Danny Pellegrino - How Do I Un-Remember This?: Unfortunately True Stories

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Books . Change . Lives .

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Books . Change . Lives .

Copyright 2022 by Danny Pellegrino

Cover and internal design 2022 by Sourcebooks

Cover image The Riker Brothers

Author photo Bob Harper

Internal illustrations MP Art

Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systemsexcept in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviewswithout permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks.

The vignettes in this book are both composite and actual stories of individuals and couples. In some cases, names have been changed for purposes of anonymity.

All brand names and product names used in this book are trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of their respective holders. Sourcebooks is not associated with any product or vendor in this book.

Published by Sourcebooks

P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Pellegrino, Danny, author.

Title: How do I un-remember this? : unfortunately true stories / Danny Pellegrino.

Description: Naperville : Sourcebooks, 2022.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021052687 (print) | LCCN 2021052688 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Pellegrino, Danny. | Comedians--United States--Biography. | Podcasters--United States--Biography. | Gays--United States--Biography.

Classification: LCC PN2287.P365 A3 2022 (print) | LCC PN2287.P365 (ebook) | DDC 791.46092 [B]--dc23/eng/20211116

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021052687

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021052688

Everyone has a story.

KATHIE LEE GIFFORD

Hi! Thank you so much for giving How Do I Un-Remember This? a read! Recently, I had some old family movies transferred to digital copies. When I showed them to my parents, my mother asked me five times if I had someone CGI the couches in the videos featuring our first house, because she doesnt remember owning them. Transferring vintage VHS tapes to a digital file is already expensive enough, so Im not sure why she thinks I have the budget to hire Lucasfilm to update the sofas we owned in 1996, but the point is that everyone remembers the past a little bit differently. In this book, Ill tell some of the stories that shaped me the way I recall them, and hopefully youll find a laugh or two. I purposefully changed some of the names, locations, and other details so no one gets too mad at me, because as a certified Libra, people being mad at me is at the top of the list of things I hate the mostalongside rats, unprovoked caricature artists, and that Claymation holiday special where Rudolphs nose sounds like a combination of a Furby with weak batteries and Fran Drescher stubbing her toe.

Ive kept journals off and on throughout my life, so Ive written about a lot of these things before, but just for my own eyes. I still have most of them, but there was one time I left one of my notebooks on a Chicago train, so somewhere, a Midwest vagabond is reading about the lingering trauma of the accidental erection I got in the fifth grade when my teacher let us watch Ed, the Matt LeBlanc movie where he plays baseball with a monkey. The first time I wrote in a diary was when I was a preteen, but I got consistent around twenty-one. Thats when my mental health struggles ramped up, I started inching out of the closet, and I began chasing my Hollywood dreams of becoming a writer/performer. I look back on that first adult journal and recognize now that it was truly an unhinged piece of work. On one page, you can see tear-soaked ink and a detailed essay about coming out to my parents, and the next page is filled with movie ideas, half jokes, and comedy routines that I was trying to work out as a young comedian. Many of those bits dont make any sense, just disparate nouns posing as ideas. I pulled out that diary to prep for this book, and theres an entire page that just says, Foghorn Leghorn is a less dramatic Tennessee Williams, and another where I simply wrote, Nikki Blonsky as Catwoman. I wasnt even on drugs, I do declare; I had just seen Hairspray.

I have always been a mix of silliness and drama, with pop culture holding me together, and that love of entertainment runs deep. Ive never had a second glass of wine that didnt end with me on Allison Janneys IMDB page. My mother is a similar blend, although not as deep of a movie/TV lover, but she did teach me all about the divas: the queens, icons, and legends of music. Whitney Houston, Cline Dion, Mariah Carey, Cher, Toni Braxton, and Gloria Estefan were all in heavy rotation throughout my childhood. Mom also has the best sense of humor and an infectious laugh that is my favorite thing of all time. There is nothing better than when she has the church giggles, laughing at all the ridiculousness around her. Otherwise, shes all heart with some drama mixed in. I like to think Im more emotionally stable than she is, but that time I listened to Shania Twains It Only Hurts When Im Breathing on repeat six months after a breakup would beg to differ. My dad is a different concoction. Hes a hard shell with a soft centera short temper that often masks his other sides. He, too, has a great sense of humor, but he prefers laughing at pratfalls and fart jokes rather than observing the absurdity around him. Theres a scene in Dumb and Dumber where the Jeff Daniels character is taking a very foul bathroom break on a date, and my dad still watches it with an uncontrollable, guttural chuckle and tears in his eyes, regardless of how many times hes seen it. Fart jokes may be the lowest common denominator of comedy, but maybe we should all accept the laughs wherever we can get them.

All thats to say: Welcome! Throughout these pages youll get to know my parents and some of the other people closest to me, like my brothers, friends, and grandma, who have shaped me along the way. I hope youll get to know me better too, but most importantly, I hope some of these stories will remind you of your own life and some of the funny memories youve made along the way.

A few years back, I started a podcast called Everything Iconic with Danny Pellegrino, where I recap reality TV and pop culture and interview celebrities about their work. Early on, I started sprinkling in these life stories. Id be talking about The Real Housewives and then Id say, Lets take a little detour, as I segued into a tale about my childhood. Pretty soon, those anecdotes became the things most people asked me about on social media or when Id see them out and about. I started to contemplate that word, detour, and everything it entails. The idea of thinking were on one path and then suddenly being forced to take another is such a heavy, relatable concept. No matter how old you are or what your profession is, I think we all have moments in our lives when we look around and realize things look different than what we had planned. Theres an old Lee Ann Womack song called I Hope You Dance, which is midtempo and not quite a romantic ballad suitable for slow dancing but also not really a party anthem that you would hear at a club. Its almost impossible to dance to, yet I believe the message of the song is you should try to do it anyway. Attempt the impossible. Those new roads might not be easy or kind, but theyre part of the life ride.