Who are YOU? Jack of all trades - Signed Music Artist √ - Platinum Music Record √ - SAG (E) Actor √ - Corporation √

I break things and then I fix them. I've gotten good at it over the years and have acquired quite a collection of tools. I'm now 45 years new and I finally found the one tool that had been eluding me my entire life. Honesty.

I think it would be way to easy to classify this as a mid-life crisis piece, but that is so far from the truth.

I promise to tell you the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help me God. And if you stick with me and my story, I'm hoping you will come away with some understanding of who I am and who you may be.

• THE MAKING OF AN OVERACHIEVER

I was born in National City, CA at Paradise Valley Hospital in 1972 and was given birth to by my mother who had been raped by my real father. I never met the man and only recently learned of his death.

She was very young, robbed of her childhood and forced to grow up quickly. She was placed in a foster home at a very young age; maybe 13 or 14 years old. My grandmother, who I never met, had become terminally ill and could not care for my mother. It was in the foster home that she first became subject to the terrible sexual advances by my father. She was too afraid to say anything because she had grown close to her foster mother and her foster siblings. Everything seemed perfect with this family except for the monster that lurked in the shadows. When my mother turned 17 years of age, my grandmother passed away and she was pulled out of the foster home momentarily to live with her Godmother. The departure from her foster home was bitter sweet. She was getting free of the monster, but she was also losing a mother, sister and brother, whom she had grown to love. Although her Godmother loved her dearly, she was a blind woman and the State of California deemed her unfit to care for my mother. As a result, she was placed back with her foster family and was raped by my father.

Yes, this is a very sad way to start off a life, but it is the truth and like a promised....nothing but the truth.

When I was still a new born, I was sent to live in Mexico with my mother's blind Godmother. My memory is foggy on how long I actually lived there. It may have been 1 to 2 years, but what is important to know is that my mother now had a child that she had to care for and support the best way she could. She began working in San Diego, CA while I was cared for by family in Mexico.

Why she had not aborted my birth or placed me up for adoption is a mystery to me. She recently told me that she really had no choice in the matter and that it was not my fault I had been conceived. She said that God had a plan for her and who was she to get in the way of His plan.

In Mexico, I grew up poor, but loved. Everyone around me knew my mother's story except for me. I would not learn the truth of who my real father was, until I turned 15 years of age.

My childhood is a blur and the first true memories I have as a child began when I was probably 2 years old. I remember living in a busted old Volkswagen Beetle and my parents parking it on the Rosarito Beach. At night I would curl into a blanket and burrow my way under the front seats to stay warm. I could hear the ocean waves crashing onto the beach and at first it scared me, but as time went on, the sound became familiar. It became the soothing white noise I needed to fall asleep. After living there on and off for about 6 months, my stepfather and I moved into a very small apartment which was situated above a sweet bread bakery in Tijuana. I remember smelling the sweet bread all day long and craving the bread all the time. To this day, entering one of these places fills me with joy. We had very little money and I lived there with my stepfather, who was attempting to become a US Citizen by marrying my mother. My mother worked as a housekeeper during the day in San Diego and after her shift, she would make her way back to Tijuana and bring food for me and my father every evening. I would eat rice with butter off the top of a Styrofoam cooler top, suck on a bottle of Pepsi or Coke and every once in a while I would be surprised by a toy my mother would get me from a second hand store in San Diego. We had very little, but I was happy. My parents did what needed to be done to survive and I am eternally grateful for what they both had to go through.

To this day, there are chapters of my life that seem to have vanished. I don't recall how we found our way back to the United States and how we ended up living in a house that my parents rented near a cemetery. I don't remember there being a wedding between my mother and stepfather. I don't even remember my brother John, who is two years younger than I am, being born. I'm not entirely sure what happened to the sense of love I had for my stepfather in Tijuana and the resentment I felt for him when we arrived in San Diego. I can tell you that daily beatings and abuse by my stepfather, who was an abusive alcoholic, may have played a great part in the type of parent I am today. I am a loving parent and will do anything for my two daughters. I vowed to be the exact opposite of who my stepfather was.

I will continue with the story if you let me. There is so much more I need to tell you.

I would love to tell you about how I was accepted into a prestigious Catholic high school for boys. How my only way in was a scholarship. How I passed up on a scholarship to go to college to pursue a singing career. How I met my wife, the love of my life.

I hope you come back and continue on this journey with me. I promise you will learn so much more about me and I think you may learn a few things about yourself.

My hope is that in sharing my past I will be able to touch a few of you out there that may have gone or are going through some of the same things I went through. Just remember, we are all deserving of receiving and giving love, no matter what has been done to you or what you may have done to others.