the story

All these years later and finally have to set the record straight even if that will be met with anger from the other side. Lies lies and more lies is my experience with a certain Velina Houston, professor of theatre at U.S.C. Los Angeles.

Let’s back track to before I met the woman who became a torn in my side. Before I accepted that shitty show Counterstrike and had the honey pot Florence attached to me through more lies and deceit. Let’s look at who I was and how a Velina and her Paul Moore lawyer caused such havoc. To understand why it affected me so much and why the door for the entity called Florence was allowed access to my soul.

I was at the time a young rebellious actor living in Venice Beach and firmly committed to moving into deeper waters as a human. I met Velina at some TV starlet’s garden party. The first thing she did when I asked her why she there and what she did,was announce to me that she was a suicidal Jap Nigger Cunt. This peeked my interest. Now why oh why in retrospect would I not have RUN in the other direction?? Yes, therein lies the question…

My life up to that point had been one of extraordinary experiences and seeing a world that seldom people are exposed to. I never planned it, things seemed to happen to me. Let me explain.

I suppose I was spoiled but not in the classical way. Spoiled with a free spirit and serendipity that always landed me in the right spot at the right time. Not so much for major successes career wise but chance meetings with whatever was fresh, new or the next major trend. Personally I always loathed trends

I had grown up in Victoria Canada, been an athlete and a very average student, as school never did hold my interest. My mother was what today I suppose is referred to as a Narcissist. I loved playing sports as both an outlet and a way to avoid dealing with a crazy family. I had an older sister who considered herself a hippie and she was mostly shunned by that family, living in a room in the basement. They pretty left her alone except on occasions such as her being caught, at 16, for cutting the head of a cat off with her boyfriend(who she is back together with now, as of June 2015) I on the other hand, had a bedroom next to my parents and my door was left open at all times. I had no privacy! I was the golden boy, a young handsome personable kid with a charismatic spirit. My room, decorated by her, was what she considered the perfect boy’s room right down to the wallpaper. We lived 3 houses away from the enormous Government house that the Lieutenant Governor lived in. I met Prince Phillip, who was staying at the Government House, on the steps going into that place. Our house was a very upscale house. My room, when guests came over, was part of the tour.

My mother worked with me since a young age, on telepathy and I would sometimes be asked to perform for the adults at parties exhibiting my skills in reading people’s minds such as being sent out of a room, them quietly discussing which piece of furniture they would choose, then escorted back in to stand in front of my mother who would coach me to look into her eyes and she would say, “I am putting it between us”. I would then ‘feel’ the object they chose and exclaim , “the red chair in the corner’ or something to this effect. We would practice numbers and colours at home. This little private moment between us. But as I became older and slid into my teenage years I wasn’t so enamored with this crazy woman and avoided my sister who, from my very first memories , seem to loathe me. That’s right, as in HATE me. I chalked it up to some form of jealousy or perhaps because I had short hair and was an athlete as opposed to a hippie. She had been forced to go to my hockey games with the family and she would sit in the stands completely uninterested in either me or the game. For many years this was my one connection to my father. I know now he lived vicariously through my hockey successes and he would go out of his way to line up my hockey gear to get dressed and drive me to the rink. I played on mostly all star teams and often was the youngest and smallest guy on the team.

So, by the age of 14 or 15 I had lost interest in hockey. Staying after school,playing other sports to avoid my mother was way of coping. This trend or behavior as a child became a recurring theme in my life as I will explain later.

Through all of this my dad was, other than hockey, out of the picture. Oh sure he came home for dinner then often left right after. He worked his ass off and seldom was around. Looking back in hindsight it was probably to avoid his wife as well.My dad was an insurance salesman , a very very good one, once rewarded by Allstate as the number salesmen in North America! Reading Death Of A Salesmen in school had a major impact on me. That class was one class where my marks reflected my interest in a certain subject. I was engaged! Meanwhile the family was shocked my my marks and at the time I had no reference as to why I did so well. Now of course I do and it is why students that merely memorize statistics and information do well yes, but really, how are the exercising their own though processes. Okay okay, getting ahead of myself.

The other family problem I encountered and why I avoided being around them was this lying thing. I had then and still do today despise liars. It seemed to always be me that either through bad luck or simply karma, I always was the one that saw the lie. Whether it was my father sneaking a cigarette out in the garage or my sister stealing money, it was me who spotted it. My mother would coerce information out of me then fabricate it to suit her needs. Time and time again she would ask me to sit down tell her the truth…i.e. “Had I smoked marijuana” then turn around and contact the school tell her Bridge club friends or whoever might listen, that ‘my son is a drug addict’, full on performance with tears the whole sob story. I would come in and the scorn coming off whoever she informed of this would cause people to say things like, “look how much you are hurting your mother’. During these years a family called the Hartnells lived across the street. I seeked solace there and even though the boys hair was half way down their backs and they were older than me, they accepted meas that “Shellen kid from across the street’. I learned about the unfair war being waged in Vietnam and listened to Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley, Bob Dylan etc. Funny that while my sister was embarrassed of me the Hartnells’ took me in. ironic too that today, June 18 2015 Greg Hartnell the revolutionary oldest son of that family, is one of my best friends, one of the few people that I love my communication with from those years.

I am almost up to speed now. Hopefully dear reader has an idea of how I was as a child and the foreshadowing will become more evident.

I however never considered myself maligned as a child and as mother constantly reminded me, we had a beautiful fancy house and everything that money could buy. I was discouraged from telling people at school that father sold insurance and was coached to say he was ‘a businessman.’ My mother worshiped people like doctors and lawyers and whenever the parents would get into it she scream at my father about how he wasn’t a professional, had no university degree etc etc.

By the time I was around 15 I had started acting out. A wild kid was a reputation a encouraged others to think of me. I suppose in reflection it was a defense mechanism. I was the only one of my friends that had to home at 10 on a friday night or Saturday and I began lying to her as to my wherabouts. I had started sneaking into bars and nightclubs and although I didn’t even shave yet(I ws a late bloomer) my charm and bullshit would get me in.

Being small for my age had made me an overachiever in some things. I also was relatively fearless and would dangle off the roof of cars speeding down the road and others would explain, Shellen’s crazy” words that would haunt me later.

We had moved to London Ontario and there I was regarded as a sports guy and a rebel roaser. Even girls from other schools had heard of my antics and I enjoyed the reckless reputation. By the time I was 17 I had finally grown into my present height. At around this age I had left home. I stayed with friends and marveled at the family that they had. A ‘normal ‘ family’ what a concept. Fathers in these families were the patriarchs and none had families that were so dominated by a crazy mother. I have often said that I borrowed my mother’s rage when people inquire about my acting or my ability to suddenly express rage.

Shortly after this time I had moved back to Victoria and was staying with a family in their guest house going to a local school for one semester to pick up some courses. One Christmas my mother and father came to visit from Ontario where they were now living. The family I was staying with suggested that my parents stay in the main house and that it would be a good idea to patch things up and spend Christmas all together. My sister had long since moved on and was living her hippie lifestyle, avoiding my parents. It seemed like a good idea I thought. I mean, I still had feelings for both of them and they were helping out by paying that family for me to reside there. I was anxious about it nonetheless.

On Christmas Eve two girls came over to my guest cottage while my parents were in the main house.Penny and Sharon. A friend from school and fellow athlete was also there. The girls had brought some vodka and Kahlua. We began drinking Black Russians. At one point Penny disappeared into my bedroom and she began seducing my very drunk friend. I had remained on the couch, kissing and making out with Sharon. I have to say here that the girls were more advanced than us in many respects. They had dated older guys. They were ‘fast women’ as people would say then. Here’s the good stuff. Suddenly, BANG, the door to the cottage came flying open and in races my mother who has, as only she could do, a complete meltdown screaming at the girls, throwing things and yelling take the sheets and wash them! to the girls. My poor friend begins vomiting and the girls leave. I left shortly after and head to a bar where they would serve me.

Next morning I wake up, hungover, and start to open the door to the cottage. Satnding outside the door is my mother, completely naked and screaming ‘you want to see NAKED BODY, HERE’S A NAKED BODY’ then races off barefoot, not a stitch of clothing on, with my poor father raceing behind her. He slipped in the fresh snow trying to stop her.

Need I explain why shortly after this I leave for a logging camp on the tip of Vancouver Island to work and begin to create my own life, away from this insanity. I should mention that my mother did a good job of alienating me from any and all grandparents and that her mother, whom she despised, would remain silent about any of my mother’s antics. Again, in retrospect, my mother had to control EVERYONE. Keep all of us at odds with each other while she played God.

Anyway, that takes me up to being 17 -18, living with hardened criminals(the only ones besides a kid like me, willing to go to this remote place and log).I had hitchhiked up island with very little money in my pocket but knew that something was calling me or maybe that I knew on some level that I needed to GO…test the waters and man up.

I got a job with Rainer Timber as a chokerman. It was not a camp but was set up for men with a house, maybe a family and being as inexperienced as I was it was the only job I could get. The first few nights I slept on a beach, in the snow.

FUCK ME, TWO TIMES, OVER 400 WORDS, EVAPORATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LOGGING CAMP

SLEEPING BAG

NATIVES

DISCO

MODELLING

Christopher Harriman may you rot in hell!!Mention this guy’s name and it all disappears

x x