ALVIN          

A LITTLE ABOUT MYSELF…

I was born Thursday, October 10th of 1991 at 8:15PM to unwed teenage parents,  April (16) and Alvin (17), in Rockford, Illinois. I was born limp, blue and not breathing having to be revived via CPR. I had a seizure within a few hours of being born, and had to wear a heart monitor for approximately 3 months, to assist in watching me due to the seizure.

After my mom and dad had separated, my mom at 18 years old met Hosealee (17) and as of April of 1993 I had a father figure to look up to. Later that year in December we moved into my parents first apartment solidifying us as a family. July 22, 1993 my new father figure was shot in his lower back in a drive-by shooting at my grandmother house on the Southside of Rockford. He was working on his car at the time but also saved his sister, Athena, from being shot in the head. He was shot by a 22mm bullet which bounced around once it made contact. Making contact with his lungs, spleen, intestines, and ending right under his heart just under the skin is where emergency room surgeons removed the bullet.

When it comes to school I started my journey at Martin Luther King Elementary School, in the gifted program within the Rockford Public School District. While in the gifted program I struggled with the daily challenges of childhood but also trying to keep up with an accelerated education program at a young age. After being close to falling behind in the 4th and 5th grade because I couldn’t keep up, my mom removed me from the gifted program and I continued my public education at Kennedy Middle School, where I started my background in film production with our daily morning news broadcasting.

My high school story was exciting and forever changing and would be frightening for some but I felt High School really molded me into who I am today. Just prior to my first steps into Rockford Auburn High School as a freshman I met what I would consider my high school sweetheart, Whitney. We met working for the Rockford Park District as a Jr. Leader for a summer program for kids. Whitney and I dated through HS until the beginning of our junior year. With so many things going on with me mentally from closeting my sexual desires to post high school life planning, Whitney and I agreed to separate just after Thanksgiving of 2008. Around the same time I moved from my parents home to live with my biological dad, Alvin.

Along with separating from Whitney and moving away from my parents and brothers; I started the best journey of my life, semi-homelessness. So after my mom and dad were pushed to the end of the line with my deviant and mannish behaviors midway through high school. My mom insisted that I pack up in the middle of the night and go live with my dad. This was all a plan to help me understand what I had there was a blessing that I shouldn’t take for granted but also an attempt to grant a relationship between my biological dad and I. If this were a book, this chapter would be titled “Making a U-Turn in the Right Direction”

This U-Turn would be a combination of many things. Being semi-homeless, living between my dad’s house and very close friends that were in similar situations. Powering forward and growing my business at the time, Red Ti Productions. Figuring out certain things I truly wanted in life, while also looking at what it took to get me to those goals. This U-Turn also involved me stopping high school sports, football and running track, that had been a thing since way back when I was in elementary school. All these unfamiliar things all at one time but it wasn’t all bad. Mentally this is what I needed.

Now being someone who looks back on life experiences I realize that my high school years really did kickstart this journey into high gear with preparations. Being one of the key members of the Auburn High School CAPA Program in Media (Creative and Performing Arts) I produced projects from Rockford Public School District meetings to city wide PSAs. With the collaboration of friends Zandie, Delrashawn, Jason and I all coming to the table with different talents and connections with different people I decided to start the formation of my high school business, Red Ti Productions. While still in high school and Red Ti, I partnered with a internet magazine and started recording interviews and concerts with artists like, Ti, Jim Jones and Juelz Santana, Trey Songs, to mention a few and one of my favorite artists, Ludacris.

A few months after my high school graduation my mom and dad put all they had together and loaded up our Chevy Suburban to move me from Rockford, IL to Orlando, FL where I continued my film journey at Full Sail University. Starting Full Sail was a little daunting because of my history with public education, but Full Sail was a great fit for my learning style and personality, involving team collaboration and lots of hands on training and experience, learning from reading captions from a book is not my style. Somewhere in my adventure at Full Sail I met a few great lifetime friends, Demeatrie, Christian, and Devan to name a few. I completed Full Sail University with a Bachelors of Science in Film and a Masters in Science in Entertainment Business.

Finding work after Full Sail was a little challenging since film and photography is a sort of word of mouth and socially forward industry. I did lock in an opportunity with a family owned event photography company based in Orlando, FL. With the newly found job we traveled all over the country but there is little to no time for fun and exploration. This is where most of the desire to travel came from, since I’ve been to a lot of places but never able to enjoy the places I visit.

Ive always been a person that enjoys my own projects and building my own financial platform. Working jobs have always been something that is done just to make sure that the bills are payed and will support my side projects. One of my projects that inspired me and I felt would be long term is being a travel agent. Ive always been the friend to help others with planning vacations a researching things and so It was kind of something I’ve always done in the background. Opening Premier Oasis, my travel agency, would also push me to travel more and experience more of what the world has to offer. Traveling A-Bald, the YouTube channel was created to assist in showing others what traveling looks like, obviously from my point of view, with a fun and honest approach.

Starting in January of 2017, I started getting random abcess every couple of months in random parts of my body, always on the surface of my skin. Most of them growing very fast overnight into the size of a baseball and having to be drained in an emergency room. After many different type of tests no-one could tell me where all this was coming from. On October 4th, 2022 I was diagnosed with cancer and after further research it was discovered that I indeed had stage 3 rectal cancer. After 30 treatments of radiation and two cycles of chemotherapy I am now fully in remission from cancer.

Traveling A-Bald was a thing I feel should have started a while back, but you know things happen for a reason. Exploring this YouTube thing has been something that has allowed me to truly explore myself and get to know me a little more deeper. 75% of the things noted in this snippet of my life would have never just been put on display previous, unless someone asked. Ive always called myself an open book and that book just seems to get thicker as time goes on, and more chapters are added.