"Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes in holy dread;
For he on honeydew hath fed,
And drank the milk of paradise"
--Samuel Taylor Coleridge
ALONE
Edgar Allan PoeFrom childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Then~ in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life ~ was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still.Name: Don Juan Cardoza II
Date of Birth: 31 October 1947 (Scorpio)
Place of Birth: Charlotte, North Carolina
Location: Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.
Favorite Colors: Black, Cobalt Blue, Indigo
Favorite Authors: Anne Rice, Aleister Crowley, Kenneth Grant, Thomas Cleary, Carlos Castaneda, Michael Harner, Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawkins, Isaac Asimov, Michael Moorcock, Robert Anton Wilson
Favorite Books: The Multiverse by Michael Moorcock, On The Road by Jack Kerouac, The Outsider by Colin Wilson, The Doom Pussy by Elaine Shepard, The Magical Revival by Kenneth Grant
Favorite Sci-Fi/Fantasy Book Series: Champion Eternal series by Michael Moorcock, Amber series by Roger Zelazny, Deryni series by Katherine Kurtz, Belgariad series by David Eddings, Lone Sloane series by Philippe Druillet
Favorite Magazines: Discover, Shaman's Drum, National Geographic
Favorite Movies: Highway 61, The Hunger, The Man Who Fell to Earth, Ladyhawke, Buckaroo Bonzai: Across the 8th Dimension, Moon Over Parador, Heavy Metal, The Fifth Element, The Road, Blade Runner, Tank Girl, The Excellent Adventures of Bill & Ted, The Matrix, Lord of the Rings, Underworld
Favorite TV Shows: All Star Treks, JAG, Dark Angel, CSI, Deadwood, Law & Order
Favorite Music: Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, Carlos Santana, Jimi Hendrix, Tom Petty, Blue Oyster Cult, Janis Joplin, Johnny Winter, Dave Matthews Band, Neil Young, Grateful Dead
Favorite Artists: Philippe Druillet, Luis Royo, Frank Frazetta, Michael Whelan, Boris Vallejo
Favorite Art Masterpiece: Starry Nights by Vincent Van Gough
Favorite Quote: "Everyone is born ignorant, but it takes a special effort to remain stupid." -- Benjamin Franklin
Favorite Food: (vegetarian for 30 years) Crab cakes, Pizza, Provolone cheese subs
Favorite Recipe: Chili
Favorite Drinks: Coke (classic), green tea with ginseng and honey
Favorite Alcoholic Drinks: Tequila (Cuervo Gold), Cuarenta y Tres (43), Austrian White Wine (Auslese)
Favorite Activities: Wilderness Camping and Road Trips
Memorable Experiences: (1) stalemating the Maryland State Chess Champion while I was in high school, (2) three tours in Vietnam, two aboard the attack aircraft carrier USS Ticonderoga (CVA-14) and one in-country, operating out of Saigon and Can Tho, (3) getting shot while in Vietnam, (4) riding over Route 66 in 1968, when most of it was still there, (5) running a Witchcraft Coven (Dragonstar Circle, 1974-1985) and an Alchemical Society (Red Dragon Society, 1995-present), (6) twenty years of road trips and camping expeditions, (7) meeting Sybil Leek, Timothy Leary, Isaac Asimov and Robert Anton Wilson.
Wish I could Be: hermit/wanderer/wise man/immortal
Events of 1947: (1) first documented UFO sighting, of nine flying disks over Mt. Ranier, (2) UFO crashed at Roswell, New Mexico (prompting President Truman to authorize Operation Majestic), (3) transistor "invented" without any previous scientific research, (4) Atomic Energy Commission created, (5) US Air Force created, (6) Central Intelligence Agency created, (7) Dead Sea Scrolls discovered at Qumran, (8) Aleister Crowley died, (9) Rock and Roll began with Winonie Harris' 'Good Rockin' Tonight' and the advent of the electric guitar
Me, my wife and son - 1987
Mike was born 17 November, the first day of the Leonid meteor shower,
and the moment he was born all the lights in the hospital went out.
Fittingly, his first spoken word was 'light.'
04 July 1999
Off for a 30 year reunion with my Vietnam buds.
Hey! This thing still fits! (sorta - LOL!)
MY CHART Amazingly, my son and I are both Scorpio's and both Boar's (Chinese zodiac). All of our planets are below the horizon, with my Moon rising on the ascendant, while Mike's is overhead on the midheaven. According to esoteric Chinese astrology, Mike was born on a day when the Sun was conjunct the "dark ridge of the Milky Way," an omen of great spiritual power.
After 53 years of having no blood relatives, I suddenly have some. And now I find that I'm not really of the 'Cardoza' bloodline. For those interested in more information on the Cardoza's, here’s some info:
Cardoza Origins
The Changeling It seems that I was stolen from my mother and father when I was a baby, and I was raised by the person who took me. My parents were traveling stage magicians who had come to Baltimore to give a show. They left me with my Baltimore babysitter while they did a show in Montreal, and the babysitter decided that a baby should not be taken all over the country on a show business tour. When my parents refused to let her adopt me, she hid me with some of her relatives and told my parents the "authorities" had taken me away as an abandoned baby. My parents tried for months to get information about me from the authorities. Eventually, my parents had to conclude that I was lost to them. They continued their career and had two daughters, but my mother never gave up hope of finding me. Then, after 51 years (I was lost at the age of 18 months), my family found me through the Internet at my Mom's 80th birthday in July 2001. Now I have a mother, two sisters, and a number of half-brothers and half-sisters.
My Mom and Dad, Jennifer Lee O'Shannon and Emile Brin
(AKA Don Juan and Delores Cardoza)
Our History As It Has Been Told So Far My father was born Joseph Emile Brin in Roxton Falls, Quebec in 1899. However, my father was the result of an affair his mother, Amanda Gauthier dite St. Germain, had with her sister's husband, Louis Brazeau, so he actually had Brazeau blood. Dad frequently ran away during the summer to join up with any carnival he could find, and he had to be tracked down and dragged back to school. The Brin family moved to New England when Dad was a teen-ager, but made frequent trips to Quebec to visit relatives on an Indian Reserve. Dad married a woman from Nova Scotia and had a son, John. Later, he had a daughter, Lillian. All of the Brin kids were racketeers, and they (including Dad) went to New York City to run their rackets. One sister, Marie Rose, ran a prostitution ring, while a brother, Whitey, hid Chinese in his basement while smuggling them into the country. Dad and Conrad ran a bootlegging business, but were forced out by Italian mobsters. Dad became a cook at West Point, then a cook for the Reading Railroad in New Jersey; the railroads fed their own employees at their own restaurants in those days. When Dad's brother Whitey borrowed Dad's company car and ran off with it, Dad was fired. Dad had learned a lot of magic tricks and decided to take up the life of a traveling stage magician. The first trick he learned was fire-breathing.
My dad as Ray Bol the Great, Fire-EaterHe worked briefly as an assistant to Harry Houdini, and helped him to build some of the devices he used in his magic tricks. Dad was a talented builder, and he made most of his own props for his magic shows. He also knew Harry Thurston and Harry Blackstone, and was an early member of the Texas Association of Magicians, as well as a magician's association called the Linking Rings. Traveling performers on the circuit in those days were always changing their stage names. My father’s stage names included Ray Bol the Great, Ray Danton, Don Juan Cardoza (hence, moi), and Pierre LeBlanc. Dad met Mom, a nurse, who ran away with him and joined his magic show. She starred as his partner in a mind-reading act, and they traveled widely with their magic show called 'Tricks on Parade.'
Dad worked the clubs on the Vaudeville and Burlesque circuit, touring with other entertainers such as a young dancer named Joel Grey. Joel Gray later appeared in the movie Cabaret with Liza Minelli. Dad also gave many shows at schools and charity events, as well as special shows for rich oil men in Texas and various town mayors. He was based in Houston, Texas, where he lived out of a house trailor. Dad also did a number of shows at celebrations across the border in Mexico. His trademark trick was the Vanishing Cabinet (with a Dragon painted on the side), in which he made over a thousand people appear and disappear. He had a standing $1,000.00 challenge issued for anyone who could explain how he did the trick, and he never had to pay off. Mom and Dad were married on a yacht off Martha’s Vineyard in 1945, while on the way to party held by the heir to the A & P fortune. They had been given one of the two staterooms on board because of all of their magic show gear, and after the singer Bobby Darin (who thought that he should have the stateroom) complained that they shouldn't be in the same cabin because they weren't married, the captain married them at sea.
During World War II, Mom and Dad joined the USO and went abroad to entertain the troops. Once, when Dad started his fire-eating act aboard a ship carrying munitions, he caused quite a bit of excitment. The USO sent them to London and then Italy to entertain the troops, and in Italy they were quickly evacuated during an Allied push when it was discovered they were behind enemy lines. After the birth of Mom and Dad’s second daughter, they decided to settle down. When he quit performing magic shows, Dad became a chef at the Hialeah Race Track, then at several of the hotels on the Miami strip. His best job was as executive chef at the Desert Inn, where he oversaw a staff of seventeen cooks. Dad met many of the movie stars who frequented the Desert Inn, and catered their parties and built props for their shows. Lloyd Bridges, Robert Goulet and Jackie Gleason visited his home. He briefly had his own restaurant, called 'Pierre's,' but the lack of a liquor license ended that.
Dad fell and shattered his hip in 1968, and later had a full eye transplant. He died in 1980, and in keeping with his roving spirit, he was cremated and is kept by the roving spirit of the family, my sister Lanelle.
Executive Chef, Desert Inn Hotel, Miami
My sister Amanda, sister Lanelle, me, Mom, and my son, Mike in JAX
BRAZEAU FAMILY LINE
GAUTHIER FAMILY LINE
My mother, Jennifer Lee O’Shannon, was born in Hartford, Connecticut in 1921. Her parents were John Patrick O’Shannon (Sean Padraic O’Shaughnessy) and Mary Ellen O’Connor. Her mother died when she was a little girl, and her father died a few years later. He was an electrician who was electrocuted while trying to rescue others. My mother’s Aunt Aimilie (her father’s sister) raised her on a farm in Waterbury, Connecticut. The grandparents had all come over together from Galway, Ireland. My mother was told when she was a little girl that all the members of the family were fey because the family was descended from a Selkie married by a male ancestor. Selkie’s are good fairies in the lore of Scotland, as opposed to the bad fairies called ‘red-caps.’ Mom and my sisters have grown used to having psychic flashes. My mom was graduated at the top of her class in school, which earned her a vacation in Europe. Unfortunately, World War II cut that short, and she returned to become a nurse. Mom had attended Mt. St. Mary's in New York, and Mt. Holyoke outside of Quincy, and she did graduate work at William and Mary. She continued her education, and received a PhD in Sociology from Cook County College in Chicago. When she met my dad, it was love at first sight, and she ran off with him to become his assistant in his magic show.
CLAN O'SHANNON
O'Shaughnessy Branch
CLAN O'CONNOR
NOTE: OF CLANS & KINGS Around 1100, when the use of surnames started in Ireland, the prefix ‘O’ was added to names of children to indicate they were the grandchild of someone important. Later, the prefix ‘Mac’ was used to indicate the son or daughter of someone important. The clan system in Ireland never achieved the development of that in Scotland, and the term sept usually referred to a clan in Ireland.There were three grades of kings in ancient Ireland:
ri tuathe - king of the local tuath or petty tribal kingdom, also called a chief or chieftain
ruiri - great king, who was king of his own tuath plus overlord of a number of other tribal kings
ri ruirech - king of other kings, king of a province
The title of High King could refer to a king of a province (county) or a king of all Ireland. There was virtually never a High King who controlled all of Ireland, though some came close.
Brian Froud
OK, So You REALLY Want To Know More About Me
My Time In The Military On The Road With Larry More On The Road With Larry Return To Main Page
