October 11, 2024 • 31 mins
Nick Palmisciano is a NYT Bestselling author, director, and producer. He's the creator of the new show, Office Joe!
Nick is a Founding Board Member of international rescue non-profit Save Our Allies, and is the CEO of the full service marketing agency Diesel Jack Media. He is a Graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, and received his MBA from Duke University. He received the prestigious “Entrepreneur of the Year” award from the Entrepreneur Organization in 2015, the U.S. Army Ranger Tab, and the Bobcat, Wolf, Bear, and Webelos badges in Cub Scouts. The Wolf Badge was his favorite.
His screen work includes Range 15, which he wrote and produced, and was the first independent film to top the charts at Amazon. Not A War Story, a documentary on the challenges of making a film with an all-veteran team, became the number one documentary in America. Send Me, is a documentary that Palmisciano filmed while joining a team of 12 veterans assisting with the evacuation of Afghanistan in the final days of the war, qualified for Academy Award voting.
Palmisciano loves to tell stories that include veteran characters that do not fit the Hollywood stereotype of what a veteran is supposed to be. Office Joe fits that to a T. That rhymed you see. Tee-hee.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello, you're listening to and watching Wake Up with Patti
Katter today. I have Nick Palmigiano on the
show. Welcome, Nick.
Thanks so much for having me. It's great to have you in my hot
seat finally. You're a popular guy.
It's hard to get a hold of you sometime.
Well. You know, I've, I've, we've got
a lot going on between the, the company, the show and, and all
(00:23):
of the nonprofit work we do. So, you know, I'm happy to be
here. I really appreciate it.
Yeah, and I can't wait for my listeners to hear more about
you. I'd love to start with you just
telling our listeners a little bit about where you came from,
though, because not a lot of people know your background.
They know what you're doing now.But I'd love to hear a little
bit about where you came from and how you got where we are
(00:44):
today. Yeah, so you know, I am the.
I mean, I don't know how far back you want me to go.
Let's throw it childhood, we'll.Go childhood, OK?
I am the son of an Italian immigrant.
My dad came to the US when he was nine and served in Vietnam,
(01:06):
became the first member of our family to go to college and
graduated valedictorian. So he set the bar pretty high
and I lived in Italy for I was born in America, born in
Providence, RI, lived in Italy for the 1st or that from three
(01:26):
to like 10 and came back to the States and lived in the Boston
area and basically got the crap beat out of me for a couple
years for being the weird Italian kid.
And so, you know, we're all a product of our, our childhood,
you know, whatever we didn't getin childhood becomes our adult
(01:46):
personality. And so mine is, you know, a
constant desire to kind of grindthrough adversity and do my own
thing. And so that's where I come from.
That led to wrestling and combatsports so that I stopped getting
beat up. That led to West Point.
(02:09):
That led to, you know, being an infantry officer for a while
and, and serving our country in the the best job I've ever had.
And then I got out and I did what everybody tells you to do,
which is, you know, go to Business School, get an MBA and
you know, and then do the Fortune 100 gig.
I did that. I lasted for four years, started
(02:31):
a apparel company as a hobby. That hobby grew into Ranger up,
which at the time was the biggest and 1st military apparel
brand. I left.
I left that sold that company and when I did, shortly
thereafter, they laid off all ofmy old employees.
(02:53):
And so I started a company so that they would have jobs.
I found out on a Friday they were getting laid off.
I told them that day there's good news and bad news.
The bad news is you're getting laid off.
The good news is you have a new job on Monday if you want it.
And they said, what's the job? And I said, I don't know, I'll
tell you on Monday. And that's where Diesel Jack
(03:16):
Media came from, which is my current company.
And it was born from all the skills that I learned building
Ranger up, you know, social media marketing, you know, ads,
all of the different things thatthat, you know, it takes to run
an apparel company are actually very complex and apply to every
(03:38):
business. And so that's where Diesel Jack
came from. And, and we've been, we've been
very successful. We count among our, our clients,
the American Legion, the StudentVeterans of America.
We've worked with fantastic brands.
We've worked with over 40 companies.
And I really enjoy helping people kind of get to the next
(04:01):
level, you know, in their business or, or with their
nonprofit. Well, you know, inside of all of
that there is also a, you know, there have also been challenges
that have, you know, arisen. The number one, you know, kind
of thing that that set my non profit world in motion was the
(04:24):
fall of Afghanistan. And during the fall of
Afghanistan, my friend Sarah Berardo reached out to me and
said, you know, Nick, I need youto go to Afghanistan.
And I thought she was joking because I've been out of the
military for so long. I'm not that cool.
And I wasn't that cool when I was cool.
(04:45):
And but she was serious. And so, you know, myself, Tim
Kennedy, Chad Robishaw and nine other, you know, middle-aged
veterans headed to Afghanistan and, and helped, you know,
evacuate in about 12,000 people into the UAE through some
(05:07):
fantastic connections through our mutual friend Joe Robert.
And, and you know this story very well.
Without Joe, there's, there is no evacuation, you know, but
that set off just, you know, hey, we kind of put this band of
great people together. We then did work in Ukraine.
(05:28):
We've done work in Gaza. We've done work in Haiti where
there is a crisis, you know, we are there, including, you know,
at the top right now we're we'reworking Hurricane Helene.
And so there have been all thesebad things that have kind of
happened. And the veteran community is
(05:48):
always in the thick of it. Every time something bad is
happening, you look around, there are veterans that are
solving those problems. It just it's in our DNAI don't
care if you were a bad ass soft dude or if you, you know, and
I'm not crapping on anybody's life.
I always feel bad using any, anyexample of the other extreme.
(06:11):
But if you know, if you were a clerk or you were, you know, you
worked in legal or finance or whatever, it's in our DNA to
help each other because that's how we we grew up.
And so, you know, the veteran community rallies around these
things. Well, it it takes a toll.
You know, the wars took a toll. These events take a toll.
(06:31):
The contribution of veterans takes a toll.
And so, you know, years ago, I did a movie with my friends.
You know, most of them are now much more popular than I am, but
called Range 15. And that's, you know, Matt Best
and Jared Taylor and Tim Kennedyand all these guys.
And that was such a fun moment for the veteran community.
(06:53):
And I, you know, one, I love to make film, but two, I felt like
it was time for something fun, you know, to get back to, you
know, to having a little bit of fun with who we are.
And that was, you know, where the idea for Office Joe came
from. And I actually spitballed it
(07:13):
with Donnie O'Malley, you know, who was the founder of that TV
And he was, you know, he was a huge help and, you know, kind of
framing how to do ATV show. So I'd done film, but I'd never
done a series. And, you know, we're put
together these scripts and and we, you know, last last
(07:34):
December, we shot this television series and it came
out great. And that's that's kind of where
I'm at now. That was long winded, but I'm
Italian and and you know, you did ask for me to go all the way
back to my childhood. This is so interesting, I didn't
know a lot of your story, especially from your childhood.
It might. It all makes sense.
Yeah, that's why I hate, I hate bullies so much.
(07:56):
I get like viscerally affected when I watch any.
I don't get bullied anymore, youknow, I'm not like that.
I don't tolerate that. But when I see anyone getting
bullied, I have a visceral reaction because of getting my
ass kicked for two years as a kid.
(08:16):
Kid stuff never leaves you, you know, like it's important to
know that. Like you think about, Oh yeah,
it wasn't that big deal. I toughed through it.
Like it's with you forever. It forms your personality.
And it's true of everybody I know, every single person I know
that has done really cool stuff,has had some kind of, and I hate
to use the word trauma cause at the end of the day, it's not
(08:38):
that big of a deal. But like something early in life
that shaped how you think about life and it like never leaves
you. You know, that's such a great
point and I don't think anybody has actually like tackled this
topic on my show before because when you opened up, you had
mentioned people, they do react on their childhood when they're
(08:58):
older. So just thinking about all of my
guests and the trials that they've had and overcoming those
trials with triumphs, your storymakes perfect sense.
So your show Office Joe is hilarious.
First of all, I had the pleasureof having a little bit of a
preview and was pretty shocked and amazed.
(09:20):
Even at the very opening scene of the first episode.
I was like, Oh my gosh, 'cause I've worked with veterans now
for 17 years and every single that I've ever worked with told
me a story of how when they weretrying to ETS there, they had
all this red tape, but once theyETS, they could finish what they
were supposed to do while they were ETS ING.
(09:40):
And Oh my gosh, that is just perfect.
It was such a night. I mean, and, and it's funny,
every veteran that has watched the opening scene, I watched
them like clench, like get tight, because they've all lived
it, whether they lived it with, you know, finance or CIF or
whatever, Like they've had that moment.
(10:03):
Absolutely. How did you pick out the actors
for this show? So, you know, there were certain
roles like, you know, all of the, you know, I'm just going to
call them influencers. But all my friends, you know,
that they kind of flesh out the universe like Jared Taylor,
Austin Von Lehtemann, Ashley Gutermuth, Vince Vargas, Tim
(10:26):
Kennedy, Jack Mandeville, Jack Raya, Eric Tansy, Like those
that I knew from the moment thatthat I was crafting the show
what they were going to be because those roles were
literally designed for them. You know, the the role, if they
didn't exist, the role wouldn't exist.
I just knew that they would crush those those roles.
(10:49):
But then for, you know, for the ensemble cast that makes up the
people in the office, it's superinteresting because some of
those characters I envisioned differently.
And then when we posted, you know, we did an open casting and
when we posted that we got people that that saw the role
(11:11):
differently and applied, you know, when they did their
tryouts, they played it almost the the one that's that's most
noticeable of the character of RAF.
RAF is I'll just say he's our stereotypical, you know,
left-leaning guy. And then Carter is our
stereotypical right leaning guy.And this isn't a political
(11:35):
comedy. I think you'd agree with that.
But you know, it's just like those are the people that you
find in any audit, any office. And so I wanted them to exist in
this universe. Well, originally I wrote RAF to
be, you know, like a little uppity and a little judge mental
(11:56):
and a little, you know, like very not endearing.
And Kenny, who's a Marine, he's the last guy you'd expect to be
a Marine with his, with his gorgeous looks and his long
flowing hair. But yeah, Kenny, who's a Marine,
played him very, like, gracious and endearing.
(12:19):
And I love it because instead ofit being like he's judging
everybody, he plays him like he's like he's earnest.
And I loved it. I didn't, I, I will not take
credit for that. Similarly, Carter, I had him
being almost like the stick up his butt kind of guy who
(12:40):
everything had to be just so. And Sam plays him sleazy, like
just a little sleazy. Not still a good guy, but you
know, and so, you know, I, you know, I wrote the words, they
said the words, but the way theychose to play them made it
something else. And so the actors all really
(13:02):
earned these roles. But even still, you know
something that Ross Patterson and you might know him from
Drinking Bros Ross Patterson directed Range 15 and he did a
great job with it. Very, very huge project.
And I didn't fully appreciate itat the time, but after directing
I I appreciate it a lot more. But at the time, he said,
(13:24):
there's the movie that you write, the movie that you shoot
and the movie that you edit. And they're all different
movies. What what I wrote is absolutely
not what was shot. The actors improved it and then
and then the editors did a fantastic job.
(13:45):
But the shoot is where you find out, is this going to be good or
is it not going to be good? And it the words can be good.
But if the actors don't fit together, if it doesn't feel
like they've known each other for a while, like they're
friends, like it's wooden, especially in an ensemble comedy
(14:07):
like this, it doesn't work. And I mean, these these guys
were all so close that, you know, two of them are now
dating. So.
Yeah. Yeah.
So it they got along really well.
So hopefully you know, that continues.
So we keep that chemistry going.Oh my goodness.
So I think of two shows right off the bat when I watch this
(14:31):
and it's as so I'm going to say this because I think that it's
even better because it fits the niche, you know, the veteran
community automatically, I thinka little bit of MASH just
because of the military thing, Ithink, but Seinfeld and you know
how far that went. And I'm telling you, this is
better in my opinion. I just get the humor.
I get I can relate to a lot of it.
(14:52):
I know a lot of, you know, like I said, my whole life has been
around veterans, But also the fact that you can take the show
and civilians can relate to it and, and it is hilarious.
Like there's one part, I don't even want to give it away, but
it was the first episode. There was a phrase in there that
was cracking me up because it was something that I remember
(15:14):
saying, well, I think I can say it because I don't know the
transition part of it. Do you know what I'm talking
about, the transition part of your military life?
Do you know where is it OK to talk about this?
OK, So when Ken was transitioning from the military,
I remember that one of my neighbors was really confused
(15:34):
about Ken transitioning. And it was just something that
in the forefront of my mind, everybody should know when our
military is transitioning, but apparently not everybody looks
at a transition the same when we're talking about
transitioning. And I'll just leave it at that.
But that part was very real. I mean, there were so many
(15:55):
things in that first episode that like, I can see everybody
relating to. And, and then the civilians who
watch it are going to have a huge awakening of like, oh, so
this is what they're talking about.
Yeah, this, so this is very different.
We we wanted this to be approachable when we when we
(16:15):
made range 15, we didn't care ifanybody other than the veteran
community liked it. We were, we were younger and we
were more aggressive back then. And now it's like, you know, I
mean, I love range 15. I'm proud of it, you know, but
even when we were putting it out, we told people, don't bring
your kids to this. This is it's dark.
(16:37):
It's real dark. Office Joe is not that, you
know, it, it definitely has humor for the veteran community,
but it it you know, most of our like audience testing has been
with people that never served and they've all really enjoyed
it, you know, and because it's instructive to what it's like
(16:59):
for a veteran to, you know, to be transitioning into the
civilian world. But it also, you know, you know,
all the characters in the office, you've worked with these
people. You know, there's, you know, the
the the political people, you'vegot the, you know, kind of the
creep. You've got the old guy that
you're like, man, why is he still even here?
(17:20):
Like he shouldn't he retire and he's but he he wants to be
around, but he's kind of a bastard.
You got the young guy that's earnest and is trying to do his
best. And everybody kind of like, you
know, abuses them a little bit. Like these are all characters
that we all have in our offices.And so it's very relatable and
it's fun. But also at the same time, the
(17:43):
message is to kind of remind, you know, veterans that
everybody goes through this. And I say that a lot.
I had an easy transition by nobody should feel bad for me.
I left the military. I went to Duke like nobody's
nobody should be shedding a tearfor me.
Still, though, it was hard. I, I felt like a fish out of
(18:05):
water. I didn't fully have my feet
underneath me. I felt massive guilt for getting
out because, you know, I had friends that were still
fighting. I lost friends.
You know, all of those things goon in your head and that's
normal. And so, you know, we address all
the things that we all experienced, but we do it
through comedy. Yeah, it's a it's an
(18:27):
approachable show. I I think truly that anybody
that likes this kind of comedy will like the show.
If you don't like comedy, if youspend all your time trying to
find fault and everything, you'll definitely hate the show.
But, but if you enjoy, you know,kind of like classic nineties
2000s comedy, you know, old school, there's something about
(18:48):
Mary, you like the Office, you like Parks and Rec.
I I think you'll enjoy the show.Absolutely.
And it's so needed too, because I feel like every time we turn
on ATV show, every time we turn on a movie, it's filled with
somebody wanting to persuade youto believe something that you
don't believe or that you don't,you know, you don't want to.
(19:10):
So this show, it was so refreshing, like it was the
first show I've seen in a long time that I could just laugh and
feel good and not feel like someone's trying to shove their
their hue down my throat. And it was completely.
There's no agenda and the characters, the characters, just
like in real life, have different opinions.
(19:32):
You know, there isn't the accepted, you know, but they're
all nice to each other, you know, and, and and that's the
thing. It's like it's very easy to
think on, you know, when you're online, when you're perpetually
online, that, you know, people that have different opinions
don't work well to get they can't be in the same room.
They're enemies, but you know, that's not the reality that any
(19:54):
of us actually live. You know, you go to work, you
might not even know what people believe Politically, you don't
care. It's like, hey, it's a nice
person. They have nice kids.
They they're respectful. They're good at their job, like,
and that's the way it is in office, Joe.
Now, most of them aren't good attheir job, but that's what makes
the comedy fun. But but they're all you know,
(20:15):
they're all friends. So before I tackle the next
subject, where can people watch your show?
So the show goes live November 8th and it's it's going to be
for sale on Amazon, Apple TV andGoogle Play slash YouTube.
And then it it well, we don't know yet.
(20:40):
We, we have one, yes. And we have one we're waiting to
see how it does. So it's, it's important that we
do well with sales. I'll just put it that way.
And that could open up a huge door because the challenge that
we've always had in the militarycommunity, even though we are a
very big population, you know, there are, you know, 14,000,000
(21:04):
veterans. That's a, you know, that's a
sizable chunk of America contentis never made for us in
Hollywood, and Hollywood would disagree with that because to
them, every action movie is about a veteran, right?
It's always a, you know, he was a Navy SEAL, he was a Ranger, he
was a whatever. Or they do movies about broken
(21:28):
veterans. Those are their two the two
favorite things Hollywood likes to do either unstoppable badass
or totally broken alcoholic. There's no in between.
But they actually don't have shows or movies that are just
about kind of like, hey, this iswhat life is really like, you
(21:50):
know, that the person happens tobe a veteran or, you know, the
fact that they served colors their life a little bit, but
they're not perpetually veteran,if that makes sense.
And and that's, you know, and I think we need more of that.
And I think there's a huge audience that wants that.
But, you know, when we spoke to the big dogs, right, we, we
(22:14):
talked to the three biggest streamers and they all, all of
them, you know, we had real comfort conversations.
It wasn't just like, oh, yeah, yeah, whatever.
You know, they all said, we likethe show.
We think it's very funny. We think it's very well done.
Like we, we were surprised by how good, you know, the quality
(22:35):
of the the recording and everything is.
We don't see any big stars. And it's interesting because we
actually have more followers across our cast than almost any
show. You know, we, you know, if you
think about tires, which I thought was, you know, a very
(22:56):
well done comedy that was on Netflix, that was the number one
comedy on Netflix for a while. And you know, I think in total
they had like 5 million followers and we have like
14,000,000. But they don't know them.
So it doesn't translate to them.And so, you know, I mean, I'm
(23:18):
not throwing any stones. You know, it's, it's on us to
prove that we can bring an audience.
And I, I hope we do, obviously, but I would like to get to a
point and kind of my mission is not just films or TV shows that
I make, but I'd like to kind of like do what we did with Range
15, get in the Door where the streamers look at veteran
(23:41):
stories, like real veteran stories as a viable option.
Because right now it's, it's notseen that you have to put Chris
Hemsworth in it. You have to, you've got to put
somebody that they know or thereis no show, so you know.
(24:02):
Yeah, but I think we're going tochange the narrative here and.
I hope so. Yeah, I hope so.
I'm like I said, I'm super pleased with how the show turned
out, and I think the actors did an incredible job bringing it to
life. Dan Mercer and his television
debut and his lead debut absolutely crushed it.
(24:22):
Yeah, I was. Shocked.
He was good. He was really good.
Yeah, I, I was shocked. I have had the pleasure of
meeting Dan and I had no idea all of that was inside of him.
Yeah. So, you know, Dan, you guys
obviously don't know Dan Mercer works here and our our lead
(24:45):
producer, Hollywood Herd, who also is in the show playing
Kevin Alexander, he was adamant that Dan was our guy.
And I was reticent to to put an employee of the company, you
know, as the lead for a lot of reasons.
But he earned it, you know, and we did.
(25:09):
We did have people try out, you know, so he earned it despite my
desire to not put him in the role, and I've told him that a
bunch of times, so this is no surprise, but he did a great
job. Yeah, he did.
He literally captured my attention quickly.
I mean like within the 1st 2 seconds.
Completely amazing. And I, I mean, I think that your
(25:33):
show's going to go far. I think he's going to go really
far. And I hope so too.
I hope you don't lose him as an employee.
You know, listen, the best thingthat could happen to, you know,
I, I never am upset when people are successful.
You know, that's a that's a really important thing is and
it's hard because like, you know, and you know, this, you've
(25:56):
employed people. It's hard when people that you
really like that you count on tell you like, Hey, I'm going
somewhere else. It, you know, it hurts, but it,
it happens all the time and you have to be happy for them.
You have to, you have to want people to be successful.
Ideally it happens with you and they see opportunity, but like
(26:17):
when when they're ready to to move on, like you got to cheer
for them, not, you know, hope that they fall or something.
Oh my gosh. Yeah, it's a big, but you'd be,
I mean, not you wouldn't. Be I know.
But there's so many people that get that wrong.
Yeah, that is that is so true. And besides, when he is this
(26:37):
multi bazillion dollar, there you go.
After Yeah, he might be like, hey, Nick, come direct this
giant movie that I'm in, you know, never know.
But I do think that this show isphenomenal and I really do think
that it's going to go far. I would like.
Can we just talk about how creepy Hollywood was in his
role? Yeah, I need to have him on the
(26:58):
show. I was just telling him last
night, yeah, he definitely was that.
And I was thinking maybe I shouldn't.
Maybe we shouldn't be in a room alone with him ever again.
He pulled that right out of himself, that was.
Amazing. Yeah, Yeah.
He's good, yeah. Could you quick tell us a little
(27:21):
bit, too about your organization?
I want people to definitely knowabout Save Our Allies.
You're all doing an amazing job.I don't have a pleasure of
knowing Sarah very well. I know of her, but I know that
it seems like she has fantastic judgement at who she's calling
on to help with Save Our Allies.So Save Our Allies was like I
(27:43):
said earlier, Save Our allies.org founded at, you know,
during the fall of Afghanistan. And essentially what we do is
the, the board members are kind of working board members.
We we are, we do not have overhead.
We only have one employee that'skind of like the administrator,
(28:04):
the our chief administrator estrative officer and she makes
sure that, you know, everything is legal and we are doing the
right things and we are taking care of the money.
And then whenever there's an issue, we have, you know, people
that we've worked with multiple times that are essentially teams
(28:26):
ready to move. And so, you know, if something
happens, we spin up at the beginning, it is always
volunteer. You know, we obviously cover
expenses for people that are volunteering and all that kind
of stuff. And then if things go long term,
like they did, for example, in Ukraine, you know, then we bring
people on, you know, as contractors for a prolonged
(28:49):
period of time. But the goal really is we are a
stop gap between a catastrophic incident happening and the
government being able to take full control of a situation
because no matter how fast the government is, a small
organization is always going to be faster and have less
(29:10):
restriction. So, you know, in the case of
Afghanistan, we supplemented thegreat work the government was
doing. In the case of Ukraine, it was
almost two years before the US was, you know, fully taking over
some of the tasks that that we were doing, you know, and, and
(29:34):
hopefully here in North Carolina, we are not needed in
the, in the, you know, near future.
But right now there is just a. The situation is pretty
terrible. It is how can people donate to
your organization? So especially North Carolina,
that's here in the United States.
Absolutely. You know, save our allies.org.
(29:56):
You can go there whether you need help, whether you want to
volunteer or whether you want todonate.
It's all the same organization and we update constantly the the
front page of the website to adapt to whatever the situation
is so that you always know what we're working on at any given
point. Excellent.
Thank you, Nick. And again, your website and
(30:17):
social media for office Joe, do you have?
Absolutely. Office joeshow.com.
That's Office joeshow.com for Office Joe.
And you can find me at Nick PaulMichano everywhere except for
Twitter, where I am still at Ranger Under Score UP.
Love it. I do want to give out one more
(30:39):
shout out. You have so much going on, your
business, your business. Tell us.
My business is Dieseljackmedia and it's dieseljackmedia.com.
And you know, we love to producecommercials, create ads, or, you
know, if needed, we can actuallybe the entire marketing arm of
(31:01):
your company. Excellent.
So everybody make sure you go check out all of Nick's
websites. I'm gonna have links to them on
my social media, on my website, and I'll try to get it all over
the place for you. So thank you for being on the
show. Nick.
You are a phenomenal inspiration.
You have always been such a great leader in my eyes.
(31:24):
I mean, I didn't serve at all inthe military, but when I see all
of the great things that you're doing and you're really trying
to continue to move forward and bring your brothers and sisters
along with you, that is very impactful.
So thank you for all you do. It's.
My pleasure. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Hello, you're listening to and watching Wake Up with Patti
Katter today. I have Nick Palmigiano on the
show. Welcome, Nick.
Thanks so much for having me. It's great to have you in my hot
seat finally. You're a popular guy.
It's hard to get a hold of you sometime.
Well. You know, I've, I've, we've got
a lot going on between the, the company, the show and, and all
(00:23):
of the nonprofit work we do. So, you know, I'm happy to be
here. I really appreciate it.
Yeah, and I can't wait for my listeners to hear more about
you. I'd love to start with you just
telling our listeners a little bit about where you came from,
though, because not a lot of people know your background.
They know what you're doing now.But I'd love to hear a little
bit about where you came from and how you got where we are
(00:44):
today. Yeah, so you know, I am the.
I mean, I don't know how far back you want me to go.
Let's throw it childhood, we'll.Go childhood, OK?
I am the son of an Italian immigrant.
My dad came to the US when he was nine and served in Vietnam,
(01:06):
became the first member of our family to go to college and
graduated valedictorian. So he set the bar pretty high
and I lived in Italy for I was born in America, born in
Providence, RI, lived in Italy for the 1st or that from three
(01:26):
to like 10 and came back to the States and lived in the Boston
area and basically got the crap beat out of me for a couple
years for being the weird Italian kid.
And so, you know, we're all a product of our, our childhood,
you know, whatever we didn't getin childhood becomes our adult
(01:46):
personality. And so mine is, you know, a
constant desire to kind of grindthrough adversity and do my own
thing. And so that's where I come from.
That led to wrestling and combatsports so that I stopped getting
beat up. That led to West Point.
(02:09):
That led to, you know, being an infantry officer for a while
and, and serving our country in the the best job I've ever had.
And then I got out and I did what everybody tells you to do,
which is, you know, go to Business School, get an MBA and
you know, and then do the Fortune 100 gig.
I did that. I lasted for four years, started
(02:31):
a apparel company as a hobby. That hobby grew into Ranger up,
which at the time was the biggest and 1st military apparel
brand. I left.
I left that sold that company and when I did, shortly
thereafter, they laid off all ofmy old employees.
(02:53):
And so I started a company so that they would have jobs.
I found out on a Friday they were getting laid off.
I told them that day there's good news and bad news.
The bad news is you're getting laid off.
The good news is you have a new job on Monday if you want it.
And they said, what's the job? And I said, I don't know, I'll
tell you on Monday. And that's where Diesel Jack
(03:16):
Media came from, which is my current company.
And it was born from all the skills that I learned building
Ranger up, you know, social media marketing, you know, ads,
all of the different things thatthat, you know, it takes to run
an apparel company are actually very complex and apply to every
(03:38):
business. And so that's where Diesel Jack
came from. And, and we've been, we've been
very successful. We count among our, our clients,
the American Legion, the StudentVeterans of America.
We've worked with fantastic brands.
We've worked with over 40 companies.
And I really enjoy helping people kind of get to the next
(04:01):
level, you know, in their business or, or with their
nonprofit. Well, you know, inside of all of
that there is also a, you know, there have also been challenges
that have, you know, arisen. The number one, you know, kind
of thing that that set my non profit world in motion was the
(04:24):
fall of Afghanistan. And during the fall of
Afghanistan, my friend Sarah Berardo reached out to me and
said, you know, Nick, I need youto go to Afghanistan.
And I thought she was joking because I've been out of the
military for so long. I'm not that cool.
And I wasn't that cool when I was cool.
(04:45):
And but she was serious. And so, you know, myself, Tim
Kennedy, Chad Robishaw and nine other, you know, middle-aged
veterans headed to Afghanistan and, and helped, you know,
evacuate in about 12,000 people into the UAE through some
(05:07):
fantastic connections through our mutual friend Joe Robert.
And, and you know this story very well.
Without Joe, there's, there is no evacuation, you know, but
that set off just, you know, hey, we kind of put this band of
great people together. We then did work in Ukraine.
(05:28):
We've done work in Gaza. We've done work in Haiti where
there is a crisis, you know, we are there, including, you know,
at the top right now we're we'reworking Hurricane Helene.
And so there have been all thesebad things that have kind of
happened. And the veteran community is
(05:48):
always in the thick of it. Every time something bad is
happening, you look around, there are veterans that are
solving those problems. It just it's in our DNAI don't
care if you were a bad ass soft dude or if you, you know, and
I'm not crapping on anybody's life.
I always feel bad using any, anyexample of the other extreme.
(06:11):
But if you know, if you were a clerk or you were, you know, you
worked in legal or finance or whatever, it's in our DNA to
help each other because that's how we we grew up.
And so, you know, the veteran community rallies around these
things. Well, it it takes a toll.
You know, the wars took a toll. These events take a toll.
(06:31):
The contribution of veterans takes a toll.
And so, you know, years ago, I did a movie with my friends.
You know, most of them are now much more popular than I am, but
called Range 15. And that's, you know, Matt Best
and Jared Taylor and Tim Kennedyand all these guys.
And that was such a fun moment for the veteran community.
(06:53):
And I, you know, one, I love to make film, but two, I felt like
it was time for something fun, you know, to get back to, you
know, to having a little bit of fun with who we are.
And that was, you know, where the idea for Office Joe came
from. And I actually spitballed it
(07:13):
with Donnie O'Malley, you know, who was the founder of that TV
And he was, you know, he was a huge help and, you know, kind of
framing how to do ATV show. So I'd done film, but I'd never
done a series. And, you know, we're put
together these scripts and and we, you know, last last
(07:34):
December, we shot this television series and it came
out great. And that's that's kind of where
I'm at now. That was long winded, but I'm
Italian and and you know, you did ask for me to go all the way
back to my childhood. This is so interesting, I didn't
know a lot of your story, especially from your childhood.
It might. It all makes sense.
Yeah, that's why I hate, I hate bullies so much.
(07:56):
I get like viscerally affected when I watch any.
I don't get bullied anymore, youknow, I'm not like that.
I don't tolerate that. But when I see anyone getting
bullied, I have a visceral reaction because of getting my
ass kicked for two years as a kid.
(08:16):
Kid stuff never leaves you, you know, like it's important to
know that. Like you think about, Oh yeah,
it wasn't that big deal. I toughed through it.
Like it's with you forever. It forms your personality.
And it's true of everybody I know, every single person I know
that has done really cool stuff,has had some kind of, and I hate
to use the word trauma cause at the end of the day, it's not
(08:38):
that big of a deal. But like something early in life
that shaped how you think about life and it like never leaves
you. You know, that's such a great
point and I don't think anybody has actually like tackled this
topic on my show before because when you opened up, you had
mentioned people, they do react on their childhood when they're
(08:58):
older. So just thinking about all of my
guests and the trials that they've had and overcoming those
trials with triumphs, your storymakes perfect sense.
So your show Office Joe is hilarious.
First of all, I had the pleasureof having a little bit of a
preview and was pretty shocked and amazed.
(09:20):
Even at the very opening scene of the first episode.
I was like, Oh my gosh, 'cause I've worked with veterans now
for 17 years and every single that I've ever worked with told
me a story of how when they weretrying to ETS there, they had
all this red tape, but once theyETS, they could finish what they
were supposed to do while they were ETS ING.
(09:40):
And Oh my gosh, that is just perfect.
It was such a night. I mean, and, and it's funny,
every veteran that has watched the opening scene, I watched
them like clench, like get tight, because they've all lived
it, whether they lived it with, you know, finance or CIF or
whatever, Like they've had that moment.
(10:03):
Absolutely. How did you pick out the actors
for this show? So, you know, there were certain
roles like, you know, all of the, you know, I'm just going to
call them influencers. But all my friends, you know,
that they kind of flesh out the universe like Jared Taylor,
Austin Von Lehtemann, Ashley Gutermuth, Vince Vargas, Tim
(10:26):
Kennedy, Jack Mandeville, Jack Raya, Eric Tansy, Like those
that I knew from the moment thatthat I was crafting the show
what they were going to be because those roles were
literally designed for them. You know, the the role, if they
didn't exist, the role wouldn't exist.
I just knew that they would crush those those roles.
(10:49):
But then for, you know, for the ensemble cast that makes up the
people in the office, it's superinteresting because some of
those characters I envisioned differently.
And then when we posted, you know, we did an open casting and
when we posted that we got people that that saw the role
(11:11):
differently and applied, you know, when they did their
tryouts, they played it almost the the one that's that's most
noticeable of the character of RAF.
RAF is I'll just say he's our stereotypical, you know,
left-leaning guy. And then Carter is our
stereotypical right leaning guy.And this isn't a political
(11:35):
comedy. I think you'd agree with that.
But you know, it's just like those are the people that you
find in any audit, any office. And so I wanted them to exist in
this universe. Well, originally I wrote RAF to
be, you know, like a little uppity and a little judge mental
(11:56):
and a little, you know, like very not endearing.
And Kenny, who's a Marine, he's the last guy you'd expect to be
a Marine with his, with his gorgeous looks and his long
flowing hair. But yeah, Kenny, who's a Marine,
played him very, like, gracious and endearing.
(12:19):
And I love it because instead ofit being like he's judging
everybody, he plays him like he's like he's earnest.
And I loved it. I didn't, I, I will not take
credit for that. Similarly, Carter, I had him
being almost like the stick up his butt kind of guy who
(12:40):
everything had to be just so. And Sam plays him sleazy, like
just a little sleazy. Not still a good guy, but you
know, and so, you know, I, you know, I wrote the words, they
said the words, but the way theychose to play them made it
something else. And so the actors all really
(13:02):
earned these roles. But even still, you know
something that Ross Patterson and you might know him from
Drinking Bros Ross Patterson directed Range 15 and he did a
great job with it. Very, very huge project.
And I didn't fully appreciate itat the time, but after directing
I I appreciate it a lot more. But at the time, he said,
(13:24):
there's the movie that you write, the movie that you shoot
and the movie that you edit. And they're all different
movies. What what I wrote is absolutely
not what was shot. The actors improved it and then
and then the editors did a fantastic job.
(13:45):
But the shoot is where you find out, is this going to be good or
is it not going to be good? And it the words can be good.
But if the actors don't fit together, if it doesn't feel
like they've known each other for a while, like they're
friends, like it's wooden, especially in an ensemble comedy
(14:07):
like this, it doesn't work. And I mean, these these guys
were all so close that, you know, two of them are now
dating. So.
Yeah. Yeah.
So it they got along really well.
So hopefully you know, that continues.
So we keep that chemistry going.Oh my goodness.
So I think of two shows right off the bat when I watch this
(14:31):
and it's as so I'm going to say this because I think that it's
even better because it fits the niche, you know, the veteran
community automatically, I thinka little bit of MASH just
because of the military thing, Ithink, but Seinfeld and you know
how far that went. And I'm telling you, this is
better in my opinion. I just get the humor.
I get I can relate to a lot of it.
(14:52):
I know a lot of, you know, like I said, my whole life has been
around veterans, But also the fact that you can take the show
and civilians can relate to it and, and it is hilarious.
Like there's one part, I don't even want to give it away, but
it was the first episode. There was a phrase in there that
was cracking me up because it was something that I remember
(15:14):
saying, well, I think I can say it because I don't know the
transition part of it. Do you know what I'm talking
about, the transition part of your military life?
Do you know where is it OK to talk about this?
OK, So when Ken was transitioning from the military,
I remember that one of my neighbors was really confused
(15:34):
about Ken transitioning. And it was just something that
in the forefront of my mind, everybody should know when our
military is transitioning, but apparently not everybody looks
at a transition the same when we're talking about
transitioning. And I'll just leave it at that.
But that part was very real. I mean, there were so many
(15:55):
things in that first episode that like, I can see everybody
relating to. And, and then the civilians who
watch it are going to have a huge awakening of like, oh, so
this is what they're talking about.
Yeah, this, so this is very different.
We we wanted this to be approachable when we when we
(16:15):
made range 15, we didn't care ifanybody other than the veteran
community liked it. We were, we were younger and we
were more aggressive back then. And now it's like, you know, I
mean, I love range 15. I'm proud of it, you know, but
even when we were putting it out, we told people, don't bring
your kids to this. This is it's dark.
(16:37):
It's real dark. Office Joe is not that, you
know, it, it definitely has humor for the veteran community,
but it it you know, most of our like audience testing has been
with people that never served and they've all really enjoyed
it, you know, and because it's instructive to what it's like
(16:59):
for a veteran to, you know, to be transitioning into the
civilian world. But it also, you know, you know,
all the characters in the office, you've worked with these
people. You know, there's, you know, the
the the political people, you'vegot the, you know, kind of the
creep. You've got the old guy that
you're like, man, why is he still even here?
(17:20):
Like he shouldn't he retire and he's but he he wants to be
around, but he's kind of a bastard.
You got the young guy that's earnest and is trying to do his
best. And everybody kind of like, you
know, abuses them a little bit. Like these are all characters
that we all have in our offices.And so it's very relatable and
it's fun. But also at the same time, the
(17:43):
message is to kind of remind, you know, veterans that
everybody goes through this. And I say that a lot.
I had an easy transition by nobody should feel bad for me.
I left the military. I went to Duke like nobody's
nobody should be shedding a tearfor me.
Still, though, it was hard. I, I felt like a fish out of
(18:05):
water. I didn't fully have my feet
underneath me. I felt massive guilt for getting
out because, you know, I had friends that were still
fighting. I lost friends.
You know, all of those things goon in your head and that's
normal. And so, you know, we address all
the things that we all experienced, but we do it
through comedy. Yeah, it's a it's an
(18:27):
approachable show. I I think truly that anybody
that likes this kind of comedy will like the show.
If you don't like comedy, if youspend all your time trying to
find fault and everything, you'll definitely hate the show.
But, but if you enjoy, you know,kind of like classic nineties
2000s comedy, you know, old school, there's something about
(18:48):
Mary, you like the Office, you like Parks and Rec.
I I think you'll enjoy the show.Absolutely.
And it's so needed too, because I feel like every time we turn
on ATV show, every time we turn on a movie, it's filled with
somebody wanting to persuade youto believe something that you
don't believe or that you don't,you know, you don't want to.
(19:10):
So this show, it was so refreshing, like it was the
first show I've seen in a long time that I could just laugh and
feel good and not feel like someone's trying to shove their
their hue down my throat. And it was completely.
There's no agenda and the characters, the characters, just
like in real life, have different opinions.
(19:32):
You know, there isn't the accepted, you know, but they're
all nice to each other, you know, and, and and that's the
thing. It's like it's very easy to
think on, you know, when you're online, when you're perpetually
online, that, you know, people that have different opinions
don't work well to get they can't be in the same room.
They're enemies, but you know, that's not the reality that any
(19:54):
of us actually live. You know, you go to work, you
might not even know what people believe Politically, you don't
care. It's like, hey, it's a nice
person. They have nice kids.
They they're respectful. They're good at their job, like,
and that's the way it is in office, Joe.
Now, most of them aren't good attheir job, but that's what makes
the comedy fun. But but they're all you know,
(20:15):
they're all friends. So before I tackle the next
subject, where can people watch your show?
So the show goes live November 8th and it's it's going to be
for sale on Amazon, Apple TV andGoogle Play slash YouTube.
And then it it well, we don't know yet.
(20:40):
We, we have one, yes. And we have one we're waiting to
see how it does. So it's, it's important that we
do well with sales. I'll just put it that way.
And that could open up a huge door because the challenge that
we've always had in the militarycommunity, even though we are a
very big population, you know, there are, you know, 14,000,000
(21:04):
veterans. That's a, you know, that's a
sizable chunk of America contentis never made for us in
Hollywood, and Hollywood would disagree with that because to
them, every action movie is about a veteran, right?
It's always a, you know, he was a Navy SEAL, he was a Ranger, he
was a whatever. Or they do movies about broken
(21:28):
veterans. Those are their two the two
favorite things Hollywood likes to do either unstoppable badass
or totally broken alcoholic. There's no in between.
But they actually don't have shows or movies that are just
about kind of like, hey, this iswhat life is really like, you
(21:50):
know, that the person happens tobe a veteran or, you know, the
fact that they served colors their life a little bit, but
they're not perpetually veteran,if that makes sense.
And and that's, you know, and I think we need more of that.
And I think there's a huge audience that wants that.
But, you know, when we spoke to the big dogs, right, we, we
(22:14):
talked to the three biggest streamers and they all, all of
them, you know, we had real comfort conversations.
It wasn't just like, oh, yeah, yeah, whatever.
You know, they all said, we likethe show.
We think it's very funny. We think it's very well done.
Like we, we were surprised by how good, you know, the quality
(22:35):
of the the recording and everything is.
We don't see any big stars. And it's interesting because we
actually have more followers across our cast than almost any
show. You know, we, you know, if you
think about tires, which I thought was, you know, a very
(22:56):
well done comedy that was on Netflix, that was the number one
comedy on Netflix for a while. And you know, I think in total
they had like 5 million followers and we have like
14,000,000. But they don't know them.
So it doesn't translate to them.And so, you know, I mean, I'm
(23:18):
not throwing any stones. You know, it's, it's on us to
prove that we can bring an audience.
And I, I hope we do, obviously, but I would like to get to a
point and kind of my mission is not just films or TV shows that
I make, but I'd like to kind of like do what we did with Range
15, get in the Door where the streamers look at veteran
(23:41):
stories, like real veteran stories as a viable option.
Because right now it's, it's notseen that you have to put Chris
Hemsworth in it. You have to, you've got to put
somebody that they know or thereis no show, so you know.
(24:02):
Yeah, but I think we're going tochange the narrative here and.
I hope so. Yeah, I hope so.
I'm like I said, I'm super pleased with how the show turned
out, and I think the actors did an incredible job bringing it to
life. Dan Mercer and his television
debut and his lead debut absolutely crushed it.
(24:22):
Yeah, I was. Shocked.
He was good. He was really good.
Yeah, I, I was shocked. I have had the pleasure of
meeting Dan and I had no idea all of that was inside of him.
Yeah. So, you know, Dan, you guys
obviously don't know Dan Mercer works here and our our lead
(24:45):
producer, Hollywood Herd, who also is in the show playing
Kevin Alexander, he was adamant that Dan was our guy.
And I was reticent to to put an employee of the company, you
know, as the lead for a lot of reasons.
But he earned it, you know, and we did.
(25:09):
We did have people try out, you know, so he earned it despite my
desire to not put him in the role, and I've told him that a
bunch of times, so this is no surprise, but he did a great
job. Yeah, he did.
He literally captured my attention quickly.
I mean like within the 1st 2 seconds.
Completely amazing. And I, I mean, I think that your
(25:33):
show's going to go far. I think he's going to go really
far. And I hope so too.
I hope you don't lose him as an employee.
You know, listen, the best thingthat could happen to, you know,
I, I never am upset when people are successful.
You know, that's a that's a really important thing is and
it's hard because like, you know, and you know, this, you've
(25:56):
employed people. It's hard when people that you
really like that you count on tell you like, Hey, I'm going
somewhere else. It, you know, it hurts, but it,
it happens all the time and you have to be happy for them.
You have to, you have to want people to be successful.
Ideally it happens with you and they see opportunity, but like
(26:17):
when when they're ready to to move on, like you got to cheer
for them, not, you know, hope that they fall or something.
Oh my gosh. Yeah, it's a big, but you'd be,
I mean, not you wouldn't. Be I know.
But there's so many people that get that wrong.
Yeah, that is that is so true. And besides, when he is this
(26:37):
multi bazillion dollar, there you go.
After Yeah, he might be like, hey, Nick, come direct this
giant movie that I'm in, you know, never know.
But I do think that this show isphenomenal and I really do think
that it's going to go far. I would like.
Can we just talk about how creepy Hollywood was in his
role? Yeah, I need to have him on the
(26:58):
show. I was just telling him last
night, yeah, he definitely was that.
And I was thinking maybe I shouldn't.
Maybe we shouldn't be in a room alone with him ever again.
He pulled that right out of himself, that was.
Amazing. Yeah, Yeah.
He's good, yeah. Could you quick tell us a little
(27:21):
bit, too about your organization?
I want people to definitely knowabout Save Our Allies.
You're all doing an amazing job.I don't have a pleasure of
knowing Sarah very well. I know of her, but I know that
it seems like she has fantastic judgement at who she's calling
on to help with Save Our Allies.So Save Our Allies was like I
(27:43):
said earlier, Save Our allies.org founded at, you know,
during the fall of Afghanistan. And essentially what we do is
the, the board members are kind of working board members.
We we are, we do not have overhead.
We only have one employee that'skind of like the administrator,
(28:04):
the our chief administrator estrative officer and she makes
sure that, you know, everything is legal and we are doing the
right things and we are taking care of the money.
And then whenever there's an issue, we have, you know, people
that we've worked with multiple times that are essentially teams
(28:26):
ready to move. And so, you know, if something
happens, we spin up at the beginning, it is always
volunteer. You know, we obviously cover
expenses for people that are volunteering and all that kind
of stuff. And then if things go long term,
like they did, for example, in Ukraine, you know, then we bring
people on, you know, as contractors for a prolonged
(28:49):
period of time. But the goal really is we are a
stop gap between a catastrophic incident happening and the
government being able to take full control of a situation
because no matter how fast the government is, a small
organization is always going to be faster and have less
(29:10):
restriction. So, you know, in the case of
Afghanistan, we supplemented thegreat work the government was
doing. In the case of Ukraine, it was
almost two years before the US was, you know, fully taking over
some of the tasks that that we were doing, you know, and, and
(29:34):
hopefully here in North Carolina, we are not needed in
the, in the, you know, near future.
But right now there is just a. The situation is pretty
terrible. It is how can people donate to
your organization? So especially North Carolina,
that's here in the United States.
Absolutely. You know, save our allies.org.
(29:56):
You can go there whether you need help, whether you want to
volunteer or whether you want todonate.
It's all the same organization and we update constantly the the
front page of the website to adapt to whatever the situation
is so that you always know what we're working on at any given
point. Excellent.
Thank you, Nick. And again, your website and
(30:17):
social media for office Joe, do you have?
Absolutely. Office joeshow.com.
That's Office joeshow.com for Office Joe.
And you can find me at Nick PaulMichano everywhere except for
Twitter, where I am still at Ranger Under Score UP.
Love it. I do want to give out one more
(30:39):
shout out. You have so much going on, your
business, your business. Tell us.
My business is Dieseljackmedia and it's dieseljackmedia.com.
And you know, we love to producecommercials, create ads, or, you
know, if needed, we can actuallybe the entire marketing arm of
(31:01):
your company. Excellent.
So everybody make sure you go check out all of Nick's
websites. I'm gonna have links to them on
my social media, on my website, and I'll try to get it all over
the place for you. So thank you for being on the
show. Nick.
You are a phenomenal inspiration.
You have always been such a great leader in my eyes.
(31:24):
I mean, I didn't serve at all inthe military, but when I see all
of the great things that you're doing and you're really trying
to continue to move forward and bring your brothers and sisters
along with you, that is very impactful.
So thank you for all you do. It's.
My pleasure. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
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