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Editor’s Note: I have known David Darmstedter for over four years now. In the 80’s he had a long battle with addiction to, well, just about everything. His memoir (yes, a REAL memoir) MY MONSTER is a gripping, tragic and, yes, funny look into the world of an actor, model, father and addict.
CRACKPOT PRESS is proud to present this excerpt from MY MONSTER.
An Excerpt from MY MONSTER
By David Darmstaedter
Anyway, it’s 1984. I’m not shooting dope at the moment, just snorting it and snorting a little cocaine and drinking and taking percodan and Quaaludes. So I’m good. As long as I’m not sticking a needle in my vein, I’m not officially getting high. So I just snort two bags of dope and one of cocaine to get enough confidence to walk into the agency I’m with which is Elite Modeling Agency.
I’ve burned through all the other New York agencies; Ford, Wilhelmina, Zoli and most of the Agencies in other countries also; France, Italy, Germany, Japan, Australia. Elite is my last chance in New York but it’s not working out so well. Thanks to photographer Bruce Webber, buffed up jock models are in. Junkie models aren’t even close to fashionable yet. And I’m like, Fuck Bruce Webber and those asswipe, jock models.
So I need to get to another country. A new country that doesn’t know anything about me. Someone told me that Singapore was taking American models on monthly contracts so I’m thinking in my deluded state of mind maybe I can get there somehow.
My agent at Elite is Jonathan. He is overweight with thick, wavy shoulder length hair and wears Indian style clothes. Not Cowboy and Indian which would be funny but like India, Indian; long linen shirts over loose fitting bright colored draw string pants, sandals, that kind of shit. He could easily pass for some half-way attractive fat girl you might pick up in a bar when you were hammered. Then when he gets you home…surprise! Anyway, he told me he wouldn’t work with me if I got high and I told him I wouldn’t get high. And in my mind I’m not. That’s how high I am.
I walk into his office. Pictures of top male models are on the walls. My picture is not on the wall. I walk up to his desk with all intentions of conducting business but instead I give a meek wave and light the cigarette that is dangling from my mouth.
Jonathan who is on a business call talking up some other model who is a, “Total Hunk,” waves me off with a dismissive flick of his wrist, jangling with Indian silver bracelets. But I stand my ground and take manly drags of my cigarette as I struggle not to nod out on my feet. Just as he gets off the phone, I say, “Hey, Jonathan…” He yells, “Stop!”
He stands up puts his chubby index finger to his mouth and taps it against his over glossed, cocksucking lips as he looks me up and down like I’m some piece of choice meat that went bad. He is discouraged and disgusted. “You look like shit. You’re high,” he says.
“No I’m not,” I say, “I wanna talk about somethin’. Can you just listen to me?” He waves his index finger back and forth with all the dramatic feminine intensity he can muster up.
“No, no, no,” he says. “You listen to me you little waste case.”
“Look!” I say as I roll up my sleeves and show him my arms free of track marks. “See! They’re clean. I’ve only been snorting it…a little…okay. It’s no big deal.”
Then he juts the same fat, little fucking index finger out and points to his office door. “Get out of this Agency and don’t you ever and I mean ever come back.” The icy cold fear rips through whatever confidence the drugs gave me and I panic.
“What the fuck am I supposed to do?!” I scream.
“Try getting a real job, honey,” he says all smug and relaxed now that he’s seen me unravel. So I come up with the most mature response I can which is, “Fuck you! You fat cunt!” I grab my modeling book off the shelf (where it’s been for months) and march out of the agency.
So I’m on the corner of Lexington and 53rd, flipping out in my mind and ready to bring it into some physical action like jumping in front of a fast moving Taxi. I’m fucking lost. It’s that, “real job” thing. I’m pacing back and forth on the sidewalk saying, “What the fuck am I gonna do? What the fuck am I gonna do? What the fuck am I gonna do?” And the New Yorkers just pass me by. Another crazed man on the street. See it everyday.
Something impels me to grab a copy of the weekly, Village Voice free newspaper. Free helps. Anyway, I start flipping through the ‘want ads’. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. I have no experience in any of these things. I’m fucked. Then I see it. Male nude models wanted. 500 dollars. Cash. No questions asked.
And presto…I’m sitting across from Bill, a pasty faced, mild mannered scumbag in a cheap business suit, in his one room office on the second floor of a walk up apartment building on 19th Street and 3rd Avenue. It’s no Elite Models Agency by any stretch of the imagination but there are pictures of models on Bill’s walls too.
All nude guys with hard-ons doing tacky, sleazy poses. Bill flips through my book, filled with magazine tear sheets from all over the world, intermittently looking up at me, studying me, wondering.
“What do ya wanna do this for, kid?” He asks.
“Because I need the fucking money.” I say.
“Okay,” he says, “Let me see your cock.”
“What?”
“It’s just business,” he says. “I gotta see it. Okay.”
“Yeah, okay,” I say, as I think, Jesus, what the fuck am I into now? How did this happen? What am I doing? What the hell am I doing here?
I shut down the panic, swallow the lump in my throat, stand up and just drop my fucking drawers like a pro and pull on my cock a couple of times to loosen it up. I know I have a good sized cock so I’m actually feeling okay about that but I never had to show it as a deal breaker. Bill studies it with no emotion whatsoever. Just business, right?
“Nice girth,” he says. “How big hard?”
“I don’t know…about nine inches,” I say because I have measured once before…okay, more than once. Bill doesn’t skip a beat.
“I can set you up with a photographer today.” He says.
“Can I get paid today?” I say as I pull up my pants, feeling relieved that I passed the cock measurement test.
“Five hundred cash, after you’re done.”
Bill makes a phone call and talks to some guy named Giuseppe about taking shots of me as I think…this is actually easier than any modeling audition I’ve ever been on. Straight forward. Direct. And I’ll always have the big cock. Let those top models work out and get their fucking muscles. I have the muscle where it counts now. Fucking midget dicks.
God help me, right? The only thing I got goin’ on is cock validation. It’s heartbreaking but I don’t have a clue.
So the next thing I know I’m downtown on the lower eastside with Giuseppe, this crazed Italian photographer. I’m standing naked in his tiny loft with Playboy and Penthouse magazines spread out on the floor in front of me trying to get an erection. I’m sucking down Heinekens and snorting the half gram of beat cocaine he gave me for inspiration and trying to get a hard on as Giuseppe yells in his heavy Italian accent, “Come on, boy, get de monster up! Get de monster up!”
So I drink and I snort and I concentrate on the tits and ass and pussy in the magazines, and I do it. I get ‘De monster’ up with a bunch of, Hey motherfucker, look at this boner! poses. I mean angry. Angry with a big fucking hard-on. Giuseppe just shuts his mouth and takes pictures. Six rolls of film later, we’re done.
I go back to Bill’s, he pays me cash. I sign some papers that basically say he can put as many of my pictures anywhere he wants for as long as he wants. And I do it again. Five more times over the next two weeks. And the week after that, Bill calls me into his office and shows me the latest copy of the leading Gay magazine called Blue Boy. I’m on the cover with one of my, “Fuck You” looks, naked in a bow-tie.
“Everybody loves ya, kid.” He says. “You’re gonna be on the cover of Honcho magazine next month and Stallion the month after that!”
“Who’s everybody?” I say. I mean I’m just trying to make some get high money here. I could give a shit about who thinks what. Then Bill tells me guys wanna pay money to have sex with me. I say, “No, I don’t do that kind of shit.”
“How about hardcore porn?” he says.
“No,” I say.
“Pays a lot more.” He says.
“I’m not into that kind of stuff,” I say. “I’m not gay, okay?”
“It’s just a job,” he says.
Then he pulls a magazine out of his desk drawer and points to the cover.
“Look at this,” he says.
I look. I see the cover shot. It’s of a guy with a cock in his mouth and a cock in each hand. Lovin’ it.
“See this guy,” he says. “He works for me. He’s not gay either.” I look again at the ecstatic expression of the cock swallower/handler cover boy.
“He’s not?” I say.
“No, he’s not,” Bill, says matter-of-factly. Then he holds it right up to my face and says,” the picture again and says, “He’s a family man…”
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