Welcome to Master Disaster Media! This website is designed to proliferate my writings for the page and screen as well as my short films, blogs, articles and podcasts. What you will find here is the fruit of an imagination that celebrates the truly absurd in life. Everything on this website was written, produced and directed by Donato Portolese. If you find anything of interest or you would like to collaborate on future projects (yours or mine), then feel free to contact me directly at [email protected]. I look forward to hearing from you!
In the meantime, ENJOY! Donato Portolese (a.k.a. Johnny Sunday)
Bio – Donato Portolese
Donato Portolese is a middle-aged man who is a middle child in a middle class family who grew up in the middle of Nowhere, New York. He renounced his real first name of Donald due to the Donald Duck trauma and taunts suffered in childhood and because this name is also the same as one orange-haired cretin who shall remain nameless.
He received a bachelor’s degree in English Literature from a completely average state school in upstate New York. His greatest achievement besides graduating was to occasionally break even when dealing the drugs that were supposed to pay his way through college.
After graduating, he drove around in beatnik circles throughout the United States and ended up in San Francisco for a year. His highest achievement there, quite literally, was climbing the Golden Gate Bridge and hanging a banner that said, “Save Our Mother.” Unfortunately, to date, it has had little effect on our environmental situation.
show moreThough his family hails from Southern Italy and in summer he can attain epidermal hues much darker than most caucasians, he is just that: an over-represented, under-marginalized male seeking representation from a literary agency. He also has boring pronouns and only engages in heterosexual sex, albeit rather infrequently. However, he tries his best to make this world the inclusive place that we all so very much deserve.
After San Francisco, he returned to the east coast to obtain a Master’s Degree in English Lit and Education from a slightly better state school, also in upstate New York. During that time, he was the frontman and principal songwriter for such illustrious, unknown punk rock bands as Master Disaster, Fecal Piñata and Pulsing Stump. He made it absolutely nowhere musically, but must confess he had one hell of a good time. Oh yeah, he also worked with emotionally disturbed children for a few years.
During his lifetime, he has worked every job possible to pay the bills: bag boy, barista, bar manager, construction worker, groundskeeper, security guard, waiter, etc. He even sold shoes in Texas. However, he finally settled on English teaching as it allowed him to work and travel throughout the world.
Though he had been using it to communicate for most of his life, it wasn’t until he traveled that he realized he had a knack for language. In his travels working and living in Asia, Africa, South America and Europe he has always learned the language of his host country. He even finally mastered English.
Back in New York, he taught in various colleges, organizations and programs to help recently arrived people from all over the world adapt and thrive in the US. He also worked for seven years as an editor and writer for a now defunct website called: Fifty is the New Fifty. In addition to his editing duties, he wrote many humorous articles about life and politics. (Though no longer on the web, some of those articles are posted on this website.) After 25 years of teaching and scribbling, he retired in order to write full time for the screen and page. Since then, he hasn’t looked up from his computer.
He is happily married to a wonderful Spanish woman who is at least 8.5 times smarter and wiser than he is. He currently spends his days writing for the screen and page (English and Spanish) between New York City and northern Spain.
He’s discovered one thing during his lifetime: the only thing he is any good at is making people laugh. Though he’s not sure whether that laughter is with him or at him, with a feather plucked from some gawky bird of rare plumage, he is determined tickle the world.
In case you doubted the veracity of anything I said in my bio.
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