(Everything is true, except for the stuff I made up.)

Chapter 1

Before the Beginning

I was born in Austin, Texas. We moved to Los Angeles when I was 3 years old. I have one sister (6 years older) and one brother (7 years older). I never went to 1st grade. Our family had just moved to West Covina, CA., The school there said I was smart enough to start in the 2nd grade.  I didn't argue with them (since I was just a kid) and my parents thought, "I guess that's pretty cool" , so I started school in the 2nd grade.  I wanted to play the guitar, when I was in 3rd grade, so my parents signed me up for lessons and bought me my first guitar, it was an acoustic...

We soon moved to La Mirada, CA. just before I was to enter the 4th grade, but the school district there said I was too young for the 4th grade, so I had to start in 3rd grade, until my Birthday, then they would move me up to the 4th grade half-way through the year..."oh well". Actually, it wasn't that bad because I was smaller than everyone so I had to make a lot of friends to keep from getting beat up all the time anyway.

So now, here I am repeating 3rd grade (get this) some "rocket scientist" teacher determines that, "Hey, this is a bright kid, and a fast learner"... "hello" I was doing the same school work over again!!! So... now they put me in a special class called "MGM". I've heard it referred to as Mentally Gifted Minds... Minors, Morons, Maggots...you name it. I didn't care, we got to make a lot of crafts and stuff. I made my mom this really cool acrylic sea shell... it's setting in her living room today!

In the Beginning

I was taking guitar lessons at Allied Arts in the La Mirada Mall. My teacher, whom I still look up to these days, was Joe Alfuso. He was a great guitarist, I think he's a musical director for Disney now. We moved to Cerritos Ca., when I was about to enter the 5th grade.

I went to Burbank Elementary School in Cerritos, CA. That's where I met my best friend, still to this day, Nick Chiotakis.  I think I was the first black kid at Burbank Elementary School. I was popular because everyone thought I should be able to run fast, (ha ha) so they wanted me on their team all the time, um... that was until Wayne Ricks and his little brother Edward enrolled, they were both faster than me, maybe because they were blacker than I was... anyway, I became just an Oreo.  However, I think my picture was put on the wall in the cafeteria when I was awarded "Student of the Year" in 6th grade.

Somewhere, around this time I did a commercial with "Elvis Presley" at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas Nevada.  I keep planning on tracking down a copy of that, maybe I'll try harder now. I'd like to have a copy of that just for my own keepsake.

I remember it like it was yesterday. I wrote my first song on my 11th Birthday, on the 11th of April in the back of my parents' Shoe Repair store. The song was called "Ain't no need of Crying over a glass of Spilled Milk". I decided I wanted to be a famous Rock Star. I got my first electric guitar that year (check this out - don't laugh!,) I actually thought I could prove to the world that you could be a Rock Star without living up to the stereotype that all musicians were into "sex, drugs and rock & roll." (later, I wrote a song called "Don't Stereotype Me") You can check it out on the song page.

I went to Faye Ross Junior High. My favorite teacher was Mr. Veech. He was like the coolest teacher anyone could have. I was in the MGM program again, so school was pretty easy. We got to get out of school a lot to do science projects and stuff. I didn't get voted as most likely to succeed or most popular in the yearbook, but I did win "Most Polite" and "Best Dancer" along with "Iren Chen". I was pretty polite because my parents were sticklers about that, but I still can't dance till this day... go figure?