Saying "NO" to the Mafia | Sit Down with Michael Franzese and Chazz Palminteri

hey everybody um wait a minute hey everyone welcome to another sit down with michael francis hope everybody is doing well everything is great on this end and today i got a special guy that i'm going to sit down with we've done it before he's come back again i was lucky enough to capture him he came out to l.a grabbed him right away say chaz you got to be on the podcast again because everybody loved you last time so this time it's going to be just as good chas palmitary coming up don't move offer you can't refuse and i'm going to tell you this he has his own podcast is good or better than mine you know because he's smarter than me so go out and look at it i mean that but anyway chance palmitary coming up stay tuned [Music] [Music] all right chaz this is a great surprise i didn't know you were going to be here but i captured you got you into the studio and we had such a great time first time around i got to tell you this i've sat down with so many people but i don't know if you realize this the last time that we were together so many people took just little tidbits of words that you said and it spread like wildfires some of them went viral yes i saw that they really went violent and uh it was just great we got such great comments people loved the dialogue between us so it's great to have you back you and i have become friends yes i just want everybody to know i ate in chazza's restaurant manhattan it was terrific we had a great time wonderful thank you and uh and uh obviously you treated us uh very well so well i know it's my pleasure so many people have told me you got to do things with michael francis you we love that you know i says yeah i said you know when i go back out to lane so that's why when i called you i said i'm coming out to la and and then you said i want to do your podcast and i said oh we'll that'll be great i mentioned to you yesterday like my son has my and my daughter i was already famous when they were born so and when they grow older you know they might they know dinero pacino robin williams brad pitt they know them all when i said to dante i said yeah no i'm gonna i'm gonna do a podcast he says who are you doing a podcast i said you know michael francis no way i'm going i mean freaking out freaking out and his girlfriend chloe said you're gonna go there could i come to i said yeah yeah so i'd be freaking out to meet you you know when you said that i thought you were going to say you know and he's so level-headed he doesn't make any of these things get to him but when you said that i was wow no no i love your son by the way just love him he's he's a good boy we try to do the right thing absolutely bring them up the right way i said gee that's a subject i wanted to talk to you about do you think the wise guys from the old days like the 20s i mean even the black hand in the early 1890s and then coming with lucky luciano you think they were always admired by people or it was like a double-edged sword people admire them but they didn't want to be with them you know they want to be they want to have their ear but they don't want to be involved i used to think it was like the cowboys you know like the big gunslingers you want to be friends with jesse james but you don't want him to be over your house for dinner what is it with wise guys that people just love i don't know it's a good point and i think there's a lot of validity to what you said a lot of people they want to admire you from a distance right but you know that take that next step and be really involved with you what does that mean you know what's it going to do to me and then there are other guys chas that just dying to be around us you know they just for some reason maybe they want a piece of what they perceive as power or you know who knows what it is but i'll tell you this you know i'll i'll never forget when the movie the godfather came out right back in the 70s that movie did more for my my former life than anything before it because it it gave a certain amount of dignity and class to that life right i think the way the actors carried themselves the way the story was written guys on the street actually started to to talk differently they started to act differently they would even dress differently i mean i noticed this and it was all because of the godfather that's the kind of impact that that movie had on guys on the street you know i was young then so i mean i was just coming up i was just starting but i noticed it and even you know i had a conversation with my dad and he once said you believe these guys they all think they're part of the godfather now that's what he would talk exactly i mean i mentioned this to you a couple of times that what the godfather did it was like insane i would go into a nightclub i had to kiss 12 12 guys before i even sat down how to kiss 12 guys you know and meanwhile we were tired we did kiss before that but oh my god it was like guys i didn't even guys i didn't even know hey hey chad say i just go oh god i don't want to go in there i got to kiss too many people you know yeah the great thing about colvin was once covert came it stopped everything it stopped yeah so i love that it's amazing how people are just enamored by by real wise guys i mean i'm sure wise guys know that right yes i mean there's no question and you know look there's a different and i hate to say it because i don't want to be like offensive to anybody but there's a different class of wise guys even among all of us there were guys that carried themselves a certain way and look you gotta the most notable would be john gotti he was a guy that you know really personified that whole era because of all the publicity that he had but he dressed the part he looked the part he acted the part in some way so there was a certain dignity about guys like him maybe joe colombo he got to say the same thing he tried to carry himself a different way and then the the guys that are just thugs on the street you know so there was like two levels two different levels right and the guys that carried themselves the right way people wanted to be around i'll be honest with you chaz i never had to chase anybody i mean people were always chasing me maybe because of my dad you know i'll admit to that and you know he had a big name and then when i started to come up and people around me started to see the way i was acting they wanted to be around us you know there was just certain thing that they wanted to be around and uh right now do you feel michael do you feel that they had laws in the wise guys i remember you know i'm sicilian so i know the old country they had a lot where they would never hurt your family right right but is it still that way now or it's not that way anymore to my knowledge it's never been violated we were told straight out you know you don't ever bother a guy's wife daughter sister mother you don't mess with family unless the family itself was involved one of your family members that's different but if your family members weren't involved like look when i walked away from that life i never worried about anybody retaliating against my family i never saw that happen i don't think we we had a certain respect in that regard and to my knowledge that wasn't violated right so i never worried about that because people that didn't know any better saying why aren't you worried about your family you know i said no why you know nobody's going to retaliate against them we don't do that right and uh and i don't think it's changed now i mean i haven't heard it wasn't that that even if a guy tried to like you know fool around with your wife or try to come out to your wife that was bad too right you're told straight out you mess with somebody else's wife daughter sister mother you're dead that's it that's dead dead i'll tell you a story it's a sad story there was a guy he was a maid guy that was in our crew and uh he was around a long time him and his brother were made and his father was made before him one day we're driving in brooklyn and i'm driving him to his house driving him home so he gets out of the car and he says michael wait before you leave i want to make sure that somebody's home that's okay i thought maybe he didn't have a key so he opens the door he goes in for a second he's standing by the door i see him calling to somebody and then he shuts the door and comes back and i said what happened you went in he said but nobody's home i said but you went in the house what are you worried about he said i can't go in my house that's why not he's because i'm haunted i said what do you mean you haunted his father had messed around who was a maid guy had messed around with somebody else's wife or daughter i figured it was and the two brothers killed him and from that moment on he said i could never be in my house alone he said i'm haunted by it and i'm saying to myself he killed his own father so that's how serious that was well that's how serious that was you don't you don't cross that line you don't cross that line yeah no well i mean i think that's right but when it came to scheming money they'd do anything no that was a total different thing you could probably rob somebody's wife but just don't mess with it now i'm only kidding no i know what i'm saying it's pretty amazing i you know i always found that to be incredible you know it's but that's what made wise guys fascinating i tell people all the time you know we're in a generation now where they're trying to get rid of things that aren't socially acceptable now right they haven't done that with the mafia yet because an austrian this country but it's it was a major part of american history right i mean the mob in this country for over a hundred years survived and prospered under some very difficult conditions right and it was actually a part of our culture i mean think about it you know and we infiltrated every fabric of society from the guy on the street in the numbers business right right up to the white house and we had you know relationships that brought us into the white house so it was a major and we control the unions you can you know this jazz you control the unions in this country you control the country you have politicians doing your bidding you had everybody you know at your uh behest and so it was a major part of our culture right and i think back in the 80s when giuliani started to use the racketeering laws effectively i think he was the first guy that started to realize hey we got to get rid of these guys well rico was the thing that just devastating once rico came in that was devastating devastated everybody very hard to defend uh right you can't and there was some professor came up with that i forgot who it was but he came up with that and they said yeah yes his name was debaki well it was like you know the chin you know you couldn't get the chin because he wouldn't he didn't have a phone that's right he wouldn't talk to anybody in public and he he would whisper so they never had him on tape right i mean literally if you don't talk on tape it's very hard to get you very difficult another quick story i'm on trial giuliani puts me on trauma i tried for several months i had 15 co-defendants i was a lead defendant right right there was one guy chaz i'll never forget he was a union guy i never met him i never met half the guys that i was on trial with i don't even know who they were and but they throw you all together in his recall indictments so they mentioned his name in the opening statement he was your union guy once yeah we go through six seven months they never mentioned his name again right it was a nice guy so i go up to him when when we're ready to wrap up and go to i said hey you're going home they never mentioned it they forgot about you don't worry about it right last day before they uh uh do closing arguments they play one tape of his right and on the tape he's sitting in a conference room of this place and he said he makes this statement i'll never forget he said listen what we're doing here is a crime if this tape table is bugged we're all going to jail that's all he said he gets convicted he gets seven years based upon all he said that's all he said his words though it's a crime if this place is bugged we're all going to jail and that was it he got seven years a poor guy that's why you cannot talk on the thing i get asked this question a lot michael people always go chaz we know you know these things they said what is it for a guy to get a button for a guy to be made does he have to kill somebody or does he have to be an iron years ago it was me how to whack somebody when i was a kid was it always that way or did it change as as it you know it's never changed look um you have to be ready to do whatever you're told to do right and uh look i mean i i don't like to talk about it but i said i've been honest about this you know when my father first proposed me i was sitting in leavenworth in the uh in the visiting room and he said to me he said i'm going to ask you one question i want an honest answer i should go ahead dad he said if you ever had to kill somebody could you do it never asked that question before and i thought about it a minute i said that under the right circumstances i think i can he said that's the right answer and that's when he proposed me he said go home somebody be in touch with you do whatever you told now at the time that i was made there was i don't know if you remember the there was an expression that the books were closed the books go and bring in any new guys they didn't open the books real well for a while from the 50s right through 1975 right exactly and so there was tons of guys waiting to be made that were proposed they were waiting 10 15 20 years right so now they bring all of these guys in and i don't mean to be offensive but how many guys you're gonna kill they don't just tell a guy hey go out and kill anybody you want you know so so guys were were brought into that life but they were told your day is gonna come you're gonna be called on you've got to be ready to do it so there was guys that were made without necessarily pulling a trigger at that point but when they when the time came so that makes sense so of course the books were closed for so long that when they opened them they had so many guys that how many guys you want to kill you gotta you gotta make somebody exactly now did they close the books because of the appellation thing yeah they said it was security reasons because they were bringing two guy too many guys in law enforcement supposedly getting sophisticated so all the family said the only time you can bring a guy in is to replace a guy that died right independently that's it you know but that was the commission ruling but i i got to tell you you know they talk a lot about the commission right but i i compare the commission to the united nations right it had a big voice allegedly and a big title but it didn't do anything in many many ways because the commission can never tell the boss of a family what to do with his own family they could advise they can suggest right but one boss can't tell another boss what to do on his own family so the commission it didn't have as much weight as people think it that it did wow and i've heard you know my boss tell me hey i don't care what they think i do what i want my own family and i heard that many times right but what about four bosses came to you and said look you this has got to change that's something else yeah i mean most of the time they'll try to agree with one another and you know but look it's a street light people still do shady things you know even they don't listen right now you know i always meant to ask you the carmine periscope was the snake a name that he liked or he didn't like that he hated it he hated it how did he get that name because during the uh prefacia gala war yeah he was originally with uh the gallows yes and then he turned on them oh and from that point on they called him the snake and he went with the side that was going to win profacious side colombo eventually but uh so from that point on he got that's why he got the name yes and we hated it nobody it was just like fat tony nobody would call him father nobody's face a lot of people had a lot of things to say i got along well with junior i i liked him yeah you know and i think he liked me like he respected my dad um i got along well with him but you know a lot of guys have different opinions but i mean the guy never had a chance to be a good boss he was always in jail he come home for six months they lock him up again i mean he was like my dad in and out in and out yeah so you got to give him credit because he he ran the family for a long time while in prison because he had the right people around him michael he always fascinated me how could a guy who's in jail and he's doing 20 years why don't the guys who are you know in the family go hey you know what [ __ ] him uh he's in jail let's let's get a new boss how come they don't do that well they do and that's when uh when vic arena when we had our last war we were always at war in the 90s vic arena you know made that move and that's when the family went to war again but the ra the way junior was able to hold on is because he had a lot of his family he had his son allie boy oh okay you had andrew russo who was his first cousin yeah you know so he couldn't turn all those people no you couldn't turn it loyal to him right they were loyal to him okay but it's hard for him in jail i mean there's no you know people think it's it's so easy it's it's not communication is hard especially when you're in the federal system because they watch for that and they separate you and they they make it hard for you to run things on the outside they really do wow it always fascinated me and look i mean jill i mean you did a couple of years in the hole right i did uh 29 months and seven days in a hole 29 months it's almost almost three years almost three years in the whole i'll be honest with you chad you know people can say yeah you know put me in a hole that's tough i mean you know i learned through that experience we weren't meant to be solo creatures we were meant to be social there's no doubt a lot of a lot of guys when those lights went out at night you heard a lot of moaning and groaning and uh it's tough it's tough being in solitary yeah i mean i remember when we shot analyzed this dinero said oh i got to have real criminals you know so we're like oh okay bob you know bob is so meticulous and we went up to sing-sing and we sat down with these guys and i was talking to one of the cops one of the bosses of the cops and he was saying yo goes oh yeah he goes we could have a day where four or five suicides right in a row five days in a row he said yeah five days in a row five people kill themselves people do that they lose their minds they lose their mind you know we used to get one or two showers a week and when they shower you they handcuff you because when you're in a hole they got to shackle you whenever you move anywhere if you go to the yard the yard is a cage so you guys you're in the cage got to be shackled right and when they put you in a shower they lock the shower and sometimes there's a disturbance upstairs where they call all the the cops upstairs you're in the shower five or six hours seven hours until they come back down and take you out and sometimes the shower goes off because they don't let you run the water that whole time and you just you're in there for five six hours you may as well sit on the floor until they come back i mean it's it's a crazy situation i got torment poison four or five times in here to the point where i would only eat uh packaged goods that i bought in a commissary i ate like a cup of soup i would eat cereal and that's it that's it i wouldn't eat anything else the amazing my son and i were just talking about because my son and i we work out a lot how do these guys there's no now they've taken weights away in california from guys there's not really a great gym there how do these guys get so jacked up the food is [ __ ] how does that happen well during my day when they had you know gyms in there and then they took them away because they said they were making super criminals some politician gets on there and says we have to take all the weights out of the out of the yard prison yards because they're making super criminals nonsense is that the dumbest thing you ever heard it's it's the best thing for them so we used to keep their mind off you know what all the wardens in the bureau of prisons revolted against it they said hey this is the one place these guys go in there they knock themselves out they get tired they go to sleep yeah what else are they going to do when they're on the yard they did it anyway what they did is the wardens are just the diverse the wardens fought back and they said okay we won't take the weights out but you can't build them in any new prisons and you can't replace them if they're broke they got to go so they would never you know be able to replace them it was stupid stuff but uh you know a lot of guys worked out in there and did what they can and then when you get in the hole i mean i don't care if there's nothing you could do but push-ups and sit-ups that's it wow there is nothing in there on my podcast i have this uh i'm starting this kind of like moment where defining moments and i and you're going to be my first defining moment okay so i would say in the next few weeks i'm interviewing these people and i would like to know from you michael francis what was your defining moment in your life that brought you here today everybody has a defining moment so sometimes you have two of them three of them but if you had to pick one what do you think it would be well let me let me say this first because i had more than one right uh on your podcast i have so many people saying to me since we have done our last one yeah jazz has got so many words of wisdom with every guest that he has there's some good encouraging information that comes out of it so i'm actually advising my whole inner circle to subscribe to your podcast to listen because it's just great stuff thanks you know it's it's not only about storytelling but people need to hear good things yeah and you're providing a lot of that so thank you and i i know you're going to grow you're growing bigger thank you thanks a lot but you know i tell you one defining moment that really changed the course of my life when my dad i had seen my dad get arrested my whole life since from the time i was a kid so it didn't mean that much but this time well i shouldn't say it didn't mean that much but i know he get he went in he got out he got out but this particular time he gets uh convicted of conspiracy to rob banks he gets sentenced to 50 years in prison 50 50. it was the longest sentence for a bank robbery conspiracy he was supposed to have masterminded ordered it that was ever given up to that point right from what i'm told they didn't rob the bank no he allegedly had one meeting and told everybody to go rob banks and he got convicted of masterminding and got 50 years he got 225s running wild back-to-back back-to-back yeah he was out on appeal for three years back then you're allowed to stay out on appeal right he loses all his appeals in 1970 a lot they lock him up he goes into mdc and the uh to jail in new york federal jail so i go see him and it was my first discussion with him i said dad bank robbery and he looked at me and i'll never forget he said look me in my eyes i said okay he said i am no bank robber i was framed i didn't commit this crime michael and i believed him because to that point i don't think my dad ever lied to me yeah and he said and i need your help because you've got to take care of your mother your brothers and sisters because i was like 18 19. and he said somehow we got to overturn this conviction we got to we got to beat this case she said oh i'm gonna i got a death sentence and um and that's when we had this discussion about you know me being on the street and all this kind of stuff and that was that's when i made up my mind that no matter what i had to do i was gonna help my father get out of jail and that's what led me into the mob because prior to that i you know i loved my dad i respected him he was my hero but i didn't want to be a mobster if you would ask me back then what i wanted to be i wanted to play center field for the new york yankees mickey man was my hero you know and i was a college kid i was going to be a pre-med student but that that changed my whole trajectory in life because i said i can't let my dad die in prison you know when he said if you're going to be on the street i want you to be on the street the right way this is the way you can help me and he proposed me and i said dad whatever you want me to do just point me in that direction so that was a defining moment changed my whole course of life my next defining moment was when i met my wife and after i had gone through everything i'm in that life you know all those years i had i think i know six indictments i went to trial five times in the mid 80s when the racketeering laws came in jazz i'm telling you i'm in jail they locked me up with no bail on one racketeery case i'm in jail with everybody all the guys right and they're all going to trial and they're getting convicted and they're coming back in 80 years 100 years 200 years one guy got 300 years i'll never forget and i'm looking i'm saying i'm the youngest guy at all of these guys they're going to put me away for a half you know a billion years i said this life is in trouble and then i'm i'm talking to this guy willie boy willie boyd johnson he was with gotti he was yeah he was right underground he wasn't full of time no he was irish i had been shylocking with him he was a good nice guy so he came to me for money i said john is it all right he's yeah right don't worry about it so he was putting money out on the street i'm saying my god this guy's an informant for 20 something years and then i hear greg scarpa 20 30 years i said who can we trust anymore you know right you know so i said this life is over that's when i decided i i got to make a break i get out of the life try to get out of life and then you know i met my wife um and that was it i said i'm going to marry i fell in love with this girl i'm going to marry her what am i going to do go away for 100 years after that she was 20 years old exactly so i said i got to make a choice and um that's when i decided to walk away so the defining moment there's a few what was the few right yeah with those two and because they were life-changing for me because i'll tell you right now josh if i don't walk away i'm either dead or in prison for the rest right now yeah without a doubt no doubt wow yeah probably all right without a doubt that war we had and uh i think 13 guys got killed yeah in the early 90s i think uh something like 28 guys went to jail for life another 15 became informants i mean it was a mess i always wanted to ask you why did they call scarpo the grub reaper that was his personality and uh you know look i mean he he was a rough guy he was a killer he was a guy oh yeah i mean he was a serial killer you know him uh you know a couple of guys i mean the mayo crew they were demands serial killer serial killer i mean they would kill guys for no reason no conscience i heard they used to like they used to actually be playing cards eating lasagna and three guys would be hanging in the bathroom bleeding yeah you know the gemini club the gemini club they would drain their bodies drain the blood out of their bodies and then they go back to eating and like you know you know the problem is that people identify cause an austria with a greg scarpa or with uh with that guy roy demaio yeah chaz it wasn't like that you know there's there's guys now on the internet that if you listen to them you think every day we're beating somebody up or killing somebody it wasn't like that i mean you know there was a lot of us that we didn't have to do that people understood who we were our presence meant something right and we didn't have to act that way it's not that we couldn't but why do you want to do that if you don't have to right and my father taught me that too look my father was a tough guy there was no question i mean he's if you had a if you had to epitomize somebody as being a tough guy in that life where's my dad who's your dad i mean your dad is known to be the guy like if you had to put it in the dictionary that's the guy because he always did yeah always did right he was a guy but he also taught me he says michael that's the last resort you don't want to have to do that you know he says make your presence be you know as i say i used to have clubs right that i was associated with in long island and brooklyn and i would get bouncers and i'd get the big guys that look strong right and i tell them hey you look like this for one reason if you got to go in and start beating somebody up every night what do i need you for i can get small guys to do that too right i said your presence is supposed to be enough to show people that they can't mess around in here and in a way the way we carried ourselves people knew who we were that should be enough most of the time right but you know some guys just did it differently did you ever have an incident i always wanted to answer this michael where nobody they didn't know who you were and they acted a certain way towards you then they found out who you were and then it was a whole big difference i'll give you i'm in a sansa's hand was with my dad's club one that happened many times i'm in a sand suzanne my dad had a piece of that club and uh and then i got involved and took it over and some guy is at the bar and he's not behaving himself he's being silly with the bartender by the the waitress rather he's behind the bar what do you call it joe black comes over to me and he says michael you want to talk to these guys he's acting silly he's bothering people at the bar so i go up to him and i said look you know why don't you behave yourself i said people are getting the noise a nice place here he looks at me he says you know who i am says i hate that line do you hate that line i hate that line more than anything more than anything i should no no tell me who you are he said you know who owns this place i should not tell me who owns your place has you ever heard sonny francis i said i heard of him he said you know sonny's in prison i said yeah i know that he said i make one phone call to his son and he'll be down here in five minutes this is what he tells me right i said really i said i got a surprise for you says he's going to be here quicker than that now i will tell you i was a little bit thuggish at that point in time because i hated that that's why my father went to jail people using his name and doing all of his stuff they use it yeah yeah but i mean uh and i had you know incidents similar to that where people act one way and then oh my god i mean people don't realize but we know that because again you were in the life but i was around the life that you don't use somebody's name if you really don't know him or or if he doesn't know that you can use his name you just don't do that that's bad thing to do you don't drop names you don't drop names man i hate that i hate when people do you know who i am you know i mean come on anybody who says you know who i am it's an [ __ ] i mean i'm i just you just don't do that do you know who i am i don't know who you are if you were somebody i wouldn't know who you are that's what i always say i don't know who you are that's right you know chad i got to say this now that you bring it up you grew up around the street around a lot of guys right and i'm sure you had the opportunity to do certain things and maybe become involved in the life in some way and i'm sure people i don't want to say tried to put the arm on you but maybe try to romance you and yeah and maybe get involved and and i got to give you credit because you didn't no you know you made your way your way you did it the right way you did it your own way and i have a lot of respect for that i mean you know what i think it is thank you but i think it is if you have a dream and you you have this vision of who you want to be i always wanted to be an actor and a writer and and i had that vision and i just didn't sway away from it you know and and i think that's what keeps a person there is if you have something to look forward to something that a passion that you get up in the morning and you say i want to do this man i want to do this where my friends some of them not all of them some of them my other some of my other friends are very successful but some of my other friends they didn't have a passion it was like to them it was i wake up in the morning how could i get money how could i scheme somebody something how could i scam somebody well i would wake up in the morning and we we were scamming in card games and things like that but in my in the back of my mind i said well i you know i want to go to school i want to stay in school did i get tempted yes i'm not going to lie to you i did but i just i wanted to be somebody i wanted to do something with my life let me ask you this because i know a lot of guys in your position would have been enamored or attracted to guys in their life what what was it that allowed you or made you keep your distance yeah oh i was enamored by them oh yeah and i was friends with some of the some of the real guys and i would say and i won't have to say anything but you know i said yeah yeah or you know how it is if if you're friends with the present united states and you go somewhere you know you're sitting next to him everybody's looking at you it's it's intoxicating man it's it is intoxicating or if one of the bosses said to me hey he's a good kid this kid i come at you you know i love this kid you mess with this kid you mess with me they would kid around with things like that and it felt great but you know what when the time came after i got nominated for an academy award and and they put the screws on me which i didn't think was going to come i thought that would never happen but i was at the bar and i went back just as right after i got nominated and the guy walked over to me and he said hey so and so once he wants to talk to the you know they're in the back now when a guy says that you know it's bad news right it's bad news i don't care what it is it's not good news absolutely so-and-so wants to talk to you he's in the back so in my mind i'm already saying to myself okay i'm walking tall i'll never forget it i think i told you the story i'm walking towards the back room and i see them all around a round table with a black a white and red tablecloth i could see it now and i'm saying to myself they're going to hit on me and there's no excuse me there's no [ __ ] way that i'm going to give these guys anything and i said it to myself i said charge just be cool you know how to do this i said but if it comes down to and on my mother and father i should die right now if i'm lying i said i will take a [ __ ] bullet to the head before i give them a piece of me right now and i walked over to them and i sat down and they started they would said they were really proud of me getting nominated and then they said we have a friend of ours in la who you know and said that he you could be with him and he'll make phone calls for you and you'll be with him and and i said you know what all due respect i appreciate it thank you for thinking of me i'm glad you're looking out from a guy from the neighborhood i said but at this stage of my career i don't need anybody to make a phone call for me but i appreciate all your help and i will never forget it and one of them said to me i'll never forget his words he said oh you're a big star now you don't need us i said no no no no not at all i said i'm no store i'm just an actor what am i i said you guys are the stars let's be honest i said but i really appreciate you thinking of me and right there i stood up i got up from the table because once you get up the meeting's over i stood up and said hey guys i gotta run thank you so much and i'm shaking and hugging a few of them and one of them said hey come outside and i'll put my arm around you could take a picture with the fbi i said no no no so they all looked at me they said you sure you know i said no no i said well if you change your mind you let us know i said yeah okay i never went back to that bar again ever that's the one bar i never went back to in my neighborhood and that was it but i i was ready i i was ready i can't believe i'm saying this i was ready to die that was your defining moment that's a big dividing because your whole life would have changed my whole life would have changed because they would've had a piece of me and a piece of my my my wonderful work of bronx tale in the one-man show in the musical in the movie and i can tell you this we like to govern that regard once we get a piece we don't give it back you don't give it back right you got it for us i mean we got that piece forever we got that that was a defining that was a defining moment i'll never forget it i said i will take a bullet in the brain right now i was ready and if they would have said no you're doing this i would have said no you're not i'm not i'm not you could do whatever you got to do do what you got to do but i'm not doing it there's no way i would have did it because i saw what it does it was the best movie i saw and my father always used to tell me once they get their hooks in you it's over they never he goes you could say no in the beginning my dad told me and another wise guy told me that he goes you could say no in the beginning and you could threaten to go to the law and you might get away with it he said but once you say yes yes you can't say no that's right and they didn't bother you after that never bothered me again and you know what if guys stood up like that people think that the next movies are going to come and put a gun to your head because that's where you're seeing the movies right it's not true that's not true not true that's not true you know what a wise guy told me he said let me tell you something i'd rather go to a guy who's a guy and say i want a piece of his action than a straight guy he goes because i know a guy who's a guy he's not going to go to the cops i could deal with him on my level he said but if i go to a guy and i know he's going to go to the fbi and he says no i leave him alone 100 100 percent and he said why i said why he goes because he's got the toughest mob in the world that's right the government's the toughest mob in the world they print their own money and they won two world wars that's right don't mess with them i vouch for that 100 percent no yeah no man that's what he said but i do want to say this i don't know if we spoke about it last time but the movie the bronx tale right coincidentally you played a character by the name of sunny yes you didn't realize it probably back then but you acted so much like my dad i heard that many many times i mean it and that's yesterday if it was him i'm telling well i said i wonder i said at that point i wonder if chaz knows my father because you carried yourself the way he the words that you said just everything about you in that movie reminded me so much of my dad yeah i i've heard that that's a compliment because i love my dad and i i i yeah no no you know it was it was listen to me that's a big compliment because when people speak of your father they speak of like he was a tough guy like some bosses are not tough guys like castellano wasn't really a tough guy castellano was like he's like a ceo that's right getting off the site but i want you to know that that's that's why i love it and that's a real compliment i take it as well castellano he had the right idea yes he really did he wanted our life to be like a business he didn't want dogs running around the street causing trouble and everything else but i think he went about it the wrong way turned people off and uh but he had the right idea because look chaz you just can't go you can't roam the streets being a crazy guy and robin and you just can't it catches up with you at some point in time i mean and look sammy gavano did this he made this separation which i never really thought about it until he said it and he said to me you know i'm more of a gangster you're more of a of a racketeer yes and then he said but i'm a gangster and a racketeer he wanted to make sure he was smaller yeah yeah yeah i i loved the way he was but he was a gangster he was a gangster and you were a racketeer a racketeer and and the life needs both yes but what i said to him i said sammy i don't care what organization you have i don't care whether it's the federal government guys on the street a business without money you got nothing without money to make these things work and i said it a thousand times you know who made the mob strong in this country the government during prohibition right they made millions to it by this is what financed the whole organized crime it was the money they made through prohibition right you know it's the same with you know these drug cartels it's the money that makes them powerful it's not the fact that they can go out and shoot people right because then you're just a bunch of thugs on the street but you got nothing to finance yourself or do anything it's all about the money without that you don't have anything and anything and that's true of anything in the world oh you're right anything in the world and sooner or later you start killing so many people the government's going to turn on you they're going out i mean pablo escobar you know after a while they just said okay enough enough now yeah and look at how much control he had within the government for a time well that's why he was around so long exactly but then and then after a while it's enough yeah in sicily too when they killed uh yeah when they killed him you know they just said all right that's enough this guy's got to go once he killed barcellino and then he killed giovanni falco for falcone that was it they were done they said okay and the people were done they didn't care anymore you know they said this guy these people got to go well you know another interesting thing people have said that the guys today in that life or even in my heart they weren't like the old-timers the old-timers were stand-up guys and i said them let me explain something to you yes and no yeah i'm going to tell you why years ago before they had the rico act and before they had the sentencing reform and the belly for drugs and all of that and before all of that you get convicted of a crime you get 10 15 years you still made parole so you do six or seven eight anybody could do that right any guy on the street can do that i did eight years anybody can do that today so guys stood up because it made sense for them to stood up right do a couple of years come home it's part of the life once the 80s came around you get locked up you get no bail right no bail you get you get one count in a rico account you get 20 years there's no more parole you got to do 85 percent of your time so you're doing 17 and a half that's it and normally if you get 20 you're lucky because you got multiple counts you're going away for 40 50 60 years not too many guys stand up on that i can't say no and chaz the guys that were were informing they weren't young guys they were old-timers joey messina was the boss of the bonanno family he was in his 60s when he turned because he got 300 years guys don't stand up under that just the thought of that the thought of it so you know the government won they created these laws that make it impossible to survive so guys said hey and why do they come to you they say hey don't worry about it we got the witness protection program we'll give you x amount of dollars we'll change your identity bring it out to another spot live your life and don't worry about it nobody's gonna because these guys are going away forever how do you pass that up if you don't want to die in jail you can't there's not many people like benny eggs so what happened in our life is there was a sense of fear at one time you feared retaliation if you were to do something wrong you feared the boss yeah i know but what happened was the fear of that life was transferred to the fear of the government the government became more feared right and then guys said hey what do i need this no that's a great point so now what does that tell you that tells you that fear of getting caught and going to jail works fear of getting killed works so that's why and i don't want to bring up today but some of our laws today you you people are just robbing stealing and and there is no crime so how could you tell somebody they they're not going to do it in my neighborhood michael i don't know if you knew tammy moriello that was tammy moriello okay uh he owned the bar and it was it was southern boulevard and the bar was the m3m my dad and my uncles would go there and all these junkies because dope was big then in the 60s you know heroin they would steal the eight racks out of the cars break the windows steal the trucks i remember they used to hang underneath it so the wise guys were getting pissed the windows were getting broke so what they did was they grabbed these two one of the big dealers and junkies and they grabbed them they put they picked them up threw them in a van they took them for a ride they said okay here's the deal on this side of the street where the club is you don't touch one car on the other side where the bronx zoo is you can steal all you want if we find out that one of these cars got stolen wanna get broken we're coming after you even if you didn't do it we're coming to get you and trust me nobody will miss you do you understand so those guys made sure nobody stole anything ever again yeah nobody stole ever again on this side of the street they told them yeah this is on that side they robbed on this side they didn't very effective there was the bruno the bruno brothers a quick story the bruno brothers had there was a junkyard these people owned it really nice people they ran out of business because people kept going in trip they went right through the alarm robbed them so this other guy takes over he goes oh no he goes i'm going to put alarm says he goes but i'm putting dogs in he buys it he puts dogs in big you know rottweilers and stuff he's there for a few months comes back one day three dogs dead they shot him with bone arrows born arrows bought arrows not even did this shoot they used like a crossbow or bone on all three dogs that bone arrows dead right he sells it he sells it to these wise guys the bruno brothers they everybody's telling them don't buy this joint it's a it's it's a money pit they're going to rob you they said yeah yeah yeah yeah they put a sign up in the junkyard from i think it was like 20 feet by eight feet it says on the sign in the junkyard big letters anyone caught stealing in this yard will be beaten to death with a baseball bat the bruno brothers right no more crime very effective no more no alarm no dogs will be beaten to death with a baseball bat the bruno brothers that was that there would if he is [Laughter] sometimes it works sometimes it works let me ask you this brings up a good point in the movie the bronx tale yes uh you were asked is it better to be feared or loved yes what do you honestly feel about that i know what your response is we always discuss it and i know what you're saying it's better to be loved and feared i know what you're saying and you're right and i said this before when i spoke to you that if you're a wise guy it's better to be feared because and that's only what machiavelli would say machiavelli would say if you're if you're a boss it's better that they fear you because he used to say man is inherently evil and they will try to take over the boss but if they fear you they won't now are you going to be losing love yes of course you are but that's the way he felt and and the wise guy once told me he goes i rather they fear me then they love me i'll tell you what i think i think years ago that might have been yes in that life yes but ever since the racketeering laws came in and that fear is transferred to the government like i said i think you know you got a better shot if people love you and have a conscience about it and say you know what i can't hurt this guy i can't i love him yeah yeah what i wanted to ask you is i always wanted to ask you this is that i like i just told you about the moment i met the wise guys and i said no and i was ready to take a bullet in the head i swear to god i don't want to sound like a tough guy i believe it no i believe but you know when you you're really yes passionate passionate yeah was there ever like a time where you went on a ride and said i don't know if i'm coming out of this well there was one meeting that i had right that um yeah i didn't think i was going to survive i didn't know if i was going to survive you know one of the horrors of that life chaz is that you make a mistake your best friend walks you into a room we're going to walk out again and unfortunately you know as a couple on that life you know i obviously knew of those incidents and so what happens and i've said this before so i can say it again my dad was home on parole he calls me up and he says i got to see you so i go to his house and we're in the driveway of his house and we're talking he says the boss wants to see us tonight i said okay what time you want me to pick you up because i would drive him everywhere he was on parole and we were both captains at that point and he said well they want to do this differently they want you to come in for they want me to come in first meeting him and they want you to come in second and i said why i said why they want to separate us now there was a lot of talk on the street there was a an article came out i believe in newsday that said that i was making two billion dollars or something like that and i was i was getting strong enough to start my own family wow a total fictional storyline nothing to do with reality there's nonsense right but guys things get in their heads yes you know i don't have to tell you it gets an edge so i said dad why are we going to let them separate us no we're going to go together we said no no no we got an order that's how we're going to go it was the first time i ever had an argument with my dad i said no we're not doing it that way we're doing it back and forth back and forth finally i threw up my hands and i said you know what dad i never disagreed with you i said i always listen to you i said i don't like it but i'm going to do it your way i leave i get a call from this guy jimmy angelina another captain he says michael meet me in a certain place because the boss was on parole and we had to you know drive around so to make sure nobody followed us so you don't get violated so i get in the car with him i meet him in brooklyn i get in the car i was in long island and uh he's driving and somebody's sitting behind me right i recognized the guy but i didn't know him well and uh we had about a maybe a 15 20 minute ride to the house in brooklyn where we were going to meet everybody yeah and uh i'm waiting for jimmy to tell me you know what this is all about he don't say anything he starts talking to me about the yankees i love the yankees but i don't want to hear about the anchors at night and this guy ain't saying anything i'm saying this this doesn't feel good right chaz we get out of the car maybe a 30-yard walk from the car to the basement apartment where we were going and i get out of the car and now my sensors are keen right and he gets out and i suspect that jimmy's walking behind me and the other guy is walking behind him and i'm saying this is this is bad i said i don't like this right i i can remember when i talk about this i remember it so vividly it was an august night i can remember the the smell of the flowers and the crickets jerk because i'm saying i'm to get killed here i don't i don't know if i'm going to walk out of this place and so people have said to me why didn't you cut and run and i said you know what i don't know why it was like that's too late it was like robotic i said okay what am i going to do this is it it's like you know you lose control i can't believe it yeah you don't even i didn't even know how to think i can't even process how i was thinking i'm telling you the truth i don't know how i didn't my knees were weak and my heart is thumping out of my chest and i walked down those stairs and when that door opened you know i know the setup there's a guy shut up with a gun oh yeah i said this is i i don't know how i didn't faint when the door opened but uh obviously i'm here right so but we sat down and it grilled me about money and this and that and then what happened i started to get mad because it would put me on a spot and i'm starting to get angry and then i'm saying wait a second it looks like i'm gonna walk out of here don't let me bury myself by getting mad at the boss you don't do that and so everything is done right and um all right let's have a glass of wine everybody's happy and uh i just wanted to get out of that i was so aggravated so i told jim i said jimmy take me back to my car i got a long ride so we get in the car now you got to listen to this we get in the car and i'm mad because i knew jimmy my whole life this guy's walking me into something and maybe i don't know why he don't talk to me don't tell me anything so i turn around to him and i'm about to blast him verbally right and he says wait a minute before you say anything he's i got to tell you something i said what he said you know you held yourself up pretty good in that tonight he said this could have been a problem well now i got even more mad i said you know that you're my friend i know you're my whole life and you don't tell me what's happening so he looked at me chaz i'll never forget and he said if it was the other way around would you have told me and he he knew exactly what to say and i stood there for a second i said nope he said this is the life we lead mike he says you grew up in it you know it as well as anybody and it just that night that was a defining moment because it struck me too and i said wow and then listen to this i'm getting out of the car and as i get out he grabs my arm and he's i want to tell you something he says you're not going to like this but you could take this to the bank it's the truth mike i said what if your father was in there before you tonight he didn't help you one bit and i was like stunned i didn't even i didn't even know what to say to him i said okay and i get out and as i'm walking back to my car i'm saying what can my father have done and then i'm thinking knowing him so well he could have stood up for me and said my son wouldn't rob he wouldn't steal he wouldn't do anything like that instead what he said because i heard afterwards i don't know what my son is doing hey he's a i'm on parole he does everything i don't know what he's doing he just kind of threw me under the bus and you know what chess it was that i i don't even know how i'd admit i guess i i don't like to think about this but it was that night that i said what do we really got here father and son and this and i i it just it was hurtful it was more like do what you got to do it was hurtful wow but but that was a night where i was scared i don't i don't mind saying you know it was it was it was scary but so but i i said afterwards you know when i walked away from the life i said hey i know i could face death i did it once so if somebody's gonna come after me i said you know exactly when you face it like that you could say you know what i know i could i could handle myself when when if the [ __ ] hits the fan yeah i learned a lot from myself that day when i did that i said you know what i could face anything now i'm okay because let me tell you something you know the wrong guy in there could have could have made it bad for you that very good if somebody would have got insulted or hey you know why i tried to make it where they couldn't yeah the way you said it was right i disarmed them right away and then i got up because i knew the longer i stayed there the worse it is exactly and i got up and they must have just said they never bothered me again i said you know what [ __ ] it you know let them go what money we're talking about maybe we're not talking about a lot they should have realized but [Laughter] i know the mistake they made you know they should have said no they never bothered me again never asked me again but i didn't go to that place and i avoided them like a plague i avoided them and they're all dead now anyway so let me ask you this you had what were the defining moments in your life other than that one because the last time we spoke jazz i mean and i didn't even realize it but so many people picked up on so many things that you said i said this earlier and you know we're we're at a time now i don't know if you feel the same but i've never experienced this in my lifetime where there's so much division right so much hatred that's right out there right uh people need encouragement uh you know i get asked all the time you know michael help me i'm going through a litany of things yeah and i think if we can provide something that's helpful to people based upon experiences that we had in our life that people really pick up on it and they appreciate it well then you know i've gotten so many comments about our sit down that i don't get from others yeah i'll be honest with you just from some of the things that you said that encourage people that help people because of experiences that you had in your life well i i think one of the defining moments is when i got fired from that job that everybody knows you know i was i was working at a doorman and i got fired i didn't have money in the bank i ran out of the money that i got from guest star roles that i did and i just well that was definitely a big moment i i got fired i went home and i sat at the edge of my bed and i'd say and everybody knows the story there was the saddest thing in life is wasted talent was the card my father gave me and i and i said i'm not going down i'm not going down i said if they won't give me a part i'll write one myself and i went to the drugstore i got five tabs of yellow paper and i started i said what should i write about i said i write about the wise guys i said i know them i said i know when i i remember the killing when i was nine years old i saw it and i said i'll write about that and i started to write and i performed it for my theater workshop and i was like each each day i would write eight hours ten hours a day every day and then i would perform it on monday night each week then i would take eight minutes out of that cut out three minutes each i kept working it every monday and i would edit edit until i had 90 minutes of a one-man show and then i was able to get raise the money and put it up but it was that moment i just said i'm not going down i'm not going down i'm not going to be a failure i looked at that card and i said i'm going to do something with my life it's like you know i always say it's forward motion i say this on my podcast all the time to people forward motion a bad decision sometimes is better than no decision but you got to get out of the predicament you're in if you want to change your life you have to change it's so stupid but it's so true unless you change you won't change your life i hate these people that they're with the same person for 10 years and they go well i i got to change i go you're with the same person you guys you're not meant to be together you're married to this guy get out or you're married to this girl get out or i hate my job i hate my job if you hate it that much do something really do something but it takes a good you have to turn up the volume in your life to be a success in this in life you have to turn up the volume you have to be willing to do more than anybody else is doing and then you'll get notice you have to show up you know one thing you said last time that really resonated with people is that and it was a brilliant line it's a brilliant way to look at life jazz and i have that same feeling you know you want everybody to do good yes you know i i think i think one problem that italians have and maybe you'll disagree yeah is he italian you know i understand jealousy envy may be a little bit more serious but i understand jealousy sometimes you look at somebody and say you know what geez i wish i had that house i wish i had that i wish nothing wrong with that we're human we're natural but the problem that i've seen with a lot of italians or maybe i'm keying in on italians because that's who i am and especially in my former life you know what they'll say i wish i had that and i don't want him to have it exactly that's the bad thing that's the bad part because that's like really mean you know sometimes the times could be like like cribs in a bucket when one crib goes up they grab it yeah pull them back down they pull them back down again but what you said is is just a great way to look at life i want everybody to succeed let everybody be happy let everybody let everybody it's the way to be because your success doesn't diminish me in fact it only enhances me and so if i want somebody else to be successful then when he gets a moment he'll help me and even if he doesn't the world will help me exactly because of my because of my spirituality i'm open it's like a guy who it's like a guy who's uh who can't find a girlfriend he can't he's trying to he can't meet a girl that he likes or a girl who can't meet a guy that she likes as soon as they meet somebody they love everybody wants to go out with them that's right that's right everybody as soon as they make a commitment that i'm with one person and why is that people go why is that it's because they can see their happiness and see their vibe right and see how happy they are and people go i want that i want to be with that that person i want to get to know you know sometimes people are mad or envious of people that are successful and i say to myself like now we are he's a billionaire well the billionaire is the guy that's putting people to work creating product doing things to make you know to to uplift people what are you mad at them for i don't get it you want to be around somebody that has nothing that's struggling that can't do a thing for you or you want to be some around people that can do something you know give back and make life easier for people you know but people don't they don't get it like now we have a lot of there's a there's an animosity towards people that are successful and i don't get it it's not unsuccessful people that make the world go around it's people that have success that create things that that put people to work that create products and have an imagination and and today a lot of these people are demonized and i don't get it well you know exactly see the problem the way the world is in my opinion right now is look there's two forces and i talk about this on my podcast there's two forces in the world that's what it comes down to there's the positive force and then there's the negative force the problem is in the world the negative force is stronger stronger it's louder why because it's more organic because it's here it's in front of us it's always here we're all negative forces around all the time while you're parking there everybody's yelling at each other that's the negative force only positive forces come like now when two positive forces get together we we're dealing with a positive force here that's why your podcast in my podcast is so successful especially yours because we send it out there and positive people pick it up but the negative forces in the world are louder they're louder so what i say for us michael francis on his podcast transparent terry we have to be louder the negative forces are this loud positive forces have to get just as loud but but like i said negative is stronger on earth well you know why another reason for that chaz positive people are out there doing positive things they're not talking about it they're not angry the negative people they have nothing else to do they just want to be mad at everybody because they have nothing going on and they're envious exactly it's harder to be positive than it is to be negative and see it's easy to be a failure and it's very hard to be a success because why you have to work at it you have to get up early and work at it that's right negative that's easy i hate that guy i don't want to be an advocate that's why i tell actors and writers you want to be you want to be in the arts you want to be an actor you want to be a writer you want to be a producer you want to be a director well you better get out there yeah it's easy to say i hope that movie fails i hope his podcast fails i hope that script sucks but you know what we have to make the positive voices louder yeah people people who are failures if they really want to do something man it shows up you're right it shows up you know that theory works a lot in in life in a lot of different ways too you ever notice when there's one restaurant on a block on a street maybe you go there when there's 10 restaurants on that street the crowds are coming because they're trying all different places so sometimes that positive competition is good it's good it brings people aboard they want to come around they want to see what's going on so you kind of share the wealth so you know you talked about the italian things that such and i'm going to tell you the story i i take my family to to uh we go to italy and we're there so i rent one of those big buses those uh and i i i'm telling only for because with whole families they had friends we're in this mercedes limo like a big bus really nice and we go to naples we're in tuscany i said let's go to neighborhoods with the bug we go to neighbors i want to go to this place don michels shows the great i hear my son say no no so we're going to die michelle's the great supposed to be the greatest pizza in the world right in april yeah i went there you're right there okay so i won't ask you other peaches but supposed to be well i'm gonna so i go there we pull up i'm so excited and it says clothes for all three it was in august and they closed in august you know the italians are closed right across the street there's this other place i forgot the name of it was on the corner it was on the court i walk in there and they said it's now two o'clock i walk in there and i see all the people i get out of it i think people are making it oh yeah that's just my thing the waiters are coming over oh my god compliment they complimented they're being so nice to me come in come in so i said yeah i got my feeling i figured it's across the street from now on myself it's got to be good i'm in naples right the time made a date for some reason he walks over to me goes mr bob and third you know he goes we close at two well they close it two then they open again up at five oh you know in italy they take the cs yes yes right he goes on he goes he's going like this with his watch we close and and look the chef is right there and he goes he goes uh he goes i forgot the guy's name he goes oh no i'll open they shut the other he goes oh i'll take care the waiters go yeah we want to he goes hey hey hey mr palmer terry you know he's being an [ __ ] he's beating it but i respected it i said not a problem we're good we're good i turned i said look i'm fine i'm in naples we'll find another place right i'm walking off he goes mr palmetto he goes what are you listen to balls on this guy tiger would you mind taking a picture with me and right so i turn them and i go oh you want a photo on my [ __ ] i did this you want a photo i went i said i'm closed i open up again at five come back at five find me at five and i'll be glad to do it i get into the thing right i go to this other place we have tremendous meal the guy sees me come in oh my god i love you you know treating me and my family like amazing and believe me i don't want it for free i want to pay i don't i don't want not for free he treated us so incredible the food was amazing didn't charge us i saw he left a lot for the waiters right you know you got to do that of course so now we're on our way back to tuscany and my wife was saying i told my wife i go you know that guy's got some nerve so i just i said you know what how stupid was that so stupid now i'm raving about this restaurant that i went to all over twitter all over instagram all over facebook of course and the other guy i put went to i did it it was a street thing i can't help it he deserved it and he deserved it and i said went to this place i think it was named yeah oh johnny stop it my wife goes up it was called angeline something like that and i said pizza sucked place was dirty right hey he deserved it i'm sorry and then i'd rather wait i wait a few days i write another one never go to this place they need me on twitter right finally i get a call i get a i get a tweet back from the guy's son he tweets me back he goes he goes yeah a real tough guy when you're in america now so he was why don't you come here and say to my face now i'm back home so i tweet back i tweet back then i go no problem i said i will meet you but first let's meet let's meet at this angelina yes i don't know let's meet with don michels let's meet at don michels so i can get a great slice of pizza before i kick your ass and now now it's like a twin award people are joining in it's like insane and he's he realized he had to stop yeah because i was killing this guy but i'm already saying the story because give me an example that all he had to do is be a knight yeah i would have ate i would have left and i would have raved about the place well see we both had a bad shot there because we go to don michele's right and i get there i'm not kidding there's a hundred people outside waiting in line at night whoa i said cam i ain't waiting in this line okay how good the pizza is so it just so happens somebody spots us from that newest from somewhere i don't know and they got a a number all the way up front right but it still wasn't enough i said cam let's go to the restaurant on the corner there right so we go across we eat over there the same place yeah same place same exact place and now we go back and we get the pizza but we're bringing it home from domiciles right my lane so we'll bring it we're in the car we didn't eat it yet i don't exactly we get back to the hotel i reach in my pocket for my passport i get mine i had hers it isn't there i said cam where's your passport right i don't know what happens is when i paid the bill in the other restaurant the guy that gave you a hard time i dropped a passport on the floor oh god no i didn't know that but i'm saying what do i do so i'm thinking so now i called this guy that we met who was staying in a hotel close by i said go over there make sure they got my passport he goes and gets the passport he finds it for me thank god they said otherwise you're not going home we're not going anywhere the bottom line is i never got to taste the amazonia's pizza because they ate it i i didn't get the taste next time they will go together we'll go together but they got one in la now right cam yeah we went there one night yeah it was very good it was actually incredible yeah really yeah really good really good so i always tell people you come to new york you go to my restaurant in manhattan we don't have pizza but but my child's commentary in white plains we got great pizza yeah but the food was was great that night excellent that night jazz palminteria's restaurant again in new york you got to visit yeah 30 west 46th street yes at 264 main street in white plains the best and i'm not just saying that because he's here if i didn't like it i wouldn't say anything the food was terrific that's right absolutely if you've got nothing nice to say you know yes let me ask you this too because you said some things that kind of really hit a chord with me determination and passion yes like anything else in life is critical in your industry yes without it you're not going anywhere without it without determination of passion in life i don't think you're going anywhere and i know you talk about this to all you know about success and about being a ceo what that's why you that's what what makes a ceo and i believe what made you successful as a racketeer there's the same thing that made you see is going to make you make you successful is doing this the same thing think about that you didn't you didn't you didn't change your what you were doing was wrong okay but as far as the way you handle things you deal with people you talk to people what what is what does a a person successful do a ceo they inspire other people they bring respect people want to be with you they want to help you and so i believe somebody the way you talk to people in the way you inspire you you galvanize people you say that's a great idea that's you know even if it's not your idea you make them think it's their idea that inspires them that makes them want to do more well you know yeah and i agree with you with all of that and you know what i say to people all the time you can be a boss right but not necessarily be a leader absolutely because you're only a leader when people want to follow you right and you carry yourself now you could be a boss and order people around and that's your position but doesn't mean you're a leader a boss and a leader could be two separate and distinct things now you could be both you could be a leader and a boss both but not necessarily be a boss and be a leader because i said a leader is somebody that you want to follow he inspires you he motivates you or she they inspire you and motivate you and i think you have that quality uh well i try i mean i try to when i'm directing a movie i or when i speak to a do a lecture at a college for the arts for acting or writing or directing and the things i say on my podcast i say right i tell them in person i tell them 80 85 percent of life is just showing up when you feel like you don't want to do it just get out of bed and do it just like working out working out is showing up absolutely you complain you're not you're heavy you're not feeling well get up get up out of bed and do it well i want to wrap it up with this chair this uh i got to tell you my favorite guy to sit down with i really mean that because so much good comes out of it aside from the information you provide it's just uh people get encouraged by what you have to say the chance momentary show that's all they got to do is go to that and uh go on chat's planetary.net and i'm doing my one-man show uh all across uh uh the united states well when you when you get the schedule give it to me because i want to post it too so that everybody wants to see it they can go out and see it really we'll post all about your podcast we'll jump on and after this we're not in new york so i can't take you to chas palmitary's restaurant but i'm going to take it we're going to eat some good italian food fantastic i'm looking forward to it all right thank you all right brother thank you thank you god bless [Music] you

Channel: Michael Franzese

Views: 625,697

Keywords: michael, franzese, michael franzese, mafia, mobster, mob boss, mafia boss, caporegime, colombo, colombo family, colombo mafia, gambino family, bonanno family, lucchese family, genovese family, american mafia, italian mafia, federal prison, sonny franzese, sitdown with michael franzese, chazz palminterri, a bronx tale, chazz palminterri show, mafia sit down, mob movie actors, mob actors, chazz palminteri, chazz palminteri interview, mafia movies, chazz palminteri bronx tale

Id: gibov-UNuoc

Length: 75min 27sec (4527 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 27 2022