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Everybody has experienced something that irrevocably changed his or her life or, at the very least, perspective. Some of these moments are epic, such as the first time you heard Martin Luther King delivering his "I Have a Dream" speech or discovered you had a twin who died at childbirth. Others are far more trivial, such as when you found out that At the Drive-in had broken up or learned that Johnny Cash never wore underwear, black or otherwise.
This article is a tribute to such experiences, from the truly inspirational to the ostensibly minor. Maybe your imagination was set free after you saw Being John Malkovich. Perhaps you've been living on nothing but cantaloupe since you watched a documentary about a meat-processing plant.
Whatever the case may be, we have reached out to a variety of high-profile figures for their top five pivotal moments, and they delivered a truckload of inspiration. Legendary motorcycle designer Eddie Trotta cites the night he looked around a strip club and realized he'd had sex with each of the dancers. Rapper Jacki-O boasts of her first arrest. Olympic soccer gold medalist Heather Mitts put being a Florida Gator atop her list. And who would have thought New Found Glory's Ian Grushka, who describes himself as "190 pounds of pimp," would find an epiphany in a PETA flier?
We all have our defining moments. Here are mine:
1. Watching Willem Dafoe's performance in The Boondock Saints.
2. Owning my first set of bolt cutters.
3. Discovering slices of Eddie's New York City Pizza in the frozen-foods aisle at Publix.
4. Diving through the high-school principal's office window.
5. Talking to Veronica Mars star Kristen Bell.
-- T.M. Shine

Jason Vargas
Florida Marlins pitcher
1. Getting drafted to play baseball.
2. Playing baseball in the minor leagues.
3. Playing baseball in the major leagues.
4. Getting engaged.
5. Going to college.

Alexandra Patsavas
Music supervisor for the Fox television series The O.C.
1. Looking up in the crowd and spotting my mother spying on me at my first rock concert. This event clearly influenced my career choice.
2. Neil Young's performance at Farm Aid in Urbana, Ill.
3. My subscription to Atomic Ranch magazine. I love that midcentury ranch thing, and it's so nice to know I'm not alone.
4. TiVo.
5. The petit filet, dirty Belvedere martini and cornbread at Smitty's Grill in Pasadena, Calif.

Mehgan Heaney-Grier
Record-setting free diver, shark rider and underwater stunt double for actresses Keira Knightley, Jessica Alba and Sandra Bullock
1. Hearing Jimmy Buffett's Songs You Know by Heart, which was quickly followed by our family's moving from Minnesota to the Florida Keys.
2. My first day working on the dive boat Margarita.
3. Breaking my mom's rules for the last time and dealing with the consequences.
4. My first deep free dive.
5. Being truly on my own for the first time in my life, hitting the road -- just me, my dog and my truck.

Jason Hill
Guitarist-vocalist for Louis XIV, the San Diego trio whose Atlantic Records debut is aptly titled The Best Little Secrets Are Kept
1. My parents.
2. My father's stroke.
3. Joe Cocker's first album.
4. A cassette tape that came with this Buick we bought when I was a kid: It had three songs -- The Beach Boys' "Let Him Run Wild," Barry Manilow's "I Write the Songs" and one of The Beatles' love songs. That tape made me fall in love with music in a big way.
5. My first tape recorder: It taught me that when you tape things, you can change the sound and it makes everything more timeless.

Heather Mitts
Former soccer star at the University of Florida, Olympic gold medal winner with the Women's National Soccer Team, voted sexiest female athlete by ESPN viewers and longtime girlfriend of Miami Dolphins backup quarterback A.J. Feeley
1. Being a Gator.
2. Playing for the Women's United Soccer Association in Philadelphia.
3. Running with the bulls in Pamplona, Spain.
4. Having close family ties.
5. A.J. Feeley.

Pitbull
Rapper and Diddy's partner in the new record label Bad Boy Latino
1. My kids.
2. Watching my mother struggle.
3. My father's alcoholic binges.
4. Living with another family in Georgia while my mother was out of work.
5. Luther Campbell teaching me how to create my own way.

Benji Brown
Actor, comic and radio personality on 99 Jamz (WEDR, 99.1-FM)
1. The death of my dear and close grandmother, who partially raised me.
2. Meeting and talking to Martin Lawrence early in my comedy career.
3. Losing a comedy competition and having D.L. Hughley sit me down and share valuable thoughts with me.
4. Having Jamie Foxx pull me aside backstage at a show he was hosting to tell me I was one of few comedians who grab his attention.
5. The first time I saw the effect Michael Jackson had on an audience -- in the early '80s -- I knew I wanted to entertain, especially when he introduced the moonwalk to the world on Motown's 25th-anniversary special.

Jamie Williams
Tap-dancing percussionist for Tilly and the Wall, the first band signed to Conor Oberst's Team Love Records
1. The birth of my nephew.
2. Meeting my fianc�.
3. The Cure album Staring at the Sea.
4. My first pair of silver tap shoes.
5. Tilly and the Wall, of course.

Fillup Banks
CEO of the online magazine 305hiphop.com
1. My electronics teacher at Hialeah High School. It was my third year in the same class, and he told me to forget about the classwork and just try to learn how to build Web pages.
2. The Internet. It has brought me all my success by [allowing me to] network with various people from around the world. I would have never met [these people] if it wasn't for the Web.
3. Michael Bennett. Thanks to him, I learned all the basics of graphic design and printing.
4. Hip-hop culture and the THC Crew with DJ Mega Mix. They taught me the ways of the game I'm in.
5. Gilberto and Josefina Fonticoba, my parents. Changed my life? They do that on a constant basis by making me realize what's really important and respecting certain obligations in life.

Gunnar Jeannette
West Palm Beach-based Le Mans racecar driver and one of People magazine's 50 hottest bachelors
1. The movie Top Gun.
2. My first ride in a Porsche racecar.
3. Starting my first Le Mans 24 Hours in 2000.
4. Jumping out of an airplane for the first time -- in Pahokee.
5. Becoming a professional racing driver for Panoz Motorsports.

K. Foxx
Radio personality at 99 Jamz (WEDR, 99.1-FM)
1. Studying dance at The Ailey School in New York. It taught me discipline.
2. Going to Amsterdam, Netherlands, to visit my brother. It tapped into my wild side.
3. Joining the acting group the 52nd Street Project in New York. It made me discover my creative side.
4. Meeting Ced Hollywood, Derrick Baker and Jerry Rushin of 99 Jamz. I was blessed with a career that I love.
5. The day I got a cell phone.

Eddie Trotta
Custom motorcycle designer, winner of two Discovery Channel Biker Build-off challenges and owner of Fort Lauderdale-based Thunder Cycle Designs
1. Watching Scarface on Betamax.
2. Driving the only Ferrari at my high school.
3. Finding out I had a daughter after 27 years.
4. Getting my 100th speeding ticket in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea.
5. Knowing that I'd had every girl in the strip club one night.

Alexandra Vidal
Fashion designer and contestant on the Bravo reality show Project Runway
1. My mother taking over the dual role of mother and father due to my father's passing.
2. My boyfriend, who is now my fianc�, surprising me by waking me up at 7 a.m. with a ring in his hand and asking me to marry him.
3. When I won "The Best in the United States" at the Air France fashion design competition in Paris.
4. Being selected out of more than 2,000 contestants to be part of the cast of Project Runway.
5. Every summer, my father organized a boating trip for our family around the islands of the Bahamas, which in turn brought the family closer.

Derrick "Big Teach" Turton
Head of the Miami-based Big Mouth Marketing and Promo Co. and mastermind behind Team Pitbull
1. When I met my wife, Vanessa, who showed me the importance of having a good woman by your side. She's my foundation.
2. When my son, Sean, was born. It changed my outlook on life and gave me a different kind of motivation for my grind.
3. Meeting Luther Campbell and working with him. He taught me a lot about building relationships and working records.
4. Getting the opportunity to work with Pitbull. He gives me drive. The kid is a monster. He's the poster boy for working hard and working smart.
5. Meeting Lil Jon and getting to work with him. He opened up a lot of doors for my team and continues to show us love to this day.

Serj Tankian
Lead singer for System of a Down, which is on the road touring behind its new album, Mezmerize
1. Emigrating from Armenia to the United States as a boy.
2. My dog.
3. Starting this band.
4. Silence.
5. This interview.

Kendra Todd
The first female winner of NBC's The Apprentice and president of the Boynton Beach-based company My House Real Estate
1. Reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money -- That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not! by Robert T. Kiyosaki.
2. Attending Young Life Summer Camp, a Christian retreat.
3. The Apprentice experience.
4. Growing up in a military family: I learned the values of honor, loyalty and patriotism as well as the realities of war.
5. Traveling around the world and experiencing new and unique cultures broadened my worldview and gave me a global perspective on life.

Ian Grushka
Bassist for Coral Springs-based band New Found Glory
1. Flipping my 1989 Chevy Blazer seven times at 68 mph on the highway, and me and my friends living to tell the story.
2. New Found Glory's forming, which made all my dreams come true.
3. Meeting my wife, Stormy, at Einstein Bros. Bagels in Coral Springs.
4. Reading some fliers from PETA and becoming a vegetarian.
5. Finding out my wife was pregnant.

Jacki-O
Rapper, sex symbol and foe of Foxy Brown
1. Performing for the first time.
2. Getting arrested for the first time.
3. [Teen activist and AIDS victim] Ryan White.
4. The war in Iraq.
5. Inflation of gas prices.

Larry Getlen contributed to this article.
Want to share the top five things that changed your life? E-mail your list to citylink@citylinkmagazine.com, and we may publish it in an upcoming issue.