Speaker 1: This is the Eds with Eddie Judge and Edwin Aroyave
Speaker 1: the husband's know best too cheese production.
Speaker 2: How you doing Edwin?
Speaker 3: I'm doing all right. How are you?
Speaker 2: I'm doing great. But it's always great chatting with you.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 2: Always listen. We have an exciting guest today. I am
Speaker 2: so stoked because Joe Gorga is coming on our podcast.
Speaker 2: He is probably, in my opinion, one of the most
Speaker 2: famous house husbands in the whole entire Real Housewife network.
Speaker 2: The guy just has so many talents, from you know,
Speaker 2: a construction company to author. I guess he writes books.
Speaker 2: And the greatest thing of all is he did stand
Speaker 2: up comedy. Can you imagine the balls to do stand
Speaker 2: up comedy?
Speaker 3: Just love that man. The guy is legendary. Man. You
Speaker 3: can tell he's got great discipline too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Remember last Bravo con we went to
Speaker 2: when we were hanging out with all the Jersey guys.
Speaker 3: Yeah, those guys are so cool, easy, so funny, so.
Speaker 2: Funny, and it's my understanding they did a like a
Speaker 2: like a what do you call that?
Speaker 3: A guys?
Speaker 5: Uh?
Speaker 2: What is that guy's dance show in Vegas called.
Speaker 3: Magic Mic or something like that? Magic Mic, I got
Speaker 3: to share with you my magic mic dance.
Speaker 1: You have one.
Speaker 3: I have one. I did one for my company party,
Speaker 3: like thirteen years ago.
Speaker 2: You have it on video.
Speaker 3: I do have it on video.
Speaker 2: I gotta see it, dude.
Speaker 3: I bring out the umbrella. I choreographed the whole thing.
Speaker 3: It was it all.
Speaker 2: That's awesome. Well that makes sense now because I remember
Speaker 2: we're at the podcast in San Francisco when we were
Speaker 2: launching our podcasts and the girls did their podcast live. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you were like, hey, let's go out there, do the umbrella,
Speaker 2: do the my magic mic dance. I'm like, I don't
Speaker 2: know how to do that, and you started showing me.
Speaker 2: I'm like, how does he know how to do that?
Speaker 3: I remember that. Yeah, that's where that's where the little
Speaker 3: idea came from.
Speaker 2: That's awesome. That is awesome.
Speaker 3: I think he's ready. I think he's ready to go.
Speaker 2: He's ready to go.
Speaker 3: Bring him on. Let's bring the legend on. What's up, Joe,
Speaker 3: what's up? What's up?
Speaker 6: Joe.
Speaker 1: It's good to see you, Nice to see you. Everything good.
Speaker 3: We appreciate you being on this show. We know how
Speaker 3: busy you are, so just taking the time to be
Speaker 3: on the show really means a lot.
Speaker 1: Bat I was doing ninety to get home to get
Speaker 1: on this. I'm been a little crazy, but it's all
Speaker 1: good man.
Speaker 2: Joe Gorga has been married to Melissa Gorga since two
Speaker 2: thousand and four. They share three kids together, Antonia, Gino
Speaker 2: and Joey. They have been part of the Real Housewives
Speaker 2: of New Jersey since twenty ten. D's that's a long time.
Speaker 2: Joe is an entrepreneur who has businesses in real estate development,
Speaker 2: trash and sanitation, retail, and Joe is an author. And
Speaker 2: one more thing I got to throw in there, Joe's
Speaker 2: a comedian. I mean he did stand up. We were
Speaker 2: just talking about that. You got balls, Joe, guy with
Speaker 2: big balls.
Speaker 3: I think you forgot Also bodybuilder man. Joe's ripped man,
Speaker 3: He's always been ripped. In fact, we were just talking
Speaker 3: about your discipline, and you know, I'm a big fan
Speaker 3: of discipline. I can tell you have it just on
Speaker 3: everything You've been able to do right, just in all
Speaker 3: walks of life. And obviously you've been on this show
Speaker 3: for fourteen years and legendary status, right, you know. I
Speaker 3: often say, like, you know, when someone's good at something,
Speaker 3: when they could consistently do it right, and you know,
Speaker 3: you've been consistent all your life. And but before we
Speaker 3: you know, we talk about Housewives. I've always been a
Speaker 3: big fan of people's story and the beginning. Can you
Speaker 3: tell us a little bit about just the beginning of Joe.
Speaker 1: The beginning of Housewives?
Speaker 3: No, no, the beginning of your life? Right? How did
Speaker 3: you know your childhood life? And how did that? How
Speaker 3: did that start? You know, what was the conflict growing up?
Speaker 3: Who was the villains? Who was who was your mentors?
Speaker 3: You know, who were your you know, what were your
Speaker 3: dreams like when you were growing up?
Speaker 1: Yeah, my childhood life was pretty pretty wild. I'm going
Speaker 1: to say I've been on a reality show now for
Speaker 1: ten years, I mean fourteen years, and I felt like
Speaker 1: I was on a TV show growing up. I mean
Speaker 1: I grew up in an inner city. So I was
Speaker 1: like this Italian kid surrounded by just a bunch of
Speaker 1: other Italians. But we were all in a great inner city,
Speaker 1: and I was the I was kind of the outcast.
Speaker 6: The Italians were more like they were hanging out.
Speaker 1: They were you know, playing cards at the at the
Speaker 1: coffee shops, you know, doing expressos, and and I was
Speaker 1: out just working, busting my ass and hustling and playing sports.
Speaker 1: I was always a workaholic. I started when I was
Speaker 1: nine years old delivering newspapers, and I delivered peoples like, oh,
Speaker 1: you delivered newspapers. Remember I don't have much papers now,
Speaker 1: but we used to go around on my bike with
Speaker 1: a big nap back, throw the newspapers out, get chased
Speaker 1: by dogs.
Speaker 6: But I had like a thousand routes, thousand houses.
Speaker 1: I had to do. Now I would do it overnight
Speaker 1: and start at four o'clock in the morning, get it
Speaker 1: all done before school. Go to work, I mean go
Speaker 1: to school. Get get out of school. Now you talk
Speaker 1: about grammar store, Now get out of school. Right after school,
Speaker 1: go to work at a hotol joint and flip hot
Speaker 1: dogs from three o'clock to six thirty. Then from six
Speaker 1: thirty I would go to football practice from six thirty
Speaker 1: till nine o'clock, get picked up, go back to work
Speaker 1: from nine ti like eleven thirty. And that was my
Speaker 1: day every day. Yeah, I worked very hard, and I
Speaker 1: was a star football player wrestler in a inner city school,
Speaker 1: so you know it was stud athletes. I was the
Speaker 1: only Italian kid on the whole team and I was
Speaker 1: to start running back.
Speaker 6: So it was kind of like.
Speaker 1: The kids used to run up to me. Back then
Speaker 1: there was no phones, there was beepers, but the kids
Speaker 1: used to run up to me. Joe, you shake your hand,
Speaker 1: couldn't take a picture of you. But I was kind
Speaker 1: of like a celebrity grown up because yeah, this little
Speaker 1: a time guy, I would score so many touchdowns at
Speaker 1: a big, big major high school.
Speaker 3: So the way, Joe, how you know we have a
Speaker 3: lot of parents that listen to this show, right, And
Speaker 3: how important was sports for you growing up? And how
Speaker 3: did it help you in business because you've been very
Speaker 3: successful in business as well. But I'm curious to hear
Speaker 3: your thoughts on sports because I know for me, my
Speaker 3: mom putting me in sports was a huge deal with
Speaker 3: teaching me discipline.
Speaker 1: And you just said it, discipline. Sports are everything. I like,
Speaker 1: I always tell my kids, you got to have a sport.
Speaker 1: You got to go to school, but you got to
Speaker 1: have a sportscause sports teach you.
Speaker 6: They give you you.
Speaker 1: You listen to a coach, you take orders, there's responsibilities
Speaker 1: you got to beat at a certain time.
Speaker 6: You have to respect and sportsmanship is everything.
Speaker 1: Sportsmanship is everything, and I always teach my kids that.
Speaker 1: So wrestling is one of the best sports ever because
Speaker 1: first of all, you're on that mat all by yourself
Speaker 1: and there's not a team, it's you. You have to
Speaker 1: you have to get out there and control it and
Speaker 1: keep it keep it disciplined, which you know I've I'm
Speaker 1: a little crazy, you know, as you guys know, I've
Speaker 1: been on a show and I lose my temper in ways, right.
Speaker 1: But what's amazing about my children is how they learned them.
Speaker 1: What I teach them not to be is be very disciplined.
Speaker 1: And the fact that if the situation on a wrestling
Speaker 1: mat or lacrosse or football gets out of here and
Speaker 1: you get hit in the head with a stick, you know,
Speaker 1: they weren't supposed to do that. Keep it, keep it settled,
Speaker 1: you know, keep it calm, don't hit the kid back.
Speaker 1: It's how you react. And I'm lucky, man. My kids
Speaker 1: are just pretty amazing at that. And sometimes I have
Speaker 1: to take a page out of air book, you know.
Speaker 2: So where do you think you got your discipline from?
Speaker 2: Obviously I've grew up doing sports as well, and I
Speaker 2: learned a lot of discipline from sports, bodybuilding, and all that.
Speaker 2: That's that's where I learned it. But what do you
Speaker 2: think was it inherent of you to just like be
Speaker 2: so disciplined and so busy and working all the time,
Speaker 2: or was it a need? For me? It was a need,
Speaker 2: you know, growing up with nothing, I had no choice
Speaker 2: but to work. And that was that was you know,
Speaker 2: if you don't work, you don't eat, you don't have clothes,
Speaker 2: you know, you know all that stuff. That's what drove
Speaker 2: my discipline and my motivation. Where do you think you
Speaker 2: drew yours from?
Speaker 6: I agree it was the need.
Speaker 1: I mean, my father was a shoemaker and back then
Speaker 1: it was a little different than than us. These kids,
Speaker 1: we hand them everything. I wasn't handed everything. My dad
Speaker 1: made me go to work. He was hardcore. And when
Speaker 1: the kids across the street, we're on her skateboards and
Speaker 1: had brand new skateboards and bikes, and I didn't have
Speaker 1: one because my dad.
Speaker 6: Didn't believe in that. He's like, go to work and
Speaker 6: earn your keep.
Speaker 1: And I was caught in the grass and rotal tilling
Speaker 1: the garden with a pick and a shovel, a spade shovel,
Speaker 1: and everybody's having a good time and I say to myself,
Speaker 1: why is my dad so mean to me? I thought that,
Speaker 1: but today I'm forty nine years old, and I say
Speaker 1: to him, every day is in heaven now, and I
Speaker 1: always thank him, thank you for making me the man
Speaker 1: I am today, because he's the one that made me
Speaker 1: want things and go to work. And if I went
Speaker 1: out late at night and I got home late, he goes,
Speaker 1: you got to go to work at six o'clock in
Speaker 1: the morning. And he was like a drill sergeant.
Speaker 6: But he knew, listen, I have a man as a son.
Speaker 1: I have to make him a man. And that's why
Speaker 1: I tell my kids. I said, listen, oh Dad, I
Speaker 1: don't feel like going to practice today. I go, uh uh,
Speaker 1: you have to go to practice today. You have a responsibility.
Speaker 1: Your responsibility is that's your job. Your job is to
Speaker 1: go to practice because that's what that's what you do, right,
Speaker 1: That's what I do. If I don't go to work,
Speaker 1: you're not going to eat. So again, sports discipline and
Speaker 1: need I needed. I had to buy my own bike,
Speaker 1: so my dad should go to work and buy your bike.
Speaker 1: Our kids they want to buy, we buy for them.
Speaker 1: I don't know what we're doing, are we doing are we?
Speaker 1: You know, I almost want to hold back and not
Speaker 1: give them the bike like everyone has in the neighborhood.
Speaker 1: But then you're like all the other kids have it,
Speaker 1: so you kind of get forced into buying them the bike.
Speaker 1: Back then, my parents in a carry like go to work,
Speaker 1: and I went to work, and I earned my own
Speaker 1: money and I bought my bike.
Speaker 3: That is so good.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: One of my favorite quotes is, don't work off how
Speaker 3: you feel, work off your discipline. And that's exactly what
Speaker 3: you just mentioned there. Now, Joe, your parents immigrated to
Speaker 3: the United States from Italy. What made them choose New Jersey?
Speaker 1: Well, they moved close to My dad had a sister
Speaker 1: here and he moved close to her sister. And that's
Speaker 1: where it's how literally a block away from his sister
Speaker 1: and she helped him out because he was eighteen years old. Wow,
Speaker 1: And that's how that's why I migrated to Patterson, New Jersey.
Speaker 1: I was hoping they migrated to like New York City's
Speaker 1: been some developer in New York City, bigger contacts, But
Speaker 1: I run up in Patterson, New Jersey.
Speaker 2: You'd be building high rises by now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, what can it be like?
Speaker 5: California, you know, with you guys, my son looking tan
Speaker 5: and nice, happy in Patterson, New Jersey.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he migrated, got close to family, and then that's it.
Speaker 1: We stayed there forever.
Speaker 3: Who was more of a troublemaker? You were Teresa? Growing up?
Speaker 1: What do you that's a hardwood? It's not.
Speaker 2: I think we should proceed that question with, you know,
Speaker 2: giving us a little bit of insight of how it
Speaker 2: was growing up with Teresa, because all we know is
Speaker 2: what we see on TV and experiencing the Bravo edit
Speaker 2: versus the real person, and the real experience is completely
Speaker 2: bipolar sometimes, right, So I'd like to hear a little
Speaker 2: bit more about how it was growing up with Teresa
Speaker 2: as their older sister.
Speaker 6: Teresa, my sister was always she was a crazy one.
Speaker 1: And if my parents said you got to be home
Speaker 1: at twelve o'clock at night, I would be home at
Speaker 1: twelve o'clock. I respected them, even though that I was
Speaker 1: the boy. I just didn't want to hear my father
Speaker 1: yell because he was crazy. And if my sister had
Speaker 1: to be on at twelve, the phone ring at twelve
Speaker 1: and she's like, man, I'm running late. I got it today,
Speaker 1: She'd try to push it to one and my father
Speaker 1: start yelling and he's not in a good moon. She
Speaker 1: comes home and it's a big it's an argument, it's
Speaker 1: a fight, and she would battle. She would battle, she
Speaker 1: would I mean she was afraid of her, but she
Speaker 1: would fight them.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: She was always the one. Even when we were kids,
Speaker 1: she'd throw my toys out and out of the window.
Speaker 1: We lived in the two family house. I'm running outside.
Speaker 1: I was four years old, running outside in the street,
Speaker 1: you know, to get my toys out of the street.
Speaker 6: She antagonized me a lot and my mother.
Speaker 1: One time she threw one of those wooden spoons at her,
Speaker 1: and I remember that when we were kissing, hit it
Speaker 1: right ahead with it.
Speaker 6: So my sister was always the one getting.
Speaker 1: Yelled at, where I was more of you know, I
Speaker 1: respected them, I listened. But when I walked out the
Speaker 1: door and I went to school and I went to football,
Speaker 1: I was a bad I was a troublemaker and I
Speaker 1: was one closing the problems having fun. I was like
Speaker 1: the class clown. And then when I had to come home,
Speaker 1: I was a good guy. I was the angel around
Speaker 1: my parents.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you wanted to impress them. You respected them
Speaker 2: and and I think that's very valuable in any relationship,
Speaker 2: particularly in this era where kids have no respect for elders,
Speaker 2: at least not in my neighborhood, you know. Uh.
Speaker 1: And we grew up uh uh. Teresa and I were
Speaker 1: best friends, best friends. I mean, that's all we had.
Speaker 1: We had a small type family. We didn't have a
Speaker 1: lot of cousins and family back then. It was because
Speaker 1: everybody migrated over. They called each other paison's. You know
Speaker 1: you're my paison. I know you're formidably, so they thought
Speaker 1: each other formidably. They became almost like family. On holidays,
Speaker 1: all be together. So I thought people were my cousins
Speaker 1: when they were really weren't my cousin. When she she
Speaker 1: met Joe Judice, well she didn't meet Joe Judaice. I
Speaker 1: knew Joe judas her ex husband when we were we
Speaker 1: were babies. We were born here. My father was at
Speaker 1: the hospital when Joe Judice was born. That's how close
Speaker 1: their families were.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 6: So I thought he was my cousin.
Speaker 1: My whole life.
Speaker 6: And then she winds up Marriag my cousin, But we
Speaker 6: really aren't.
Speaker 1: We weren't related, but but we were we.
Speaker 6: Were best friends growing up. Her parents molded us to be.
Speaker 1: Like that, and I always respected my sister. I was
Speaker 1: I was the guy looking out for her when she
Speaker 1: was coming home late. It was twelve o'clock at night,
Speaker 1: one o'clock her the curfew was, let's say one o'clock
Speaker 1: in the morning.
Speaker 6: She would call me, Joe, where are you. I'm like,
Speaker 6: I'm on my way home.
Speaker 1: She's like, well, wait, wait, wait for me, don't go
Speaker 1: home yet, and and tell tell Daddy were together. So
Speaker 1: I'll pick up the phone and.
Speaker 6: I'd take a beat for her, like dad terces with
Speaker 6: me were running.
Speaker 5: Like I got it, don't worried.
Speaker 6: He's like, I got to kill you.
Speaker 1: I'm like, but I always I would sometimes sit in
Speaker 1: the driveway waiting for her like this. She was my sister.
Speaker 1: I got to know back to that's what I could
Speaker 1: take her best friends and if she if she was
Speaker 1: dating a guy, and if some something going on, she
Speaker 1: told me about it, we would you know, same thing.
Speaker 1: It was like friends like true. I knew everything about her,
Speaker 1: shenew anything about me. And uh, that's how our parents
Speaker 1: are great. And our parents always said because my mom,
Speaker 1: her dad, her dad went to war never came home.
Speaker 1: We don't know if he's alive. We don't know. Her
Speaker 1: mom passed away when she was born, so my mother
Speaker 1: had nobody.
Speaker 6: She her grandmother raised her.
Speaker 1: Okay, so when my dad met my mom, he cherished her,
Speaker 1: cherished her, kept her up on a pedestal, and he
Speaker 1: always said, you got to take care of your mother
Speaker 1: and your sister. He goes, this is who we are,
Speaker 1: that's all we have. And that's because we were. We
Speaker 1: were in this New Jersey and his family was in
Speaker 1: Belgium and Italy. My mom had no family, and that's
Speaker 1: who we were. We were just this little, tight little family.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: I see that when I when I see you and
Speaker 2: Melissa together, I see that you do the exact same
Speaker 2: thing to her and to your family. Right, you cherish
Speaker 2: your wife. You you just hold her up in a pedestal,
Speaker 2: and I think that's what really shows the dynamics of
Speaker 2: how amazing your relationship is together.
Speaker 6: Yeah, but that, you know, that's what I was taught.
Speaker 1: That's what I that's what I saw, and uh and
Speaker 1: you know's and that's how I am.
Speaker 6: I treat her, I treat my wife, or I treat everybody.
Speaker 1: Right, I'll be honest with you.
Speaker 6: I really I really give everybody.
Speaker 1: Respect and and if they screw me, you screw me.
Speaker 1: I walk away. I just never talk to you ever again.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm that type of guy. I just really
Speaker 1: want to love everybody and want to get along with everybody.
Speaker 1: It life is short, man. Yeah, you know there's no
Speaker 1: time for enemies. You don't like somebody, just say that,
Speaker 1: hell away from them, right.
Speaker 2: Let me ask you this. Have you ever met anybody,
Speaker 2: and I've met probably total of three, two or three
Speaker 2: people in my life where you shake their hand and
Speaker 2: you get this awful feeling like I never want to
Speaker 2: be around this person ever again. And have you ever
Speaker 2: felt that? Of course, I mean it's rare for me,
Speaker 2: but I'm like you. I want to love on everybody.
Speaker 2: I take everybody under my wing. I want to help
Speaker 2: everybody and and and you know see how I can
Speaker 2: be of service. But there's just been those two or
Speaker 2: three instances where I just like, I feel like gross
Speaker 2: being around this person. I never want to be here again.
Speaker 1: How About when you meet him and they're like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, this this person is amazing. Really, I mean,
Speaker 1: and and they they they don't turn out to the
Speaker 1: persons that that that they are here. So and then
Speaker 1: you realize that and you walk away, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I see that part too. Yeah, I like
Speaker 2: to be real.
Speaker 6: Listen, this what's up, man, This is who I am,
Speaker 6: this is what I do.
Speaker 1: This is what I have. I'm not bigger than I am.
Speaker 1: I am who I am, and and that's it being
Speaker 1: real in life. You know, you know, you meet a
Speaker 1: lot of posers.
Speaker 2: You do, you do, and and the consistency of your
Speaker 2: realness is what that what you know reflects the validity
Speaker 2: of who you are. Right, Like you said, there's been
Speaker 2: people that you meet. They're motivated, they're happy, they're energetic,
Speaker 2: they're you know, quoting all these things about you know,
Speaker 2: life is amazing, and they end up being douchebags or
Speaker 2: they end up being crooks or criminals, and you know
Speaker 2: it's like they hide behind that phase, right, and you're like,
Speaker 2: I'm disappointed, but I'm glad I didn't get screwed.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of them out there, buddy, you know.
Speaker 2: A lot a lot.
Speaker 3: So yeah, Joe, Man, I love some I love so
Speaker 3: many of the things that you're talking about right now,
Speaker 3: especially with Father's Day coming up. You know, one of
Speaker 3: the biggest lessons my dad ever taught me that I'm
Speaker 3: so grateful for that you just talked about. But always
Speaker 3: tell me you got to take care of your mom.
Speaker 3: You got one mom. I don't care what happens, you
Speaker 3: take care of your mom. And that's always stood with me.
Speaker 3: So I'm glad you brought that up. And I'm also
Speaker 3: glad that you brought up how things aren't taught, they're
Speaker 3: caught right. You can try to teach someone all day long,
Speaker 3: but until you actually see it. And I try to
Speaker 3: do that with my son, with my with my kids
Speaker 3: where every Saturday I go visit Mom and I have
Speaker 3: breakfast and they see me do that, and sometimes Teddy's like,
Speaker 3: what are you gonna hang out with me on a
Speaker 3: Saturday morning. I'm like, Teddy, Eventually the kids are going
Speaker 3: to start hanging out with you because they see me
Speaker 3: always going to visit Mom. So I love that you
Speaker 3: mentioned that, man, especially with Father's Day coming out. You know, yeah,
Speaker 3: your dad sounds like an amazing guy.
Speaker 1: By the way, my dad was really a real guy man.
Speaker 1: He was a hard working, just told you how it was.
Speaker 1: He was just he was an amazing, amazing man. My mother too.
Speaker 1: You know, hard working people, great people. You know, they
Speaker 1: weren't perfect, that one's perfect knowing it, but they were honest, honest,
Speaker 1: and that's it, you.
Speaker 2: Know, speaking of imperfect. I want to talk a little
Speaker 2: bit more about your marriage and your relationship. I love it.
Speaker 2: It's it's you know everything that I believe in, how
Speaker 2: you to treat a woman. And I know you've told
Speaker 2: this to me before because we've hung out with you
Speaker 2: and Melissa a few times, you know, at events and
Speaker 2: stuff like that. And the question I want our audience
Speaker 2: to know or learn from is how did you and
Speaker 2: Melissa meet? Tell us about that.
Speaker 1: The first time I saw Melissa, I was I was
Speaker 1: actually away on spring break and true story as a way,
Speaker 1: in spring break, I was a little I was a
Speaker 1: late bloomer because I worked. I started my business when
Speaker 1: I was eighteen. Everybody's in college going to spring break.
Speaker 1: So my first spring break, I believe I was twenty
Speaker 1: five or twenty six, so I mean, can't Coon. Everybody
Speaker 1: goes to cant Coon. I go with two of my
Speaker 1: friends wearing cant Coon. I'm in the pool, you know,
Speaker 1: two girls next to me, and they were playing this
Speaker 1: game on the beach. On the stage where you a
Speaker 1: guy and a girl. They run off the stage, run
Speaker 1: into the down the beach, into the ocean, and you change.
Speaker 1: You know. The girl takes her bikini off, the guy
Speaker 1: puts it on, she puts your shorts on, and they
Speaker 1: run out of it.
Speaker 6: They run out of the ocean onto the stage.
Speaker 1: Now the girl's booms are flopping and we're sitting at
Speaker 1: the pool. Keep in mind, this is a huge hotel.
Speaker 1: We're sitting at the pool and I'm watching this. I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is a good game. I said, let's play it here.
Speaker 1: So we played that game. So I got this girl's
Speaker 1: thong bikini on and they got my shorts. I'm in
Speaker 1: the pool, I have two of them. My best friend
Speaker 1: since five years old was right next to me. He
Speaker 1: was he had a girl next to her. Said we're
Speaker 1: all hanging out. I'm kissing one, I'm moving, I'm kissing
Speaker 1: the other one.
Speaker 6: They're grabbing my face.
Speaker 1: And as they're grabbing my face, I look across the
Speaker 1: pool and I see this beautiful girl and that was
Speaker 1: my curly dark hair. She had this little leopard bikinian
Speaker 1: I look at her. I don't know what made me
Speaker 1: look and I say, oh my god, who is that?
Speaker 1: So I grabbed my friend, my best friend, Tony. The
Speaker 1: reason why I bring his name up because he tells
Speaker 1: the story. I grab him and I said, Tom, look
Speaker 1: at that. That's going to be my wife, right in
Speaker 1: front of these girls.
Speaker 6: But I couldn't get up because I was I was busy.
Speaker 6: I had two girls in the two girls, but I
Speaker 6: kept my eye her.
Speaker 1: I kept watching her. I kept seeing who her friends were,
Speaker 1: and I was like okay. So when I was done,
Speaker 1: I got up. I went. I went over to her
Speaker 1: table where they were hanging out. So I say, hey,
Speaker 1: who's that girl? Hi, guys, and I make friends with
Speaker 1: her friends. I go, who's that girl with the curly hair?
Speaker 1: And they're like, ah, you don't want to meet her,
Speaker 1: She's a bitch.
Speaker 3: This is her friend.
Speaker 1: She actually went up back. She went back to the room.
Speaker 1: So I said, no, I really want to meet. Where
Speaker 1: are you guys from? They're like, Tom's River. I try
Speaker 1: to go, are you guys going tonight? We're going to
Speaker 1: this club La Boom. That's what it was back then.
Speaker 1: So I go, I get their phone number, we meet,
Speaker 1: we go to this club La Boom. She didn't come out.
Speaker 1: Melissa had come out. She stayed in her room. She
Speaker 1: was a good girl. Melissa, she said she didn't she
Speaker 1: didn't want to come out. So these girls, I'm hanging
Speaker 1: out with her friends. I didn't want to hang out
Speaker 1: with her friends.
Speaker 3: I really didn't ranging out in the price.
Speaker 1: So I made friends with her friends. But I kept
Speaker 1: on saying, where's your friend? So for the rest of
Speaker 1: the trip, I didn't see her friend. I didn't see Melissa,
Speaker 1: but I knew she was from the Jersey Shore back home.
Speaker 1: So once we got home, went back summer hit, I
Speaker 1: flew down the shore to find her. Wow, and I
Speaker 1: found her.
Speaker 2: How do you find somebody in the Jersey Shore, isn't
Speaker 2: it big?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 1: Because there's an area where all the nightclubs are okay,
Speaker 1: and you go to this one spot. And that's keep
Speaker 1: in mind. I kept them. I kept in touch with
Speaker 1: her friends.
Speaker 3: Called her.
Speaker 1: I said, are you guys going tonight? All right, We're
Speaker 1: going to Temptations. I'm like, I'm be there.
Speaker 6: I get there.
Speaker 1: Nice and early.
Speaker 6: People used to go out at like twelve one o'clock.
Speaker 1: Here I am. I get through. I was older, so
Speaker 1: I was working my own business. I got there like
Speaker 1: at nine o'clock, I'm sitting at the bar. Close started happening.
Speaker 1: So by the time twelve, Melissa would show up at
Speaker 1: one o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 6: The club closes at two, so today she would come
Speaker 6: from one.
Speaker 1: I guess that's when the cool people came from one
Speaker 1: to the store window.
Speaker 6: So yeah, so I'm sitting there. Didn't think she was coming.
Speaker 1: So I'm hanging out.
Speaker 6: By the time i'm hanging out, I'm hooking up with girls.
Speaker 1: I'm drinking.
Speaker 6: I'm at the bar.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, Melissa walks in, but again I
Speaker 1: can't go up and talk to her yet because I
Speaker 1: was involved with another girl. So this went on.
Speaker 6: This went on for like all summer, never really spoke.
Speaker 1: To her till one day one day up north, I
Speaker 1: walk into a restaurant bar.
Speaker 6: There she is working. She was bartending. I walked right up.
Speaker 1: To her and I go, oh my god. I go,
Speaker 1: you know Melissa, right. She goes yes, like I've been
Speaker 1: looking for you all year. She goes why. I go,
Speaker 1: I'm going to marry you. I said, I'm going to
Speaker 1: put you on a pedestal and you're gonna be my wife.
Speaker 1: She goes, you you know and I said, let's I
Speaker 1: try to. I said, give me a number, let me
Speaker 1: take you at the dinner. She's like no. So she
Speaker 1: said no to me. So I said, yeah, you said no.
Speaker 1: I was obsessed with her. So I sat at her
Speaker 1: bar and I said, can I have a bottle? I
Speaker 1: started talking to girls. I said, you guys want to drink?
Speaker 6: I said, can?
Speaker 1: I can? I go to Melissa? Melissa, can I have
Speaker 1: a bottle of dom Perion for my Then I go,
Speaker 1: do you have any strawberries? With that?
Speaker 6: Drinking at her barn, hitting on.
Speaker 1: Her the whole time, but I was hanging out with
Speaker 1: these girls. I did that two weeks in a row.
Speaker 1: The third week I went back to the place and no.
Speaker 1: The third week I didn't go. I went two weeks
Speaker 1: in a row, did the same thing. She denied me twice.
Speaker 1: The third week, my friends went, I didn't go to
Speaker 1: the bar. They go, They come back. The next day.
Speaker 1: They called me in the morning and say, hey, Joe, yeah,
Speaker 1: he goes you know that bar to Melissa. I go, yeah,
Speaker 1: she was asking for you. I go, oh, she was
Speaker 1: asking for me. This is every Thursday night. Thursday night
Speaker 1: shot there. I walked up to her bar, and hey, Benny, hey,
Speaker 1: I got I heard you were asking for.
Speaker 6: Jane.
Speaker 1: She had her numbers ready. She slipped me her number.
Speaker 1: I got all right, took her around and one date
Speaker 1: and we never left each other ever since then. We
Speaker 1: dated for We dated for three months, three months, she
Speaker 1: moved in, six months, engaged, ten months married.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So we were married in August and my daughter
Speaker 1: was born in August a year later. We moved fast.
Speaker 2: Oh what was it that gave you the confidence that
Speaker 2: she was the one?
Speaker 1: You know what? I asked myself that same question, because
Speaker 1: I was engaged twice before her twice, and I called
Speaker 1: the weddings off myself. I called the wedding not because
Speaker 1: of any They weren't cheating.
Speaker 6: I wasn't cheating, none of that. I just was so confused.
Speaker 1: And I sat with this guy that was kind of
Speaker 1: like my mentor older guy. I was landscaping his house.
Speaker 1: I used to cut his grass. He was seventy years old,
Speaker 1: and I was like, ah, I said, Pete, I'm just
Speaker 1: so confused, Like I'm engaged. I just keep thinking about it.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know if I want to
Speaker 1: get married, I go. I love her, I don't know
Speaker 1: if I'm in love with her, and he goes, son,
Speaker 1: if you have a doubt, get out because that doubt
Speaker 1: whatever's bothering you now about her, You've got to live
Speaker 1: with this person the rest of your life. He goes,
Speaker 1: you want to have a divorce. I said no, So
Speaker 1: he said yeah. And I listened to that, and I
Speaker 1: called the wedding off the first one. Second one was
Speaker 1: kind of like I was. I was kind of heartbroken
Speaker 1: calling off the wedding. I was confused. So I get
Speaker 1: engaged with this other girl. She was a great girl.
Speaker 1: Very that was a big mistake. Called that wedding off
Speaker 1: same a couple of weeks before wedding. I was never
Speaker 1: see the problem is with everybody today. Why people get engaged,
Speaker 1: I mean and get married. Some people don't even want
Speaker 1: to get married. They think, oh I got the right
Speaker 1: this is the right guy. He goes, he works hard.
Speaker 1: I really don't love him, but he's going to provide
Speaker 1: for me. Or oh this is the right girl. She's
Speaker 1: a good girl, you know, and you're really not crazy
Speaker 1: in love. I didn't want that. I wanted to be
Speaker 1: crazy in love with somebody because.
Speaker 6: I know I'm nuts. You know, I'm nuts.
Speaker 1: I need to be you know, I need to be
Speaker 1: with somebody that I love and I want to come
Speaker 1: home to. And Melissa was the one. When I met her,
Speaker 1: I just wanted to be with her every minute, and
Speaker 1: I knew she was one and there was not a doubt.
Speaker 1: Here's a little story before that. I was always a workaholic,
Speaker 1: so I'm always working. So I mean I'm getting engaged
Speaker 1: to the first one. So I say to my dad,
Speaker 1: I said, Dad, go get go pick me out a ring.
Speaker 1: Because my dad always went to the jewelers. He always
Speaker 1: had a connection with the jeweler. I always bought my
Speaker 1: mother's stuff. And I said, Dad, go find me a
Speaker 1: ring and bringing it. So the first woman he found
Speaker 1: the ring gave it. The second one, same thing. Go
Speaker 1: get me a ring. You got me ring.
Speaker 6: Melissa came around. I said, bye, go get I'm ready
Speaker 6: to get married.
Speaker 1: He goes. I said, go get me a ring. Goes ah,
Speaker 1: he goes, I'm doing it. He because you want to
Speaker 1: marry this girl. You go get your own ring, my
Speaker 1: own ring. He goes, you gotta be ready. And the
Speaker 1: day I got married. Look, the day I got married, beautiful,
Speaker 1: sunny day, beautiful. It's Sonny. We go up and we're
Speaker 1: giving our vows. Melissa goes, then I go. When I go,
Speaker 1: thunder was like a tornado, thundering light. Everybody's like, look,
Speaker 1: what the hell's going on? For a minute one minute
Speaker 1: and it stopped. I was getting my val So I
Speaker 1: got married. Coming out, my father comes to hug and
Speaker 1: he goes, you did it. He goes, he goes, holy ship,
Speaker 1: did you hear the rain? And I go, yo, my god.
Speaker 6: He goes me yea and he goes, that's all the
Speaker 6: girls crying.
Speaker 1: Then you got married.
Speaker 3: Back in those Jersey Shore days, did you ever run
Speaker 3: into the New Jersey Shore Castle, because I assume that's
Speaker 3: when they were all famous.
Speaker 1: Right, I ran it to him all time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and they were you ever buddies with them?
Speaker 1: I know them, I know them all.
Speaker 6: But no, not back then, No, not back then.
Speaker 3: I met that back then.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, I met him through TV. And don't
Speaker 1: don't they don't even live in Jersey Dire from like
Speaker 1: Glown Island. They were from different areas.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they just welcome the reality TV right.
Speaker 3: So, by the way, one thing that I want to
Speaker 3: make sure we don't skip overder is I think it's
Speaker 3: very important. You know, you go childhood right, you started
Speaker 3: working at a young age. You worked, you know, you
Speaker 3: were great at sports. How did you start your little
Speaker 3: empire that you got, or I shouldn't say little, your
Speaker 3: empire that you got with business? How did that get started?
Speaker 3: Where did you say finally like I'm going to start
Speaker 3: my business and was like a big risk that you
Speaker 3: had to take or how did that all come across
Speaker 3: come about?
Speaker 1: I was I was in college. I was playing football.
Speaker 1: I tore my ACL had a major operation back then,
Speaker 1: and acls are not like today. You know, they cut
Speaker 1: you open right over the middle, big staples and you
Speaker 1: basically don't come back from that kind of injury. So
Speaker 1: it came home for the summer rehabbing my knee. Back.
Speaker 6: A couple months later, I get I get a job.
Speaker 1: I had to go back to college, but I get
Speaker 1: a job working for a landscaper and started working for him.
Speaker 1: And this guy had a beautiful house, nice cars. Know,
Speaker 1: he was married. I mean, this guy had the life.
Speaker 1: And I said, wow, yeah, I'm a young kid. You know.
Speaker 1: I came from Patterson, New Jersey. I lived in We
Speaker 1: lived in a real small house and this guy had
Speaker 1: a beautiful home, and I'm working and I see all
Speaker 1: the jobs that he was doing. I'm like, this guy
Speaker 1: makes money. So I started working for a couple months later.
Speaker 1: I worked from for about six months learning the business.
Speaker 1: And six months later I out my own business. And
Speaker 1: I was younger, like I said, I was nineteen years old.
Speaker 1: I decided not to go back to college and I
Speaker 1: went to my sister and I looked for this little
Speaker 1: business that were selling. It was cheap and it was
Speaker 1: like fifteen thousand dollars. I had to buy a route,
Speaker 1: which was they were selling thirty five houses, you know,
Speaker 1: lawn contracts, a beat up, beat up equipment like a
Speaker 1: law mallwer trailer.
Speaker 6: The whole deal was fifteen thousand I had.
Speaker 1: I didn't have any money, so I said, I thought,
Speaker 1: you know, entrepreneur, businessman. I said, how am I going
Speaker 1: to get this money? You know? So I said to
Speaker 1: my sister. She she was, you know, two years older
Speaker 1: than me. She had a job, she was doing any thing.
Speaker 1: I know. She had credit cards, So I said, can
Speaker 1: I can I cash advance your credit cards to ball
Speaker 1: the money? I said, I'll borrow the money, I'll pay
Speaker 1: you back, and she she gave me I think I
Speaker 1: cash advanced three credit cards five thousand dollars each.
Speaker 6: And that's the relationship we had.
Speaker 1: You no brother, sister, can I take She just starting
Speaker 1: her life right and she had three card I said,
Speaker 1: can I cash advance? Yeah, no problem here she game
Speaker 1: to me. I pulled the money out. I bought the business.
Speaker 1: I just beat up truck. Truck cost me one thousand
Speaker 1: dollars and I busted my ass paid her credit cards back,
Speaker 1: and little by little I remember the truck breaking down.
Speaker 1: After three months later, I had no truck. Truck broke down.
Speaker 1: I only bought it for one thousand dollars. And I
Speaker 1: would drive my loanmower, drive my loanmower with the big
Speaker 1: green bucket with the blower three whackers, and I'm driving
Speaker 1: a loanmower. You know, it's eight miles away to the
Speaker 1: because I lived in Patison, I'd get to North Hillton
Speaker 1: was my first house, and I'm driving.
Speaker 6: It took me forever.
Speaker 4: I left that four o'clock in the morning to get
Speaker 4: to the house by eight o'clock, took four hours to
Speaker 4: fill it up gas and and for I think four months,
Speaker 4: I worked without a truck, and I cut all these grass, and.
Speaker 6: I drove my loanmower to everyone's house.
Speaker 1: But see I would cut a guy's house, a guy
Speaker 1: like you, and you would see that I was hustling
Speaker 1: and working, and you would say to me, hey, Joe,
Speaker 1: you want to put my patio in, Joe, you want
Speaker 1: to put my And people just gravitated towards me. They
Speaker 1: saw I worked hard, and I'd work by myself and
Speaker 1: and and put a patio, and that would take a
Speaker 1: let's say, take a week. I'd do it in three
Speaker 1: days because I would work. I would start at eight
Speaker 1: the more I mean six in the morning, and work
Speaker 1: stayed at your house at eleven o'clock at night. You're
Speaker 1: eating dinner with your family, and I'm in there working
Speaker 1: in the backyard. And when I was done, people are like,
Speaker 1: here you go. They paid me. And slowly like that,
Speaker 1: I just grew and grew, and from the landscape and
Speaker 1: business started buying houses, sort of renovating houses, flipping houses,
Speaker 1: and then then houses went to multi million dollar homes,
Speaker 1: buying and flipping those or building them from the ground
Speaker 1: up and from there, and then started buying getting into
Speaker 1: apartment buildings. Because I always said, I have to have
Speaker 1: to create passive income. So I don't want to work
Speaker 1: with this my whole life. I need income coming in
Speaker 1: every month. So I started buying, uh two families, keeping
Speaker 1: them threes fours, learning the banking system, how to borrow money. Everything,
Speaker 1: everything's about borrow money. You got to know how to
Speaker 1: borrow money. You know. I met a guy, a.
Speaker 6: Very very successful guy.
Speaker 1: When he meets you, he shakes you, he says, how
Speaker 1: you doing, He goes, YEA, the more you owe, the
Speaker 1: more you work. So basically, if you if you if
Speaker 1: you owe a billion dollars, you work two billion. Correct.
Speaker 6: The more you owe, the more you work.
Speaker 1: Because he's really wealthy and he owes a lot of money,
Speaker 1: but he's worked ten times the money, you know. And
Speaker 1: so so I went from from building now I build
Speaker 1: apartment buildings and keep them in managing them.
Speaker 3: So, so how long did it take you to finally
Speaker 3: start making money?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: Because people think that it's an overnight success, like people
Speaker 3: just become overnight successes, right, And but what most people
Speaker 3: don't understand is the sacrifice that it takes, all the
Speaker 3: price that you have to pay. You know, you're talking
Speaker 3: about six am to eleven pm, working twelve am and
Speaker 3: people's houses. Like, people don't see that. They just now
Speaker 3: see that you're building, you know, apartments and high rises
Speaker 3: and all this, and they don't see that price. Right.
Speaker 3: So how long did it take you to finally make
Speaker 3: some money where you can buy some dom Pea bottles
Speaker 3: and go to Kancun and do all those things that
Speaker 3: you started doing twenty six twenty seven years old? Because
Speaker 3: you started at nineteen, how long did it take you
Speaker 3: to to actually start making some money.
Speaker 1: I made money right away, you know what, because I worked.
Speaker 1: I did the impossible. I worked so hard the things
Speaker 1: that people like I'm not doing that, you know. I
Speaker 1: climbed trees that I was afraid of. Heights. Customers said
Speaker 1: to me, I got to look at this tree. You
Speaker 1: want to take it down, Joe. I just got a
Speaker 1: price for five thousand and take a down. I looked up.
Speaker 1: The tree was bigger than it was one hundred and
Speaker 1: some feet here.
Speaker 6: It was an old tree.
Speaker 1: He couldn't even wrap downs.
Speaker 6: I go, yeah, five thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: That was my first tree hive.
Speaker 6: I go, yeah, daddy, I could do it. Pro I
Speaker 6: took this tree dout, climb the tree.
Speaker 1: I got stuck up there for four hours. What do
Speaker 1: it meaning? Scared of heights? You know, in my head,
Speaker 1: I kept on saying, it's five thousand dollars. That's five thou.
Speaker 1: You gotta get this done. You can buy a new truck.
Speaker 1: You can buy a truck, get this tree down. Cut myself,
Speaker 1: got it down, did the impossible. I mean, I risked
Speaker 1: my life so many times. I mean, and I took
Speaker 1: the treat dot. I took the tree down. There was
Speaker 1: a whole story about that. It's funny as hell. But
Speaker 1: I got the treat at, I got daid and the
Speaker 1: next day I run to the the lettering guy and
Speaker 1: I put on my truck. My company was called Second
Speaker 1: Look Landscape, Second Look Landscape and tree Experts, and I
Speaker 1: said tree experts on the bottom.
Speaker 6: And trees, and became one of the biggest tree companies.
Speaker 1: So I had a landscape tree company. Oh yeah, So
Speaker 1: I made money. And everybody says, yeah, anybody, we live
Speaker 1: in the land of opportunity. You live in America. Can
Speaker 1: you make money? Yes, anybody can go go out and
Speaker 1: go to work. It hurts, work sucks, right, let's think
Speaker 1: about that. The more you put in, the more time
Speaker 1: you put in. Yeah, you don't go hang out with
Speaker 1: your friends. I said, I lost my childhood, right.
Speaker 3: I worked.
Speaker 1: I was a late bloomer. I didn't go to I
Speaker 1: didn't go to a spring break till I was twenty six.
Speaker 1: But you know what, by the time that little dick,
Speaker 1: I built a netpire. By the time I was twenty six,
Speaker 1: I had a house. So when I was in Cancun
Speaker 1: hanging out with those kids that are twenty two, twenty five,
Speaker 1: twenty six, because they're still.
Speaker 6: I owned a house already, yeah, nice, you know, but
Speaker 6: I put the time in.
Speaker 1: I literally, and I'm not exaggerating. I literally worked every
Speaker 1: day from four am. Now you're taking construction, get my
Speaker 1: stuff out four to eleven o'clock at night every night,
Speaker 1: and every night I came home, I lived. I lived
Speaker 1: at home from the beginning, and every night I came home,
Speaker 1: I'd come home at eleven o'clock. My mother would get up, wait,
Speaker 1: wait for me, get off, get up off the couch.
Speaker 1: She always made dinner and she would heat it up,
Speaker 1: make sure I had a nice home cooked meal, you know,
Speaker 1: every night, and I'd eat dinner at eleven o'clock at night.
Speaker 2: That's awesome. You were talking about your success and how
Speaker 2: you built it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and all the sacrifice that that went with it.
Speaker 3: I mean, I love it because again, one of my
Speaker 3: favorite quotes is if you don't, if you don't sacrifice
Speaker 3: for what you want, what you want becomes the sacrifice.
Speaker 3: And that literally is a testament of Joe's story. So
Speaker 3: I'm so glad we got we got we got a
Speaker 3: chance to hear that business side, because a lot of
Speaker 3: people don't get to hear that part, right, They only
Speaker 3: see what the Housewives show. And obviously I follow you
Speaker 3: on Instagram, so I see what you're doing, man, and
Speaker 3: I'm just like, man, this it's it's very inspiring. Now,
Speaker 3: really quick, tell us about you know you obviously you
Speaker 3: have three kids, right, do they watch the show at all?
Speaker 1: Not really? I mean, my my daughter I went to
Speaker 1: college and all the girls in college start talking about it.
Speaker 6: So she's like, I'm going to start watching his show.
Speaker 1: So she started watching the show for the first time ever,
Speaker 1: and she's like, Wow, she's into it. She's like, you know,
Speaker 1: she wants to watch more. So that's she she waits
Speaker 1: for the episodes now. But the boys are not into it.
Speaker 1: They don't watch it at.
Speaker 6: All, which is pretty cool.
Speaker 1: I loved that my children over the fourteen years, didn't
Speaker 1: get a shit about being on TV. Never, We never
Speaker 1: made it a big deal. We kind of kept them
Speaker 1: humble and like this is no big deals, just work.
Speaker 1: And they never really got crazy with it, which was great.
Speaker 1: You know, they never got into it with all the
Speaker 1: nonsense and they just stayed real and did their own thing.
Speaker 2: That was a question I had for you, you know, because
Speaker 2: it obviously affected yours and Melissa's life. When you became
Speaker 2: you know, famous like us, and anywhere you go, people
Speaker 2: want to take a picture with you, or they just
Speaker 2: want to touch you, or they just want to, you know,
Speaker 2: talk about your big you took Like how was that?
Speaker 2: Well that was last year? You know? How How did
Speaker 2: the kids get affected by their friends who watched the show?
Speaker 2: Did they ever have any good or bad experiences?
Speaker 1: Nothing? Nothing bad, man, nothing, thank god? Everything great. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Our kids try to avoid it. They try to, you know, say, well,
Speaker 2: I don't know what you're talking about. They never introduced themselves,
Speaker 2: you know, they try to avoid the whole. Yeah, tameras
Speaker 2: my mom. And when they found out, you know, they're like, what,
Speaker 2: we just went to our our old our Spencer's graduation
Speaker 2: party and he had a friend there from work and
Speaker 2: we were just chatting. My wife told me the story
Speaker 2: and she she she was having a conversation with him,
Speaker 2: the guy you know, was Spencer's age, talking to his
Speaker 2: mom and asking her questions, like typical questions, what do
Speaker 2: you do for a living? And so she proceeded to say, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm on TV. I'm gonna I'm on the show. And
Speaker 2: she's like, what he never said anything about that? Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, I've been on the show for years.
Speaker 1: What.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And he's been on the show. He's never said
Speaker 2: anything about being on TV.
Speaker 1: That's good. That's when they're not affected and they're just like, listen,
Speaker 1: this is nothing and I'm doing my thing. That's that's
Speaker 1: that's great because when they get too involve, you know,
Speaker 1: the kids could.
Speaker 2: Get it, could get that stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they get messed up, they get caught up in it,
Speaker 1: and this is a different world. It changes a lot
Speaker 1: of people. Yeah, and you gotta you gotta have it here.
Speaker 2: How did it affect you and Melissa? You know, how
Speaker 2: did it change your lives if at all?
Speaker 1: Oh, well, it definitely changed your life. It changed when
Speaker 1: we when we first got on the show, it was
Speaker 1: pretty crazy. Uh it was Uh, I mean it was
Speaker 1: the beginning, you know. I think Orange County was first, yeah, right,
Speaker 1: I think they had two or three seasons in and
Speaker 1: then we came on, I think the third season in
Speaker 1: and it became like this family thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and was on it already, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she was on. She was on first. She started
Speaker 1: the show with another woman, Dina, but then it came
Speaker 1: to this family thing, so it kind of it kind
Speaker 1: of went. We we our life changed instantly. I mean
Speaker 1: we couldn't wherever we walked, anywhere we went, major celebrities instantly.
Speaker 1: It was pretty crazy. You know, everybody wanted to know
Speaker 1: you so and we handled it. We handled it very well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we really. I stayed very focused. I went to work
Speaker 1: every day. Melissa did her things. We had her bab
Speaker 1: our kids were very young, so she did the TV thing.
Speaker 1: Then she was handling her children. She came home when
Speaker 1: she was a mom, So kept her very grounded, which
Speaker 1: was great. And uh, same hare Man. But you know
Speaker 1: I could have I could have easily got to my
Speaker 1: head and and thought I was a big shot. And
Speaker 1: you know, I don't have to work like this anymore,
Speaker 1: and I don't have to do this. But now I
Speaker 1: stayed humble and I went and shoveled or picked dirt
Speaker 1: and do what I do. And and because I I know, listen,
Speaker 1: everything is temporary, not in last forever.
Speaker 2: How did you handle the social media aspect of it?
Speaker 2: Because I always say and I remind my wife and
Speaker 2: everybody I talked to about this experience. Like you said earlier,
Speaker 2: Ted Ted Winder, I can't get over that name. When
Speaker 2: you are on a reality TV show, if fifty percent
Speaker 2: of the people love you and fifty percent of the
Speaker 2: people hate you, you're going to be popular, right. But
Speaker 2: if it swings either one way or the other, nobody,
Speaker 2: you're not going to make it right. So how did
Speaker 2: you handle the negative side of the social media? You
Speaker 2: know the people that's you know, you're not tall enough,
Speaker 2: you're not short enough, you're not white enough, you're not
Speaker 2: brown enough, you're not you're not good looking enough, you're
Speaker 2: too good looking? How did you handle all that negative?
Speaker 1: Why do you have to throw a shorten there?
Speaker 3: Because it goes with.
Speaker 1: Im? Who would say that ship if I wasn't short?
Speaker 2: It's that comes up. It's all stupid.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and I say this all the time.
Speaker 1: People ask me that question all the time. How do
Speaker 1: you handle it? How do you First, I got a thick,
Speaker 1: thick skin, and I look in the mirror. No, because
Speaker 1: we got we got hammered, hammered, right, you know, on
Speaker 1: on social media, you get hammered when you're a reality
Speaker 1: start may make up all these allegations about you know,
Speaker 1: all this bullshit, and nothing is true right for me,
Speaker 1: thank god, you know, but I really never gave a
Speaker 1: shit what anybody ever saying, because I look in the mirror.
Speaker 1: I get up every day and I earned every dollar
Speaker 1: I've ever made in my life this way. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I don't give a shit when anybody could say about me,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't bother me. And I really barely read it,
Speaker 1: and I don't care to read in because I knew
Speaker 1: who I was. And when you know who you are,
Speaker 1: you know when you respond and everything goes you because
Speaker 1: you know you're that person and you responded. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: if they call you a certain name, or they say
Speaker 1: something and it eats you up, so you respond to
Speaker 1: it and you're trying to fight it or clean it up, nothing.
Speaker 2: Up, and it ever affected your relationship with Melissa. For example,
Speaker 2: there was an instance where one of the housewives that
Speaker 2: was trying to get back at my wife. She couldn't
Speaker 2: hurt my wife any longer, so she came after me
Speaker 2: and created this whole fabricated scene at her house talking about,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm gay. I slept with this guy. I
Speaker 2: walked into a room with this guy, and this whole
Speaker 2: allegation that I was gay, And like you, I don't
Speaker 2: give up. You can say anything you want to bout me, gay, straight, whatever.
Speaker 2: But it affected my wife so much that she, you know,
Speaker 2: didn't know what to do and started getting offended, and
Speaker 2: it was obviously an attack on her marriage, right. And
Speaker 2: at one point I didn't understand it because I was like, Babe,
Speaker 2: it doesn't matter to me. It doesn't matter what these
Speaker 2: people think about me. You know who I am, you
Speaker 2: know who what it's what our relationship is. And and
Speaker 2: it didn't dawn on me that it it created a
Speaker 2: little fight between us because I couldn't understand why it
Speaker 2: was affecting her so much. And then it took me
Speaker 2: a while to figure out, oh, it's affecting her. So
Speaker 2: I got to figure out why it's affecting her and
Speaker 2: support her on this, and what I learned is it
Speaker 2: was an attack on her family. And when they attack
Speaker 2: your kids, when they attack your family, that kind of
Speaker 2: that's where she loses her shit. Like you can attack everything,
Speaker 2: you can say, you know, you can. You can say
Speaker 2: I'm a crook if you want. That's illegal, but you
Speaker 2: can say I'm a crook. But don't go after my family.
Speaker 2: Don't go after my kids. You know, they're not part
Speaker 2: of this show. Did that ever happen to you guys,
Speaker 2: And did you guys ever have any problems like that? Oh?
Speaker 1: Yeah, listen, we've we've been on this fourteen years. If
Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you things like that didn't happen
Speaker 1: it did? You know? This has been a rollercoaster. I
Speaker 1: mean there's been great times, there's been bad times. You know. Again,
Speaker 1: we've been we've been on with family, I mean some
Speaker 1: serious family stuff. So there was times that you know,
Speaker 1: we were so upset and we had arguments about it
Speaker 1: because for no reason, because of the because of the pressure,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, I mean it's been a lot. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is this is not an easy game, you know that, right,
Speaker 1: And we're putting our lives out there and we're just
Speaker 1: basically you're a darkboard. And just they're just throwing darts
Speaker 1: at you and trying to hit that bullseye and are
Speaker 1: constantly doing it. So it's a battle. And you really
Speaker 1: have to have true love, right you real left to
Speaker 1: laugh because that's how you this. But you guys been
Speaker 1: together for a long time too, right, Yeah, and you
Speaker 1: also meet your wife and if you don't have that
Speaker 1: real love and you were on the rocks already, or
Speaker 1: you're never gonna make it, because this is the pressure
Speaker 1: is crazy.
Speaker 2: I remember in the beginning when I first learned about
Speaker 2: Jersey and I started watching a little bit about it
Speaker 2: through my wife. Of course, there was a lot of
Speaker 2: battling between you and Theresa and the family dynamics, and
Speaker 2: I thought, well, that's got to be bad, you know,
Speaker 2: because this is family. This is messing up families. I
Speaker 2: don't for us. They put us in a room with
Speaker 2: people we've never met in our life and call them
Speaker 2: our friends, right, and hey, here's your show. If I
Speaker 2: don't have a relationship with these people, I don't give
Speaker 2: a shit. I didn't know them before the show. I
Speaker 2: don't care after the show, right, But this is your family,
Speaker 2: And how did that affect you when it's affecting your family.
Speaker 6: I mean, listen, I I would love to, you know, uh,
Speaker 6: be in a room.
Speaker 1: I always say, tell everybody when we go to Bravo
Speaker 1: Khan and and you meet all the other people and
Speaker 1: you're like, listen, put me in a room with a
Speaker 1: bunch of strangers out to eat them alive. I have phone,
Speaker 1: you know, you just have some phone with it. Family.
Speaker 7: It's it's a whole different world. It's a different ballgame.
Speaker 7: Like you, when you're done, you you go and you
Speaker 7: really it sinks into your head. Like even now, if
Speaker 7: I watch old episodes, like say on a Sunday, you
Speaker 7: walk by and there's an episode on and it you know,
Speaker 7: and because now because we're air and that's what they do,
Speaker 7: they show they rerun all these episodes and there's an
Speaker 7: incident that I had, you know that.
Speaker 1: Goes back to like a family day. I don't even
Speaker 1: watch it. I can't watch it. Yeah, I still can't
Speaker 1: watch it. I don't want to watch it, you know.
Speaker 1: So I turned out, I turn it off. I walk
Speaker 1: right out of the room. And even Melissa, she wouldn't
Speaker 1: watch those those times because they was so real, so
Speaker 1: so so.
Speaker 3: Bad for us.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, it was tough. It was It's a ride,
Speaker 1: you know. That's why I think Jersey was such a
Speaker 1: popular show because of the family dynamic, and everywhere I
Speaker 1: went there were people would say to me when I
Speaker 1: this was I first got on the show, they were like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, you know hi Joe. Yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: get along with my brother, I don't get along with
Speaker 1: my sister, I don't get along with my mother, I
Speaker 1: don't get all my phone. I mean, the family dynamic
Speaker 1: thing is everywhere, and and that's why that show was
Speaker 1: so crazy and so popular, and that's why I went
Speaker 1: so fast when when we first got on and uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's been a ride, man.
Speaker 2: I mean, that was one of the biggest things that
Speaker 2: stood out when I first learned about Jersey and how
Speaker 2: the family dynamics and all that it was got to
Speaker 2: be hard. The other dynamic that really stood out on
Speaker 2: Jersey is how you and the guys you could have
Speaker 2: your own show and you guys are so you know,
Speaker 2: you do so many cool things together on the show.
Speaker 2: You film a lot on the show. Tell tell me
Speaker 2: a little bit about how that happens. I mean, because
Speaker 2: the assumption I have is you guys grew up with
Speaker 2: each other. You know each other, and you get you
Speaker 2: actually get along with each other. Right, There's a lot
Speaker 2: of history, so it makes sense that you have that dynamic.
Speaker 2: Unlike our franchise or most franchises, the guys don't know
Speaker 2: each other really, you know. And and it's hard enough
Speaker 2: without having a television show in front of you to
Speaker 2: have a relationship with a husband of a wife. You know, like, like,
Speaker 2: just because you're her her her husband, doesn't mean we
Speaker 2: have to be friends, right, but do I mean we
Speaker 2: have to get along? But you know how, tell me
Speaker 2: about the Jersey House husbands, because you guys, you guys
Speaker 2: have it going on over there.
Speaker 1: You know. It always takes one right, And if I
Speaker 1: like to party, man, I like to I like to
Speaker 1: work hard, but I like that fun. And and if
Speaker 1: if I'm working and I'm filming, so I worked all day,
Speaker 1: worked all day from five in the morning. Now now
Speaker 1: it's filming time. Say it's eight o'clock at night, nine
Speaker 1: o'clock at night, we're filming. We're at an event. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna have some fun. I don't care. We're filming. It's
Speaker 1: about my time.
Speaker 6: This is I'm working on.
Speaker 1: So I'm like, oh, come on, guys to a shot.
Speaker 3: Come on.
Speaker 6: So I am, I'm I'm the antagonizer.
Speaker 2: I know you did it to us and Brava, Brava.
Speaker 1: So I've you know, and I start people getting you know,
Speaker 1: I like to drink. I can handle my liquor very well,
Speaker 1: so I like to give. Just start start doing the shots.
Speaker 1: Get everybody a little twisted. Then the games start happening,
Speaker 1: you know. And I'm just a jokester. So you know,
Speaker 1: I've created this little bond with the guys and and
Speaker 1: we kind of Frank is the only guy on the
Speaker 1: show that I've known for thirty years, a big Franks
Speaker 1: containing everyone else. I basically met on the show.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I got you. You and Joelan way back,
Speaker 2: I know it. Impressions.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: No, Joe Beningo, No I met him. I met him
Speaker 1: on the show. Okay, but we clicked, you know, we clicked.
Speaker 1: And and Joe's funny because Joe's the kind of guy.
Speaker 1: He's really not a drinker, but he kind of like
Speaker 1: I antagonized in the drink and I said, come on
Speaker 1: doing that.
Speaker 2: Come on.
Speaker 1: Then he starts getting drunk, and he has three or
Speaker 1: four and he starts doing whatever and he starts dancing.
Speaker 1: He goes, let me.
Speaker 6: Dance like you, all right, I show him how to dance.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I got a sixty five year old guy trying
Speaker 1: to do the dance, the sexy dance.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: They just they kind of just you know, they listen
Speaker 1: to me. They they we just we just have fun,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 3: And well here's one thing too, is you know, if
Speaker 3: you don't have fun, you become bitter. That's why it's
Speaker 3: so important to be to have fun, because that's how
Speaker 3: you you're grateful. Right. But the most bitter people I've
Speaker 3: met is just they're not having fun anymore. Yea, And
Speaker 3: I love that you mentioned that, Joe. As we begin
Speaker 3: to close, you know, father's days coming up, Just two
Speaker 3: quick questions. What's obviously you've been a great dad. What's
Speaker 3: your greatest less of being father, of being a father?
Speaker 3: And then what was the hardest lesson that you had
Speaker 3: to learn about being a father?
Speaker 1: Uh, it's not about you anymore. It can't be greedy,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's it's I always tell everybody, even when
Speaker 1: I'm married with my wife, and you know, obviously my kids,
Speaker 1: my kids take it all. I just told my daughter
Speaker 1: this today. Uh, she says, I said, bring your brother
Speaker 1: to school for me. I can't do. She's like, Dad,
Speaker 1: I go, I go, huh, it's not honey. I bought
Speaker 1: you a nice car at your brother. Take care of
Speaker 1: your brother. You know it's not always about you. You know,
Speaker 1: my whole life I gave up for you and your brothers.
Speaker 1: I give my money to you, guys. I go. If
Speaker 1: I didn't have you, guys, I'd be living a life.
Speaker 1: I'd be on a yacht right now with a bunch
Speaker 1: of Columbian women, great time, not worrying about taking you
Speaker 1: here and tell you paying for college, paying for this.
Speaker 1: But so the biggest lesson is it's uh, don't you
Speaker 1: can't be selfish? You know it's not about you anymore.
Speaker 3: I teach your kids that teach And the hardest moment
Speaker 3: about being a dad. What's been your hardest moment about
Speaker 3: being a dad?
Speaker 1: My hardest moment, I really, I'm gonna say, man, I
Speaker 1: don't have a hard moment. I love it. I would
Speaker 1: have a hundred kids. I don't care. I'll deal with
Speaker 1: their problems, you know, I'll deal with everything. I just love.
Speaker 1: I love my kids. I love that I can look
Speaker 1: at them, and I love that I've taught them something
Speaker 1: and they use it. You know, I just there's nothing
Speaker 1: hard about being a father man's and I love all
Speaker 1: their challenges and you know hard.
Speaker 2: Was it hard to see your daughter go away for college?
Speaker 1: It was hard, but but it was still a beautiful thing.
Speaker 1: You know, you get it's a proud moment everybody, you know,
Speaker 1: I know you get upset. I got upset for that moment,
Speaker 1: but I'm also proud of her. You know, she's going
Speaker 1: to college. You know, go go, go be who you
Speaker 1: want to be. Do it the right way. You know.
Speaker 1: The hardest moment if she ever got in trouble and
Speaker 1: did some stupid things. And I always tell my kids
Speaker 1: no drugs. You know, that's the worst thing they can
Speaker 1: ever That would be the hardest moment if a parent
Speaker 1: ever had to go through that, because it's.
Speaker 6: A difficult road.
Speaker 1: And I pray every day that please they don't get
Speaker 1: involved in that. And you know, you can only wish
Speaker 1: and teach them, you know, plant that in their head.
Speaker 1: But that's that's the biggest moment. But you know, I don't.
Speaker 1: I'm good man. I'm happy being a dad. Man. I'd
Speaker 1: have a hundred of them. Yeah, and my seat everywhere.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna start planting my seat. I might give it out,
Speaker 1: you know, start selling it.
Speaker 3: Well. I'll tell you what, man, the timing on you
Speaker 3: coming on couldn't have been better, especially with Father's Day
Speaker 3: coming up, because again, I think you're a great example
Speaker 3: of what a dad should be. You know again, married
Speaker 3: what over twenty years and three children, and you've done
Speaker 3: just a great job. And I've had so much fun
Speaker 3: in this interview.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: One of the things that we try to do as
Speaker 3: well is we got to love I love the most
Speaker 3: is we got to talk a little bit about business
Speaker 3: because a lot of times you don't get to hear that.
Speaker 3: So yeah, again, thank you again for coming. I know
Speaker 3: you're busy man, so it means a lot.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you.
Speaker 6: Listen, you keep looking at you too, handsome son of
Speaker 6: a bitches.
Speaker 1: You guys keep doing it.
Speaker 3: Hey feels mutual. Brother.
Speaker 2: We'll see you soon.
Speaker 3: Brother.
Speaker 2: It's great talking to you man.
Speaker 3: Guys. I mean, what an exciting interview. We want to
Speaker 3: have more and you know you for you listeners. We'd
Speaker 3: love to hear who you'd like on. I mean, I
Speaker 3: think Joe is an excellent excellent guest.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: IM so grateful that he showed up because he is
Speaker 3: a busy guy.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, I mean we have two for two now.
Speaker 2: We had Shane, he was awesome. Now Joe. I can't
Speaker 2: wait for our next one. This is awesome. All right,
Speaker 2: another great one, another great one. Great catching up brother.
Speaker 2: I guess we will see you on the next show.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Oh, by the way, you know, so I don't
Speaker 3: know how this whole.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: I was bragging to my wife the other day about
Speaker 3: us having five stars. Uh huh, and she's like, well,
Speaker 3: that's too many stars. You got to have some haters.
Speaker 3: You're not doing something right if everybody just loves you. Guys,
Speaker 3: I'm like, you can't win.
Speaker 2: No, no something. This is not that kind of show.
Speaker 2: We want everybody to love us.
Speaker 3: And that's what I told her. I'm like, I don't
Speaker 3: want any haters. I like my five stars.
Speaker 2: I like my five stars.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So, anyway, she made me laugh when she said that.
Speaker 2: That's a good argument, though. I do have to say that.
Speaker 2: But we're not talking garbage. We're not you know, we're
Speaker 2: not being controversial about the housewife show. You know, we're
Speaker 2: just getting to know the guys, that's it.
Speaker 3: This is what happens when you bragged your wife. I
Speaker 3: was like, well, you guys are like a three and
Speaker 3: a half. Guys, we're at five, you know. And of
Speaker 3: course miss Whitty over there always has a quick comeback.
Speaker 2: Yes they do.
Speaker 3: She's like, well, you would have one hundred thousand downloads
Speaker 3: if people actually hated you.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well we'll have to put that to the test
Speaker 2: someday now, but maybe. Anyways, I think we're doing a
Speaker 2: great job exactly. All right, Well, that's a wrap. I
Speaker 2: will see you on the next one.
Speaker 3: And Happy Father's Day everyone.
Speaker 2: Happy Father's Day, y'all.