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Mike Marino has been in the entertainment business for over 30 years. You don’t do something that long without some love for the craft that you have chosen. Through ups and downs, Mike’s passion has never wavered and his ability to pull through has made him a top name in comedy. From his humble beginnings as a commercial actor, to appearing on every talk show on network TV, Mike has entertained millions with his unique brand of humor. His gigantic heart and quick wit have served him well and contributed to his longevity.
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This is gonna hurt. It's time for the suffering podcast. Shakespeare wrote that All the world's a stage, we go through our lives trying to elicit emotions from those around us. Pulling tears, excitement or laughter out of an audience is an arduous task. The job of any performer is to allow their audience to sit in front of them and forget their lives, even for the briefest of moments, to focus on releasing emotions that are created and not their own. To entertain is to create feelings out of thin air. There are many people who are born with a natural gift to entertain. Those that are willing to work their craft are more than just the life of the party. They are the lifeline to rescue you from a daily life and are the professional emotion creators. I'm Kevin Donaldson here with Mike Felice. And on this episode of the suffering podcast, we welcome Mike Marino to discuss the suffering of a veteran comedian. Mike is a true craftsman. And he runs out all over the world making people laugh at pretty much Italian jokes. Mike, thanks so much for coming in.
Mike Marino:Well, thank you very much, man. It's great to be
Mike Failace:you know, it's got to be perfect for you because Kevin hates Italians. So
Kevin Donaldson:I hate that I hate him so much. He's my grandfather was used tell me never marry a woman with a valid Indian name both me and my brother married Italian so I was alright. Oh, yeah,
Mike Failace:that's like the Irish Italian thing. It's like the you know, they hate each other. But they're attracted to each other. It'd be my father was a time my mother was Irish. They got married, divorced, married.
Mike Marino:Growing up, my father always said you're gonna have to marry somebody just like your mother. Well, I've never been married.
Kevin Donaldson:There's a very close bond between the Italian men and their mother. I do know that it's true.
Mike Marino:I wish my mother was still around this day. I have so many questions I want to ask. Because if you think about it, back in the day when you had a problem you went to your mother you said mom, the girl don't want to go out with me. She didn't want to come with me to the prom. My mother would say that's okay have something he feel better. And it was like that all the time. My age think at baseball. That's okay. You have some need to feel better. Mom I got a D on my report card. That's okay. Have some neat you'll feel bad. My broke my leg. That's okay, just have something to eat the field but
Mike Failace:rub some salami on it.
Kevin Donaldson:Conversely, to that Irish people, like just walk it off as well. Before we go any further, let's give a shout out to our marquee sponsor. That's Toyota of Hackensack. We don't trust anybody, but we trust out of Hackensack. That's why we buy our cars from there. So go to Toyota hackensack.com and let them find you a car. Now, Mike, each week, we take a question from our audience, try to engage our audience a little bit. And this one, I picked this one out specifically for you. It's by somebody who goes by the name Stillwater says how do you keep it fresh? And what I I'm assuming they're not talking about showering? I'm hoping they talking about how do you keep your zest for what you do every day. Fresh.
Mike Marino:Stillwater zest and fresh. Sounds like a commercial for deodorant. That's how I
Mike Failace:that's how I was gonna I was gonna say powder, fresh or powder,
Kevin Donaldson:deodorant? What's that, I think is that
Mike Marino:every day, something that goes on in the world can help you keep it fresh. Yeah, of course, just like everybody else go into a regular job, you start to get a little bored with your job, maybe you don't want to go there on one day. And we feel like that too, every once in a while. But once you get on stage, something just happens in your body, you're ignited, you're ready to attack and you want to make everybody happy. So you can keep it fresh, just by looking at the audience. There's always going to be somebody in the front row that has that angry face. And there's your challenge, you're going to ask them why are they so unhappy? And how come you don't like what I'm doing? What can I do to make you happy? And that's going to make it fresh for you too. Because you're going to do something to get that person to smile.
Kevin Donaldson:And that's that's a that's a tall order to ask of anybody. Change my emotion for me.
Mike Marino:Yeah. Change my emotion. Think about that.
Kevin Donaldson:That's that's what a comedy show is. And that is a daunting task. Hey, make me happy dance club. You know? Yeah. That's a tough thing. Mike, what do you think? I mean, we've been doing this podcast we're coming up on the end of season two, we're coming up on our two year anniversary. How do we keep How do you keep it fresh inside your mind?
Mike Failace:You don't you? You take every I mean with the podcast, you take every one as a new episode. You know you don't you try not to do the same thing you did in the episode before as you're doing now. You know, I don't know if I could relate that to comedy where, you know, if you did the same jokes every night that you went out your your routine would become stale.
Mike Marino:Well, that's exactly what we do. It's a routine. To keep it from being stale. You add, subtract, keep, get rid of come up with something new. Bring back something from a long time ago. Try it again. Oh, or you work the crowd, maybe somebody in the crowd is going to say something re igniting me into saying something that I've never said in my entire life, or an experience that happens to you that day. So for instance, this last cruise ship that I was on when I stepped on stage, the microphone didn't work. The guy in the DJ booth hardly speaks English. I asked him, Is the microphone on? I thought he said, Yes. When I got on the stage, it wasn't working. So I had to look his way. And tell him Hey, man, can you turn this on? While someone in the audience said, Dawn comedian, that is 300 people. And the first thing I hear on the first show is dumb comedian, and you gotta be quick. And I'm Italian. And I'm from New Jersey. So I just said, the judges call me a dumb comedian. And I stepped off the stage. Now this whole entire audience thinks there's going to be a brawl. Two people in the front row actually got up and walked out. And I said to him, I'm kidding. Where you people going up comedy show their English wasn't good enough to get that I'm just going to make fun of this guy. I'm not going to beat them up. And they walked out the door and I just turned to the guy go, Dad, you just made these people leave. I told you not to talk to me when I'm at work. Now, the guy's part of the show the rest of the night, but I didn't know that was gonna happen.
Mike Failace:You had to hone in on him all night. I had to
Mike Marino:really want to beat the guy. Why would you say that? But see,
Mike Failace:you have the opportunity to verbally beat people up?
Unknown:Yeah. Oh, yeah. I
Kevin Donaldson:mean, that's great. But you have to those chops that you've that you've come across. It comes with experience like you that you can switch like that. And that's what does it for me. That's what keeps it fresh for me, is I'm always listening. I'm always learning and we talk about the same things on here a lot, you know, Prairie Fire, Episode Nine, you know, these are common occurrences that we talk in the show, talk about in the show, but each week, we hear from another person, we get a different perspective. And I get excited. Like I tell everybody, my anxiety goes so far down. When the cameras go on the lights come on, and it's action. That's when my anxiety comes in. And that's what I look forward to every week. It's almost like I would I I've never been on stage once. Where with a comedian and that rush, that feeling like oh, okay, this is why I do it.
Mike Failace:You could tell how good he did because he was on stage once.
Kevin Donaldson:I'm not a comedian. Listen, I'm far from it. But Mike, you know, we've we've had multiple discussions, and I think and we have some mutual friends and I think you're a wonderful comedian. I love your the avenue you take your New Jersey boy, we always like to highlight our own. But your New Jersey is bad boy and you're running for president too, because you're gonna make
Mike Marino:make America tiny again.
Kevin Donaldson:Mike Marino 2024.
Mike Marino:I said make America tiny again. somebody yells out why was it ever a tion? Please don't look that deep into it. It's a joke. Relax, enjoy.
Kevin Donaldson:Why don't you tell our audience a little bit about yourself.
Mike Marino:Grew up in New Jersey. I was born in Jersey City.
Mike Failace:Are we all I think hospital? Yeah, yeah, of course. Marion section. Yeah. So it was my father grew up on our Avenue Williams Avenue.
Mike Marino:Grew up on the stoop getting beat up by the neighbors finally moved to the suburbs out in Scotch Plains now.
Kevin Donaldson:Dudley Moore is buried Scotch Plains. I don't know why I know that. But that's where Dudley Moore is buried.
Mike Marino:I didn't know Scotch Plains. Yep.
Mike Failace:I didn't know Dudley Moore was dead.
Kevin Donaldson:Dudley Moore died of a brain tumor. And he was buried in Scotch Plains. I have no idea how I know that. somebody's birthday just flew out of my head. But I know that.
Mike Marino:I mean, what? I didn't even know it. It was a graveyard that had people like
Mike Failace:it's not a graveyard at someone's backyard. It's Italian up there. Come on to somebody's
Mike Marino:house. Oh, now I
Kevin Donaldson:get it. It's under about a foot of concrete. He's in the scope.
Mike Failace:Yeah. But Jimmy Hoffa is up there doing Scotch
Kevin Donaldson:Plains beautiful area. Love that area of
Mike Marino:great town. I'm having a lot of fun being there. And I guess when I was about five years old, I just had this knack of impersonating television commercials. I would watch a commercial and I'd repeat it to my family. And think I was just a naughty little kid. And when I got to be 1314 years old, I just started going to New York City auditioning for TV commercial. So I had blond hair and blue eyes. And I would say m&ms or potato chips, and I ended up making more money than my father.
Kevin Donaldson:Really? Yeah. And so this is you're talking, what seven days? I don't want to have in seven days. That's, you know, that's when comedy started to really, because he had the mountain comics in the 60s and the 50s. And then 70s, New York kind of blew up on the scene, right? Yeah.
Mike Marino:But I wasn't even part of the comedy wave. I didn't start doing stand up till I was 30 years old. I was already in California. Working as an actor. I never even thought I'd be a comedian wasn't something I set out to do. In fact, when people were telling me I had a flair to be funny, I felt kind have offended I'm like, Man, I go to these theatrical acting classes. And you still think I'm funny? I'm trying
Mike Failace:to be a serious actor.
Mike Marino:Trying to be a serious
Kevin Donaldson:clown I'm funny. Funny, funny out
Mike Marino:what's so damn funny about me? Dwell me muse. You like a clown?
Kevin Donaldson:You're like a clown. I'm here to amuse you. By that the first time you gotta laugh was it was it a rush?
Mike Marino:You know what happened? I think I was 2829 years old. They had a comedy competition at a bar and bound New Jersey. It was called the sunrise pine room. And all my shore house friends from down the beach. I think it was like a Wednesday night during the summer. We went to this place to have some drinks, and they were having a comedy competition. And I think the winner one would win 50 bucks. I turned to my friends and I go wait here I gotta go snag that 50 bucks. You're not a comedian. Like I'm an actor. I'm gonna play the role of a comic watch this. So I went on stage and I talked about my mouth 10 minutes later, I have $50 in my pocket.
Mike Failace:Now are you we are Belmar guy or seaside guy Mr. Baby. Hey, girl. Ma
Mike Marino:1986 We go back
Kevin Donaldson:Oh us North Jersey guys go to the shore. Everybody who grew up at the beach because at the beach. That's the that's the
Mike Failace:difference in a Belmar you got to deejays you gotta borrow a?
Kevin Donaldson:Yep. That's the difference between cheese. North Jersey.
Mike Failace:Mary's husband pub. Been there done that.
Kevin Donaldson:Now. You were making a living as an actor? Yeah, you were and it was it? Was it a lucrative career? Was it something that you sort of piqued by with
Mike Marino:now when I was a teenager? I'll give you this story. When I was 18 years old. I was studying at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. You were not allowed to audition for anything or do any work at Screen Actors Guild back there because you were part of the academy. They didn't want you to work until you graduated school. But one summer came around and I knew kids with blond hair and blue eyes. They were crashing these auditions. So I crashed an audition for United Airlines how to play a marine coming home from boot camp. Fast forward. I booked the job number one commercial of the year made a ton of money. I couldn't leave my house without somebody saying oh, that's private zolecki I was nominated for a Clio Award Best Male Performer and a TV commercial 1983 I lost to forgot the guy's name. But they did the Dr. Pepper commercials when they used to sing into dancing in the streets
Mike Failace:during duck dirt. But that's right.
Mike Marino:That's right. And for the next five years, I was making a lot of money. I actually bought a house in Belmont. I
Mike Failace:was gonna say so you dropped out of the you dropped out of your class, then?
Mike Marino:Oh, I know I got kicked out. You weren't allowed to work. So six months in, they saw the commercial and I have course I had to look like a Marine. So I shaved my head. And when I went to meet the dean of the school, and she said to me, are you private Zalewski in that TV commercial? No. I'm like Marina, I said yes. And she said, pack your bags. You're out of school. I go I was just nominated for best male. Oh, well, not saying you're not going to work in the business. You just don't meet Academy standards. And I go, I just signed with the biggest commercial agency in New York. So although I was depressed because I got kicked out of my college, that was my college. I went on to make a great living.
Kevin Donaldson:And then you find this ability. Well, you I, I always say that comedians, although they are born, because you have something, an innate ability to make people giggle to make people laugh. You were probably always the life of the party. Yeah, but it's that craft. It's that crafting a joke. It's the timing. It's the punch line. And there's so many mechanics and so many scientists, such science that's involved into and
Mike Failace:playing off the crowd. Yeah.
Mike Marino:You're 100% Correct. So when I was younger, and I was just a class clown, I wasn't really thinking about what you just said. But when I became a comedian, and all I wanted to do was just stand up. You do become a craftsman and a wordsmith. Because I had here and I listened. But you have to rebuttal very quickly,
Kevin Donaldson:you would have made a great cop. That series, you would have made a great cop, because that's what you need when you're questioning somebody you need that have that mental ability in order to on a dime to change because something just popped into your head.
Mike Marino:Well, oddly enough, when I started to slip in the industry in my late 20s, early 30s, and I wasn't earning a living as an entertainer. I taught comedy traffic school at the Improv and Hollywood. They took comedians sent this down to DMV, you studied the vehicle codebook and you taught a traffic safety class, but it was for eight hours. And you had to know the vehicle codes and what the people did wrong and how to correct it. But they wanted you to make it funny. So the people could sit there for eight hours.
Mike Failace:Now, why not honestly sit in the class eight hours is torture, it's torture.
Mike Marino:But if you got to a comic, right making it funny for you, at least you can get through the day a little bit easier and enjoy it. But the
Kevin Donaldson:downside of that is people are breaking laws to try to go back into class. entertained, imagine
Mike Marino:I don't think it was that funny. But I remember that's the way I was actually cutting my teeth as a comic, because you got 40 people for eight hours, they can't leave. And I would crack jokes. I would write jokes. And I would work the crowd Hey, who are you? What do you do? What are you in traffic school for? And,
Kevin Donaldson:and they're probably depressed to be in there like to travel to get there at nine
Mike Marino:o'clock in the morning that we're ready to beat you up. Yeah. But you know, what's really odd is I actually know the vehicle code laws. So when I watch these videos today, when somebody says to a cop, I don't have to show you my license. I wish they would come talk to me. Because I'll tell you actually what it said in that book, and I know it. And the thing is, it actually is the law. You do have to show them the lights. Yes, you do. You actually signed the contract saying you will show it Yes. So when people say to me, you know you don't have to do it. I'm like, I can actually show you where the
Mike Failace:law is because it interfering in a governmental function.
Kevin Donaldson:Correct. And it's it was the basic thing is driving is a privilege. Not a right. It's a privilege. So so but that that ability to change on a dime. Alright, that is the the makings of a good, a good police officer. And there was actually a police officer. I won't say the department. I don't know if you ever heard of club soda? Kenny?
Mike Marino:Yes, of course. The Bodyguard French.
Kevin Donaldson:So he, how do you know if John feta? Yeah. So so my father in law worked with him. And I worked in a town right next to him. So But John, so John put out club soda, Kenny. C day and apparently it was laced with but he never use his real name. He thought it was laced with like, you just real. Here's his real name because he's he's retired now he's, so his department fired him. And he never seen this happen. Within three months, he had his full pension full 25 years because he's right at the end of his career, plus a good payout. Because they fired him illegally, because he never once used his name. He never wants to did anything inappropriate. And of course, it's everybody took his words seriously. Like, I'm sure they deal with you. Like when you sit there and and you talk about the Italian lifestyle, somebody's going to look and say, Wait a minute, these making fun of Italians. No, I'm making fun of myself. You know, it's, it was it was an odd thing, but they were wrong. And I don't know whether he's still doing I haven't heard from him in a while. So
Mike Marino:when I was in California, after a couple years at the Comedy Store, I went on tour with Andrew Dice Clay was me, him and Sebastian Maniscalco, who's now one of the biggest tank comedians in the world. And I remember meeting club soda Kenny, he was always there. Yeah, it was dices guy.
Kevin Donaldson:What was that? What was that club in West Orange. It was used to play rascal.
Mike Failace:Bananas in Hasbrouck heights. I mean, yeah, rascals. I saw I actually saw Andrew Dice Clay at rascals in West Orange.
Kevin Donaldson:Andrew Silverstein, Andrew Silverstein. Andrew Silverstein got his got to start on different strokes. That I didn't Yeah, he was on different strokes. He was one of the bullies beaten up Willis as everybody that but yeah, that's that's where in Andrew Silverstein and he's listed as Andrew Silverstein. But so I heard something about dice. Dice started as a true comedian. And the dice man was a skit a bit. And people loved it so much that he just became the dice man. Was that something similar to you? Like you had your own personality? And I'm sure you turn it up a notch on stage or Is that who you are?
Mike Marino:Interesting enough when I went to the Comedy Store to audition for the famous woman who owned it Mitzi shore, Mitzi Shoreham, I was doing impersonations. I was imitating Sylvester Stallone and De Niro and all the Italian actors that all the guys with me personally. So I went on stage and I did. This is rocky talking to Burgess, Meredith and whatever. And so the lady said to me, you didn't tell me anything about you. So no. And I didn't pass. I went back, I guess another three months later. And she said to me, I want you to tell me about you. Tell me something about you. And I went on stage and I tried to do some impersonations and a little bit about me and she said, No, you're not telling me anything about you. And I stood there. Am I allowed to curse on you? Absolutely insane, whatever. And I went just like this. I go, You know what, lady? I don't even fucking want to be a comedian. My friend told me to come here because he says I'm funny. The pizza in California sucks. The traffic sucks this place sucks. I don't even smoke. And why is that guy looking at me like that? And she goes, now that you and I go, it is. And they signed me to the club.
Mike Failace:I've heard your jersey
Kevin Donaldson:came out and yeah, yeah, I've heard great things about Mitzi shore that she was able to bring things out of comedians that you didn't even know you had inside of you like she was a real eye for talent. Is that Is that pretty accurate? It's exactly
Mike Marino:what happened. I got signed to the club. I started performing there all the time. And then I guess, dice was working out new trying to make a big comeback. This is in the 90s. He was there. Every Sunday night. I was hosting the Sunday night shows. And my dad was in town. My dad was a big cigarette smoker. He was visiting me. Dice was a big cigarette smoker. They were in the parking lot smoking cigarettes. My father came into the club and he goes your buddy outside said he's going to take you on toys, get ready to do a comeback. So you got to help you out on it. So who you talking about? He goes the guy outside in the parking lot. I keep taking my cigarette. And I go got that. I don't know what you're talking about goes your friend out there with the leather jacket and the stupid attitude. That's Andrew Dice Clay. I don't know his name. He just said he likes you. That's the guy. That's the way they were talking. This guy. So guys comes over to me and he goes, you know, you were gonna either call you the golden Guido, or you've been New Jersey's bad boy. And I'm like, okay, he goes, Yeah, you should wear a suit and tie and tell everybody you're the golden Guido, because you have blond hair and blue eyes. We don't get to see them. And then we went to rascals in West Orange, New Me
Kevin Donaldson:him Jimmy Norton. Jimmy Norton. Jimmy Norton's very funny. Yeah. And
Mike Marino:we did the show together three of us and Jimmy Norton and I ended up doing a movie called
Kevin Donaldson:crooks. Crooks I went I don't I don't think I've ever seen crooks.
Mike Marino:Yeah, it's a great movie. It was an independent film. They wanted to get dice. They couldn't afford him. So they got me.
Kevin Donaldson:No, he's too busy doing A star is born. Why?
Mike Marino:Legend? The guy's great. He's very nice to me. Are you every once in a while when I see him? He's always like, Hey, how you had a lot of friends in common? Well, you
Kevin Donaldson:touched on something your parents your mother was your mother around to see your your routines? Yeah. What did your parents think about what you're doing today? So they it's he's gonna work this out of his system.
Mike Marino:Of course, just like
Mike Failace:he's gonna grow up and get a real job.
Mike Marino:I had always worked for your father Michael. You could work for your father's got a nice construction company make a nice living.
Kevin Donaldson:I love the accent when
Mike Marino:your father your father, when you think you didn't give this.
Mike Failace:But but if you had a bad show, your mother always said don't worry. Here's a sandwich. You could eat it.
Mike Marino:Yeah. Nice. No, my mother would come to shows and say I think you Carson a little too much. And why you make fun of me enough. What
Mike Failace:did she ever see dice played it? I mean, talk about curse it a lot.
Mike Marino:My mother and father came to see dice when we were in West Orange. In fact, when my father showed up, he dice was hugging my father. He loved my father. A lot of people you know how dice would smoke and do what he did. But I do this little thing about putting out a cigarette, actually impersonating my dad. My dad was the type of guy who smokes so many cigarettes that I don't think he even realized it was in his hand. But if he was talking to you to make a point, he had to finish a hit on the cigarette, put it out and then talk to you. So if you said that, how's the weather today? He'd go like this. Good. So now I do it in Miami.
Kevin Donaldson:And now your mother's behind him go Mike enough with the comedy thing already. Yeah. Enough enough. But that's nice that they got to see you. Did they get to see a little bit of your success.
Mike Marino:Oh, yeah. They seen the awards. They saw the commercials. They saw people show up my house is Mike. Yeah. They saw me film, four different comedy specials. They saw me in front of 1000s of people. One of the biggest specials I ever filmed. My mother and father sat next to Danny Aiello and his wife at the paramount in Asbury Park. 1700 people was just this weekend, the last
Kevin Donaldson:Dawn himself. Yeah, yeah. I've seen him a couple of times around around the area. You know, you're in a restaurant like, Danielle.
Mike Failace:Such a nice guy. Yeah. And that was it about Danny Aiello. He never acted like he was Danny Aiello. You know, he just he was a regular guy, he just show up at a restaurant meet and people go on a date. Anyway. So yeah, I think there were free days, down to earth guy.
Kevin Donaldson:I think they were afraid to ask him why did Hudson Hawk bomb so much? But you know, that's good, though. And it's some point that your parents accept that. Okay. My son is my son's there. They got it. It's got to be a sense of pride for them. You get every parent wants their kid to succeed. They don't want to see them fall flat on their face. Because it hurts. It hurts real bad. Now, you've stepped on stage so many times. Was it early on in your career? Was it a success? Was it a modern modicum of success, but I'm sure that there was some bombs. I'm sure you wouldn't be sitting here if there wasn't. Yeah, now explain to our audience what that feels like when you go out on stage and it's just not working.
Mike Marino:If I was to say today to any up and coming comedian who goes out and bombs, I would say enjoy it, embrace. It's the greatest feeling in the world, it must suck. And you think it's going to be the worst thing I give anything to go back to being 2930 32 years old, have an absolutely no idea what I'm doing. Not getting any money not getting paid. Having a cup of coffee, in a room filled with comedians waiting to tell five minutes of jokes. I miss it. I used to be at the Comedy Store every Saturday night, I would go on at two o'clock in the morning in front of people sweeping and it's suck. And the other people were all drunk. But guess what I learned how to be a good comic. Because it's like going to the gym, and you're pumping the weights, you're pumping the weights and you're pumping your weights, you don't look but you don't look at you look good. Look, all of a sudden, seven years, you got the greatest body, and you're powerful. So all those years of bombing in front of nobody. Now all of a sudden, you're gonna get put in front of 1000 people, you're gonna be a killer. You're going to be a killer. And then the jokes that were bombing for so long start killing and you're like, I wonder what it was just a word of a joke changed. can turn it into the greatest thing you've ever said.
Kevin Donaldson:Mike, did you see Did you see Mike's face when you started talking about that? Like your eyes just lightened up? Yeah, you're like your eyes just lit up. It was. That's how I know you love it. That's and I've seen a couple of different comedians like that.
Mike Marino:I've done a bunch of different talk shows where you go on the show and you perform. And then when you don't perform and you sit on the couch, or whatever. And when I did this show comics unleashed.
Kevin Donaldson:I thought you were gonna say the suffering podcast. We'll go with comics unleashed.
Mike Marino:When I went on comics unleashed, I had waited a year I felt like I was going to be the only comic they were never going to put on the show. I'm like, Why don't they put me on? While my friends started working here. And he called me up and he goes, come do the show. And since I'm new here, you better hit a home run because I had to go out of my way to get you on the show. I go I'm gonna hit a home run. Don't worry about it. I know what to do. So when you tape certain shows, they fake a lot of shit. You know, they make the warnings. Floyd, they've been there was signing. Yeah, he's the warm up postgame. Come on. Come on, folks. You know, one more show one more show. It's two o'clock in the afternoon. Nobody's been drinking. So I'm on the show. And they said, This is the last taping. Everybody's really, really tight. So you better bring it. And that's when I said you know what I'm gonna do this joke about being the first Italian President and we're going to whack Osama bin Laden. And that's going to be the joke. So when I started the joke, I felt the audience start cheering. So for the first time on this show, a comedian got out of the chair and just stood up and it was me. And I pretend that I was putting out a cigarette and he said, Oh, Sam, I want to talk to you about some the audience
Kevin Donaldson:I've seen. It's been nuts. I've seen this bit on YouTube. Yes. Like what happened to Osama bin Laden? Don't worry about
Mike Marino:steal the rug. The funniest thing is, I didn't think much of it. I just felt like I did a great job. Then I started getting all these phone calls. Do it your viral bro, your viral there's millions of people, and you start getting all these phone calls, come play the theater, completed theater, and I'm just like, damn, yeah. Who knew
Mike Failace:is that you're like I made it moment.
Mike Marino:Well, you can have an I made it moment. A lot of times, because I don't think there's ever going to be in my life. That moment that I say I made. I mean, I don't really try anymore. Because I'm never gonna, well, that
Kevin Donaldson:happens to a lot of comedians. Okay, where they make it and then they're their sophomore year, like, you figure they make it there. They're big. And then they come in with their second out comedy album or second special and it's kind of like,
Mike Marino:Yeah, I'm not gonna let that happen. I always want to be growing. You know, I've done four specials. They've all been sold in stores. They've all aired on television. But I want to do another one. And hopefully when that's done, I'll do another one. I want to do a sitcom I want to do movie. You know, I love being in this business. I'm not going to stop.
Mike Failace:Is there a lot of pressure behind it? You know, like, where you have to go out you ever feel pressure before going on stage saying I have to be funny. I have to make these people laugh. Yeah, you just go up confidence. And I know I'm gonna make these people with
Mike Marino:no I was taught a long time ago by Armand Asante. He came to the acting school and he said, Here are the tools that you're going to need to be in this business, a suit of armor because everybody's going to poke at you. Very thick skin, a survival job and the attitude that everything you get, you should be very thankful for. And always be nervous when you're going to perform because When it comes to live performing, if you're not nervous, that will be the night you bomb, because you're too cocky to be nervous. So I'm always nervous. I'm always saying to myself, Oh, no, I hope I hope, I hope, and I will never take what I do for granted. So even if there's a night where I don't want to get on stage, I will make sure I bring the mustard. You know,
Kevin Donaldson:Armand Asante has my favorite line in all of movies. That's why I respect the guy so much. And I watch a lot of I watched even movies that he does now I still watch it. When he was playing God. Number one, he grew up in that area, like so he did that research. He knew that character really well. But he's talking to Anthony Quinn, who was playing Neil Dellacroce. And Paul Castellano, the guy playing Paul Castellano just became boss and he goes this guy. He squeezed the fucking quarter till the eagle screams. And to this day, I use that line when somebody's being cheap, right, but I have a lot of respect for that guy. Because he's a true craftsman at what he does. He really immerses himself in those roles and you believe it? Just like, I believe when you get up on stage, that you're gonna go out whack Osama bin Laden. Right. You know, that's, that's, that's part of that actor in you, I think. Yeah, I think but there are some downsides to comedy. You know, I
Mike Failace:was gonna say that to depression has begun in comedians also. Yes. Richard Jeni Robin Williams.
Kevin Donaldson:Rich Richard Jeni. So the story I heard about Richard Jenny's. He always wanted to do movies he never wanted to, but he was supposed to be the one of the best comics ever. And I've watched Richard Jeni specials. He was very, very funny. And then he goes and does what he does.
Mike Marino:Yeah. shot himself.
Mike Failace:Is that all part of the pressure put on you? Do you think?
Mike Marino:Yeah, because we always have to look for work. You don't get a job. And you're going to work there for 30 years.
Mike Failace:It's not like you're getting up at nine o'clock in the morning saying, Oh, I got to work today.
Mike Marino:Right? You got to look sharp hope. Beg. It's it's not easy, man. You could be the best and you can be nowhere a lot of comedians quit this business. There's only like, let's say the top 100 comedians actually earn a living. And then there's others have this as a part time job, or hobby. This is not a hobby. So you can get very depressed. And let's suppose inom out on a cruise ship, and everybody thinks, wow, what a life. Yeah, well, I'm by myself. So at night, yeah, I'm with everybody. We're having fun during the day. They're all coupled up. I'm by myself
Mike Failace:go back to the cabin by myself. Yeah.
Kevin Donaldson:But that's so the travel portion of it. And I wanted to get into the travel portion because I always thought that's where the depression of a comedian comes from. Because what I was I was in a job where I traveled coast to coast moving out of a suitcase for weeks out of the month. It's a lonely existence, because unless I'm in my own bed, I'm never off at work. You know? Like I'm always working that's in a very lonely does that happen? You get
Mike Marino:lonely you go into your head and you start creating what do you create in your head when you start thinking about the way things could have been? should have been? Why am I not there? The jealousy why is that comedian got that and I don't have that. That guy took my joke. How come he became famous? What happened is so and so? Is a powerful depression that comes from jealousy. You know, you bruised ego.
Mike Failace:Can I like insecurity thing?
Mike Marino:Well, you got to be somewhat secure to actually get have the balls to get up on stage and say I'm taking you all on the ride and your common
Kevin Donaldson:Oh, that's gigantic. Make no bones about it. Because I
Mike Marino:that's the one thing I know I have the confidence while I will slaughter you. And if you get up and go to the bathroom while I'm performing, you might as well just kill yourself.
Mike Failace:There's been so many times I went to a comedy show, and they held in my piss for hours. Oh, you want another beard? No.
Mike Marino:I'm full. I knew Richard Jenny. I used to see him all the time. The guy was a legend. Yeah, they did. 12 or 13 HBO specials all completely different. He was probably one of the top Italian comedians if not the top Italian comedian. Him and I used to see him all the time when I was coming up with the Laugh Factory. And Dom I RERA who's still around he's a good friend. They were friends
Kevin Donaldson:dama RERA is hilarious.
Mike Marino:Best. But Richard Jeni I guess he was going through some depression. He did do that TV series The platypus man. If
Kevin Donaldson:you remember I remember the show in the mask. He was in a mask when he was in a lot
Mike Marino:of projects. He was worth millions of dollars. But I saw him at the Laugh Factory one night and he was talking to Dane Cook. You know who died. And Dan Cook at the time, ended up selling out all the staples centers throughout the United States through MySpace when MySpace was the big internet. Giant, if you remember this, and they were talking, and I remember looking at Richard Jeni and I'm saying to myself, he's jealous. He's jealous of this thing, cook guy who kind of came out of nowhere, but he didn't. He was working for 20 years before he hit. And then I think it was five days later. And everybody at the laptop was talking about how Richard went home and said to his wife have no his girlfriend, you know, go in the room, make some breakfast, and he shot himself.
Kevin Donaldson:didn't cook. didn't cook was on a meteoric rise. Yeah, he it seemed like he came out of nowhere, but you'd said he'd been working for quite some time. Boston guy, but he went, he went so high, and flew too close to the sun. And, you know, his eventual, I think his brother stole all his money or something like
Mike Marino:stole a good portion of his money. $11 million. How do you embezzle $11 million? It was his half brother, but still, you have your
Kevin Donaldson:family? And that's because he wasn't Italian or anybody. If he was Italian, that wouldn't happen?
Mike Failace:How do you know people are? You know, how do you not know people are embezzling than 11 million?
Mike Marino:That's true, too. How do you not know? I mean, I know when somebody took five hours $11 million? Even if it was 2 million, a million, a half a million? How do you not see it? What are you not looking at?
Kevin Donaldson:You know, I guess you surround yourself with the wrong people. And I know there's a lot of comedians who do that. They start they get famous. They get the hangers on. And people are giving them bad advice. It's I call it the Elvis syndrome. And I'm going to throw an Elvis see it see how it's the Elvis syndrome that you become so big. No matter what you put out there. It's going to be funny, because people are gonna laugh. Hey, you know, you ask your friend. How was that set? It's great, Mike. It's great. Mike, even if it wasn't great. You know, it's the Elvis syndrome. Nothing
Mike Marino:is real people kissing ass?
Kevin Donaldson:Yeah. Do you see that a lot. And especially after your, after your specials, or something like that? Do you just get some hangers on?
Mike Marino:You get hangers on, but I really don't have anybody in my life. Or my team that kisses as they all just say, Hey, let's go to another level. And you know, people behind you like agents, managers, I mean, 90% of them could be full of shit most of the time, because you'll get all the work yourself.
Mike Failace:Any of your people tell you you suck after show. Like,
Mike Marino:some people might say, hey, that wasn't your best performance. Something like that.
Kevin Donaldson:I try not to be rude. But you I'm sure you felt that when you were on stage. Oh,
Mike Marino:yeah, there are some nights in your own head. You're, you're having a conversation with somebody else. And while I'm performing, it's just on automatic pilot. You could tell I think people can tell when it's on automatic pilot for me because I'll just do a routine and keep on going. Some shows I'll just keep on going for an hour and a half an hour, 45 minutes because I'm having fun and I'm making shit
Kevin Donaldson:up. You better not do that to NJ PAC this weekend.
Mike Marino:I really don't know what I'm going to do because I have routines that I could just get away with. And I'll make everybody laugh. But when you have a show like this, that makes no sense whatsoever. Three governors and a state senator. as the opening act. I don't even know what they do. I don't even know how they got on this show. usually have an opening act. It works the crowd everybody's in good, bad. And then Mike, but right now Oh, what the hell are these guys gonna do?
Kevin Donaldson:I know one of the guys there has a very good sense of humor. Right? I know, one of the what was it? The Accidental he wrote a book called The Accidental politician. That's all I'll say.
Mike Marino:Oh, really? Yeah. Well, I know Jon Bramnick. He's funny as crap. I love the way he works. I've done many shows with them. But it could be really cool. Because you know, I'm gonna go into this whole thing about running for president now. And I've been running for 16 and a half years. I really deserve to be the president. I'm going to be the first guy that you can vote for many times, not just once.
Kevin Donaldson:You could be the Linden LaRoche of comedy. I don't even a hole that is literally the rose ran for president for like 40 years. Oh, did he? Oh, yeah. He was always on the ticket. Even he went to jail and was still on the ticket. Oh, it's under one of those parties and stuff. So you
Mike Failace:gotta realize something about Kevin. He's got a wealth of like, useless information.
Kevin Donaldson:Yeah, that and, you know, if I could monetize that somehow, man, I have a lot of money.
Mike Marino:It's monetized. I'd love to do the whole thing for the rest of my life. I think it's funny. I love coming up with stupid gags about what I would do if I got into the White House. You know, you know, that's another thing I wish my mother was around to hear because now I brought her into the mix of what I'm doing. And I says, you know, since I've never been married, and I have no kids, the first lady would be my mom. sighs I want her to come and take care of things because I gotta eat
Kevin Donaldson:those chefs in there the food tester Yeah, you
Mike Marino:know, but that's how I'm gonna fix the deficit. Like I don't need three chefs. I just bring in my mother. She needs to get paid. She just wants to room. I'm already saving America money. I want to get rid of the pilot. I don't think Air Force One needs to have a pilot. I can do it.
Kevin Donaldson:You have a bunch of cheese hanging from the from the ceiling in the White House kitchen, it used to
Mike Marino:be F was one that was gabagool. To how much fun would that be? I want to do a routine at JFK Airport. Yeah, this the president, listen, we're on our way in. I know we weren't on his schedule. I forget take the plane for a ride. Get as many fire ranges as you can read, he's gonna be mad. See,
Mike Failace:applying at the Newark Airport is I gotta go over to like, the gabagool store up in Newark, you know?
Mike Marino:Take that. I'll make that a joke. We're,
Mike Failace:we weren't scheduled to land. But I'm really in the mood for gabagool. From a you know, Jose's Deli.
Mike Marino:Mr. Mr. President, you're not on the schedule. Ya know what I was really hungry. The other night, we were smoking this week, you got to smoke. This was really, really good. And I don't know, but you have been to Washington, that cold cuts suck. So clean and wrong way we were.
Mike Failace:I had to get into Washington, I get to go back of the jersey when it goes gets
Mike Marino:played around when he's gonna be messy.
Kevin Donaldson:It wouldn't be it would be an interesting presidency. I think you should, maybe the world will have more fun. Well, that's the whole thing. Okay. So you take emotions out of the ether, and you put them into people's hearts, somebody who's having a bad day, maybe they're getting dragged to your show. And you that's an amazing thing that you do. And it's a talent, and it's a craft, that you're able to create change emotions, like we said early on. And I don't know how comedians do it. But you do it in a cerebral way where you make them think where you're just talking about the Air Force One like, huh, how would that that's how I'm thinking, I'm like, how would that work? That would be pretty good. That's pretty funny. You know, and that's, that's part of your talent.
Mike Marino:If you remember a long time ago, when we were in on so many different wars, the comedians from LA, we're doing the USO comedy. Yes. And that's when I started coming up with the time President because I got to go see, all these teenagers at war, never gonna leave until they're done with their terms or whatever is a couple of years, right? So we entertained on this aircraft carrier, I must have been 5000 Marines on this aircraft carrier. And just like the whole Bob Hope thing we got out there to entertain. And there was a time where, if you remember, they said, France didn't want to help America in the endeavors of the whole Osama bin Laden thing. So I walked up on stage and I go, you need me to run the country. If I was running the country and France didn't want to help America. I'll cut the head off the Statue of Liberty, and I'll send it back to France because I don't mess with America. And these people just started screaming. Right, but I was making that up then because it was happening in the news.
Kevin Donaldson:That's pretty damn good. That's pretty damn good. Right there. And
Mike Marino:then there was also another thing where they were saying that some of the the American stealth bombers hit the wrong targets over some area, right? And I go like this. You know, that might be true, but you got to get a guy like me to drive one of those planes. Because if you know if I hit the wrong target to say, Mike, what happened? I'm like, the wind. Okay. No, I went to the left and went to the right. What do you want from it?
Mike Failace:Forget about it. And the things is these people
Mike Marino:were just screaming laughing.
Kevin Donaldson:It's gonna be this feeling. It's silly. But that's got to be a good feeling to you and it's gonna fill you up. It does
Mike Marino:and I was doing this whole thing about friendly fire. I says you guys are talking about friendly fire. If I ever got shot enhanced by somebody I'd be like, what kind of friendly? Friendly show you with my friend. I'm bleeding.
Kevin Donaldson:Lot of overhears I'm really over here. But you've got I don't even know where to go. You just got off a cruise ship to? Yeah. And is that sort of like a mini vacation for you? Are you is that a work is that's a work thing.
Mike Marino:It depends on what ship you go on so many ships, you have to do a show every night. Some ships, you do two shows every night. Some you only do two or three. Some you could be in front of 1000s of people, somebody can be in front of just a couple hundreds. It's a job. But you do get to see the world. I've been all around the world. So this last ship that I did, went to Costa Maya, which I love to go see the Mayan ruins. And you go to the beach, you go to the CocoCay Island, you go to Cozumel. And I come up with jokes on the island and bring it back to the ship and I'll do those jokes on the ship. They're not going to work probably Saturday night. But I was thinking to integrate in them just a little. So one of my favorite jokes and I tell everybody this is going to be such a Killing Joke. You can't put anybody else on stage after the ships sail through the night and in the morning. The captain comes over the loudspeaker. They wake you up with these three beautiful chimes and the captain talks about what the ship did during the night which To the average person, you really don't care. You feel like Oh, could you shut up? I got a hangover. Stop talking. So what I do is I'd say what? How much more fun would it be if it was me? But it's three o'clock in the morning because I'm still out partying. And I wake everybody up and I go, everybody listen. I kind of fucked up. We were supposed to pull over. I was talking to this girl. She was calling me Captain. And the audience just start screaming because like the audacity of this kid saying, and it makes them laugh. So the I know the whole next day when the captain does come over the loudspeaker, everybody in that room is going wouldn't it be cool if we just heard him once? We would crack up laughing?
Mike Failace:You were to start today. You should have worked that out with the captain when you did wake up one morning and said, Hey, it's me. Mike. Burrito. You listen,
Mike Marino:I don't know if you notice.
Mike Failace:Anybody seen a captain out there?
Kevin Donaldson:I fucked up. I love that. I fucked up.
Mike Failace:I know we're supposed to be in Cozumel, but I think we're down by the Jersey Shore somewhere.
Mike Marino:That's kind of like what it is. Now, when you go on these islands, people buy things for their friends back home. Everybody's selling T shirts, everybody's selling cups and mugs and shit. And there's this one place that sells marble tchotchkes, like you can get a turtle, you can get some kind of a bird. All these things that you bring home to your friends and family to give them a gift. Right? Well, they have marble penises, and I saw them in this place. So I had to talk about it in front of the audience. And you don't it you would think it's a pot pipe or it's but I think it's a paperweight. It's a penis, right? Right there
Kevin Donaldson:on the table. Hold
Mike Marino:your papers down. So up like this. I said to the audience, I go, you know, me being me. I had to go in there. And I said, Excuse me, you work here. Listen, how much for the penis. Got anything bigger is never bigger one. And then you go How do you get it through customer? What's the Who's this for? I got this friend Kevin. You need to pave the way. And his papers. They're always flying. So I brought home this car for him. And I said, you know, why don't you just put that there? Looks good in your hand. But they start laughing really, really hard because they saw it. Yeah, but I talked about
Mike Failace:it. So it's really in the moment comedy. Yeah, you know, you're you're, you see something that day that you know, everybody saw and you can't come back. I can't stop laughing
Mike Marino:because technically, I really want to know what's it for? It's funny. How should as
Mike Failace:like, did anybody buy one of these fucking things? You know? What the hell are you gonna use this for?
Kevin Donaldson:It's funny because I'm gonna guess growing up in an Italian household. You had the same cadence probably with your parents. Your mother said something. You fired back with what you thought was funny. What you're doing now? Versus you as a little kid. Probably got you a lot of backhands.
Mike Marino:Oh, yeah, we used to get the shit knocked out if you didn't
Mike Failace:go to Catholic grammar school digit, I think all right. So now nons back can you pull your hair? Yeah.
Mike Marino:And but a nun used to kick
Kevin Donaldson:your rulers across. I got I got that rulers across MCV shit
Mike Marino:that you bring that back in the world. You got that? Right. Bring that back?
Kevin Donaldson:No, no, I got I can say I whenever I got the ruler, it was always for something that I did one of them. The nun for whatever reason that a pair underwear and her dad's gonna pull them out.
Mike Failace:I listen, I never didn't deserve getting hit by one leg in a headlock.
Kevin Donaldson:But think about that. So what got you a backhand when you were younger, has served you well. So when you were a little kid, and they told you, this is never going to get you anywhere. It's going on your permanent record. Look at how well it served you.
Mike Marino:As true to comedy comes from your past comes from your your day to day comes from real life. My original Act was all about driving my mother around. My mother came from Italy. She never had a driver's license. She never worked a job. That's all our job was to make sure the kids were fed. So I had to take her shopping. And my mother was a class. She walked into a place and you'd wait in the car. And she come back out and she goes, I got all the groceries that I needed. And I said was your friend in that the guy that owns the place? And my mother go? Yeah, yeah, he was in there. I never liked him. I don't even like his kids. The sons of bitches that they are. The next day should be like, Hey, how are you?
Kevin Donaldson:Let's go back to the friendly fire thing. Yeah, so that served that sometimes you find it in the weirdest places your your vocation and sounds like this is this has just been a long journey for you. Now I know in the comedy world a lot of it is bringing people along like dice brought you along. You do that with comedians now.
Mike Marino:Yeah. There's a lot of guys I've helped out. I've helped them structure help them write help them get gigs. Comedians can get other comedians more work than an agent or a manager. It's just that so Sometimes most comedians are very undisciplined. And they just don't give back. They don't show up. Who's got a problem who's unreliable. So you get to the point, we could throw your hands in the air and say, Listen, I'll just do my own thing. In fact, I don't need a comedian Give me three governors and a politician.
Kevin Donaldson:But now you're doing a podcast. Yeah. And that seems to be the way of a lot of comedians, is it? Is it a good way to work out material? Is that what it's for? Or is it just you just getting random bullshit?
Mike Marino:I like bullshitting. I like having people on the show. I like interacting with an audience all the time. So it gives you another outlet to interact with people. You know, when I was doing my podcast the other night, and I had the actor on the show, people were writing in asking him questions, we would give them back the answers. It's fun, it moves along very quickly. And it's got to go sell tickets, people want to go to your website, they'll find out where you're performing.
Kevin Donaldson:It's got to get to great and sharpen your tools sharpen your skills at improv. And that's quick thinking that you need to have on stage
Mike Marino:when when you guys were doing your Instagram live feed. You get people writing in from different parts of the country, maybe different parts of the state. One time I was doing the morning walk that I do and some girl wrote in from Ukraine. And now all of a sudden hits. It's a conversation with everybody who's watching. And me and the girl in Ukraine, because they had the same questions I had. Right. Holy crap. Are you all right? What's it like? Are you near the bombing? And she started saying, first of all, she actually said this to me. You keep saying the Ukraine? It's just Ukraine. Ukraine. Yeah. It's not saying though. And I told all right, I apologize, Ukraine. And she goes, we're in Poland. We left and she started saying her whole story, right there on Instagram. And everybody was watching.
Mike Failace:You didn't ask her shoes in the bowl. And did you know
Mike Marino:you went to Jersey?
Kevin Donaldson:But that's just weird. Because
Mike Marino:we don't say New Jersey. We just say jersey? Jersey, right? Nobody ever says York. But we say we say the shore. I do down the shore when
Kevin Donaldson:I was traveling. And people asked me where I was from. It was when the sopranos were being filmed outside. Um, where the sopranos being filmed. And then then all of a sudden, the questions just flew out. Because New Jersey for as small as it is, has produced some of the greatest entertainers. Some of the greatest films, some of the greatest actors who download musicians everything. And well, I don't know, I'm not Bruce Springsteen. Fans are
Mike Failace:not well, Frank Sinatra. Bon Jovi.
Kevin Donaldson:Elvis came to New Jersey once.
Mike Failace:Yeah. And he never came back.
Kevin Donaldson:Yeah, why would he? That's the sequel. You've so mentoring these young comedians? It's because somebody did it to you. Do you feel it's almost your duty? Because there's space out there for everybody. We say this with podcasting all the time. You know, I'm not in competition with your mother's basement. We're different. We're yes, we're all out there in the ether. But we're not in competition with each other. That's why I never have a problem promoting anything of anybody else's. Do you feel that same way with comedy that there's space enough for everybody?
Mike Marino:Yeah, there is. There's room for everybody. Everybody's got a voice. Everybody can capture an audience. Sure, why not?
Kevin Donaldson:And you wish you would have that opportunity? Maybe you find that diamond in the rough. That one who's disciplined that one who tries to craft like you
Mike Marino:recently, I think I did is 23 year old kid, just coming to the show Saturday night, and I told him just hang around with me. I'll introduce you to some people. I got him one show. And he stood in front of 300 people and he did exactly what he was supposed to do. That's rare. And he was clean, made it about his family introduced me. We all went home, made some money. And I liked the guy. Frank given mentioned, John Franklin.
Kevin Donaldson:John Franklin. Yeah, we're gonna have to take a look. Yeah. So where can we find you? Where can we I know, right? Yeah, you're you're right here, right across the table. You're not in your mother's basement.
Mike Marino:All my social media is at Mike Marino live on all social media platforms, even a tick tock thing. And my websites Mike marino.net
Mike Failace:is still on MySpace. Now I wish I was your friends with Tom. I
Kevin Donaldson:know. Oh, you know, so we're doing this thing at Grand Sloan. You heard a little bit about on our Instagram life. It's our two year anniversary. grandslam is actually one of our sponsors. It's a nice little family, restaurant, family bar pub. They have live music, they actually have comedians and from time to time Nick has been very, very good for us. It's 940 van Houghton Avenue in Clifton, December 21. I'm going to invite you there. Just you're gonna you're gonna love it. They're not to perform just to be 21 December 21.
Mike Marino:I'll be in New Jersey. You'll be
Kevin Donaldson:in New Jersey. Hopefully you can make it aka I love I love you now the word balloon, so Oh no, yeah,
Mike Marino:we've been said saloon anymore.
Mike Failace:Nick does Nick Nick are the Grands a little nick.
Mike Marino:Collecting for Christmas?
Mike Failace:That's what we're doing we're trying to bring people together before Christmas.
Kevin Donaldson:Well that's our two year anniversary. Yeah, it's
Mike Failace:been two years party.
Kevin Donaldson:Yeah a little bit of a party. It's I think it's on a Wednesday Dawn
Mike Failace:it's it's just gonna be you know, get people together you know, all of our our listeners and everything we're inviting them all out all former guests. We're gonna get in we're gonna do you know, maybe a little remote podcast from there. And it's
Kevin Donaldson:actually going to coincide when this when this airs, you know, we're saving you because number 21, December 21. Don't worry, I'll tell December 21.
Mike Marino:I'm going to be at the Grand Saloon in Clifton. 940. Mountain Avenue, 940. Pan Hampton Avenue.
Mike Failace:They got spam on
Mike Marino:spam slices, you get three
Mike Failace:km and the packet.
Mike Marino:Spam comes in a packet. It used to come in a can because it was fresh. When it comes in a packet. It turns to green mold, but it tastes nice. I just did a commercial on your show. It's
Unknown:spam a lot.
Kevin Donaldson:So what do you got coming up?
Mike Marino:Well, hey, it's Saturday night, November 26. Which eight o'clock?
Kevin Donaldson:It'll be after this show is aired. So when we they should have
Mike Marino:came to my show? What the fuck? Why are you? Why weren't you there? We had spam everybody who came to a free span, a free slice.
Mike Failace:Three slices. A packet is not again.
Kevin Donaldson:I'm actually looking forward to it.
Mike Marino:All my shows are at Mike marino.net. From now straight until 2023.
Kevin Donaldson:And we actually hooked you up with you're doing something with frontline cigars. Was it December? Yes. And you mentioned that just a little while. Yeah. So frontline cigars is Steve boy comes out of Chicago. Yes. That's right, Steve.
Mike Marino:I spoke to him on the phone. Oh, yeah. I called him from Puerto Rico. I did. I was in Puerto Rico. It's free on his cell phone. And we were chit chatting. He was talking about, you know, the depression that he goes through. And I was telling him about what I go through, and that we can't wait to meet and talk. And then I made them laugh because at that moment, I was sitting in a restaurant in Puerto Rico and I was having a chicken burrito. And a hen went walking by a rooster. They have roofs. They just walk around on the street to check his plumbing and I said to him I go I feel a little bad. Right now I'm actually having a chicken burrito. And there's a rooster staring at me. Like listen, I used to eat spam. I switched to burrito. I'll go back to spam.
Kevin Donaldson:Now Steve, Steve's a good dude. And that's those those fortuitous relationship building skills. Because here's how it happened. Mike was doing an Instagram Live. I always whenever I see you doing a live I always tune in. And you invite me on. And when I went on, Steve had seen I went on with Mike came in. And actually Steve made a good joke. I said, Yeah, Steve's, Steve's, a good friend of mine. He's and Steve goes, he knows me. I don't know him, which I thought was pretty funny. It's pretty quick at the time. But that's those those relationship building skills and that's probably served you well throughout your life. Now, you've done this for 30 years, you've had the highs, you've had the lows, and seems like more of the highs and the lows, but I'm sure it was tough at some point. You've gone through some suffering, even though you make light of a lot of the suffering. What do you think it's taught you being a veteran comedian?
Mike Marino:Well, I know I'm never gonna do anything bad to my own self. I'm always gonna do charities to let myself know that I have a great life. And there's people out there that need help.
Kevin Donaldson:They need to laugh.
Mike Marino:You got to be grateful with what you have. Here's what I do the mice do for myself. Daily.
Mike Failace:We don't this is a family oriented show. I don't
Mike Marino:I don't have any physical problems. My hands work my feet work. I'm not aching. I'm not paying. As far as I know. My cholesterol is not bad. So I'm okay. So that I have I have my health and I know the value of that because I did have eight inches of my colon removed about eight years ago because I had a thing called diverticular. reticulated I got an I thought I was just going to die. I almost wanted to die. I'm like, Just kill me. But since I don't have it no more. I realize okay, man, because when I was sick, I said while I was in that hospital, if I ever get out of here, I'm never going to complain about anything again. And I ended up complaining about shit anyway, the next day, but here's something that happened recently. Now. I'll say this on your show. These people are coming Saturday night. to the, to the show. A woman sends me an email and says, How much do you charge to entertain at a wedding? And I says, Well, it'd be between this much and this much, but it depends on where, when and how. She goes, Well, it's going to be on this particular Saturday night, and we know you're going to be in New Jersey, we know that you're going to be at this club that night, we're going to have brunch. I said, you're having a brunch for a wedding? And she said, Yeah, my husband has stage four brain cancer. And I need to get him on my insurance policy right away. And I said, How old is this man? She said, 30. And I go, I'm free. There will there'll be no charge. Why does this have to happen? You're on his bucket list. He can't wait to meet you. He doesn't know I'm doing this. He loves you so much, that I think this is going to be really good for him. And his doctor gave him five years. So I says, Okay, I'm bringing a singer. I'm bringing another comedian. I'm bringing the cake girl, Marissa and Ariane. She's going to bake a cake. And we got you covered trick. Don't worry about nothing uncommon. And we went in there at 12 o'clock, we busted up this place. I had this guy laughing his ass off. I hugged him. I says, Dude, what happened? And he goes, Well, you know, this is what happened in my life. And the doctor diagnosed in this time, the other thing. So I'm all happy that I got to do something for somebody that I'm saying to myself, look how lucky I am, that I don't have brain cancer at 30 years old. Then the letters start coming. Thank you so much. I think you added two years to his life. And they will come and 10, jpg, all of them, his friends, his everybody that was at that wedding,
Kevin Donaldson:I have no doubt in my mind that you put a couple years on to this guy, because you made him forget about his problems. But when you do those things for other people, that's really, that's what gives you the perspective because you got to see the bad before you can appreciate the good, like your success. Now, you only appreciate your success, because there was a time when you weren't successful.
Mike Failace:Right. Right. And it's really paying it forward. Absolutely. I mean, that that's a great thing. It must be fulfilling to you. Yeah, like you said, you did it for free. You told him that you were going to do it. It'd be fulfilling for you to see smiles on these people's faces. And knowing that you put a smile on their face.
Mike Marino:It's a little bit of a mindfuck. Am I really that big of a deal? That I'm on your bucket list? Really? I'll be right over. Yeah.
Mike Failace:I know. Nobody's been listening to it.
Mike Marino:Recently, I was on a plane. And Lady, were coming in for a landing. And she goes, I hope you don't mind. But um, I took your picture while you were sleeping. I go, why would you do that? And she goes, my daughter's a really big fan. And I told her that you will hear and she's like, get his picture. And I go, Well, why don't you just take a picture while I'm away? And she goes, I don't want to bother you. And I go, this is hilarious. You got this roll
Mike Failace:coming down your mouth and
Kevin Donaldson:there's a picture you sleep and floating around somewhere.
Mike Marino:No, I said to a miss, you could just take a picture with me. It's not that big of a deal. So it took a picture together. And as soon as we had the picture taken together, it makes other people in airport go oh, you know, what, could I get one too? And I start to go do I have that face that I look like some kind of an asshole that I'm unapproachable? Because could you people tell me maybe this is why I haven't had sex for quite some time. I'm a single guy. Maybe I should walk around smiling a little bit more.
Kevin Donaldson:I have to tell you my I appreciate you coming in here. I thank you for coming in here. You were one of the most genuine guys I've met in a very, very long time. Especially somebody of your status. You you I don't want to say you earned the right to be an asshole. But there are plenty people with your less famous than you who are absolute assholes. But that's not you.
Mike Failace:We think they're bigger than they are.
Kevin Donaldson:Yeah. This guy right here. Perfect example. Mike, thanks for Thank you for
Mike Marino:having me on the show. It was great meeting you. This is great. I look
Kevin Donaldson:forward to seeing you this weekend. Now do I get spam? We'll get we'll hook you up with some spam. We get nice little parting gift of spam.
Mike Failace:We'll bring it to the show and start throwing them on the stage. I've been spammed.
Kevin Donaldson:That's gonna do it for this episode of the suffering podcast the suffering of veteran comedian natto. As always, let's think about what we learned. Sometimes a career finds you. Bombing can be a gift. Humor can be found everywhere, but most importantly, you got to let go and that's gonna do it for this episode. Follow us on social media follow us on Instagram Facebook, Tik Tok LinkedIn. Don't forget you can listen before you watch every episode comes out on Sunday and Monday through route Friday. Watch our new content. Follow Mike at Mike underscore Falaise. Follow me a real Kevin Johnson and of course follow the suffering podcast and we're gonna see on the next episode
