Freeze Flame Productions Inc

Friday, July 30, 2010

Setbacks & Milestones: The Rizes and Falls

PART 8:  Life of Dreams Vol.1, What if this is Real?

Sometime in the early 90's, I allowed my reality to slip away undetected... I was living in a daily haze of intoxication that became the norm for me.  I never considered this a problem, but it made my thoughts run wild.... my imagination and my dreams would come up with all kinds of scenarios  that may or may not have happened, but the imagery was so vivid and profound that it might as well have been.

Dreams, in particular, had some very deep meaning to me.... I took many of them as signs of things to come, or that might be at some point... Many days went by that felt like Deja Vu because of things I had seen in my dreams. Have you ever had a shared dream, and wondered why or felt that everybody knew about it.

The Life of Dreams, at this time in my life, seemed as though it took on a life of its own... Hence the name.  I lived my life in many different ways, at home with my parents present, I always felt like I wasn't myself, they had certain expectations of me when I was younger, so I had to force myself to act a certain way among them...

Out in the street, it seemed that I was another person yet again.... amongst my friends, I was in a different "hat," so to speak.... more out spoken, willing to confront and debate, etc.. again, they probably had certain expectations of me as well, but was blinded by what I considered friendship at that time in my life...

When it came to the Life of Dreams, it was an entirely different world, the setting may have been similar and people too...  But, this world could be subject to alterations.  I was almost literally living three separate lives, within one... And then there is the dream within a dream, just to make life even more complex... Such as the cycle of our old neighborhood...

This cycle, to which I referred to previously....  We lived among townhouse complexes, in a tight little neighborhood, kids having kids, and drugs in the street & lots of partying.... this made each generation closer to the one before, as well as the next...  a complex, infinite cycle of a staggered generational gap.  For example, My parents were much older than many of my friend's parents, old enough in fact to be, my friend's parent's parents....  Most of my friends had their own kids at at young age...

My Dreams, incorporated all these neighborhood aspects in them, so it was almost as if, I would go to sleep at night and wake up in the dream world and continue.... and with the drugs in my system so often, that is what it felt like...

Have you ever felt like you haven't slept in weeks, or months.  You don't seem to age within the Life of Dreams, but you can live and die, and start over and over and over.... as goes the Dream within a Dream as well...

Imagine, living a life within a dream, and going to sleep within that dream, only to awaken in another dream to continue your life.... Age, doesn't matter and when you wake up in reality you have only aged by the one sleep.

Although my sleeping hours were very little at this time, the few hours that were spent each night in dreams... felt like days at a time.  In a constant state of insomnia, and the haze of intoxication in Reality, paired with the combination of lengthy detailed dreams, so vivid and realistic.... There was a few years span, that all these aspects very much blurred together and became my life.... almost as if time had slowed to a crawl and time ceased to exist for me.

I took advantage of this feeling, most especially in my street life... There was times that it didn't feel like I ever went home, mainly because of my dream state.  It was during this time, that I began to take notice to the many ideas that my mind was churning out on a daily basis.  It was also the time roughly, that I took a serious look at my interests in music, the possibilities that could bring in life....

I had also come to a realization that, in order for my ideas to come to fruition I would have to curb my criminal activities, or at least shift them into a money making criminal lifestyle, but attempting to go about doing that was much harder than I ever anticipated...

Having the ties to the street, and the people in my circle, or the circle of people I was involved with began to show me where I was going wrong with my ideas.... Because of my dreams, filled with warnings.... I felt that something was coming for me.  I had no idea what, maybe death, or health problems, or jail... I just didn't know.

My interest in music is where my head was at, my mentality was shifting into a more positive state of understanding.  I was listening to Hip Hop music, and began noticing the similarities in my life compared to some of the story lines of songs.... I was relating and began to wonder, "How did these people get there, from where I am now?"

What did they have to change?  In all my haze and negativity, I began to see the light.... How can a young Canadian kid, ever relate to some artist from the states who makes music about street life...
My drug use even changed, I became more and more internalized, seeking out deep thought and more uplifting conversation about where my head was at and how to get my ideas to become reality....  I was told to make a list of goals, keep it small, but reach for something big in stages...

I continued living my life as it was, I had little choice but to do so, but I began to really take notice of the world around me..... And change was soon to come.... in all aspects of my being, so said my Life of Dreams...

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Thursday, July 29, 2010

Setbacks & Milestones: The Rizes and Falls

PART 7:  THE WINTER OF INNOCENCE


As Winter Approached, in 1992, I more or less disappeared.... Into my own world, and my own activities.  I was involved in minor hockey, as a player and being a part of that team was what I tried to do to not think about the recent loss. 

It wasn't working, my crime spree had began many months before and was increasing in volume on a nightly basis... I was rather lucky as our neighborhood was surrounding by some fairly well off housing and the owners tended to go for vacation during the winter months.  Once I found that out, I was on full prowl mode....

I had made a conscious choice about my drug use at the time, and because I was still involved in sports.  No use in the winter months, but winter went fast.... Christmas seemed to flash by without a thought... after the funeral, I also decided that I wasn't going to cry anymore.... and by allowing myself to shut off my emotions, I think my conscience went out the window as well... 

I began taking more and more risk with regards to the chances I was taking in my criminal lifestyle.  I was not worried or scared to fight in the street, or be the one to cause problems.... Vandalism was easy and a good outlet for exhausting inner tensions, fighting gained me some respect, and winning made me feared... In a sense, my own, I was a leader.... to others, they may have seen me as some type of enforcer to go to when they needed back up or protection...

I learned to drive early, so instead of just breaking into cars, I started taking them.... and using them to commit other crimes....  At the height of it all, I was breaking the law every few hours.

By the time spring break rolled around, I had included people in my own activities and joined with others on theirs... when the hockey season came to a close... we had a local house to hang out in on almost a 24 hour basis, so my curfews and going home became an afterthought.  I would go home to shower, and eat each day, but usually when my family was out...  I would go home at night, and sneak out after everybody fell asleep....  It made the days very long, and the nights very active...

I did play summer sports, but they were much more spread out than the winter sports, and didn't take up as much time... By this time in my life, Summer 1993, everyday was a party, full of drinking and drugs, and the nights were full of crime.... a spree on my part, that was actually winding down after about 2 and a half years or so.... it had been so constant that it was even a part of my dreams... 

By this time, my mind was in a constant haze of intoxication, not that there is anything wrong with that...  It was how it was back then, where I was from we had about three generations that had grown up this way, and the neighborhood cops were starting to come into the mix and start to clean it up....  they started conducting evictions to some of the areas more well known suspects and residences.  Leaving many houses randomly empty for the taking...  we found many treasures in places like this...

It wasn't until years later that we actually noticed this cycle, the cops coming into the neighborhood became an every day thing, harassing and threatening... nightly foot chases were a regular occurrence that we became very skilled at... many of our old routes of escape, are now blocked off today... we knew how to get away from police on foot, they would give chase sometimes three or four times in one night... maybe to herd us home or something...

My sports career was winding down, little to my knowledge, but my skill was improving... as the end of the summer slowly emerged and High School started... I was still involved in quite a few of my activities, many of which even my friends didn't know about... I made the decision not to trust anybody with those details, or involved many of them to avoid both, any possibility of disloyalty and any in fighting over profits...

When my High School years started, I realized that I could get away with even more... my entire world had expanded, not just my neighborhood...  I was introduced to much more risky operations, and a whole new circle of people involved in their own similar activities, many of which made mine seem pretty small.  They had some serious resources at the right time...

I began another season, or winter sports and activities, so my drug use slowed to a stop over the winter months.... which may have been one of the last times I made that decision consciously...  I tried to focus on school for the first semester, not knowing what to expect... I had barely made it out of elementary.  Finishing school was a goal for me, but I found it hard to care about it at all after my elementary experience(s). 

Once more, Winter arrived... I disappeared into the night... Into a world that I new was coming down around me, it was only a matter of time before it started catching up to me...In my Life of Dreams, extremely vivid at this time in my life.... were speaking to me, in some way showing me subtle signs as to what was ahead for me.... 

Monday, July 26, 2010

Setbacks & Milestones: The Rizes and Falls

PART 6:  CHOICES Vol.1

It was a short time after returning from our family vacation in North Carolina, in 1992.  Still summer, but closing in on my final year of elementary, or first year of High School, as it would have been in some other places.

It was this summer that I found my niche, becoming quite skilled at my little B&E adventures... but I began finding treasures.  In my own country and city, these were things of value, things that I could sell and make some good money.  And that is what I began doing.

At first jewelery and other small knickknacks that were easy to get rid of for small amounts of money, at times I would find the occasional gun, whether a hand gun or rifle, pellet guns or live ammunition they tended to be fairly easy to unload in the street.

Not always the smartest idea I ever had, the best idea I had was to sell the ammunition separately from firearm itself.  That literally saved my own life a few times... when trying to sell a firearm in the street without having a back up can be a very risky sale.

Around the same time the school year started, I came into contact with a stockpile, or somebody's stash in my nightly adventures.  I found a substantial amount of drugs in somebody's home, it really blew my mind because at that point in my life I had already had contact with drugs, but never in this quantity...

I had no idea what I was getting into, the exact amount, or its worth.  I had a fairly good idea of what each and everything was, so I took everything that I could fit in my bag and was able to  return later that same night to take the rest.  Luckily, nobody was home...

I had knowledge of a few people that new more about this kind of thing than I did.  I sought them out in the hall ways of the neighborhood schools for advice and guidance in what to do with a small amount of certain types of drugs/narcotics...

They new who I was from the neighborhood or school, so they were able to give me some instruction without being too suspicious... One gave me a short and easy recipe on how to make cocaine into rock/crack, then asked me to bring a sample and we would go from there. Being busy with my schooling, and my side adventures, as well as organized sports outside of school, it was a few weeks before I actually made contact with these people again....

It was also around this time that I began to experiment with some types of drugs.  I made a couple rules for myself to live by, just because there was other things I wanted to accomplish in my life and I thought that if I used those harder drugs that were usually followed by some severe substance issues and/or addiction.

I had ideas in my head that, I could smoke weed, but not cigarette.... Don't drink coffee, or beer or try to as little as possible, I could drink liquor, but in moderation...  These rules for myself didn't always stick, but they were some guidelines...

I also chose not to put anything up my nose, because I liked to fight and my reasoning was that snorting drugs would weaken my nose...  Another rule was no needle drugs what so ever...

For the most part, I stuck to my own set of rules, while breaking pretty much every other one I could think of.  These rules that I chose to live by allowed me to enjoy what I was doing rather than crave it and turn into a fiend which was very important to me at the time....

After moving into a different neighborhood, I had made more friends through the people I knew from school.  I even made peace with some people that I had forgot about having problems with at even younger ages.  I had an older friend who happened to be in a band around this time, and that kind of sparked a set of ideas that would seem to last a lifetime to accomplish...

I didn't so much want to be famous, as I wanted to be a part of something.  In the years prior to entering High School I became more and more interested in the business of making Music, not knowing how, but imaging what could be done and how it could make money...

I also became interested in film making because in my grade 8 year, the only thing we did all year was script, shoot and produce a film... A class film, was supposed to be about the history of Canada... it was an interesting project to say the least...

But, by the end of 1992...  My grandmother had passed away, my crime spree was in full swing, I was still involved in organized sports, so I was able to keep my drug use to the off season or relatively close to it ...

My reality began blending with my dreams in life, as well as my Life of Dreams....and before my eyes, wide shut and some what blinded.... my perception of things in my life changed drastically... As I chose a path I was believed to be destined....

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Setbacks & Milestones: The Rizes and Falls

Part 5: The Inception

This is a story that I really should tell, or else many of the related stories may not make a lot of sense.  After Recently watching the new movie "Inception," Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, among others. I realized that there is a major chunk of my life that may get overlooked in this series if I'm not careful.  That major Chunk being the life of dreams, almost like living another life at the same time at times it can take its toll on a person. 

You live your life every day, then you go to sleep at night and continue living in this alternative state of consciousness in a world of your own creation.  I think the more creative a person's mind the more elaborate their subconscious universe becomes. 

This movie takes this element of dream and puts into into such a vivid practice that it made me remember things that I have not thought about in many years, one  thing especially, the dream within a dream... 

That feeling you get when you wake from a dream and feel like you have just lived for another 10 years and it consumes you trying to remember all the details, imagine waking up inside your dream feeling that same way... or having a dream about waking up that same way...

The possibilities are
endless and its as if time multiplies so exponentially that your age will no longer matter.... You feel as if you have lived for so long, yet in reality, you haven't aged but one night of sleep... 

Experiences such as this can really mess with one's reality, and when you enter into the realm of hallucinogenic drug use and/or sedatives your reality becomes distorted, but it also affects the life of Dreams.... At times if may feel like the dreams have taken on a life of their own, who or what is in control as this time?

I know I keep going back to it, but I believe 1992, was a pivotal year in my existence.  Somewhat of a coming of age, in a sense.  My family took our last vacation together that summer... We spent a few weeks in North Carolina.  Again, we drove down through Pennsylvania meeting people along the way.  It was eventually a caravan of about four vehicles, three of which were really comfortable Vans, that had seating for quite a few, swivel captain's chairs in the back, etc.... like a living room in a van. 

My dad had an 1989, Ford Taurus SHO, a hot rod/Muscle car built like a family sedan... it could outrun a Mustang easy because it was much more sturdy on the road, and it could keep up with most high end model sports cars.

We shared a beach house, right on the coast, with a group of about 16 people.  I was still pretty young, but this was the first time that I can think of where I was left unsupervised for long periods of time, none of the parents were forced to cook meals, it was kind of an everybody fend for themselves type of vacation... a real vacation, enjoyable and relaxing.  Again, I found myself hanging out with the older kids, especially at night time.  Wandering the beach from bonfire to bonfire, not really knowing who I was with but being welcomed anyway...

We did all the touristy things too, a lot of them anyway.  North Carolina has one of the biggest Dunes on the east coast, and we were Minutes away from Kitty Hawk, where the Wright Brother's first flew, or flew first?  The older guys, meaning not me, got to go out and do some deep sea fishing, catching all kinds of Dolphin fish(not Dolphin mammal), and some other types that I don't recall the names of.  Grilled saltwater fish, probably the only time I have had... it was really tasty... The trip lasted only a few weeks, but it might as well have been the entire summer,  I just didn't want it to end....

I really don't think it did, it just took a life in a new venue...  The idea that it planted within my subconscious stuck, and I created my own world....  and it grew beyond my control at times, but it was mine and was able to shape it, make my own choices, etc..

That sense, that idea, was a form of freedom that I felt that summer.... I didn't want to let it go...  

Monday, July 19, 2010

Setbacks & Milestones: The Rizes and Falls

Part 4: The First & The Next

Let's take it back, in time to the old school... sort of, it was the end of the 80's and entering the 90's.  We were ten years away from the end of a century, back then nobody really thought about it the way we do now.  It had now been close to 5 years since my family had moved to Ontario from Alberta, I remember back then how my parents were and what they allowed me to do, in comparison to today's children and their parents, many of which happen to be of my age group.  Back then we earned our freedom, by doing well in school, or chores at home, etc... this allowed us to get away from the parental supervision and explore life in the neighborhood(s).

From the time we moved to Ontario we lived in a rented home in Mississauga, but we were very close to our grandmother on my dad's side, who happened to live in South Etobicoke, Mimico... right off the Lakeshore in fact.  When our family moved from Alberta, both me and my brother were sent in a plane back to Toronto to live with our grandma until the new house was ready, we also spent a short time with our cousins in Markham.

It was in Mimico, and being the older brother, that I was first introduced to the feeling of being unsupervised, although close to home.... I learned very quickly that I would have to fend for myself at times like this.  I learned that if I ran from a fight, they followed, and when you stand up for yourself many people will back down, or at least give you the respect you earned.  There was times, shortly after I learned to ride a bike that I and other neighborhood kids would disappear into the back alleys of Edmonton's West End, not knowing how far from home we really were, or remembering how to get back... it felt like hours, it was a taste of freedom, but also safety in numbers even for a little kid.  Mimico was probably the first place that I was able to get that taste for myself, Mimico similarly has many back alleys which I learned to navigate early to find my way home, out of trouble, anywhere I wanted to go.... the neighborhood felt huge for a little kid running around in the streets.

For those first few years in Ontario, Mimico is where I spent many weekends and holidays, where I learned how to defend myself and learned my way around... I learned the streetcar of Lakeshore/Queen, is was a long trip from one end to the other, and the first time I got off at the wrong stop I found myself in the middle of Parkdale... don't remember my exact age, but I paid a token my grandma gave me, somehow I got back.

It was in 1990, that my dad finally bought a new car, our first VCR as well as our first road trip, all the way to Florida - St. Augustine, Daytona, and Orlando, including Disney World.  Probably the first memorable trip into the US for me, it took about a day and a half to get to Florida... I don't think I slept much in the car. 

When the First Gulf war broke out, I found myself glued to the TV watching war reports...  we had traveled to Pittsburgh, PA for a hockey tournament with my brother's team... I found myself hanging out with the older kids for one of the first times that I can remember.  A few guys had invited me to the Mall, so they could have some fun, and shoplift a bit.... back then it wasn't even considered a crime, you'd get a slap on the wrist and they might have called your parents.  I was actually pretty good at it, I even learned some tips of how to pick pockets which was much more challenging... the real deal was yet to come.

Late one night with some of the neighborhood kids we were playing street hockey, when some guy pulls up in a dark car and asks the guys if anyone wanted to "pull a quick job" that night, not really knowing what they meant, I ended up tagging along for my first burglary, I had a good time, strangely enough.  It was both the first time and probably one of the last times I did anything in a group, we took all kinds of sports equipment and what not that we could find, I found my first small gun, wasn't loaded, but I kept it and didn't tell anybody.  The rest of the stuff ended up with other people to my disappointment.  I guess you could call that the first time I got ripped off. 

When I got back to Mississauga, I wanted to do it again... this time on my own to see what I could find.  We lived in quite an open door neighborhood for the first couple years, but people started getting more private and started putting up fences and changing the area to prevent the kids from doing much... By this time, our Grandma had moved in with us, she was getting close to 80 and starting to forget things.

In early 92, my family moved again.... closer to the school we went to.  They bought the house, so they owned it.  It was near the end of Elementary school for me, and we now lived in an older neighborhood around other people that we already knew from school and sports. With this move, I became more independent than ever, my skills at breaking and entry got really good, and I had a brand new area to practice on.

We lived in a little area, not really well off, but nice... this area was surrounded on all sides by really big houses of pretty rich people, they became a target for a whole new generation of criminal....  I wasn't really taking anything seriously at that point, I kept playing sports, but we were growing up and attitudes changed.  My grade 8 teacher was said to be one of the coolest teachers in the school, but there was a few instances where he was a complete dick to me, and turned me right off further education. 

It was late 1992, in November when my grandma passed away... it was a tough Christmas for the family, and one of my last.  I think it was a Setback for the whole family, but it really set me off in another direction.  I think I just shut off and started a crime spree, outside of my organized sports, it was an everyday thing by that point.

About a year later, I was in my first year of High school.  New group of friends, new school, and a sense that I could get away with anything I put my mind to... Sort of another fresh start...  

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Setbacks & Milestones: The Rizes and Falls

Part 3: Mini-Biography Vol.1

I thought I would make this my next entry in the series.  One of a few Mini-Bios that I have recently found to greatly help in this process.  It focuses on a significant aspect of my upbringing.  It doesn't reveal everything, but gives a decent explanation of how I, Red Brown, came to be...



A Short Biography of RED BROWN:
Self-Discovery & Embracing a Lost Identity


Conceived under the dancing skies of the Northwest Territory's Northern Lights, a young native girl gave birth to a baby boy she soon named Mason Dee Cretney, months later after returning to the City of Edmonton, Alberta Canada in September 1979. A ward of the province herself, this young native woman was convinced into putting the newborn up for adoption, as it may give him a chance for a better life within a family.

Days or Months later, depending whom tells the story, Mason was adopted by a couple transplanted from the Ontario capital of Toronto. The name Mason, was now changed whether by knowledge or not is unknown, to Randolph Ronald Freese and became part of a family.

Although, a loving family they lacked the knowledge that Randy was born a native and he was left uneducated of the culture and history of his people. It wasn't until years later they found that out. His parents had sat him down at an early age to reveal to him that he had been adopted and explained what that meant. Though young and possibly confused about this at the time, he kept it in the back of his mind and tried to make the best of what he had. Never a rich family, however, they made due with what they had, hard working people his parents were both self employed, and ran a business together.

When Randy was around 9 or 10, many older relatives starting passing away, but it wasn't until 1992, when a great support system of a grandmother passed away, that all the surrounding death began to affect Randy to some degree. Randy had an adventurous spirit and was an athlete at heart, active in both organized sports as well as other activities outside of those, he began to experiment with crime at an early age, mainly break and enters and with the many treasures he found, started making a little money here and there.

By the time he entered High School, he had become a seasoned criminal with only slight brushes with the law without consequence. This may have boosted his confidence to some degree as he became somewhat reckless or careless with his activities, which started to grow in progression, number as well as violence. Randy was always a fighter, but his outlet had mainly been sports to exhaust those tensions. Eventually, that element factored into his street life and his recent past began to catch up to him.

It wasn't until his inevitable incarceration in 1995, that his parents again looked into his adoption. They found out that he had a Native American bloodline, his birth mother had stated in some documents that she was of Cree ancestry. His parents, through visitor's glass over a telephone, were quick to blame his actions both on themselves for not knowing this earlier, but also on that fact. Considering possible stereotypes of the day. Throughout his period of incarceration, he did some reflection on his life at earlier ages only to realize many instances where he did feel like an outsider among his friends and family. Upon his release in 1997, he began to research all aspects that he could of both his family background as well as Native/Indigenous Cultures from Canada and around the world.

It wasn't until he asked for the documents from his parents that they suggested that he do a search to find his birth mother. He began that search first by requesting more information from the family services in Alberta that provided the original documents. He was surprised with what he had received, documents that contained his own birth name, as well as a family name.

In late 1998, after another shorter period of incarceration, Randy made a decision to do a further search.
After registering with the adoption services, in Alberta an Ontario, they told him that he would only be contacted if his birth mother also registered. That was obviously not good enough for a determined Randy. He took the family name provided and conducted an internet search of his own, discovering that the name had over 20 entries in both Ontario and BC, not his birth place, however, still valuable. He eventually decided to write letters, he chose the names from BC to see what would come of it. After minimal response, an anonymous letter arrived with a list of names in Alberta. He again wrote letters to those names, only to find out that about 7 of the 13 on the list were actual relatives. His first contact came in March 2000, when the phone rang repeatedly one night.

Randy had found a new Identity, he was a native, Cree and wanted to honour that in some way. He used his birth name's initials to create a modernized version a naming system he learned of, a way they once used to name the Inuit, with a Letter & Number. Randy Freese's birth name of Mason Dee Cretney became MDC187, he thought of it as his own death in a sense, the murder of another native identity. Later on, He also adopted the name RED BROWN, to represent both his own native/aboriginal heritage as well as Indigenous people as a whole. His own struggle may not have been nearly as bad, but after meeting his birth family and hearing their stories of the family's past. Randy(Red), found that he had made the right choice in embracing his Native ancestry.

After making contact in 2000, and met his Birth Mother later that summer as well as a bunch of other relatives in a partial family reunion. The Summer of 2000, became Red's journey of self-Discovery where he found out that there was much more to his family's history than just one native element.

He learned how some of Canada's aboriginal history factored into his own family, in both destructive and disappointing ways and already with a distrust of government and authority that had grown over the years through his own experiences. He learned that both his grandmother and Great-grandmother had happened to marry off reservation, at a time when this was very frowned upon. They both had their Native Indian Status stripped by the government at the time, only to be unaccepted into one community and ostracized by another. Both Red's mother and her mother had become provincial wards at an early age, taken out of their mother's care for the mere reasoning that the mothers were young and native. Two generations forced to grow up in foster care, and Red, the third generation separated from a family to grow up with a lack of knowledge of family history, and cultural education.

The name Cretney, in fact is not of Native origin, but is believed to be one of the oldest clan names of the Isle of Mann, a small country located amongst the British Isles, yet not officially part of the UK or subject to it's Monarchy. As the story was told to Red, four young men immigrated to Canada, all Cretney's, one of which happened to become Red's Grandfather, who's brother also passed away earlier this year at the tender age of 94. Red's Great-Grandfather was known to be Metis, with connection going back to the original Red River Metis Settlement, In modern day Winnipeg. The Metis ancestry has been learned to be a mix of Mohawk and Acadian French. The little bits and pieces, Red has been told about his own father state that he was living in Yellowknife, NWT where Red's Mother and he met and spent a short time together.

Red, although troubled by this news, found this new found knowledge to be a positive experience and enlightening in the sense that he was learning NOW. He had also cleared his mind of the thousands of questions that he had been asking himself over the course of his life and was able to gain focus on the next stage of his advancement and development. Over the course of his troubled adolescence, and periods of incarceration Red had come to the conclusion that is was music that had taken him from a careless street thug to a more educated and enlightened young man and wanted to share his experiences. A fire was lit to create an element of positivity & change for others with similar histories through music and entertainment. In 2003, RED BROWN ENTERTAINMENT was born and later incorporated into Freeze Flame Productions Inc. In 2006.

Setbacks & Milestones: The Rizes and Falls

Part 2: Introduction 2.0 - The Beginning?

OK, Let's get this new series started shall we?  I have been racking my brain on how to go about this.  It's not as complicated as it seems, but I do want to do this right... well, right enough for me anyway.

I have come to the conclusion that this series will take some serious thought and execution.  The last series, Decade of Development, was an idea that I came up with just to reflect on my most recent life, give or take ten years or so.... this one will take place, for the most part in the ten years or so preceding the last series...

The hardest part was to pinpoint a starting point.  Where the last series took place in quite a linear direction, this will be a series of overlapping stories that have taken place throughout a given period of time.  To get myself started on this new journey I have written a couple pieces outside the blog which I refer to as mini bios.  Basically, taking a portion of my life or an aspect and constructing a Biography based around related events.  I must say that I was surprised with what I came up with.

One may notice that I have named this series "Setbacks & Milestones," detailing the Rizes and Falls... wonder why?  If you really know me, then probably not.  I was asked a few years ago to put together a little motivational talk for a group of Young Offenders based on my own experiences and struggles related to both getting away from street life and getting into the Music industry. 

I claim much of my successes in life and survival on the fact that I truly believe that Hip Hop saved my life, if not music in general.  The actual speech I had prepared was of the same name, but detailed specific turning points in which I personally discovered either something wrong in my life or significant events that triggered changes that would lead me to my current path.

A path of discovery, development, chance, change, achievement, positivity & and so on...

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