My Life: A Pete
Durmondo Memoir
by Pete Durmondo 

Before. There’s always a before. Before the breakthrough role in Crush of the Wheel. Before the 1976 Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for Daddy’s Favorite. Before the attempted murder charge and consequent complete acquittal on the charges. There’s always a before. Here’s my before.

It may not be common knowledge, but it’s not a secret either: I wasn’t always Pete Durmondo. I was born Jimmy Durmondo, on the lower east side of New York City, and changed my name to Pete Durmondo on the advice of an agent because it “had more snap.” That agent wasn’t my agent, he was about to become my agent when he committed suicide, but he did help shape my career. He told me I had more talent in one finger than most people have in their whole bodies, and that if I could get that same level of talent through the rest of my body I’d be the most famous actor Hollywood had ever seen.

Before that, I was content to be an off-off-Broadway actor. My first play was a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream where we all wore giant prophylactics onstage, part of the director’s vision of saying how the audience is separated from the actor by the distance, and in this case giant rubbers. I played Oberon.

Before that, there was acting class. I was the premiere student of Jovan Braile, the lower east side’s renowned acting coach who later left “the biz” to pursue a successful career in butchering. Braile, of course, became disillusioned with the business like so many untalented teachers inevitably do; but when I knew him he was vibrant and full of life, and if I can say so modestly it probably was all my doing. Braile said he had never known an actor who could capture a moment so well. He was talking at the time of my ability to take pictures at the acting workshop’s picnic lunch, but I’m sure much of that was his insight into my—whatever you might call it. Spirit. Aura. Innergy.

Before that, my mother was the first to recognize that same quality. My mother was the son of British immigrants, and had only a vague understanding of the language, but I remember specifically her sitting in her tree house one day when she refused to come down. She looked out the window, bright-eyed and bushy-haired, and pointed to me and said, “Kid… you have something.” The psychiatrists took the statements out of context, believing my mother was saying she had given me a strain of CIA superflu she had been secretly infected with through public drinking water. I like to think it was mom spotting in me what so many later identified, and the Oscar voters were completely oblivious to.

Before that, my mother had to conceive me. It was a starry night, and the air was full of promise, and my parents full of Thunderbird. It was hard times in those days, my mother poor and constantly in need of attention and affection, my father always in need of inexpensive wine to get women to sleep with him. He was a charming man, very funny, very handsome, and I’m sure I would like him if I got the chance to meet him. Mom says she was completely swept off her feet by his smile and crane-style kung fu.

Before that… well, there had to be a God or something. If you believe things happen for a reason, then it was probably Him, that classy deity, that set the wheels all in motion so that some day he could drop so much talent in one human vessel. So you see, I have no hang-ups about celebrating my talent, proclaiming with pride everything I’ve accomplished, because I owe it all to one omnipotent, all-powerful being who created me to bask in his brilliance. And he did an incredible job of it all.

For more of this great story, buy Pete Durmondo’s autobiography
My Life: A Pete Durmondo Memoir The Met Job
The security guard waved him past with a tired nod, and a fart. Rue Mac strode through the museum, admiring the pretty canvases and naked women statues, but to him they all spelled one thing—green.

Next Stop: Albany
So Karl, what are you doing hanging out with us proletariat on a night like this? asked Harvey, being a smart ass. You don’t get it, man, said Karl, we’re all proletariat if we don’t own the means of productions and none of us do. What’s the means of production then? asked Wally, real interested.

Big Gay Bear
“I’m afraid I know all too well what it is,” said Patriot, though he really wasn’t afraid. “It’s a map of chemical laboratories. If I have to guess, I’d say these laboratories store some kind of biological weapon, such as anthrax.”

King of the Road (Part 2)
“Stay, good Linux,” said Luthor of Kuntnose. “For our valiancy will be rewarded. Oh, good GiGijerod, default wise man on this journey of ours, tell us how we might conquer the forces of evil inside Volcano Mountain? Or bypass them. Bypassing is good as well.”