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Dimitris Koutsomitsos was born in Athens on 29 May 1977 in a middle-class family. Blissful in their ignorance, parents and other relatives were celebrating his birth, not paying any attention to the parabolic symbolism of the date. His father was a proletariat speaking French and playing the piano, while his grandfather, who undertook a decisive role in his later ideological sophistication, was a WWII veteran of the Resistance who proclaimed the high treason of the Greek matricides upon defeating Mother Soviet Union in 1987 at the European Basketball Championship finals.

He will eventually grow up in a suburban house of West Attica, where he still resides, despite being a 33-year-old hobbledehoy. In fact, to make an impression, he often makes this silly pun that he lives in L.A. (Lowlands of Attica), creating a purposeful delusion to his collocutors, who come to the fallacious conclusion that he lives in Los Angeles of California. Of course, he feels no remorse over this fact since, along the other sins that characterize him and his ideological defenses, he believes that if you do not reveal something in full, and your collocutor jumps to the wrong conclusions, this does not constitute a lie, but rather a simple omission.

The most common response of the victim that follows on is “you didn’t tell me” only to receive the regular answer of “you never asked!”

He suffers from “trypanophobia” an extreme and irrational fear of injections and needles. On the bright side, this can be an advantage as he will never start piercing himself and become a junkie. He also suffers from marriage-phobia, a syndrome that will probably never allow him to be ‘married’!

He still lives in his parents’ house with his mother. Once upon a time, this house belonged to his family. However, following the wisdom and lucidity that describes his decisions he managed to put an end to the hassles that come with managing his family assets, by ‘transferring’ it to a notoriously obnoxious Greek bank so that they could have the pleasure of handling it.

At the start of his academic career he was registered in a private kindergarten for two years, from where he graduated successfully, demonstrating a certain inclination to embroidery and music clip recognition. He was manifold the winner of Musical Chairs. Moving on to the 5th Public Elementary School of his neighborhood, he graduated with a distinction and with excellent decorum, despite his hyperactivity and after serving by chance as an ensign to the flag for the school parade on independence day. He continued his studies at the 5th Public Middle School, which he completed with high marks, filling his parents with dreams and hopes for a bright future, whereas he is possibly the only high school student in the whole country that received a double mark in essay-writing in his final exams: one oral mark, for which no spelling mistakes were taken under consideration and was usually high; and a written mark that was barely a passing one. Ever since, he developed a skill to be interested only in the laudatory comments, ignoring that second ‘mark’, unaware that in the future, spellcheckers would be developed. And he was vindicated once again.

The last stage of his student career was the Integrated High School, where he graduated from with distinction, despite showing signs of fickle disposition character. Rumor has it that he didn’t fail his final year in high school due to repeatedly skipping his classes because of his good public relations with the teachers. Such rumors still remain unverified and by default, unsubstantiated. Due to this momentum he managed to be admitted in a technical college in Piraeus as an Electric Engineer, in which he was registered for two whole weeks—orientation week included—realizing that this was not his cup of tea.

After a year of latency with booze and parties for meditation and reflection purposes on the question “whither we in life?” he decided to register in a well-known atelier as a graphic designer. To be precise he started as an interior decorator but certain circumstances in life diverted him to graphic design. Those same circumstances would throw him out of the school just a year later. He claims that this was a form of retaliation for that unfortunate occurrence with the school secretary. During this mishap there was a slight disagreement in which he revealed to her that he knew his rights and made an honest statement in protest that “sleeping with the curriculum director doesn’t mean you can have an opinion on this”. A similar mishap occurred in the Italian language school in which he registered that same year, when he cleared his position to the school director and owner that “if I am paying for this you should call me for my absences” after the school secretary in an state of extreme professional zeal informed his girlfriend’s parents for their joint absence. In the meantime, he had made himself clear to them that “I come to Italian class because I like listening to other people speaking, like a hobby”, becoming a champion once again after being thrown out of two private schools in the same academic year. In the end, he will continue his graphic design studies in another school, from which he will leave upon joint assent. This last episode will put an end to his college years and to his age of innocence! Being obviously influenced by the “Alchemist” of that ‘Brilliant’ Paulo Coelho which he was reading at the time, he will consider these incidents as a sign that showed him the way to succeed professionally; and, at the same time, his inability to complete any kind of studies was attributed to his multitalented and ‘non finito’ character.

Following the call of his family and friends, he joins the Greek navy for his 21-month mandatory service, to fulfill his duty to the fatherland, despite being in complete opposition with this whole idea and he was trying to postpone it for later or even, forever. Yet, the only time that he “listened” to his peers in making a decision was seminal for not repeating such mistake, as only a few months later the service time was reduced by a quarter. But it’s too late for tears. During his service, he will discover that he is ideologically betraying himself just by being part of that military establishment, but it’s again too late. He will be transferred from the training center in Poros, to the border island of Lemnos and then to the navy headquarters in Skaramagkas, near Athens, where he will discover for the first time the need for writing following a turbulent break-up of a detrimental affair of one-and-a-half weeks. Finally, he will be belatedly discharged from the navy in the spring of 2000 in order to appear in full navy clothing in frond his first court case to win the sympathy of the bench. Following this incident, and feeling the need to get away from anything military-related, he will not even return to pick up his personal things. He will instead retire in the South of Mykonos with friends in an informal ‘group therapy’.

That summer, in efforts of isolation to finish up his first book, he will travel to the beautiful island of Serifos, where in order to make a living he will start working as a disc jockey in a well-known local bar where some celebrities like to hang out along with some faithless people, who like to hang out where celebrities like to hang out. At the end he won’t even write a single line of his book, while at the same time he will realize that working nights is harder than it looks. The efforts of a whole year will be saved by pure chance being the fullest year in terms of women, as by stellar mistake he’s being recognized as a famous Latino music artist of global caliber at the time, who’d made that fantastic quality song “shake your bon – bon”.

It is was during that summer that he met his best buddy with whom he later shared only a few rare family delights and far too many tragedies, coincidences and professional serendipities and other troubling occurrences during which the only success was to accrue a huge dept. By the way, he would also claim himself an author from the first moment they met, something that obviously brought them quite close to each other—given that common professional identity. He had not managed to write something as well.

The years to come are full of excitements of all sorts and too much psychological pressure: dark and certainly not the ones that you could define as ‘happy years’. At least not in their larger part, and at least not for himself, being the main character of his story. Four affairs, quite a handful of one (maybe two-three)-night-stands, a good number of flings, three deaths of people close to him, and a few others of more distant people, eight different professional partnerships, two offices, one shop and one pub, two accountants, three legal firms, seven relocations, two burglaries, some trips, too much web-chatting, five temporary residences, some hundred thousands euros, eighteen checkbooks, twelve banks, too many standing orders, enough court appearances, many conversations and cursing with collection agencies, three unexecuted forfeitures and at least nine hundred thousand euros in debt make up the full image of those bleak years that followed until New Year’s Day of 2009.

Some of the above continued after 2009 as well, but it is then when something deep inside of him wakes up and makes him decide that enough is enough: he’s got to live his life! Hence, he makes up his mind to find a way to get out of it all. In his notorious way of thinking, he processes a bunch of ideas with a clear orientation towards the famous success-story of “the million dollar page” which he abandons quickly for not being original but also as unfitting for his demeanor and character. Finally, upon discussion, deep thinking and rejecting of ideas he will start again in the summer of 2009 to discover the basic idea of his endeavor: an autobiographical novel that he would sell in advance to collect money to cover his debts and to make a clean start in life. Until the summer of 2010 his endeavor is shaping up through trials, plans and various drafts.

Since the summer of 2010 he begins writing his novel and posting the chapters on his blog until he completes the necessary material for his trilogy. At the same time he starts selling his books in advance through his blog for 15 euros each with the motto “determine the storyline of the book and put your name in a best seller!”

Ever since this project started, it remains his one and only profession.

Dimitris Koutsomitsos speaks Greek—being his native language; solid English, and a few basic Russian keywords, enough to make a good impression to some chicks from the former Eastern Bloc, while he’s thinking of taking up Spanish—not considering if the language would like him to learn it! He is Gemini with his natal sign being Gemini too which for his own twisted sake make them quadruplets and that will never change. All in all he’s loveable!

P.S. It’s so freaking cool to be writing about your self in the imperial singular. Good ol’ Julius Caesar was so right…