Brendan O'Connor and Michael O'Connor

00:06 My name is Patrick O'Connor. I'm 38 years old at today's date is Friday January 24th, 2020 in Orlando, Florida. The name of the interview partner is Brendan O'Connor and he is my brother.

00:23 This is Brendan O'Connor. I'm also 38 years old. Today's date is January 24th, 2024 in Orlando at the Orange County Regional History Center, and I'm with Patrick O'Connor Michael Patrick O'Connor. Who's my brother?

00:43 And I guess I just miss remembered my age know, you're a year, but it your birthday is about to come over. We're Irish twins. So we're just really close you forget that sometimes I do.

00:59 Dive In

01:03 Patrick we ever talk like this before I really excited. I doubt if it with you. Can I ask you why question before we I think it'll be fun to like talk about her childhood, but there's a great prompt here because memory it's going to be the first time I will tell my son was still being looked after and I got the opportunity in the joy to hold them in my hands and then actually take him outside the room and hold them while they cried. Yeah and just realized my entire life was changing.

01:38 What sounds like it was scary as memory. We we grew up in Canada right north shore of Lake Superior with our parents who were little wacko right or dad's an archaeologist. Whatever you needed to do. Right people that are bushes and then mom works for Rotary Club forever. She still working for rotary club before that. They actually operated. Yeah, we had like my most Canadian about bringing everstar parents ran across country ski resort. Dad had to trap Beaver to keep them from flooding the trail right in the winter because it was part of his outside manager responsibilities, and he used to wear like this leather parka of it like an Indian chief a given im or something right some First Nations was so funny.

02:38 Folding everything that's right before his dog sled that he operated in a dog sled team going up because he's to help people like a depth of the resort much it will go and then there is a cocker spaniel an easy Mig which we two hands full in Orchard Way, right?

03:04 You learn to cross country ski before I could walk and that actually made the local paper. Right? And then do you also remember there was that movie theater. Sorry. That's right. They actually did it. Was it the Canadian have like National Heritage group. They did that film about us. There was a well. Yeah, but I think I think I was referring to you when you were a baby. I wasn't even born yet mom and dad brought you into a movie theater and then you like you weren't even crying because I was a rated R movie was a rated R movie so you weren't legally supposed to be in there even though you're a baby and actually shut down the fat I sat down and tried to kick you out and people started calling the movie guy a fascist. Yeah, right and they chanted and but you still had to leave you have we had to leave that night it became national news. It was up on CBC Radio.

04:04 Actually changed it didn't the rating that's one PG-13 started. I wish that aren't I think was a a adult of a minor. So because of Patrick kids and Canada are allowed to go see scary movies in the width of an adult remember this is you might get mad at me for this. But I remember in your teen years you had a huge crush on sudy Coggins on a horrible person and you used to write poetry to her. Yep, and then we lived on a river in the backyard and you would get in the canoe and paddle Downstream up just to look at the place to look at where she was and she come out and then you'd like read poetry to a friend me to Canal and I play the flute and you play the flute for

05:04 I think it is an artistic and we grew up in like like it was a whirl. Yeah, this is a picture Lake Superior, Michigan and Huron All Connect together in one Lytle place. I call it the banana stems with a Great Lakes Sue Saint Marie, Ontario. Yeah, and if you go 45 minutes north of that into a valley of the trees on Lake Superior like the last time a thousand people live in the summer you find the most romantically name Valley River that we were Google again and that says a lot and it was like unincorporated there weren't enough people for it to be in town. So there was way less taxes but like it was miserable like 4242 artistic kids to grow up in in our parents really encouraged like creativity and and read

06:04 Look for me didn't have a snow machine. We didn't skate backward. We didn't skate backwards or play hockey like we were we stuck out to Greyhounds Wayne Gretzky played for the Soo Greyhounds for like one season I think and but it's a steel town, right? Yeah. It's it's toilet paper and paper and we were not for that mold fully found kids eventually ever like us theater. We got in a theater group and actually had a guy from Toronto directing us themed Valentine r a p in history of the littlest hobo the river that the Great

06:49 A show about a dog that just kind of one travel together.

06:54 I didn't say anything mysteries about me. I'm making new friends tomorrow. I'm done. Is that okay? How did we get there? But the retired we went to Lake into town into town. We had got busted in like an hour and a bit most snowfall. Most people shut down two cities never asked if there's a blizzard we would still be driving school and we'd be I remember one year when we were waiting for the school bus at like 6 in the morning or something and your eyelashes used to freeze together cuz it's so cold or

07:43 We saw a pack of wolves ran down the street once because it was easier for them to run down the plowed road. Then it was for them to run through the bush cuz it was so high. I did a rabbit snare line when I was a kid. That's right around and had a fish. I never really succeeded at that but bring I still have that and what a weird. It's so funny to think of that right which in the back of my head like in my lizard brain Sioux Saint Marie was just I just remembered as like in the wintertime, which was just dark hunker down clouds clouds and people just like

08:25 It's we're hippies went to retire and get away from civilization through a lot of older hippies, but the kids who are our age like we just didn't like the identity. That would be cool in Toronto or like a freaking town a lot of hooded sweatshirts and hockey and stuff and I remember right? So we have to pack we had to pile up would ya the fall and then truck it in on Trivago and then put it through the with you and if we didn't do it on Sunday during the day like you're supposed to do you have to do it during Disney World like the show that night and I remember crying and semi-frozen bitten as I was hauling this toboggan through like a blizzard and then looking up at the house and you can see into the living room and you guys were like eating dinner in front of Walt Disney World Wonderful World

09:25 Warm & Cozy inside the house that I was outside sobbing into my snowball bitten and I think about that sometimes cuz how did we end up in Orlando? That is a kid. Like this is the worst place in the world. I want to go to this place where there are Pixies but there's like an artist and illustrator. I never heard it cuz Mom was American and she met dad while borrowing a map cuz he's throwing a gas station on the North shore of Lake Superior Way North and mom was at like University of Michigan or something and she went backpacking Matt dad became his pen pal dropped out of college and then like moved up to Canada, which I never understood because we were always like

10:15 There's opportunity in the states. Yeah, I hear what happens what happens in Sault Ste Marie. This is usually where it's like, it's just so cold and alone. So this American side of the family while we like kind of looked at it with a little bit of contempt and misunderstanding when we went down for family vacations. Everybody had money. Everybody was athletic are granddaddy used to play lacrosse for John Hopkins University, right? Like it was this weird. It was almost like we've been like disowned or like banished to the peripheries of society and we go down. Like that's how I kind of felt to me. I don't know young gay kid right in the north with like no idea of what that even meant and then we go and hang out with her rich super talented attractive, you know American family and they be looking at us like feral children are we always felt awkward around it and just because our mom and dad were and the way our family was up north would like paint rocks.

11:15 Right now we can eat rocks before and after your pet rock and we can cows and Dad we be swimming with her friends and her dad would come three key naked and just like butt naked sunny side up into the river and then he's like Pol you run away like Emagine with your parents. But all these kids go back over there. Like Michael Connor. Yep. Do I make it old wrinkly? But again, you look like a local hero, right? I mean he had the Volkswagen originally said she would go on and taking us off on wandering Adventures throughout the north. I think that's a fiction. You've told yourself. I think people that died with lack. Oh, yeah, I think like there was certain. I think there was two groups of of

12:12 Northern Ontario that thought dad was like creative and fun and and wacko like in a fine way, but the locals kind of but I think local thought the dad and mom were just like out there cuz if you they weren't regular right regular I love that word. So childhood settled years crazy. We didn't have fun. Well.

12:41 Who's okay, I think we can preach a part of it to theater was amazing. We had a great theater experience was fantastic cuz we were actually able to really be creative and explore man and then I'm through her experience with rotary club. She got to expose us to a lot like she had a Summer Festival. I look forward to that every year cuz she didn't have a lot of people that she can hire to do the work for her. So she at any any opportunities she would expose us to training to get trained by out-of-towners like the face painter a fan of puppets for the parade. We did walking puppets inspired by things at Disney World Michael Curry's design. She saw that somewhere and was like a lion king figure out how to make a lion king walking thing. We're always like the most exciting part of the parade. I thought you're welcome, but we

13:35 Are the face by nearest Cirque du Soleil face painters, we're touring and she taught them to stop and train us how to do that style.

13:44 So we can make money and hire ourselves out to events. She was at that she would train us to do that and be creative and try things you don't see the lot and then again power move to mom because she was in rotary. They have a rotary Exchange program and they I never thought I would leave Canada. Let alone Sault Ste Marie. I just kind of thought that was it and then I remember she brought me to this exchange student meeting and I got to meet this this girl from Turkey who had like a scarf and she smoked clove cigarettes and I just remember thinking who is this fabulous monster? I want to be that and then they gave slideshows of where they were from and they were like mosques in like it was like Civilization.

14:39 And like old civilization. It just felt real it felt real innocence that kind of like shook what I thought was real in the North and then when I applied I didn't know that there was a monetary cost really I just applied to go and Mom to cut a mortgage on the house to pay for my plane ticket. Like I told me like years later that they took money out on the house to pay for my plane ticket. Otherwise, they wouldn't have been able to pay out-of-pocket Brian right? I mean, they're always scraping to make sure that we had an amazing childhood. I mean even through all the hard things but you got to go to Turkey I did and that like open it up and then I was like all I can leave and then that's where I was babysitting for a Canadian ambassador.

15:28 Food had a nephew that did the program at Disney World and right until you learned about it and they were like you need to do that. Go back finish high school and then apply for this gig at Disney World and that seemed like a osher and I remember telling people when I got back home, like I'm going to go to Disney World and I'm going to work there. I don't know what I'm going to do, but I'm just going to check it out and then I'll go to university later and Pat international program another like opportunities kind of like rocked rocked my world who made the most money I've ever made in my life and then you did it when I came back. Yeah. It was kind of like I was following the regular path. Like I kind of like thought that I needed to do the steps to go to university and succeed. If you get a degree that wasn't working for me. I just called him after I call you weren't happy know. I wasn't happy for several years. I mean cuz I kept going into relationships that kind of thought that would I wasn't going to bring

16:28 But I'm glad you did because they were awful now they're awful relationships because I kept kind of looking at the the other person didn't find me. Yeah, and you're not the only person that happens to so many people but then because of you going and having that experience and because of the kindness of actually Aaron Schultz, like I was able to do that interview and going through the same spirit that there's a point in Toronto where it was getting delayed because of snow and have a place to stay and Aaron was a crash on his couch and if I had done that interview and I would have gotten out of that gutter that I was putting my son. Are you working in a video store? And then you met your wife was working in the kitchen at Le cellier Steakhouse at Canadian Epcot. We were authentic Canadian from your program. Yeah, you're talking to the Indian International Representatives.

17:25 Music band group cuz then and then I figured I could take out because I mentioned that I was a dual citizen be out of our mother and father. Thank you, Mom. Thank you Dad and we were able to know I became full-time server trainer. I took the initiative Alameda jury. I was able to like start developing skills there and then your self-esteem after that. You're like you were a completely different person you went from like hating your life School in Rogers video to like becoming the like Superstar like it was a confidence that we can cut.

18:25 You got married to Meredith? Who's from Texas. Do you have a baby in another one on the way? Hello Felicity. You're going to be here soon. I was shooting for Hester that goes back to her family tree where we are today. They did a DNA test genome exhibit and they invited me to be one of those celebrity people that they like profile and so they did a DNA test and then they bleed like a really comprehensive family history of which we had not really seen before like we've seen little we had this kind of in a bridge part of the O'Connor thing, right and it stopped cuz you can only go really so far back and Irish history. But but man they went back further than I had ever seen. The family portraits is a photograph. There's a woman one of our ancestors on her dad's side is a photograph of her post mortem like

19:25 Cuz that was the way they did a super Victorian and then there's a portrait of the picture and then there's a photograph of her parents don't like we always thought that the Irish I was super impoverished but be able to but to be able to act fast photographs means that they had money cuz I was like the Advent of Photography so they had enough money that they were documenting themselves and that kind of like set off.

19:48 I don't know that really there was a journey there about family and storytelling. We've always love storytelling in our family again archaeologist. He used to take me with them to like write down notes for him when he like interview Elders have better handwriting or maybe I just happened to be in the car when he was running errands to do you like I feel like I miss this opportunity. Well baby. It was fun. It was cool. But we we've always listen to stories with Mom bread to us everything tonight and all to me. Anyways, can I do a tangent with this is all Tandon, but if you want I want to talk to Dad stories which one cuz Dad.

20:31 Old dad as a natural Storyteller in like Captain of Blarney his father used to run a hotel in the north and he was a bar manager and and a journalist. I found that I didn't know and I'm in no more stories for my goodness. So like I feel like storytelling is genetically predisposed. So there's a story about Dad that needs to be in the library and it's about Mickey and the crow our boy, here we go when he was very young. He got I want to say like grade 6 slingshot slingshot already made one. He had in his back pocket, but he was very excited to be using it. So he's walking to school shooting everything and he saw Crow and the top of a tree and so a pulled back.

21:22 And she's down at the crow and he hit at swac and Dad.

21:27 Loved animals feel it hit him like oh my gosh. I heard something and you ran up to make sure it was okay and it was a young Crow a young crowd, but it was okay still alive. So he picked it up and he carried it with him to school and it's done. It's not going anywhere just done and he put it in his it was supposed old desks that we could lift up the top and put the put your things inside. So you put the crow and there and he realized through the day with his friends that if he blew on the beak of the crow, it would cost you're so good. I know I had a whole pepper and he would wait for the teacher to turn its back.

22:09 And for strategic moments and then he make the crow, and finally the teachers like okay Mickey grade. I get it. Why don't you take your Crow and show it off for the rest of the school? And so Dad would find that he'd knock on the door and right when the door would open heat blow in the crow and it was at 8 and 1 through 7. This work cliteater hated did not like that. And so dad, you know who's ready as I'm going to get him. Hopefully, it's him. He's going to beat it beat his left directly grabs on and would not let go and a door opens and it's the teacher and he goes all parades. Inside everybody's laughing and then finally realized cuz he's just crying.

23:09 They tried to pry open the beat with a compass, but it acting scripts harder, but it would like a finely dad's his lips all swollen, and he's as a blue on the beach, and we actually for his 50th birthday song by a local folks. He's a shame in that we have it on your CD legendary like myth. They're almost like a baby crow home to us saying that he found a dropped on the ground, which isn't true. Our grandparents were there from Baltimore, Maryland Ave Towson, Baltimore, Maryland.

24:09 Successful upper-middle-class like in for us when they came they were always like I just remembered like they were very clean. They just always clean and Granny's hair was great and she work gloves black grey white cuz it turned white when she was 20, that's true facts and

24:29 I just remember how clean they were all the time. Like they just kind of stuck out a very big load a little bit, you know, and they dad came home late for dinner and he had an apple basket with towels and a in the bald ugly crow like a little baby girl. He climbed a pine tree out of the nest and brought it home for us to raise and I remember feeding it's soggy dog food at the foot of my bed and it flew around. We had it like we'd walk to Atlanta or land on our shoulders would greet us when we came home and pack it our hair and can we knock on my window sill when it wanted me to come outside made the dogs angry? Yeah, and then one day it disappeared little way now, I think I murdered murdered at know you do I do I do.

25:29 Thinking like why would other crows beat it up and it's because flocks of crows murders if they find rogue crows that don't fit in they beat them up and get rid of him. And I remember thinking that if the kids like you fit in or not, are you get murder Crow If you're by yourself you die they get you already know, but that's the best part. So much of that. What are you proudest of in your life and don't take your time?

26:07 I'm going to go out on a limb and say it was the first time we made those puppets those walk in standing puppets. Cuz that was like it was like a happy moment. Right we worked on it for a couple of weeks. We did they were in there. They mattered. I was the thing. I never tried so hard to make something in my life. I didn't try hard with my homework. I didn't try hard at Athletics. Like I just wasn't a try-hard. Right? Right, but we tried so hard to make a giant backpack puppets. And the important thing here is that this is like just a wire frame backpack PVC piping like with some hole grommets on it. And then we performed basically in this parade we would dance along for mode you say like a kilometer and a half. I felt like a rockstar. I felt like a rockstar and and people can tell that we worked hard on it and the appreciated it and that actually set a fire in my butt of like this is what hard work. Does you can't hard work matters and that was the problem with the first time.

27:07 My life and we were teenagers at that point. We got to taste why I was like you got to do things put yourself in it and it works out. Yeah. I hope there's one. That's a good. Okay. Okay. Let's see. Where did the neighborhood proud us who has been the biggest influence on your life.

27:28 Help me out.

27:31 I have to answer to that bring it. The cheesy one is Mom. Absolutely because she knew we were different and I think she knew because she came from outside of Northern Ontario. She knew what it was like to be an outsider amongst all these people and then trying to fit in but also trying to be yourself, and so she always encouraged us to a be ourselves and to not as much fit in. She just wanted us to be ourselves and be having and happy which is which, you know, like when I came out and call it she was like, I know I look at you and I love you none-the-less like not none the last uses. I love you. I love you.

28:17 It's very educational. Love your good and

28:22 Yeah, but not she's always been good at that. She's always been a child support is a touchstone and I would say soft support is a backbone cuz she was flexible but she was there and rigid and supportive and she pushed us like I could have done better at math. We both could have done better at math. And then the second part I think is a local journalist who passed away Billy manes. I've who made national he was a huge in the fight for equality here gay. I work for Orlando Weekly and out weekly newspaper. And and I somehow got a job at Orlando Weekly having no background in writing. We put me in the calendar editor, right which is just data entry, but they he was my first Advocate to get me to write a piece and I got a cover story which did really really well with the case of the do-nothing Farber but this guy who just three seats and his lawn and then we just let them grow.

29:22 And I had no real faith in myself that I could do it, but I did really well in end. He he launched my career and he was the first person to let me know that I could have a voice.

29:36 And that means a lot to me and said that he he was great. He was a great guy and he died the same question who was the biggest influence on your life pattern? Oh, she made our house the safe place right for all of us and our friends because the cookies that you would make the chocolate chunk cookies with the smell of vanilla and the pancakes and that made all our friends want to come to our house. We all hung out in the kitchen. We all hang out in the kitchen. We watched videos Carmine's Pizza the other friend Tyler white who spent his Summers right in our house because his his home life is a crave but mom never questioned that we had we had some of these kids would like live at our house because it was a safe. Happy place. Yeah and

30:36 I'm realizing what the Mastery of that is because I need to do that for my son. And for my daughter like I want to do that same thing second one course is my wife feel like to straight away from cry and I love it and your wife fire under my body to get back into work and I can be creative and artistic cuz I was going to just hide at Disney. Yeah, and she's the love me through all of my failures and successes. She's been there support me and pushing too. You got a loving supportive wife. Also a backbone. She's got any I've got to Mentor at your new position at the Florida High Innovation lab someone who pushes us all to be authentic and not settle and you like

31:36 You like how people through your with your creativity and I get to just be creative and funny. What was your favorite subject in school?

31:47 You know two answers because I did a dumb path. I was trying to be fit in its own music to begin with music good when I learn the flute and I got to be creative but I didn't think that being without you we women yeah, that works. So well can do down in the river located and artistic it hurts all the time, but I fight like me and he is in it. You were just like Bill and you were like write a poetry and back in our classes are art class in our high school is as they barely missing is she let us eat her lunch is there that we just like make art all the time and then that

32:47 You had like that's another serotonin and other ecosystems a space people who make safe spaces for weird kids. Thank you. Keep it up. Keep it up. I love that cuz now you have safe happy weird adults and it's because of you from a childhood that stuck with you.

33:09 I got one about a leech You Did you are okay and then you had to Salt it off. So you know how that horrible, with Alicia describe.

33:34 Lake Orlando

33:37 Hum Matt, we are growing up. So since we've been here in 10 years it is insane and so my job is riding the news about like downtown Orlando and it's like more lifestyle. So real estate development and then think that like a affect your day-to-day life. And so in that we didn't think we weren't sure if that would be something that could stick but man is it stuck and where could just how much to write about I remember when we started I didn't know if I could have enough for 5:30 today and now I there's things slipping by me because there's so many things happening I think okay. So we're grown-up people are noticing us on the national stage Disney World, right which I hate saying that because we are also Disney World and that's we can't ignore that. I think that was like great while we're growing but as we grow up we need to realize that yeah, it is part of the you go to is part of the ecosystem and we have so many creatives in town because of it. I hate it Orlando when I first moved here because I thought

34:37 It was just a thing.

34:39 As I discovered Orlando I kind of grew to love it and it kind of grew to love me too. So like I actually don't think I can leave because my my life and my lifestyle and my job is like all about Orlando. I really came to love it because of pulse and covering pulse and I

35:00 And me and it just really rocked me and I can help me actually come to terms with me being a journalist because I had to talk. I got that opportunity to talk about what was happening here on CBC. So we decided that National new circuit all across the country as a gay Canadian man living in Orlando going through it. I was so scared what an opportunity and then Dad and Mom heard me on the radio. I didn't even give him a heads-up and I would like to just drive and had to pull over and and hear about me having this authentic experience about not feeling safe in the streets. But like this people who feel that all the time.

35:39 Pete we needed to feel that Orlando needed to feel bad so that we could take the next step and becoming like I'm more

35:48 I did eat a family. Yeah, that being said still lots of work to do and painting rainbows on things doesn't end the conversation needs to continue to talk about what that means stay awkward and uncomfortable.

36:02 Yeah, but also use your voice and in so and that's that instance made me realize that everybody has something to say and that goes back to that storytelling component of like I need teeth. I have a stage where I can continue to talk about things like that and you keep going and it's inspiring Orlando's great for that because if you want to say something if you want to do something Orlando is perceptive. And as long as you're cohesive in your message people will listen and and hold your hand while you do it. I think it's that answers your question.

36:38 That's a good question.

36:41 I've been sitting on that one.

36:50 You got to cut this part out.

36:53 Where did you think you were going to be when you were going out? You know, I didn't really know I didn't really wanted to be an artist but I didn't know when I thought that was a good idea. Right even or counselors didn't think it was a good idea. You should have like a goal and then I've listened to that should be an architect and I wasn't good at math and I kept struggling and I tried learning Phil and then I tried the evolved acting to music and Somali a just trying a whole bunch of things and not feeling comfortable. It's hard Patrick when you're growing up as a creative in a in a small town because there's not a lot of opportunities for creatives to stay in small towns. So it was harder for us to feel like see that ass and end result for something right. Now. I never saw that those are just things that we like right exactly, but they're actually things were passionate about 2. We were good at those

37:53 Blogger did I know blogger would be accrued now come on and hitting me and now I'm in the fact that I get to do the things that I do because of it and it's just been an amazing experience for us like with because we are creative. That's what's open the doors in our opportunities if you weren't here, where do you think he'd be probably on the moon where you came from. Absolutely, I would be trying to work in NASA as did some way or form. OK Google always tells me that I would add that don't go to the Moon Daddy. I miss you. Shut up, I'd miss you, but I only got that doesn't become a phobia.

38:44 Are you going to know what my you should know what your adult father's but looks like and I had to walk through our parents bedroom to get to know you're there. But like where would we sneak out to the tree down the corner if you do get eaten by a wolf?

39:21 What are beaver slapping their tails of the middle of the night and realizing why I don't live in Northern Ontario. But like I think we were scarred a little bit. I have papaya growing by my front step now. I know and I'm so excited to buy back tree is a tree in my backyard that blooms at night have a golden retrievers. I would get eaten by something if we went back up north magic we put a bow on it. That's it wrap it up.