Which one is real?

Day One Assignment – “Biographies”
Jon Headlee

#1
Some call me Squirrel; others call me Jon Headlee. Nevertheless, I was born in Seattle on June 10th, 1982. My early childhood was fairly non-descript. That is to say, it was a normal one. All of that seemed to change in the early 1990s. I started listening to the wonderful sounds of grunge music, and at the same time, my parents began their downward spiral towards divorce.

In the summer of 1995, they finally made it official, and I moved with my mother to Vancouver. It was the time of my life. We were living with my Grandparents – my loaded Grandparents, and they wasted no opportunity to spoil me. Shortly after I turned 15, I was introduced to a wonderful, almost fantasy-like world. It was the world of drugs, and everything from pot to acid to shrooms to even DMT seemed readily available.

That was until my Grandparents found out about it. Naturally, they freaked, and my Grandfather, being a retired Marine, suggested military school. I’m still not sure why they shipped me more than 3,000 miles away, but at age 17, I ended up at Randolph Macon. It was harsh, but it was also only a year.

Afterwards, I came to VCU to study criminal justice, and my intention is to go on to study law. One day, I will legalize all those drugs that are so hated. One day I will validate my belief that drugs, especially hallucinogens, are not bad, but in fact, very helpful.

#2
I was born Jonathan David Headlee at the Air Force Academy Hospital on June 21st, 1986. I’ve always hated my full name, and since I was young, I’ve gone by Jon. My dad was in the Air Force, and so we moved a few times during my youth. When I was four, we moved from our gorgeous home in Colorado Springs to a dusty new suburb in Fayetteville, North Carolina. The neighborhood still wasn’t finished when we moved out 3 years later.

We ended up in Centreville, a suburb in the growing Fairfax County. It was here I discovered football when I was ten, and I loved it. I played four years of youth ball, and then another four years in high school. Despite winning the state championship, my final game ended with tears because I knew I would never play again.

I came to VCU, originally to study film and psychology. After completing a pre-Art Foundation studio class, I decided that a year of hell in “Art Boot Camp” was not worth the limited Film program at VCU. Keeping Psychology, I moved on to add Philosophy as a second major after going through a personal epiphany during my English 200 class. After taking a few Religious Studies classes, I added Religious Studies as another major. It’ll take me a full 5 years, but I hope to graduate with three degrees, a creative writing minor, and hopefully a collection of films (including a documentary I’m working on with Sera Tabb) to take to grad school.



http://www.mrheadlee.com
http://www.vimeo.com/mrheadlee