Hiking at night. We stop to look at some tracks in snow. Bear tracks. Then…a rustle in the dark woods next to us.

What is a hint memoir?

More hint memoirs.

Feel free to post your own hint memoirs in the comments too if you want I’d love to read em :).
 

 

**UPDATE** “Sir” Patrick is a dangerous fraud. He was never knighted and is actually a convicted sex offender who has a ton of aliases, his original name is Roger Eldon Floyd Sisson (the first) and he is from Michigan where he lived with his parents. Yes he does have a family, quite a few actually and many children whom he has abandoned.

Trapped In The Spider’s Web – The Sick Purpose Of Patrick O’Shannahan aka Khristian Knight’s Online Profiles


Thanks,
Anita

——————————

When I wrote in the ‘Sir Patrick, Epic Hoarder‘ blog wondering about Sir Patrick’s true history little did I know that it would open a can of worms in the comments section…and would actually lead to some answers.

John McCain and Jesus Christ

First came comments from two people who identified themselves as friends of Sir Patrick. One identified himself as Steve Vallilo, the person who had called Hoarders in hopes of helping Sir Patrick pay off the steep amount of debt he is in. The comment gave more details of Sir Patrick’s story as well as stating his birthday is September 24 (this date is important so keep it in mind for later).

The second didn’t want to leave a name, but instead left a long post detailing in fantastical language the story of Sir Patrick. Which apparently involves a conspiracy headed by John McCain, Sir Patrick’s classified status (see, that’s why you can’t find any military records on him), and the fact that he resembles Jesus Christ. Wha? Yeah.

I spent several hours (seriously, because I’m like that lol) searching public records trying to find any bit of evidence that might verify the fantastical sounding stories of Sir Patrick being knighted by Prince Charles, spending seven years in a POW camp, conspiracies by McCain etc…but found nothing.

Concerned Citizen

Then this morning came a comment from somebody identifying themselves only as a concerned citizen:

Hi Anita,

Did you check the Charlotte County Sheriff’s booking website? He is there as a registered convicted felon. Also look under the POW/phonies web site. the other name is there.

Holy convicted felon Batman! A quick search on Google turned up a site listing people who are known to be POW phonies that listed Sir Patrick’s other identities:

RICHARDS, COL ARTHUR ALLEN
AKA SISSON, ROGER E.F.
AKA O’SHANAHAN, PATRICK

Another quick trip to Google turned up a booking sheet from the Charlotte Country Sherrif’s Office confirming that yes indeed Sir Patrick is a convicted felon. But there was one problem, it was just a check in so it didn’t say what he had been convicted of.

I searched and searched trying to find the source of the conviction but only turned up judgements against him where he was ordered by the courts to pay people the money he owed them. I asked my awesome, lovely wife if she would be willing to search a bit because she’s good at that stuff and she found…

Sir Patrick Donovan Flannagan O’Shannahan, Convicted Sex Offender

Oh my god he’s a convicted sex offender! A search for one of Sir Patrick’s known alternate identities (Roger Sisson) turned up this profile on the Family Watchdog site:

The description matches the description in the Charlotte County Sheriff’s office booking, including the birth date (September 24th) and his unusually short height (5’4″). And of course the picture says it all.

The Family Watchdog profile and the Missouri Sex Offender Registry profile detail that Sir Patrick (aka Roger Sisson) was convicted in 1981 of a sexual assault that happened in 1979. Under aliases they also list a name (Arthur Richards) that was mentioned on the POW phonies site under Sir Patrick’s profile. And another of the aliases…Patrick Donovan Oshannahan.

The Missouri Sex Offender Registry reports him as failing to register, whereabouts unknown.

So yeah, I think it would be kind of hard for Sir Patrick to be knighted by Prince Charles considering that same year he was being convicted of sexual assault. Just sayin.

Find Out More

I’m posting this after spending all afternoon and evening looking into Sir Patrick’s true history and have unfortunately run out of time. Oh man there is so much more I want to write!! I will be looking into this more when I get more time and I’ll post what I find. But the basic trail and links are all here, what do you think about it all?

Special thanks to my wife for all her help with this and of course to Concerned Citizen for the illuminating tip off! This is information that should be out there in the public’s awareness, especially in Sir Patrick’s area.

*UPDATE 9/17: I just found a section of the Missouri Sex Offender profile of Sir Patrick that I missed before. It lists all the aliases that they know him to use:

Arthur A Richards
Shanahan O
Patrick D Oshannahan
Patrick Donovan Oshannahan
Arthuralan Francois Richards
Roger Sesson
Rogette Siasson
Roger E F Siesson
Roger Eldon Floyd Sisson
Patrick Oshannahan
Patrick Donavan Oshannahan
Arthur Allen Richards
Aurther A Richardson
Aurther A Sesson
Roger E Sesson
Rogette E Siasson
Roger Sisson
Roger E F Sisson

*UPDATE 9/28 Posted a follow up to this blog called Brides For Camelot, Some Digital Footprints Of Sir Patrick O’Shannahan

*UPDATE#2 9/28 Some readers of this post may be interested in a related comment by Steve Vallillo in my Contact section. He says that I singlehandedly ruined a multi-million dollar tv deal for him and Sir Patrick.

Also, I would be killed if I didn’t live in such a far away place like Alaska. However he did stick to the polite road when it came to curse words, which was nice. Here’s the rest:

http://anitasnotebook.com/contact/comment-page-1#comment-2186

*UPDATE#3 9/28 Sir Patrick responds to this blog post and others. Well I’m not even sure how to summarize what he said so here’s the link:

http://anitasnotebook.com/2010/09/the-troubling-history-of-sir-patrick-oshannahan-epic-hoarder-and-convicted-felon.html/comment-page-1#comment-2185



*UPDATE 10/2 Started a Sir Patrick forum in the message board as an alternative to the comments section here.

*UPDATE 10/3 Looks like I got a very ugly and possibly drunken email from Steve thing morning.

*UPDATE 10/5 Hi All,

I agree with EdM’s comment on this blog about the key to Sir Patrick’s past being in Michigan. I followed this same trail last night and have privately messaged one of the possible family members.

I am concerned for their privacy (especially the girl’s) in light of his history. They might not be aware of what he’s doing nowadays or have seen the show.

I am waiting for the family response before posting any other findings.

*UPDATE #2 Hi All,

Well that settles the privacy concerns…his family has posted in the comments sections in the various blogs about him. Sir Patrick Donnovan O’Shannahan is even more despicable than I had thought and it took a lot to pass that!

The girl he associates with the bedroom dolls is his own daughter!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sorry for all the exclamation marks but I am thoroughly disgusted. I’m in contact with his family and am trying to sort out the true story of Sir Patrick aka Roger E F Sisson.

Will write more later, I’m sorry I haven’t had a chance to respond to all your comments yet got a lot going on today. Check out the comments left by his family and please be very kind to these poor people who have had to live through a lot.

Thanks,
Anita

*****************

Lately whenever I feel like I’m working on empty, I listen to this song on repeat and get some shit done :).

My favorite lyrics from this are:

Let’s pretend Marshall Mathers never picked up a pen,
Lets pretend things would have been no different,
Pretend he procrastinated had no motivation,
Pretend he just made excuses that were so paper thin,
They could blow away with the wind…

I love that. Sometimes you just have to grind it out until you get to where you want to be.

And of course I’m listening to Eminem completely differently now after learning about his cadence switchups. Anyway, just thought I’d post this real quick (at 2:30 am, because that’s how I do things lol) in case this might help somebody else out there. What kind of stuff do you listen to when you’re trying to get going??

Engaging The Audience

Last night I read a great blog post by John Gillette about how one of Eminem’s biggest secrets to success is how he uses cadence.

Basically Eminem switches up cadence constantly as an extension of storytelling and to keep the audience engaged. It’s not something that’s recognized when people listen to his music, but it is something that they feel and respond to. From the blog post:

This is Eminem’s bread and butter. Most, if not every other MC, stays within a certain cadence on each verse. It doesn’t change much. Eminem rarely stays in the same cadence on any verse on this album. Every verse switches and moves from 16ths to 32nds and 8ths. It’s quite amazing to witness how he can constantly keep you entertained with the ability of cadence.

The crazy thing about it is most of us don’t even realize it unless you’re really starting to pay attention to it. It’s THAT good. All you know is that you’re constantly entertained, and you can’t explain why.

Cadence In Storytelling

This got me thinking a lot about cadence in storytelling. One of the first things that you’re supposed to do after you write something is to read it out loud so that you can feel how the sentences flow…or don’t. Change a few things and all of a sudden the flow is different. It’s like reading a normal sentence out loud. And then! Reading! One with! Exclamation points! Everywhere!!

Cadence is important in all forms of storytelling not just stories that deal with words. Cadence is fundamental in telling the story in The Flight Of The Bumblebee:

And in storytelling through things like movies or music videos, cadence of edits have a strong hand in setting the feel of the story at each point. Shorter clips + no transitions = fast moving, high intensity, dramatic, heart beats faster. Longer clips + cross dissolves = slower pace, more relaxed, an even feel, heart beats slower.

Getting The Cadence Right

So storytelling is basically expressing a story to an audience using whatever medium you’ve chosen (words, musical notes, moving pictures, etc.) I think getting the cadence right throughout a story requires an understanding and sensitivity to both story and audience.

If you’re telling a story about a kid who’s tiptoeing ever so carefully down a long creaky staircase …at midnight …to sneak a piece of chocolate cake from the fridge …then you don’t want to rush through those words. You want to get the audience holding their breath along with the kid as he ever so lightly eases his toes into each step.

And if you’re telling a story to people at a senior center then you probably don’t want to emulate Eminem’s gunshot ratatatat cadences or you might give somebody a heart attack. Just sayin.

Zoom Zoom

Saw a woman meticulously arranging squares of grass into the words ‘zoom-zoom’ on a dirt hill outside of Juneau.
 

 

What is a hint memoir?

More hint memoirs.

Feel free to post your own hint memoirs in the comments too if you want I’d love to read em :).
 

 

Guide Dogs

Mushers fill local Alaskan hotel a week before the big race. One asks housekeepers that nothing in her room be moved, she is legally blind.
 

 

What is a hint memoir?

More hint memoirs.

Feel free to post your own hint memoirs in the comments too if you want I’d love to read em :).
 

 

Came across something pretty cool today while browsing blogs: hint fiction. So hint fiction is where you tell a story of 25 words or less that gives hints at a larger and more complex storyline. Apparently this idea comes from an upcoming book called…well…Hint Fiction lol.

I read a few and one from flashfiction.net really stood out for me, it’s fiction but it probably tells the story of a million real people out there:
 

My Son’s Fifth Grade Journal

This boy catches balls, divides fractions, won’t die if he drinks milk, grabs flags off the other team’s players. My dad loves this other boy.

Good huh? I think this is a really interesting concept and it got me wanting to write some myself.

One problem though, I’m not very good at writing fiction. I mainly like to look at situations or people or whatever and find the stories in them (does that make sense?), with extra points if the story is something that most people would never have seen on their own. This applies to stories in my own life too, many which I missed or didn’t fully understand the first time around.

Never one to let lack of talent stop me from doing something fun, I thought it would be cool to try something like hint fiction but with memoirs instead. Here’s my first try it’s the story of something that happened to Jennifer and I when we were teenagers on a drive from Fairbanks to Anchorage:
 

Kind Of Stolen

Owner of the car we’re in coming toward us in opposing lane. Panic! Swerve car hard into turnoff. “Turnoff” drops to deep river, oh shit.

What do you think? It was fun to think back on things from my life that could be told in a way that hinted at a bigger story. I mean there’s tons! I’ll try to post one every day…we’ll see if I can keep up with it. Feel free to post your own hint memoirs in the comments too if you want I’d love to read em.
 

Answered a Formspring question today:

Since you are a lovely shade of brown, do you ever get mistaken for and Eskimo?

It’s funny you should ask that ’cause I get mistaken for different things depending on where I live. In Michigan lots of people would ask me if I was Indian, in Texas everyone assumed I was Hispanic, and I think here in Alaska most people think I’m Native or Eskimo. I guess I just have an ambiguous look about me or something :).

I don’t look 100% Indonesian either (well, because I’m not) so I wonder if when I’m in Indonesia if people assume I’m from a particular non-Indonesian heritage.

Duct Tape And Giant Nets

Alaska dipnetting is something that’s only open to local residents at a certain part of the year. It’s a huge deal for some families because they can stock up on fish for the whole winter. Most camp on the beach…

…some go all out with the super hardcore camp setup…

…our group just had a bunch of tents set up with a common eating area on the side facing the water.

Getting ready to go fishing. If your gear has a problem duct tape will fix it!

The club Linda’s holding is a fish bonker, more on that later.

Half of Alaska is held together with duct tape.

Jennifer and Linda securing the float for the dipnet.

“Why’s everybody taking so long? Let’s go!”

The key piece of equipment for AK dipnetting is a big ass net.

About a bazillion (rough estimate) people are crowded onto the beach. Many are just spectators, families of the people out in the water.

A lot of people use four wheelers ’cause it’s a pain to haul everything to and from camp across the sandy ground.

So the first step is to wade out into the cold cold water…
 

…as far out as you can.
 

Brrrr.

Then find a spot in line, a lucky spot…
 

…then you wait.

And when someone gets a fish everybody stares at them enviously.

Or they stare at the person taking lots of pictures :D.

When you get a fish you twist the pole and drag it back to shore where the it’s promptly bonked on the head…
 

…untangled from the net…
 

…and taken to the nearest cooler.

If you don’t have a fish bonker ready then a rock works too.

Lots of people just stand around taking in the day.

Somebody drug a sled with a dead bloody fish right in front of us and just abandoned it there. So I had a bloody fish eyeballing me the whole time. o_0

This was the view from my spot on the beach (minus the bloody fish head). Click the picture to see a much better version of this.

There were people going around inviting others to come and get ‘free’ hot dogs and sodas at a tent down the beach at a certain time. Turns out that it was a religious service, no such thing as a free lunch I guess lol. I assumed the people were from this beautifully placed church that was perched over the area.

This is the point that a camera that I’d had for years and years started to die. It had survived all kinds of abuse all the while taking great photos and videos but it finally said enough was enough after being subjected to the mix of cold, sand, water, and wind. RIP.

Bringing up water to process fish.

Jennifer taking pictures for some friends of ours.

 


 


 

Knocking Out Fish

The girl in the yellow life vest’s name is Fallon and she was with our group. She’s very much a person that cares for animals so I was wondering how she’d react to the whole fish bonking thing.

But actually she went around helping everybody knock out their fish.

Whenever somebody drug a fish in she’d go right up and ask if they wanted help.

This guy caught a lot of fish and would process them right in the water.
 


 

Not squeamish at all, who knew?

Random picture of a boat.

Brenda (middle with the brown hat) braved the icy water in jeans and a sweatshirt.
 

We’d just randomly yell out her name and she’d be like ‘Wtf?’
 

‘Oh it’s you bastards again!’

Got one.

This was Fallon and her mother’s first dipnetting trip.
 

…and she wanted to help her mother.
 

This is what she had been practicing for the whole time.
 

Awww.

Tents And Bathrooms Try To Take Flight (The End)

Jennifer loved loved loved this four wheeler.

This guy (can’t remember his name for the life of me) was from our group, this was his first dipnetting trip too.

So the last day of the trip it got very windy out. This is a bathroom tent (yes they do sell those apparently) in a neighboring camp twisting in the wind. Literally a shit storm waiting to happen.

This is Jennifer’s and my tent which was about to take flight.

There it goes! I have video of this somewhere, maybe I’ll post it later.

Some people are hardcore and can make homemade apple pies in cast iron pans…over a campfire…on the beach…at the last minute.
 

 

It was good, we happily ate it while waiting for our stuff to be hauled back to our cars.

Packing up one of the last loads. I had a great time but by the end of the trip the drizzly cold conditions had wore me down. I looked forward to getting back home to Anchorage and spending some quality time sipping hot cocoa in a cozy warm bed.

The end :)