect your story resonates very strongly with many who have suffered much at the hands of our so-called 'peers'. It does so with me. Thank you for sharing this.