CringeHumor

      My relationship with Mike comes from a very different perspective.  I am not a comic.  I am not in recovery.  I am not family.  I am just a producer / director, that has been working with him for the last 7 years. 

When I was in elementary school, my first “best friend” was Tommy DeStefano, Mike’s brother.  I would spend days at the DeStefano residence, sleeping over on weekends. I knew the family well, his parents were great to me and I always found them to be very kind people.  His brother John would come home and throw me and Tommy a quick beating before leaving to go play hockey or something.  Joey would make a rare appearance once in a while, he’d do a walk through and would scare me senseless.  What can I say, he was a scary guy. Tommy carries a lot of Mikey D’s traits; one that stands out was his loyalty to his friends and family.  I honestly couldn’t have a one-on-one fight growing up because Tommy would always wind up hitting them the minute we started. 

Then there was Mike, he was quiet and to himself, he was going through something at the time, as a kid I didn’t fully understand.  He was the one I knew the least about.  Through the years, I remember hearing that the reason he wasn’t home was because he was in rehab.  Then I heard he got “very sick” and moved to Florida.  I eventually went to a different high school then Tommy, we both had different friends so our lives went separate ways, but we’d run into each other from time to time.  And when we saw each other we always transported back to a time when we were kids.  We’d talk, how’s the family, etc….  I’d always get the same answer, ok, everyone is doing all right, you know…  Then I heard about their fathers passing, this was sad news, I knew that the family have all been through some tough stuff, these types of things some times trigger emotions which can take a turn for the worse.  I always hoped for their well being.

Many years later, in the summer of 2004, I was in Virginia Beach with my wife we decided to check out a comedy show.  A little hole in the wall, we packed in like tourist.  I got in a little late so I didn’t hear them say the names of the comics.  I watched and listened to the guy on the stage, and I said, “Man he looks familiar.”  In my head, I said “that can’t be a DeStefano can it?”  At the moment, I thought maybe it was Joey.  Because, I’ll be honest, I assumed Mike might have died.  I watched the final moments of the act, as he threatened to hit a heckler with a hammer and told us all to go fuck ourselves and then he got off the stage.  The MC said his name again, and I was shocked.  Mikey had made it, and then I asked myself “how did he wind up doing comedy!” 
So I went up to him afterwards, I asked him if he remembered me, he did.  I told him what I was doing, so we sat and talked, we talked for a while.  After that weekend, Mike came to my studio, which is in The Bronx, he met my partners Stephen & John and we started our new relationship. 

This is where my relationship differs from most; we both had goals and aspirations of our own, totally separate from each other.  Even though we were not 100% sure exactly what we wanted, we both had drive.  From there we feed off of each other in order to help our careers.  Everything we did together helped us get to another level to where we wanted to be.  Both of our careers grew simultaneously with every project we did together.  No matter what it was, Mikey would always ask me, “This would be good for you guys too, right?”  He was always so grateful for our work together, and he’d let me know it with an unrelenting loyalty that never went away even for a moment.  An example would be, I’d get phone calls from producers or writers that I never even met, and they would say “Hey I met Mikey D recently and I told him I wanted to work on a project with him…. He told me to call you and discuss it?”  I received a bunch of those calls. 

Through our relationship we developed projects from the ground up, I was allowed to see his insecurities, and I was allowed to give my opinion and he’d always accept it.  Of course at some point he’d always tell me that “I don’t know what the fuck I am talking about or what the fuck I’m doing”, but he always promised, “He’d straighten me out.”  I spent so many days having him tell me his story in different ways, and every time I heard it, I got something else out of it.  We went to different comedy clubs and some (most) he would leave angry, and explain to me the different rooms and the vibes of the rooms.  He taught me about the circuit and how to “make it”.  I remember one night he took me to the Cellar, and he stood in front of it, and he said, “I need to book a show here, this will change things for me, this is where I have to get on.”  We ate diner upstairs, and he pointed people out to me, he said “that guy is a dick”, then he pointed to someone else and said “and that guy over there, is a fucking douche hack”, and then Dave Attell walked in and he said, “Frankie, there’s a comic”.  I remember years later Mikey and I were in a conversation and he said very aggravated, “I have to go do a fucking show at the Cellar tonight”, and we continued talking, I thought back to that night we stood in the front of that very place.

A big break for both of us was in 2007; my partners and I were hired to do a pilot called “WHITE BOYZ IN THE HOOD”.  A show where they took White Comedians to perform for a Black room.  This was a big deal for us, it was a Lions Gate release and we hadn’t really done anything with this type of visibility.  I told the producers that they had to use Mikey D, and I gave them a DVD. Once they watched it they realized that a few other people had recommended him as well.  Mikey was already building a name.  Even though I thought this was a big deal for both of us, Mikey would tell me “This is shit”.  But he left an impression on everyone when he got on that stage.  He was the only one to drop the “N” word.  But Mikey didn’t drop it just to shock everyone, he wasn’t being mean spirited.  He was saying something, about us as a society, he was saying if we are going to do a show like this, and its about humor and laughing at ourselves then all bets are off.  As a matter of fact the joke got cut, but I feel I would be doing an injustice if I didn’t tell you what it was.  He said, “I heard Cracker Barrel is owned by a black man, I find that racist, CRACKER-barrel, what would happen if a white man opened the Nigga-Basket”?  I spoke with a bunch of black guys after the show; Mikey was always in the top 5 favorites.

Just like Last Comic Standing, never number 1, but always in the top 5.  I was with Mikey the day he had to make the decision on weather or not he should do the LCS.  EVERYONE around him (at least where I was) told him not to do it.  I gave the same opinion I always gave, I said – “you know what’s best for your career.”  (Because I was really following his lead) He said he was going to do it.  He said, “I fucking hate this shit, but I feel like its something I have to do, it will be good for me”.  Why he felt that, I’ll never really know, but it makes me think, was he manifesting his own destiny?  He could never get that kind of exposure like he received anywhere else that fast, except there on that platform.  If he felt somewhere inside of him, that he was coming to the end of his days here on earth, I believe he would do the show, otherwise he normally wouldn’t.  Or maybe he really just wanted to say “Fuck you to America on national TV?” 

If you know Mike, you would know LCS wasn’t something he believed was an acceptable platform to perform art. A lot of people were upset when he lost, but they shouldn’t be, Mike had to lose.  What I mean by that, if he would have won, it would have went against everything he was fighting for.  We all know that Mike was the best on that show, there is no question.  No offense to the other contestants at all, they are all good comedians.  But even they would agree that Mike was magical.  But at the same time, he was scary, not because he talked tough or had tattoos, because he represented truth.  He spoke from a place so many of us are scared to speak from, and that scares America.  So he couldn’t win the whole thing or else his plight would have ended right then and there.

This takes me to, what was next for Mikey?  I hear people all around me, they say – “he was SO CLOSE…..”  My question is, SO CLOSE to what?  So close to fame?  He was famous around the people he wanted to be famous for.  So close to making lots of money?  He didn’t care about money; he gave money away to anyone who needed it.  So close to having his own show?  Mikey didn’t want his own show, in fact in 2008 me and Mikey won the NYTVF, we had offers on our pilot, Mikey walked away from them.  There were other reasons of course, but if he really wanted it, it was his.  He didn’t, because to him any TV show wasn’t going to allow him to be himself.  It was fake, money was fake, networks were fake, and most agents and mangers were fake.  The only thing he wanted ever was to be heard.  He succeeded.  He did everything he ever wanted to do.
He recently did so many things he wanted to do, he went on air, with a comic he adored, Marc Maron’s WTF podcast and announced things that he never spoke about in a public forum.  With the help of cringe humor’s Pat, Dave and Cris he did his one-man show.  Along with myself, my partners Steve and John, he got to put his content out all over the Internet for the world to see.  Within the last decade, his family became such a strong and loving unit, AND STILL IS.  He impacted the recovery scene in a way that has healed so many.  He received the respect from the comedy community and his comedic hero’s, that he loved so much.  His legacy has been built. 

I worked with Mikey for so many years, because I believed in him.  I believed what he was doing; I saw the eyes of those people he touched.  I saw people hugging him in the centers; I saw the way he spoke to them.  I saw the passion in his voice when he was on stage or when he gave an interview.  Even though as a busy production company we are always working, everything we did with Mikey was different, it felt important.  The day he died, I kinda felt like the crowd that was following Forest Gump when he stopped running, and they didn’t know what to do.  Everything stopped.  My phones kept ringing, more work…. Bills still had to get paid..  Deadlines had to be met…  monotonous day-to-day details…  But the grand masterpiece had ended.  At least that’s what I had thought, now after reading these emails, facebooks and blogs, talking to people at the services and hearing more and more stories, I realized that it didn’t end, Mike himself was the masterpiece. I am so grateful I was able to contribute to this. 

I have no regrets; I jumped when he asked me to.  He, my partners and myself created great content together.  The only thing I wish I did do, was tell Mikey how I felt about him and what he did for me personally.  He made me believe in myself, because he believed in me.  He taught me what loyalty was, because he was so loyal to me.  He taught me when you look someone in the eye and give them your word it means more then anything else in the world.  He taught me being a stand up comic is one thing, but being a stand up person in another.  Don’t judge, but tell ‘em how you feel.  Live life to the fullest, but first figure out what that means.  Don’t worry what neighborhood you come from, you can still be friends with every race, every person and that religion, color and sexual preference does not separate us as human beings.  He taught me, that no matter what, YOU CAN ALWAYS RECOVER, and when you do, you can do great things.  He taught me to never settle on what you believe…..

He also taught me if you ever have to hit someone with a hammer, use a ball-been hammer, because a regular hammer has a hook and it can get stuck in the person and then they will run away with your hammer, then you’d lose your hammer.  But Most importantly have a sense of humor and always be able to laugh, especially at ourselves.

I love and miss you Mikey, not even death will stop you from living on.

- Frank Mosca

Frank is an independent film maker and is the co-owner and producer of Harrington Talents