Dino Tripodis: [00:00:00] We are the sum of our experiences, right? Good, bad, or indifferent. And the message in this new realm that I’d like to get into with the keynote speaking is the sum of those experiences.

Peter Margaritis: [00:00:20] Welcome to Change Your Mindset Podcast, formerly known as Improv Is No Joke, where it’s all about believing that strong communication skills are the best way in delivering your technical accounting knowledge and growing your business. An effective way of building stronger communication skills is by embracing the principles of applied improvisation. Your host is Peter Margaritis, CPA a.k.a. The Accidental Accountant. And he will interview financial professionals and business leaders to find their secret in building stronger relationships with their clients, customers, associates, and peers, all the while growing their businesses. So, let’s start the show.

Peter Margaritis: [00:01:06] We are the sum of our experiences. Really struck me when my guest, Dino Tripodis, has uttered those words in our interview. As I’m sneaking up on 60 years old, I’ve stopped many times since this interview and thought about those past experiences and how they affect my thoughts and actions today. For example, my father was a very punctual man and being late was never tolerated. Well, of course, I hate being late and I don’t like it when other people are late.

Peter Margaritis: [00:01:38] Now, where I differ from my father is that I understand other factors could cause me or other people to be late, so I harbor no resentment. When my bride was 20 minutes late walking down the aisle at our wedding, she said she was on Greek time. Who am I to argue? But I digress. We are the sum of our experiences and our response to those experiences can make us either successful or continually bringing us down and blaming others for our faults.

Peter Margaritis: [00:02:10] Dino’s response to his past experiences have made him wildly successful. And let me share with you some of his successes. Twenty-four years as the morning co-host on WSNY 94.7 FM, nicknamed Sunny 95 in Columbus, Ohio. Dino is also a headlining comedian, podcaster, actor, producer, writer, published author, professional speaker, and philanthropist. His podcast, Whiskey Business, the podcast not so much about whiskey as it’s one with whiskey is one of my favorite podcasts to listen to and to watch on YouTube.

Peter Margaritis: [00:02:47] I’ve seen Dino doing a stand-up and he is a very, very funny guy and you’ll hear that throughout this interview. Dino is the co-writer, co-producer, and actor in a 2017 movie, The Street Where We Live, which can be found on Amazon Prime and has a rating of 8.5 out of 10. Prior to the interview, I hadn’t watched the movie and I promised him that I would and I did. The movie’s about a single woman with two teenage children who struggles to hold her family together in the aftermath of a national financial disaster.

Peter Margaritis: [00:03:23] After watching this movie, I sent Dino the following text, “Very powerful movie. You have painted a new and lasting perspective in my mind about the struggles that many families deal with more often than not. At times, it was hard to watch, because of the emotions that were bubbling up in my body. In my opinion, this movie is worth the one hour and 40-minute investment of your time. Now, there’s a lot packed into this episode. And just like a good storyteller, Dino makes us laugh. But more importantly, he makes us think and reflect and ponder. I hope you enjoy this episode. And before we get to review, let me take care of some housekeeping issues.

Announcer: [00:04:06] This podcast is part of the C-suite Radio Network, turning the volume up on business.

Peter Margaritis: [00:04:13] In July 2020, I received an email from Feedspot informing me that Change Your Mindset podcast was selected as one of the top 15 communications skills podcast you must follow in 2020. Wow. I was completely caught off guard and extremely honored. I would like to thank every guest that’s been on my podcast for the last three-and-a-half years, because you are the ones who make this podcast successful. Thank you. And now, a word from our sponsor.

Sponsor: [00:04:45] This episode is sponsored by Peter A. Margaritis, LLC, a.k.a. The Accidental Accountant. Are you looking for a high content and engaging speaker for your next conference? Do you want to deliver a story to stakeholders that will transform data dumping to engaging business conversations? Do you want to feel that the value a speaker provides your audience far exceeds the dollar value on their invoice? Then, book Peter for your next conference, management retreat, or workshop. Contact Peter at peter@petermargaritis.com and visit his web site at www.petermargaritis.com. By the way, one of his Fortune 50 clients actually made the comment about the value he brings to your audience.

Peter Margaritis: [00:05:35] I put in the show notes the links to Dino’s podcast and to his movie, The Street Where We Live. I hope you enjoy both. So, now, let’s get to the interview with Dino Tripodis. Hey, welcome back, everybody. For those of you who live in the Central Ohio area, you may recognize this voice.

Dino Tripodis: [00:05:56] Really?

Peter Margaritis: [00:05:58] Can you guess who it is?

Dino Tripodis: [00:05:59] Based on really?

Peter Margaritis: [00:06:00] Based on really, they could. They could.

Dino Tripodis: [00:06:02] Maybe.

Peter Margaritis: [00:06:03] So, my guest today is Dino Tripodis, former 24-year-

Dino Tripodis: [00:06:07] Long run.

Peter Margaritis: [00:06:10] … radio host at Sunny 95 here in Columbus, Ohio.

Dino Tripodis: [00:06:13] The one and only radio job I ever had. Started on the morning show, ended on the morning show.

Peter Margaritis: [00:06:19] And you’ve been, now, how long out of radio?

Dino Tripodis: [00:06:23] I left in June of 2018.

Peter Margaritis: [00:06:27] Wow.

Dino Tripodis: [00:06:27] Seems like yesterday, Peter.

Peter Margaritis: [00:06:31] I bet it does. And being of Greek descent-

Dino Tripodis: [00:06:34] As you are as well.

Peter Margaritis: [00:06:36] As I am as-

Dino Tripodis: [00:06:37] Which begs the question, I’m sure you’ve been asked this before, but Margaritis, right?

Peter Margaritis: [00:06:41] Right.

Dino Tripodis: [00:06:42] So, do you—and I’m sure people have asked this before, do you feel obligated to celebrate excessively on Cinco de Mayo based on the form of your last name with Margaritis?

Peter Margaritis: [00:06:55] Well, if you think about it, Dino, it’s pronounced like a cocktail, but it’s really spelled like an inflammation.

Dino Tripodis: [00:06:59] Yes, it is.

Peter Margaritis: [00:07:00] Yes.

Dino Tripodis: [00:07:00] It could be. And on Cinco de Mayo, it could wind up being both.

Peter Margaritis: [00:07:03] Exactly. So, I prefer not to save it all for one day. I like to moderate throughout the whole year.

Dino Tripodis: [00:07:08] Because if my last name was, say, Dino Genesis, you know, on St. Patty’s Day, I would feel obligated to honor the derivative of that last name.

Peter Margaritis: [00:07:19] Well, if you must know, I do a few shots of tequila on Cinco de Mayo.

Dino Tripodis: [00:07:22] You got to, right? I mean, it’s like, you know—yeah.

Peter Margaritis: [00:07:26] You just got to do it?

Dino Tripodis: [00:07:27] If your last name was Christmas and you didn’t do anything on Christmas, people would think, what’s wrong with you?

Peter Margaritis: [00:07:32] Jewish?

Dino Tripodis: [00:07:34] Yeah. Exactly.

Peter Margaritis: [00:07:36] Right. So, of Greek descent.

Dino Tripodis: [00:07:38] Yes.

Peter Margaritis: [00:07:38] And growing up in a Greek household where guilt is the number one flavor.

Dino Tripodis: [00:07:43] Yes, it is.

Peter Margaritis: [00:07:44] And-

Dino Tripodis: [00:07:44] We have that in common.

Peter Margaritis: [00:07:46] Yes. And your mother, I’ve heard on previous podcast, she wants to know, what are you doing these days?

Dino Tripodis: [00:07:52] All the time. She’s backed off a little bit, but for the first six months after I left the radio station, that was an almost everyday question, you know, to the point where I said, you know—”What are you going to do today”, you know, and I would say, “Well, after this conversation, I’m going to take the red hot poker that I’ve heated up and stick it in my eye. Don’t you have another child that you can ask questions of on a regular basis?” And of course, that would be the queen. My sister calls me—I call my sister the queen, my sister calls me the prince. She thinks that the prince can do no wrong.

Peter Margaritis: [00:08:34] Right.

Dino Tripodis: [00:08:35] And I think that’s probably just how the family dynamic works in a Greek house. My sister lives in Florida, very close to my mother.

Peter Margaritis: [00:08:44] Okay.

Dino Tripodis: [00:08:44] And they have never been apart. I mean, they lived together in Indiana. My sister moved to Florida. My sister eventually moved my mother down to Florida. They are an integral part of each other’s lives as long as I can remember. So, my sister—in my opinion, and I say this sincerely and with love, my sister is the queen. And I don’t mean that she’s elevated to my mother. To me, she’s the queen, she’s the best. She’s the best. My mother would not be thriving as she is at almost 84 years of age if it weren’t for my sister.

Peter Margaritis: [00:09:19] Funny that you just—that story that you just gave, that’s my sister and my mother. They lived in Florida. They’ve been apart, I think, maybe a couple years when she was living with me in Cincinnati. My father passed, my sister went down 19 years ago, 20 years ago to be close to mom. Yeah. And yeah. You’ve just described my family, too. I appreciate that.

Dino Tripodis: [00:09:39] Yeah. Yeah. But except you’re a few points ahead of me, because I noticed you said that when my mother lived with me in Cincinnati, my mother has never lived-

Peter Margaritis: [00:09:46] My sister lived with me.

Dino Tripodis: [00:09:48] Oh, your sister lived with you?

Peter Margaritis: [00:09:48] Yeah, my sister lived with me, not my mother.

Dino Tripodis: [00:09:50] Not your mother. Oh, okay. All right. All right. Then, we’re back to square one.

Peter Margaritis: [00:09:53] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:09:53] We’re back to even. We’re back to even.

Peter Margaritis: [00:09:57] So, you still are a headline comedian.

Dino Tripodis: [00:10:02] Oh, when I get the opportunity, as a matter of fact, I don’t know when this is going to drop, but-

Peter Margaritis: [00:10:07] Soon.

Dino Tripodis: [00:10:07] …I’m going to—I agreed to do a show out in Granville. It was Moe’s Comedy Club. It’s a little small 80-seat room in Granville. And they also apparently have a great barbecue as well. And I’m doing that show February 8th.

Peter Margaritis: [00:10:23] Okay.

Dino Tripodis: [00:10:24] And honestly, I can’t wait. I’m excited. I’m excited, because most of the stand-up I’ve done lately has been, you know, 15 minutes here, 20 minutes there, five minutes here. I haven’t gotten a chance to stretch in a while. And I’m looking forward to it, because I still write. I still write. You know, you have your book.

Peter Margaritis: [00:10:46] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:10:46] I see your big book there. You know, I have this book here and whenever I get ideas, I still jot them down.

Peter Margaritis: [00:10:53] Right.

Dino Tripodis: [00:10:53] And tried to incorporate them into my life. And I’m developing a theme, comedically speaking, that I think is appropriate, and you could probably relate to this as well, eventually, I plan on making it a show that’s entitled Cool, Calm, and Neglected.

Peter Margaritis: [00:11:12] Cool, Calm, and Neglected. Okay.

Dino Tripodis: [00:11:13] As opposed to collected, neglected.

Peter Margaritis: [00:11:15] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:11:15] Because that’s the way I kind of feel at 60 years of age. I’m cool. I’m cool where I’m at on life.

Peter Margaritis: [00:11:21] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:11:21] I’m calmer than I’ve ever been.

Peter Margaritis: [00:11:24] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:11:24] And I feel neglected, and I don’t say neglected in a negative way, I say it in a positive way, because at 60, people don’t give a shit what you’re doing. And I’m sorry, can I cuss?

Peter Margaritis: [00:11:36] Yeah, it’s okay. Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:11:37] Okay. Good. And I’m here today, no one pays no mind to a 60-year old.

Peter Margaritis: [00:11:40] Right.

Dino Tripodis: [00:11:41] So, you can get away with a lot of crap.

Peter Margaritis: [00:11:43] Yeah. Yeah. But you’re not that guy that yells at kids like, “Get off my lawn”?

Dino Tripodis: [00:11:47] No. No. No. Not get off my lawn so much, but I live across the street from a Catholic high school.

Peter Margaritis: [00:11:59] Okay.

Dino Tripodis: [00:11:59] Okay.

Peter Margaritis: [00:12:00] Okay.

Dino Tripodis: [00:12:00] And these kids, when they’re leaving on any given day, especially in the springtime, you know, I will stand on the front porch and go, “Slow down.”

Peter Margaritis: [00:12:14] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:12:15] You know?

Peter Margaritis: [00:12:16] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:12:16] You know, I wouldn’t think because they go speeding out of there. And everyone was like, oh, man, I’m that guy.

Peter Margaritis: [00:12:20] You’re that guy.

Dino Tripodis: [00:12:21] I’m that guy.

Peter Margaritis: [00:12:22] So, how did you go from comedian to a DJ? I know you-

Dino Tripodis: [00:12:25] Happy accidents, you know. I make a joke, but it’s not really a joke. I’ve said this before on my podcast and others. I haven’t chosen my jobs so much in life as they have chosen me. I was an investigator prior to stand up.

Peter Margaritis: [00:12:46] Right.

Dino Tripodis: [00:12:47] And I went to comedy clubs to relax and have fun. And then, I went to open mics and I got the gumption and I could do that. And I went into an open mic and I failed miserably, but I got a couple of laughs. So, that just got into me, like if I got a couple laughs and I sucked, if I worked on this a little bit more, I bet you I could get more laughs.

Peter Margaritis: [00:13:10] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:13:10] So, I went back two weeks later and I won the night. And then, someone said, you should go to the Funny Bone and do open mic over there, because at the time, that was at a place called the Comedy Club at the Ramada.

Peter Margaritis: [00:13:21] Oh, yeah, I remember that. Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:13:23] Yeah. Yeah. So, I went to the Funny Bone. Long story short, there was a Johnny Walker comedy competition, the Johnny Walker sponsor.

Peter Margaritis: [00:13:32] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:13:32] And the winner got 500 bucks. I still have the enormous big check that you get.

Peter Margaritis: [00:13:37] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:13:37] Yeah, my daughter gave me that a while back, because I had given it to her. And then, you also got to open all of the Funny Bones that were in the franchise. There were like 13 of them at the time. And as an opening act, you could do them twice a year. So, I went from open mic-ing to, all of a sudden, you know, 26 weeks of MC work in the number one chain in the country at the time.

Peter Margaritis: [00:14:04] Wow. Wow.

Dino Tripodis: [00:14:04] Funny Bone, which I still do.

Peter Margaritis: [00:14:06] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:14:06] So, life was kind of dictating.

Peter Margaritis: [00:14:09] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:14:09] And at the same time, I was still doing investigative work.

Peter Margaritis: [00:14:11] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:14:11] So, I had to kind of marry the two the best I could, but eventually, after that year, I said—you know, it got into my veins and in my blood and I said, I’m going to go full-time comic. While I was a full-time comic, there was a radio guy named Mike Fist who was at Sunny 95. And he liked having comedians on his show. So, I would go in and pay these visits to Sunny 95. And they were very successful visits. And then, I would do a phone-in from the road, you know, Where is Dino?

Dino Tripodis: [00:14:43] Mike left and another guy named Bob Simpson, who was there before and left and then, came back and he wanted to keep that going. So, I kept on doing it. I was living out in Los Angeles at the time, trying to progress there comedically. And there was an opening at Sunny 95 for a co-host with Bob. And I said no like two or three different times. I finally relinquished and said yes. Came in ’94 to Sunny 95 to do radio, thinking they made it horrible, where this won’t last the new year.

Dino Tripodis: [00:15:16] And technically, it did not. That show failed. That show failed.A year later, Bob was let go and Stacy and myself and my producer at the time, Mike Elliott, who is now the program director at TVN AM Radio, we were left to our own devices and we all collectively agreed that—this was October of ’95, that they’re going to get a new morning show. Let’s not worry about it. Let’s just assume come December, we’re all out of work. I’m going to go back to California.

Peter Margaritis: [00:15:49] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:15:49] Everybody else is going to do what they want to do. So, we just, “Let’s just pretend like every show is our last and have fun”, and we did. And the result of having fun, the next book, the ratings went up. And then, in January of ’96 in the general manager’s office thinking, “Hey, thank you, but no thank you.”

Peter Margaritis: [00:16:10] Right.

Dino Tripodis: [00:16:10] He was glad about how this worked out, blah, blah, expecting a nice goodbye, they offered us a four-year contract. And I go, “Now, what?” Yeah.

Peter Margaritis: [00:16:17] Four years?

Dino Tripodis: [00:16:18] Yeah. Well, no, because in my head, I was prepared to go back to Los Angeles, because I was—even in that first year since the demands of radio weren’t on me so much as I was just the co-host. It was Bob Simpson and company, I was part of the company.

Peter Margaritis: [00:16:36] Okay.

Dino Tripodis: [00:16:36] So, the demands weren’t that difficult to me. So, I was still doing stand-up. I was still—on the weekends, I would go, you know, and on vacations, I would—instead of going on vacation, I would book a week. And I would take vacation days and still do long weekends out in Los Angeles and, you know, keep my spot at the Comedy Store, at the improv.

Peter Margaritis: [00:16:59] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:16:59] I would go out there and keep my foot in that water. I still had a place to stay out in Los Angeles, because I didn’t think radio would work out. And then, one thing led to another and 24 years later, you know, there you go. You know, you find out you you’ve become this institution of sorts in Columbus, which I did not ever think that or realize that until the last week I was at Sunny 95, you know.

Peter Margaritis: [00:17:26] Really?

Dino Tripodis: [00:17:26] Yeah, I did not. I’ve never thought that. I always thought that I was this lucky guy who got this great job and I was very fortunate. It gave me the opportunity to be clever and funny and creative. And then, also without sounding too magnanimous or whatever the word might be, it gave me the opportunity to give back all the charities down in DSACO, Down Syndrome Children’s Hospital. Yeah. But I never thought, oh, look at me. You know, look at what an impact I had on this city. But the last week I was there, the outpouring just—I was taken aback by people telling me stories of moments where I supposedly touched them in some way.

Peter Margaritis: [00:18:14] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:18:14] You know, from 9/11 to pulling off to the side of road on 315 and helping this lady who was on the side of the road, you know, and helping her and running out in the middle of traffic on 315 to pull something that had fallen off her off the roof of her car that she was trying to move or whatever.

Peter Margaritis: [00:18:38] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:18:39] I was just blown away.

Peter Margaritis: [00:18:40] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:18:41] Blown away.

Peter Margaritis: [00:18:42] Yeah, I understand that. You’re very kind and very humble, but, man, you cast a huge shadow in this town. And the charity work that you’ve done on Christmas for how many years? I mean, you’ve raised hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Dino Tripodis: [00:18:59] For Children’s Hospital, we’ve raised millions over the years. Oh, we did. And they’re still continuing to do that. That effort is still going strong. And the holiday show at the Funny Bone for Down syndrome, that’s raised, you know, thousands over the years as well.

Peter Margaritis: [00:19:18] So, you’ve transitioned out of radio. I still assume that you’re still doing a lot of your philanthropy stuff if you give-

Dino Tripodis: [00:19:23] Whenever I can. You know, right now, it seems to be focused on on Down’s syndrome, you know, DSACO, whenever I can throw something their way in a charitable event or cause, you know, I still host the Buddy Walk every year, which is huge. It’s the number one Buddy Walk in the country now. And I started hosting that in its infancy when it was like, you know, 300 to 500 people and now, it’s tens of thousands.

Peter Margaritis: [00:19:49] So, I guess once the radio guy, always the radio guy, because you have a very successful podcast, Whiskey Business.

Dino Tripodis: [00:19:57] Whiskey Business, the podcast, not so much about whiskey as it is one with whiskey. Yeah.

Peter Margaritis: [00:20:01] That’s right. And that cut my ear the first time I—”Wow. This is going to be an interesting podcast.

Dino Tripodis: [00:20:07] It is, because it’s, like I said, not so much about whiskey as is one with whiskey. That’s the only running theme. You have a different bottle of whiskey, which you’re not forced to drink as some of my guests do not drink.

Peter Margaritis: [00:20:19] Right.

Dino Tripodis: [00:20:19] And it’s not a requirement.

Peter Margaritis: [00:20:21] Right.

Dino Tripodis: [00:20:21] But, you know, I’d have this bottle of whiskey, learn a little bit about it and then, I share that with my guests. And my guests have ranged from A to Z. You know, we’ve discussed this. You know, it’s from an astrophysicist early on. We don’t have a Z yet. I’m still trying to get Jack Hanna or somebody from the Columbus Zoo. But yeah, they range from all walks of life. And this week, we dropped Jeni’s Ice Cream.

Peter Margaritis: [00:20:49] Right.

Dino Tripodis: [00:20:49] Charly Bauer.

Peter Margaritis: [00:20:49] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:20:49] He was on there talking about the development of that amazing company, you know, and how it started and all the trials and tribulations they went through. Yeah. I love it. I love it, because—and it is radio-like, but it’s not, because there’s no interruption. I don’t have to play a Maroon 5 song.

Peter Margaritis: [00:21:09] Right.

Dino Tripodis: [00:21:09] I don’t have to stop for 10-minute stops for commercials. And you get a chance to really take your time and get to know your guests and find out things. It’s made me a better interviewer. And if I were to go back on the radio, I think, as a result of podcasting, I’d be an even better radio person, which I think is something that you should never stop striving to be whatever your field might be.

Peter Margaritis: [00:21:40] Right.

Dino Tripodis: [00:21:40] I don’t ever want to be—you know, I don’t ever want to tap out. You know what I mean?

Peter Margaritis: [00:21:45] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:21:45] I don’t want to like, “This is as good as I’m going to get.”

Peter Margaritis: [00:21:47] Right.

Dino Tripodis: [00:21:48] You know, I always think that their dish should be more to learn and grow and gather, for lack of a better word.

Peter Margaritis: [00:21:55] It could be from—I don’t know if it’s the very sympathetic Greek family, because it seemed like that was always put in front of me, just keep going, don’t—yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:22:03] Well, always you keep going. And also, not good enough.

Peter Margaritis: [00:22:06] Not good enough.

Dino Tripodis: [00:22:08] Not good enough.

Peter Margaritis: [00:22:09] So, your movies. Is it on Netflix? No, it’s on Amazon Prime?

Dino Tripodis: [00:22:13] Yeah. “Is it in the theaters, honey?” “No. No, ma, the movie is on Amazon.” “Oh, okay.”

Peter Margaritis: [00:22:19] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:22:23] Yeah.

Peter Margaritis: [00:22:23] I’ve listened to a number of your episodes and we share a lot of the same.

Dino Tripodis: [00:22:28] Well, one of my favorite episodes of speaking of guests from all walks of life was the one that I did with my mother, you know, And Then, There’s Mom. You know, that podcast.

Peter Margaritis: [00:22:38] Oh, I missed that. I got to go listen to it.

Dino Tripodis: [00:22:39] Oh, you never listened to And Then, There’s Mom?

Peter Margaritis: [00:22:42] I have not, no.

Dino Tripodis: [00:22:43] Do yourself a favor.

Peter Margaritis: [00:22:44] I’m going to.

Dino Tripodis: [00:22:44] Do yourself a favor, watch it.

Peter Margaritis: [00:22:46] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:22:46] As opposed to listen to it on YouTube, so you could see those familiar Greek facials and reactions to questions. My mother was, I think—was she 83? That was—it was before she turned 83. So, it was Easter of 82, when she was— not 1982.

Peter Margaritis: [00:23:05] So, last year?

Dino Tripodis: [00:23:05] Yes, she—was it—I don’t know. She’s 82 or 83. It doesn’t matter.

Peter Margaritis: [00:23:10] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:23:10] I think 82. Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter. It was magnificent.

Peter Margaritis: [00:23:16] Yeah. Easter of last year, which Easter? American Easter, Greek Easter?

Dino Tripodis: [00:23:18] Greek Easter.

Peter Margaritis: [00:23:18] Greek Easter.

Dino Tripodis: [00:23:18] Greek Easter, but I think was the Easter before that one.

Peter Margaritis: [00:23:21] Okay.

Dino Tripodis: [00:23:21] I think.

Peter Margaritis: [00:23:22] Okay.

Dino Tripodis: [00:23:22] I don’t—I can’t remember.

Peter Margaritis: [00:23:23] And your mom’s name is Christine?

Dino Tripodis: [00:23:24] Christine, yeah.

Peter Margaritis: [00:23:25] Yeah. So, I will definitely watch that. Actually, I’ll grab Mary and we’ll both watch it, but yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:23:29] Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Peter Margaritis: [00:23:30] And actually, I’ll watch it, so I’d even mention it in the intro as I record it for this episode to go out that, “By the way, I did watch this”, and I’ll make some comments.

Dino Tripodis: [00:23:39] Oh, yeah. Absolutely. You have to. You’ll relate.

Peter Margaritis: [00:23:43] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:23:43] And it’s also been one of the most viewed and successful of the podcast. I mean, we have a pretty good download ratio, but as far as—and we’re still trying to increase the YouTube viewership.

Peter Margaritis: [00:23:55] Right. Right. That’s tough.

Dino Tripodis: [00:23:56] Yeah. There’s so much out there to compete with. But that one got like, I think, some of the most views we’ve ever had.

Peter Margaritis: [00:24:06] Now, your mom used to come on the radio show with you, on Sunny 95. And I don’t remember, was it at specific points in time or was it just random?

Dino Tripodis: [00:24:15] There was a time where she would come up for Mother’s Day. And, you know, we do a Mother’s Day broadcast and there’s other times where she’s just been in randomly and she would come on. But she was always so funny. Kevin Pollak, you know, the American, Kevin Pollak, was in the studio with us when my mom was there. And my mother kept calling him Kenny.

Peter Margaritis: [00:24:43] Okay.

Dino Tripodis: [00:24:44] And he took it and she—”Kenny’s fine, Mrs. Tripodis.

Peter Margaritis: [00:24:47] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:24:48] Kenny’s fine.” You know, she kept calling him Kenny. And she loved him, but she kept calling him Kenny. “But, Ma, his name is not Kenny.” “It’s not?” “It’s Kevin.” “I’m sorry, Kevin.” And she goes right back to Kenny, you know, two minutes later, but-

Peter Margaritis: [00:25:02] Oh, that’s hilarious.

Dino Tripodis: [00:25:03] Yeah, she’s great.

Peter Margaritis: [00:25:04] Now, just if my mother’s listening to this, yes, the idea is now put into my head, I need to come down to interview you on my podcast.

Dino Tripodis: [00:25:11] Oh, yeah, you know.

Peter Margaritis: [00:25:13] That can be dangerous, though.

Dino Tripodis: [00:25:15] Oh, just in the opening, there’s a cold open before the podcast actually starts and it’s just me and my mom talking. I’m explaining to her, you know, what we’re going to be doing.

Peter Margaritis: [00:25:24] Okay.

Dino Tripodis: [00:25:24] And, you know, she comes in and she’s like, “I don’t know.” She’s almost disgusted. “I don’t know how you got into this.” She’s looking at all the bottles that are around, you know, on the set of the podcast. “I don’t know how you got into this whiskey business.” I go, “Mom, I’m not in the whiskey business.” I’m trying to explain to her, but it’s great. It’s got very funny moments. She’s still very quick.

Peter Margaritis: [00:25:49] Good.

Dino Tripodis: [00:25:49] I mean, you know, people say, “Where do you get your sense of humor?” My father had a wry sense of humor, but I think the sarcastic side of me, you know, that part, the self-deprecating side of my humor comes from my mother, I’m sure.

Peter Margaritis: [00:26:05] No.

Dino Tripodis: [00:26:06] Yeah.

Peter Margaritis: [00:26:06] I got some—most of my humor came from my dad. He was a very funny guy. I’d bring a girl over for the first time, he go, “Son, she’s a lot better-looking than you said. Boy, why don’t you go get a paper. Let her stay here and we’ll talk for a while.” Yeah, so that was my dad.

Dino Tripodis: [00:26:22] Thanks, dad.

Peter Margaritis: [00:26:22] Yeah. Thanks, dad.

Dino Tripodis: [00:26:22] Thanks, you know.

Peter Margaritis: [00:26:23] Appreciate it.

Dino Tripodis: [00:26:24] Yeah.

Peter Margaritis: [00:26:24] Appreciate it. But you’ve done a lot of things in your life. I mean, you’ve been in movies, you produced movies, have your own film production company.

Dino Tripodis: [00:26:32] Never The Luck Productions, yeah.

Peter Margaritis: [00:26:33] You’re an author.

Dino Tripodis: [00:26:35] I am trying to be.

Peter Margaritis: [00:26:36] Published.

Dino Tripodis: [00:26:37] Yeah. Got a short story published last year in a collection that’s available on Amazon.com. I can’t remember the theme, was driving in the rain at 9:00, it’s a collection that they put out every year and they have a different theme. And on [indiscernible], “I’ll take a shot at this.” And at the time, sadly, it was inspired by my cousin, Tommy, who passed away needlessly, I might add. And this story is called Bearing Witness. And while the two characters have nothing to do with Tommy and myself, it’s a fixer and his partner in crime, if you will. But my cousin, Tommy, checked into a hospital with a heart condition and never left.

Peter Margaritis: [00:27:19] Wow.

Dino Tripodis: [00:27:19] Because he just started to progress and that’s what this story is about, you know, Bearing Witness. He has to go to the hospital and decide what to do with his friend, because it flashes back to a point where they say, you know, “Hey, if something ever happens, if I ever get stabbed, if I get shot”, you know, whatever the case, “and I’m suffering, don’t let me suffer. Put me down”, you know? So, while he hasn’t been shot or stabbed, he’s suffering. And so, there’s a moment where he has to decide what’s he going to do? Is he going to put him down or let nature take its course in the hospital? So, yeah, it’s dark.

Peter Margaritis: [00:28:04] Yeah, it’s deep.

Dino Tripodis: [00:28:05] It’s dark and it’s deep. And I say needlessly, because my cousin, Tommy, you know, if he would have taken better care of himself, if he would have responded to the things that were wrong with him, he would have taken his medication when he was supposed to take his medication, he wouldn’t have wound up in the situation he was in.

Peter Margaritis: [00:28:19] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:28:19] So, that’s just a damn shame.

Peter Margaritis: [00:28:25] But your mind is constantly looking—from my perspective, it’s constantly search and look and see. And then, you’re writing about it in some way, shape, or form. Do you sleep?

Dino Tripodis: [00:28:38] More now than I did when I was in radio.

Peter Margaritis: [00:28:40] Well, if I remember correctly, you could survive on four hours of sleep?

Dino Tripodis: [00:28:43] Oh, for years. For years. And right now, it’s averaging somewhere between five and seven. So, that’s more.

Peter Margaritis: [00:28:53] Okay.

Dino Tripodis: [00:28:53] We were talking. You said you like to write in the morning.

Peter Margaritis: [00:28:57] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:28:57] I like to write in the morning, too, but I do my best writing late at night. So, you know, when 9:00, 10:00, 11:00 rolls around, I will be up till 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning and writing. That’s my favorite time. It’s quiet. You know, I’m truly alone in my thoughts. The morning, too, but there are far more distractions in the morning. You know, even early, you know, you got guys like Pete Margaritis to text you at 5:00 a.m.

Peter Margaritis: [00:29:30] Yeah. That you call out, yeah. I say I did. I was up at 5:00, and I realized I did not send that last night, so I just—yeah, guys like me to text you at 5:00 in the morning.

Dino Tripodis: [00:29:41] So, yeah. So, fun doesn’t go up nearly as much in the middle of the night, but there are early risers that they get going at 5:00 in the morning like, “Oh, okay.” And that’s funny, because it didn’t wake me up.

Peter Margaritis: [00:29:55] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:29:55] It did not wake me up. I did wake up at 5:30 on my own and I went, “Oh, he texted me at 5:00 a.m.” Because I sometimes turn the ringer off in the middle of night, because, you know, for email notifications and whatnot.

Peter Margaritis: [00:30:09] Right.

Dino Tripodis: [00:30:09] Most of time, I’m a light sleeper. So, even a little beep, you know, would bring me up.

Peter Margaritis: [00:30:16] I didn’t think about that. I was up this morning to look, “Oh, crap. I forgot got to send it”, poof. I figured he’s sound asleep. He’s not going to hear this. He’s probably a deep sleeper. But then, I know-

Dino Tripodis: [00:30:25] Oh, so you wrote it last night?

Peter Margaritis: [00:30:26] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:30:27] You forgot to send it.

Peter Margaritis: [00:30:27] Yeah. I forgot to send it. I looked at it this morning, “Oh, forgot to send this one.”

Dino Tripodis: [00:30:32] And good for you for being up. You get up at 5:00 a.m. all the time?

Peter Margaritis: [00:30:35] Most of the time. If I’m up, my son will come home, he’s been out or whatever, during a week or whatever, if I’m up past 10:00, he goes, “What are you doing up?

Dino Tripodis: [00:30:44] Yeah.

Peter Margaritis: [00:30:44] “Are you okay, dad?”

Dino Tripodis: [00:30:45] Yeah.

Peter Margaritis: [00:30:46] Yeah, I’m fine. Just feel like staying up tonight. I-

Dino Tripodis: [00:30:48] See, I love the night.

Peter Margaritis: [00:30:50] I used to.

Dino Tripodis: [00:30:51] I do. I still do.

Peter Margaritis: [00:30:52] I used to, but I have this-

Dino Tripodis: [00:30:54] It was a problem when you did a morning show.

Peter Margaritis: [00:30:57] Well, yeah. Yeah. See, I would—there was no way I could do a morning show. Actually, when I managed restaurants in the Atlanta area, I get home late and I had to be back at the store. And I can’t tell you how many times I showed up late to work just because I just could not wake up that next morning.

Dino Tripodis: [00:31:16] Yeah.

Peter Margaritis: [00:31:17] But I’ve turned into a morning person. I have two dogs and they like to get up early and they like to wake me up. And I’ll get down and make a cup of coffee and just kind of start my morning and stuff.

Dino Tripodis: [00:31:26] That’s good.

Peter Margaritis: [00:31:26] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:31:27] That’s good now.

Peter Margaritis: [00:31:28] But then, by 8:30, 9:00, I’m usually passed out on the couch.

Dino Tripodis: [00:31:30] Yeah.

Peter Margaritis: [00:31:30] Sleeping on the couch. I was sleeping on it.

Dino Tripodis: [00:31:32] At nighttime?

Peter Margaritis: [00:31:33] At nighttime.

Dino Tripodis: [00:31:34] Or I was going to say, back on the couch at 9:00 a.m., okay.

Peter Margaritis: [00:31:37] No, I’m usually asleep on the couch by 9:00 and I don’t nap. I’m pretty much-

Dino Tripodis: [00:31:41] I have discovered the—I do nap a little bit more.

Peter Margaritis: [00:31:48] You do nap a little bit.

Dino Tripodis: [00:31:49] I take what they—but I take Da Vinci naps. Did you ever hear about Da Vinci naps? Everybody, you look at the outpouring, the massive amount of work that Leonardo Da Vinci put out, both in art and inventions and so forth and so on. It’s because the man didn’t sleep, but he did take what—he did take 42-minute naps.

Peter Margaritis: [00:32:10] Forty-two, is there something special about the 42?

Dino Tripodis: [00:32:12] I don’t know. I don’t know if there’s something special about the 42-minute naps. I have the number just slightly off, but he would rest for 42 minutes and then, work for four to six hours a time, take another 42-minute. He would take these little power—it was the mentor of the power nap.

Peter Margaritis: [00:32:28] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:32:28] And there were some other people in history, too, that I can’t recall that did things like that similarly, where they would just rest for a little bit and then, just go back to the work.

Peter Margaritis: [00:32:40] I’ll take a nap if I’m completely exhausted. And I just—but I’ll wake up because my body will just start uncontrollably twitching, which will wake me back up. Now, Mary’s aunt in Greece always says, “Rest, 20 minutes.”

Dino Tripodis: [00:32:54] Twenty minutes, 20 minutes, yeah.

Peter Margaritis: [00:32:55] Just rest. You don’t have to go to sleep. Just-

Dino Tripodis: [00:32:57] Just rest the body.

Peter Margaritis: [00:32:58] Just rest the body.

Dino Tripodis: [00:32:59] There’s something to it.

Peter Margaritis: [00:33:00] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:33:00] There’s something to it.

Peter Margaritis: [00:33:01] There’s-

Dino Tripodis: [00:33:01] But yeah, I’ve learned to appreciate that a little bit more. I don’t do it every day.

Peter Margaritis: [00:33:06] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:33:06] But I would have no problem doing it every day. But once the day starts, you know, we talked about doing this like, you know, noon is good, because I think once 10:00 a.m. starts, the day starts rolling.

Peter Margaritis: [00:33:21] Right.

Dino Tripodis: [00:33:21] And early in the week, too, we’re doing this on a Monday, I said do it Monday as opposed to—let’s get this moving on a Monday, because the week tends to snowball.

Peter Margaritis: [00:33:30] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:33:30] And then, there’s other things that start in the way. So-

Peter Margaritis: [00:33:32] So, our paths over the years have crossed in a variety of different ways. I shared the story with my cousin, George and Buzzy and the parents here in, too We came to see you at Go Bananas in Cincinnati.

Dino Tripodis: [00:33:47] That’s a long time ago.

Peter Margaritis: [00:33:48] A long time ago. And you were doing your Greek stuff.

Dino Tripodis: [00:33:50] A long time ago.

Peter Margaritis: [00:33:51] And about the grandmother with the great big boobs.

Dino Tripodis: [00:33:54] The BGGBs.

Peter Margaritis: [00:33:56] Yeah. And my aunt almost—I mean, she—I think you had to stop and look at her, because she was just laughing.

Dino Tripodis: [00:34:01] Big Greek.

Peter Margaritis: [00:34:02] So, we all were. It just-

Dino Tripodis: [00:34:03] Big Greek Grandma Breasts.

Peter Margaritis: [00:34:05] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:34:05] She gets out of bed in the morning, they hit the floor before the feet do.

Peter Margaritis: [00:34:09] Keep going. You do this part just for my cousins now.

Dino Tripodis: [00:34:16] You hear four thumps. You’re downstairs, you hear four thumps, Yaya’s up. Only hear two, she just leaned over the edge of the bed for a glass of water. And there was one other time, one morning, we heard three thumps. We don’t know what the hell that was, but some people say grandpa. A classic.

Peter Margaritis: [00:34:39] A classic.

Dino Tripodis: [00:34:40] A classic.

Peter Margaritis: [00:34:41] And then, I don’t remember what year it was, I had gotten to the finals of the Funny Bone Funniest Person in Columbus contest. You were MC-ing that night. And our paths have crossed, but it recently crossed when our good friend, I can—I don’t know if Caperton think of me as a good friend, but I will throw him under the bus and say-

Dino Tripodis: [00:34:57] Dave Caperton?

Peter Margaritis: [00:34:58] Dave Caperton.

Dino Tripodis: [00:34:58] Funny man who could still get up on a stand-up stage today if he wanted to and kill it.

Peter Margaritis: [00:35:05] He doesn’t want to?

Dino Tripodis: [00:35:06] I don’t know if he wants to or not, but I’m saying I saw him recently speak, because I know what you’re getting ready to lean into.

Peter Margaritis: [00:35:14] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:35:14] And while he delivered his message as a keynote speaker, intermingled in there was all the foundation of stand-up.

Peter Margaritis: [00:35:23] Right.

Dino Tripodis: [00:35:23] And if you could pull, you know, out of that 45-minute to an hour presentation, if you were to pull all the jokes and humor out of it, you know, it would be a killer set at any stand-up club at any given time. So, yeah, there’s no doubt in my mind that he could do that again if he chose to.

Peter Margaritis: [00:35:43] So, we did a speaker showcase up in Cleveland. August, I think, of ’18 and brought the film crew men, because speakers always want film video. And he told the people that, “So, if you mess up, stop, pause, move forward.” Everyone, at least once or twice stopped and paused, except for Caperton.

Dino Tripodis: [00:36:06] Right.

Peter Margaritis: [00:36:06] He did his—I don’t know, was it 15 minutes? Was it 30 minutes? I don’t know, but he went from start to finish, did not miss a beat, completely nailed it.

Dino Tripodis: [00:36:15] Not surprised.

Peter Margaritis: [00:36:16] Yeah. So, I should just—we should just try to get back up on stage.

Dino Tripodis: [00:36:21] Get up on stage?

Peter Margaritis: [00:36:21] Yeah. We’ll start a campaign.

Dino Tripodis: [00:36:23] I’m trying to—I mentioned it to him. You mentioned Whiskey Business, the podcast, we also have what I call a side hustle, sister podcast, The Premise.

Peter Margaritis: [00:36:35] The Premise. Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:36:36] And it’s recorded live at the upfront stage of Shadowbox Live. And that is a combination comedy show, podcast. You’re handed the—two comedic competitors are handed a premise that they’re seeing and getting for the first time that night. Then, they go to the writers table and have 20 minutes to write three to five minutes of stand-up comedy based on the premise they were just handed.

Peter Margaritis: [00:36:57] Right.

Dino Tripodis: [00:36:57] In the meantime, while they’re working, we have a guest comic who performs and sits down with me and I interview them. And then, by the time that 20 minutes is up, the competitors come up, do their thing and they sit down. So, it incorporates both comedy, podcasting all in one. It’s a great show. It’s really starting to take off. And I have asked Caperton to be a competitor. Not a guest comic, a competitor. Because I think that brain of his is still mining gold.

Peter Margaritis: [00:37:27] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:37:27] And I think he could take a premise.

Peter Margaritis: [00:37:29] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:37:29] I think he could take, you know—I’m grabbing something out of the pencil bin here.

Peter Margaritis: [00:37:34] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:37:34] I think he could take black Sharpie.

Peter Margaritis: [00:37:36] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:37:37] And write three to five minutes of stand-up material in 20 minutes about a black Sharpie or anything related to Sharpies. I think he could do that. And he’s interested.

Peter Margaritis: [00:37:45] Oh, cool.

Dino Tripodis: [00:37:46] So, if that happens, you have to come down and check him out.

Peter Margaritis: [00:37:49] So, I was able to watch the one from the most recent one, I think Nickey Winkelman was on.

Dino Tripodis: [00:37:56] Yeah, that was-

Peter Margaritis: [00:37:57] And Jeff Gage.

Dino Tripodis: [00:37:58] Yeah. Nickey and Jeff.

Peter Margaritis: [00:37:59] And there was another gentleman.

Dino Tripodis: [00:38:00] Kenny Mock was the guest comic.

Peter Margaritis: [00:38:02] Okay. Okay.

Dino Tripodis: [00:38:03] He was the guest comedian. Yeah, he did Great.

Peter Margaritis: [00:38:05] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:38:05] Kenny killed it.

Peter Margaritis: [00:38:06] I’ve listened/watched a few of them and are there a certain time, day, month?

Dino Tripodis: [00:38:14] Yeah. Third Thursday of the month.

Peter Margaritis: [00:38:16] Okay.

Dino Tripodis: [00:38:16] So, we just did January. We’ll be back in February, the third Thursday of the month in February. We’re also going to expand the parameters of The Premise and include sketch, two-person sketch competitors as well.

Peter Margaritis: [00:38:32] I wasn’t thinking of going down this path, but I’m going to take it on. Are you thinking about doing, you doing the sketch on the bit that you were sharing with me the last time we were having coffee, something about selective hearing? Are you going to do that one?

Dino Tripodis: [00:38:49] Oh, that, you know, you just prompted my memory to remember that, that could work.

Peter Margaritis: [00:38:54] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:38:54] Yes, I would do that.

Peter Margaritis: [00:38:55] You’re talking about you sitting around with the family and-

Dino Tripodis: [00:38:58] Oh, that was that. Though, I actually did—that was an actual bit that I did. Thank you for reminding me, because I got to remember to do that when I do most. Yes, I’ve forgotten more bits, but that one’s fairly knew. That one’s fairly new. But the selective hearing, how nobody—family’s all together at the same time, but nobody’s listening at the same time. That could very well be a sketch, but I performed it. You know, I play all the parts, you know, when I do that. I did that. I did that at the—I debuted that at The Premise when I do a little bit of stand-up upfront to start the show. And it worked. It worked out well.

Peter Margaritis: [00:39:28] Yeah. Because I—but this is how your mind works, because as you were talking about that, I went back into my head, “Oh, I’ve had none of those conversations.” Did you—the one that I’m all right is my mother talks in vague. Does your mother talk in vague? You know-

Dino Tripodis: [00:39:42] I can talk in vague.

Peter Margaritis: [00:39:42] … those people over there, you know. You know, “He called me yesterday. I had to go see him.” “Who’s him?” “You know, the guy.”

Dino Tripodis: [00:39:50] “Who’s he?”

Peter Margaritis: [00:39:50] “Who’s he?” “You know, the guy.” You know, “Who are you talking about?”

Dino Tripodis: [00:39:54] Then, they get mad at you.

Peter Margaritis: [00:39:54] Right.

Dino Tripodis: [00:39:55] And because you don’t know.

Peter Margaritis: [00:39:56] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:39:56] “Remember that show?” “What show?”

Peter Margaritis: [00:39:59] Right. Right.

Dino Tripodis: [00:40:00] “Oh, the one we watch that day.” “What day”, you know.

Peter Margaritis: [00:40:05] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:40:05] “When I was there visit-” And then, by the third question, they start to get angry.

Peter Margaritis: [00:40:11] Right.

Dino Tripodis: [00:40:11] You know, you’re wrong now.

Peter Margaritis: [00:40:12] Right.

Dino Tripodis: [00:40:12] “When I was up there visiting you.”

Peter Margaritis: [00:40:14] Yes.

Dino Tripodis: [00:40:14] “Last Easter. We sat on the couch.” She’ll tell you everything that we ate, but she still won’t be able to remember the damn show, you know.

Peter Margaritis: [00:40:21] Yeah. “I went to the doctor.” “Which doctor?” “I went to the doctor, you know, my doctor.” “Which doctor?” “You know, the doctor. The doctor that-” So, she-

Dino Tripodis: [00:40:28] Speaking vague, that’s very funny.

Peter Margaritis: [00:40:31] Yeah. My mother speaks in vague a lot. So, you do all this stuff, but you have a message, because you showed up at National Speakers Association, Ohio chapter. Curious about it.

Dino Tripodis: [00:40:44] Very curious. And still am not only curious, but plan in 2020 to put it into play, yeah.

Peter Margaritis: [00:40:51] So, today is January 27, 2020.

Dino Tripodis: [00:40:54] Right.

Peter Margaritis: [00:40:55] So, in the year?

Dino Tripodis: [00:40:56] Yeah.

Peter Margaritis: [00:40:56] Yeah. So, what’s your plan?

Dino Tripodis: [00:41:01] I don’t know. No, I do know. I was thinking about this when we discussed the fact that we’re going to do this podcast, you know, what the message is. And it could be—I think I’ve narrowed it down to a couple.

Peter Margaritis: [00:41:12] Okay.

Dino Tripodis: [00:41:12] I mean, you mentioned, you know, I left Sunny 95 in June of ’18. And everybody—I get that question all time, everybody says, you know, “How’s retirement?” “Well, I don’t feel retired by any stretch of the imagination and nor could I, you know, afford to not draw some sort of income in the years to come.

Peter Margaritis: [00:41:35] Right.

Dino Tripodis: [00:41:35] I need to still throw some things into that bucket that I’ve saved over the years.” But I preferred, instead of retired, I like the term, in the last year-and-a-half, I’ve been refocused.

Peter Margaritis: [00:41:47] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:41:47] And I think there’s a message there about refocusing and—I mean, what is retirement, actually? You know, to me, the archaic definition of retirement is sitting on my front porch and telling kids to stay off of my grass, you know, but refocus would be me writing a story about sitting on my porch, telling kids to stay off of my grass and find the humor in that and expand upon it. There are things that I have now the time to do and devote more time to, but that also requires discipline and confidence. And I need to not beat myself up so much. I am my harshest critic as well.

Peter Margaritis: [00:42:38] Right.

Dino Tripodis: [00:42:38] My buddy, Jamie, says “When you die, you know, when you’re writing out your will, I want all your unpublished manuscripts”, because there’s piles and piles of writings up in my office that I deemed not good enough to send out, to be, you know, accepted or rejected. I just cut to the chase and said, “It’s crap.”

Peter Margaritis: [00:43:05] I’ve heard that before in this conversation.

Dino Tripodis: [00:43:07] Yeah.

Peter Margaritis: [00:43:08] That, not good enough.

Dino Tripodis: [00:43:08] Not good enough. Yeah. And they’re up there. And he goes, “I want, I want, because when you die, you know, then there’s going to be this whole treasure trove of, you know, unpublished stuff.” And someone said the same thing about music. I used to write music back in my early 20s. There’s one point in my life I thought I was going to be a songwriter, because music was a big part of my life. And I’ve come across these real tapes and cassette tapes with dozens and dozens and dozens of songs, original music. And some of them are angst-ridden 20-something crap.

Peter Margaritis: [00:43:44] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:43:44] And some are not bad.

Peter Margaritis: [00:43:49] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:43:49] You know, if I’m being—you know, if I could be objective.

Peter Margaritis: [00:43:54] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:43:54] You know, like, “Oh, there’s actually a real melody in there.”

Peter Margaritis: [00:43:58] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:43:58] But they are—you know, that they’re definitely reflective of life in the early ’80s, for sure. Yeah. And I must have been one angst-ridden 20-something in the ’80s, man, because, you know, like, “Wow, man. Somebody, tell a joke.”

Peter Margaritis: [00:44:18] Well—but you did stand-up for so many years.

Dino Tripodis: [00:44:21] Yeah.

Peter Margaritis: [00:44:21] I mean, that’s the ultimate rejection.

Dino Tripodis: [00:44:26] It can be. Yeah.

Peter Margaritis: [00:44:28] I didn’t—Rick Roberts once told me recently the last few years that-

Dino Tripodis: [00:44:33] Rick Roberts, great comedian.

Peter Margaritis: [00:44:35] Yeah, clean comedian.

Dino Tripodis: [00:44:36] Clean comedian.

Peter Margaritis: [00:44:37] Barney Fife guy.

Dino Tripodis: [00:44:38] Oh, yeah.

Peter Margaritis: [00:44:39] That don’t take your jokes—”The audience’s silence, don’t take it personally. You’re bringing your product to the audience. They’re examining your inventory. If they don’t like it, that’s just fodder for you to go back and fix it.”

Dino Tripodis: [00:44:50] Right.

Peter Margaritis: [00:44:50] I took it personally.

Dino Tripodis: [00:44:52] Actually, I never took it personally.

Peter Margaritis: [00:44:54] Yeah, I did.

Dino Tripodis: [00:44:55] And I should have, because to this day and even back then, my act was very personal. It was about me.

Peter Margaritis: [00:45:02] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:45:02] I didn’t do topical humor.

Peter Margaritis: [00:45:04] Right.

Dino Tripodis: [00:45:04] I didn’t talk politics. I didn’t do them. Everything that I talked about was steeped in truth of my life, much as it is now. Back then, it was, you know, being a divorced guy with no money. You know, when I first got divorced, nothing. You know, I talked about that. You know, I’m talking about my apartment. You know, I don’t want to say my apartment’s small, you know, after the divorce. But, you know, I’m the only guy I know who can shit, fry an egg at the same time, you know.

Peter Margaritis: [00:45:33] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:45:33] So, stuff like that.

Peter Margaritis: [00:45:33] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:45:33] But it was steeped in truth. And now, it’s steeped in truth. You know, I was writing stuff down just the other day, you know, about where I’m at at life at 60. You know, emotionally, physically, sexually. Just all streams that flow into the same river.

Peter Margaritis: [00:45:57] Right. I had that same river and I do write my stuff down, I just don’t perform it, because maybe—you just brought something, because maybe it’s just not good enough. I’ve written some sketch and I’ve never shown anybody—I’ve told a few people about it, but never kind of piece because it’s-

Dino Tripodis: [00:46:12] And don’t you question why? Because you have this podcast now for how many years?

Peter Margaritis: [00:46:17] Three-and-a-half.

Dino Tripodis: [00:46:18] Yeah, three-and-a-half years. And you put out a great message. You’ve written books.

Peter Margaritis: [00:46:22] Two books.

Dino Tripodis: [00:46:23] Two books. Successful.

Peter Margaritis: [00:46:25] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:46:25] Right?

Peter Margaritis: [00:46:25] Right.

Dino Tripodis: [00:46:25] You sell them, they made money.

Peter Margaritis: [00:46:27] They’re making money.

Dino Tripodis: [00:46:28] They make money.

Peter Margaritis: [00:46:28] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:46:28] They make money.

Peter Margaritis: [00:46:29] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:46:29] So, why would you—you don’t doubt this podcast. You think you have a good product here. You don’t doubt the two books that you put out, they’re successful. So, why do you draw the line? I don’t want to point to you exactly, but why do we with certain things in life tend to draw a line in the sand that we were afraid to cross, because we don’t think it’s good enough. Are we ultimately afraid of rejection? I mean, nobody likes to be rejected.

Peter Margaritis: [00:47:01] Right. No. But my mind towards rejection has changed as failure. You’ve mentioned, I mean, you failed a number of times and you-

Dino Tripodis: [00:47:07] Oh, God, I’m still failing.

Peter Margaritis: [00:47:08] Right. But that’s good, because we learn.

Dino Tripodis: [00:47:10] My mother thinks I’m failing as we speak by not going to a place of employment Monday through Friday.

Peter Margaritis: [00:47:17] Right.

Dino Tripodis: [00:47:17] Yes.

Peter Margaritis: [00:47:17] Yes.

Dino Tripodis: [00:47:17] In my mother’s eyes right now, she would never say it, God bless her, but she thinks I’m failing.

Peter Margaritis: [00:47:22] Right. But when we fail, we learn.

Dino Tripodis: [00:47:25] Sure.

Peter Margaritis: [00:47:25] You didn’t grow up in that household that you feel you learn, because if you grew up in a similar household, that my dad did not like failure at all. He did not like mistakes. I might have to turn to my brother to remind me of stuff in my childhood, because I don’t remember a whole lot. But the things I do remember was when there was a mistake and dad didn’t take it well. And failure was not an option. So, I’ve learned how to deal with it. I’ve learned how to get past most of it at times.

Dino Tripodis: [00:47:52] Right.

Peter Margaritis: [00:47:52] But there’s still that little bit of that.

Dino Tripodis: [00:47:55] Which brings me to what my—you said, you know, what’s your message going to be?

Peter Margaritis: [00:47:59] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:47:59] And I think this one probably resonates louder. And, you know, you tend to—if you pay attention, you tend to go to, you know, what’s drawing you. And life, no matter what stage of life you’re in, you know, if we go back to our 30s or now, me at 60. How old are you?

Peter Margaritis: [00:48:20] Fifty-nine-and-a-half.

Dino Tripodis: [00:48:21] Fifty-nine-and-a-half. Yeah.

Peter Margaritis: [00:48:25] No.

Dino Tripodis: [00:48:25] No. No. No. It’s funny you say that. When we get to that age, we’re 59, we don’t even do that. When we were kids, you were two-and-a-half.

Peter Margaritis: [00:48:33] Right.

Dino Tripodis: [00:48:33] Three-and-a-half. You know, until you were like five or six.

Peter Margaritis: [00:48:37] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:48:37] And then, you just started calling the number.

Peter Margaritis: [00:48:39] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:48:39] And then, as we get older, then you start using the half again.

Peter Margaritis: [00:48:41] Yeah. Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:48:42] Because, you know-

Peter Margaritis: [00:48:42] Sixty is a long way away, right?

Dino Tripodis: [00:48:44] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Fifty-nine-and-a-half, I still got six months, don’t rush it.

Peter Margaritis: [00:48:49] Yeah, I got 10 months, but felt kind of restless, doesn’t-

Dino Tripodis: [00:48:51] What my point is that we are the sum of our experiences.

Peter Margaritis: [00:48:57] Absolutely.

Dino Tripodis: [00:48:57] Right?

Peter Margaritis: [00:48:58] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:48:58] Good, bad, or indifferent. And the message in this new realm that I’d like to get into with the keynote speaking is the sum of those experiences. So, I think when I look back at my convoluted childhood and I have some dark holes, too, something that’s weird. I can remember something at two years of age, but I can’t remember a lot from 5 to 7. I remember—because I was sick. I had—if you listen to the podcast with my mother, I thought it was one, I thought it was double pneumonia with one collapsed lung. It was double pneumonia with two collapsed lungs at 6 years of age in Children’s Hospital in Chicago. You know, I remember being in an oxygen. I remember stuff like that, but there’s a lot of things that I don’t remember. Sadly, I do remember a lot of the pain. There’s a four-piece article—what island are your people from in Greece?

Peter Margaritis: [00:50:04] Oh, my grandparents, Thessaloniki, Asia Minor, that part.

Dino Tripodis: [00:50:09] We’re Icarian from Icaria. And they have a magazine that comes out quarterly for the Icarian membership. And I just recently—it’ll be in the February issue and they come out with a quarterly winter, spring, summer, fall. And they’ve agreed to let me do a four-part memoir type of article. So, the first part—this first part that’s coming out, it’s called Boy Without a Country. And this first part, it’s coming in at about 1,000 words or so, deals with leaving Dalton, Illinois, suburb that we lived in in Chicago and moving to Icaria in 1968.

Peter Margaritis: [00:50:55] Oh, so you moved to Greece?

Dino Tripodis: [00:50:56] When I was nine years old.

Peter Margaritis: [00:50:57] Wow. Okay.

Dino Tripodis: [00:50:59] And those—my friend, those were some dark times for me, leaving a suburb of Chicago, leaving a neighborhood that you thought you would grow up in and leaving friends and so forth, you know.

Peter Margaritis: [00:51:11] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:51:11] And to move to an island in Greece in 1968, which things in Greece were a little bit troublesome back then.

Peter Margaritis: [00:51:20] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:51:20] And then, especially Icaria, because Icaria is very close to Turkey, but that completely changed—have a lifestyle changed at nine, that’s what this memoir will be about, basically. And there will be some painful memories that, probably, if I’m being completely honest, won’t reflect well on my father, God rest his soul. He was a different kind of man. And like I said, you are the sum of your experiences. And some of us are defeated by those experiences and forms of depression and anxiety and ever get past them. And some of us rise, but they’re all lessons learned.

Peter Margaritis: [00:52:14] Right.

Dino Tripodis: [00:52:14] And I think that’s the message that I seem to be more drawn to as far as keynote speaking, that you are the sum of your experiences. And if those experiences are bad, that doesn’t mean that the sum is going to be bad, that you can learn from all the pain and all the angst and the things that could’ve shaped you one way, but you went another way. But it’s still interesting how those demons can continue to pull you despite that. You know, I was cleaning up my office the other day, first time in years.

Dino Tripodis: [00:52:51] And I ran across a letter from my father that was written in English, because he said in the letter, “I was told that the last letter I wrote you, you couldn’t read or understand correctly, it was in Greek, so your cousin is writing”, you know. And it was—yeah, there’s a lot there with—there’s a lot. I’ll never completely conquer all of it with my father, because I get so many mixed stories about him. He’s included periodically in a book that I’m trying to finish right now called I Wrote Down What You Were Thinking, which is a book of one-page essays that I did in 2018. I wrote a one-page essay every day for 365 days on whatever thought crossed my mind. And there’s some in there about my father, because that’s the thought that crossed my mind.

Peter Margaritis: [00:53:54] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:53:54] I went to a wedding in Chicago for my cousin, his youngest daughter got married. And of course, there was conversation about my father and, you know, the name of that particular essay is The Most Talked About Man in the Room Who Wasn’t There. And through the years, I’ve heard all these different stories about why my father was the way he was, you know. Some people will say he was this or that some people say he was ill.

Dino Tripodis: [00:54:23] Some people say he was mentally ill. Some people blame it on a blood disorder. Some people blame it on a brain tumor. Some people just say—and it’s such a mixed message, because my father was beloved by so many people. You know, that you talk to any Icarian who went back and forth to visit my father on a regular basis and they love Jimmy. But you as the son, you know, you, “Who are they talking about?”

Peter Margaritis: [00:54:49] Right.

Dino Tripodis: [00:54:50] You know, my cousin, my first cousin, my uncle’s son, my father’s brother, had a better relationship with my father over the years than I did. He would tell stories about him and my dad in Las Vegas. “You were in Las Vegas with my father. What was-” You know, he tells this great story about how these two guys were found and getting ready to mug him in Vegas. And my father, very intuitive, instinctive guy, picked up on it and turned the tables on him. He started following them to the point where they got nervous.

Peter Margaritis: [00:55:33] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:55:33] But the way my cousin tells this very colorful story about what a bad ass my father was, you know, it’s like I relish in the telling of the story and then, I would get mad, you know? So, there’s—my message is in there somewhere about the sum of those experiences and how you apply them in life. You know, are there elements of my father that are stuff that’s bred in the bone, you know, that you can’t avoid. That’s just the DNA.

Dino Tripodis: [00:56:09] And, you know, are some of those things good? And the stuff that isn’t good, you know, is it going to come back in—is it going to, you know, play into my life as well at some point? And sometimes, I think it has. And I was like, “God damn it.” You know, he wasn’t a good father. And when I got divorced, you know, the most painful thing at the bottom is like, “Oh, my God, am I going to be like my father”, you know. And in respect to how he raised his children, because he really didn’t. He was—you know, my mother did.

Peter Margaritis: [00:56:43] Right.

Dino Tripodis: [00:56:44] You know, I didn’t want to be that. And thank God, you know, I didn’t. You know, I think I’ve been a good father to my one daughter. And I think I’ve been a good dad, not a great dad, you know, I think there are things over the course of the years I look back on that I wish I would have done better. But, you know, yeah, that’s the story. And that’s what I’m trying to probably craft more, because I think, you know, you want to be relatable in this world, right?

Peter Margaritis: [00:57:11] Right. Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:57:11] Of keynote speaking, right? And so, I think that no matter who you are, that’s relatable. The life is hard, man.

Peter Margaritis: [00:57:22] Right.

Dino Tripodis: [00:57:22] I mean, I don’t care who you are, but it’s hard for different reasons. Even people that have had nothing but—you know, you hear about the people with the golden spoon, you know, all their life.

Peter Margaritis: [00:57:32] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:57:32] I guarantee you, you know, something went awry in that life, too. Maybe not financially, maybe not socially, maybe not—you know, maybe they went through life and never wanted a thing, but they were lacking in something else. Everybody’s got that.

Peter Margaritis: [00:57:49] Right.

Dino Tripodis: [00:57:49] So, I think that’s where my message.

Peter Margaritis: [00:57:53] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:57:53] To get my long-winded answer is leaning more towards that.

Peter Margaritis: [00:57:57] So, I wish we were videoing this, because just in that piece of describing, you should have seen your eyes. You had so much emotion and that message that you have and you already got the title of your keynote.

Dino Tripodis: [00:58:15] What’s that?

Peter Margaritis: [00:58:15] The sum of-

Dino Tripodis: [00:58:16] Oh, the sum of your experiences.

Peter Margaritis: [00:58:18] The sum of your experiences.

Dino Tripodis: [00:58:19] Oh, I don’t even know if that’s the title, but okay.

Peter Margaritis: [00:58:21] I’m thinking that’s first thing, that could be a title for that. And you delivering those stories of you and your dad. And there are some happy times in there as well. And, you know, bringing that audience up and down, but having that—well, tightening up in a bow and going-

Dino Tripodis: [00:58:40] And also, slip in some humor.

Peter Margaritis: [00:58:42] Right. Absolutely.

Dino Tripodis: [00:58:43] Well, you know, there’s some humor in there, too. But yeah, that’s the story in this article I was talking about, Boy Without A Country. It’s kind of that, that’s what I felt like, I felt like a boy without a country. I’m this nine-year old Greek boy from the states who’s now living on an island, not accepted by the other kids at that particular point.

Peter Margaritis: [00:59:07] Right.

Dino Tripodis: [00:59:07] You know, there’s one kid and he’ll show up, he’ll pop up in later installments of this for peace thing, but up on Delicara, he was the doctor’s son. He befriended me and he became a great friend. And then, it was funny. At one point, my mother, God bless her, you know, she was told to pack only the necessary things. We came by boat on the Queen Anna Maria out of New York.

Peter Margaritis: [00:59:36] Wow.

Dino Tripodis: [00:59:37] Twelve-day boat ride, cruise, beautiful, you know, to Piraeus.

Peter Margaritis: [00:59:43] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [00:59:43] And then, once that fantasy was over, the 12-day cruise, that’s when the reality set in. We went from—and this is in the first installment. It went from a cruise ship to, for lack of a better word, this piece of crap steamer boat that was going to go from Piraeus to Icaria, you know. We went from luxury accommodations on a cruise ship to sitting in a row of seats, you know, on a boat for 12 hours, you know.

Peter Margaritis: [01:00:14] Wow.

Dino Tripodis: [01:00:14] We went from—you went from a guy with the—you know, who was playing a hand-held xylophone to announce that breakfast was being served and lunch was being served to, you know, purchasing wrap sandwiches and some sort of soft drink from whatever concession stand was on the boat. And these are the things that are in my memory.

Peter Margaritis: [01:00:35] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [01:00:35] Are they accurate? You know, would they be debated? Probably. You know, will someone else remember them differently? You know, my sister was four years younger, she may not, but my cousins, will they remember them differently? Probably. Everybody’s got different interpretations, but this how I remember that.

Peter Margaritis: [01:00:51] Right.

Dino Tripodis: [01:00:52] So, in that four-piece article, I will try to capture some of that Icaria in 1968 and how it felt for a nine-year old, because I left at 11. I was sent back to the states to live my grandparents and my Yaya and my Papu in Steubenville without my mother.

Peter Margaritis: [01:01:16] So, that’s how you got to Ohio.

Dino Tripodis: [01:01:17] Without my mother, without my father, without my sister for little more than two years. Then, my mother and my sister eventually came over, because my parents’ marriage disintegrated, continue to disintegrate. And my mother came back with my sister. But I was two years with Yaya and Papu with Uncle Chris in Steubenville, Ohio. And that’s a story.

Peter Margaritis: [01:01:39] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [01:01:39] That’s like part—Sum of Your Experiences Part Two. You know, living with a domineering Yaya who wouldn’t let you do anything, you know, because your mother’s not here. You know, she. I mean, a very closed-off, you know, go to church.

Peter Margaritis: [01:01:59] Go to church.

Dino Tripodis: [01:01:59] Go to church. You can be an altar boy. You know, you can do anything involved with the church.

Peter Margaritis: [01:02:05] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [01:02:05] You know, you’re not going on field trips. I’m not signing that permission slip. You’re not playing sports. I’m not signing that permission slip. You can go to the library, which was her gift to me, whether she realized it or not. I became a voracious reader. I still am to this day. You can go to the movies. Capital Theatre in Steubenville was, you know, down the street. I go to the movies and picked up a love for movies, but, man.

Dino Tripodis: [01:02:29] And talk about not doing anything right, my Yaya, God bless her, God bless her, but she—and like I said, the sum of your experiences, this is where some of the demons still exist. Maybe this is why there’s a pile of manuscripts sitting at home that I don’t think are good enough, because I developed a horrible inferiority complex. I had it when I was in Greece. And it just took on a different shape and form when It came to Steubenville. It was just another person, not maliciously.

Peter Margaritis: [01:02:57] Oh, right, right, right.

Dino Tripodis: [01:02:58] Not maliciously.

Peter Margaritis: [01:02:59] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [01:02:59] But it was just another form of that type of inferiority, you know.

Peter Margaritis: [01:03:06] Did you have that inferiority complex, when your parents will say—well, what would they think? What would the neighbors think? What would the people in the church think?

Dino Tripodis: [01:03:15] My mother still has some of that.

Peter Margaritis: [01:03:17] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [01:03:17] My mother still has some of that. My mother was never more proud to say that her son, you know, had the number one radio show in Columbus, Ohio. Well, what’s my mother got to say now? She’s not going to talk about the podcast. She’s not going to talk about the movie. You know, it’s interesting what our parents can comfortably wrap themselves around to claim. And it’s interesting what they what they don’t want to claim.

Peter Margaritis: [01:03:44] When the first book came out, my mother would introduce me, “My son, Peter, the author.”

Dino Tripodis: [01:03:48] There you go.

Peter Margaritis: [01:03:48] For a year.

Dino Tripodis: [01:03:48] Right?

Peter Margaritis: [01:03:48] Second book came out, “Hey, my son, Peter.”

Dino Tripodis: [01:03:51] Yeah, right. Right. Stand-up comedian for years.

Peter Margaritis: [01:03:55] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [01:03:55] Mother never mentioned a word about it. Make a national television debut on Fox with a show called—I can’t remember the name of the show. It was in the ’90s, then now, I’m a stand-up comedian because I’m on television nationwide.

Peter Margaritis: [01:04:14] Nationwide. Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [01:04:14] Yeah.

Peter Margaritis: [01:04:15] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [01:04:15] Comic Strip Live on Fox. Yeah. Then, my mother, “Oh, my son is on television.” Same thing with the movie.

Peter Margaritis: [01:04:24] Right.

Dino Tripodis: [01:04:24] It’s a great little movie. Street Where We Live, by the way. The Street Where We Live on Amazon Prime. You know, my mom, “Oh, that’s great. Is it going to be in the theaters?” “No, ma, it’s on Amazon.” “Oh.”

Peter Margaritis: [01:04:35] Yeah. Never good enough. And what would somebody—I find it somewhat, I don’t care what other people think anymore. Maybe it’s because I got into the days that I don’t care. I just would do what I think is right. And if it’s too edgy or whatever, mom, I’m sorry. I quit worrying about what other people think anymore.

Dino Tripodis: [01:04:51] Cool, calm, and neglected.

Peter Margaritis: [01:04:55] Cool, calm, and neglected. Exactly. Cool, calm, and neglected. Well, we’ve been at this for an hour. We could be at this for two hours plus.

Dino Tripodis: [01:05:01] Oh, probably.

Peter Margaritis: [01:05:02] I’m going to make the invitation that after this podcast, we have a part two maybe this summer, maybe in the fall.

Dino Tripodis: [01:05:09] Whenever you want.

Peter Margaritis: [01:05:09] Catch up with what’s going on, as well as to find out where you will be speaking professionally, into what groups and stuff. So-

Dino Tripodis: [01:05:18] I think part of it is the business side of it that I need to to learn how. And Dave Caperton has made some suggestions and so have you as well. And I’m going to put those suggestions into place. Part of it is the part that I’m a dinosaur with the social media side of it. You know, I had a LinkedIn account 20 years ago that I haven’t touched. I’m going to revisit that tonight, as a matter of fact, and update it and start putting these things out there that I’m available for and so forth and so on. But yeah, we’ll come back and chat again, for sure, if you’d like to. And you need to come on Whiskey Business.

Peter Margaritis: [01:05:55] Absolutely.

Dino Tripodis: [01:05:56] Whiskeybusinessshow.com. Whiskey business, the podcast, not so much about whiskey as it is one with whiskey. You can find us on Instagram. And you could find our social media on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. You can find the podcast anywhere you get your podcasts, iTunes, SoundCloud, et cetera.

Peter Margaritis: [01:05:56] You should promote the—do you promote Whiskey Business on LinkedIn?

Dino Tripodis: [01:06:22] No. I haven’t touched—I wasn’t exaggerating. I’ve not touched that LinkedIn page in 20 years.

Peter Margaritis: [01:06:28] Yeah, you need to get that—could put that—you start promoting on LinkedIn, because that’s what-

Dino Tripodis: [01:06:30] I also have dinotripodis.com, which has been sitting idle on GoDaddy for 10 years.

Peter Margaritis: [01:06:35] But you still have it?

Dino Tripodis: [01:06:36] Oh, it’s mine. Yeah.

Peter Margaritis: [01:06:37] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [01:06:37] I pay for it every year. Just haven’t turned it on.

Peter Margaritis: [01:06:41] But you’re going to be turning it on.

Dino Tripodis: [01:06:42] Yes.

Peter Margaritis: [01:06:43] And put in the website with all your stuff.

Dino Tripodis: [01:06:45] All my stuff.

Peter Margaritis: [01:06:46] All your stuff.

Dino Tripodis: [01:06:47] That’s-

Peter Margaritis: [01:06:47] That’s you.

Dino Tripodis: [01:06:48] Then, I’m going to put the movies, the stand-up, the writings, the podcast. Yeah. Yeah. Dino Tripodis, you’ll be sick of me by the time it’s all said and done. But these are things that I— you know, this is my Achilles heel. These are the things that I’m not good at. I can sit at home and write all day long and create until the cows come home. But then, you know, everybody’s got a—you know, what do you have? For me, it’s the next step, you know. So, I need to get better at the next step.

Peter Margaritis: [01:07:23] Yeah. And I don’t think it’s going to be that big of a step. It’s just understanding some of the business aspect of professional speaking.

Dino Tripodis: [01:07:28] Well, that’s a huge step.

Peter Margaritis: [01:07:30] But I think the learning curve is going to be quicker than you anticipate.

Dino Tripodis: [01:07:34] Let’s hope.

Peter Margaritis: [01:07:34] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [01:07:34] Because I’m 60.

Peter Margaritis: [01:07:35] You’re 60. That runway is getting shorter. You got less room to take of like, “Oh, thanks. I appreciate that.”

Dino Tripodis: [01:07:43] Well, I remember I went to one of those—aside from the initial meeting where I saw you, I went to one of those workshops.

Peter Margaritis: [01:07:50] Pay To Speak.

Dino Tripodis: [01:07:51] Pay To Speak workshop.

Peter Margaritis: [01:07:52] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [01:07:52] And I remember the guy saying, you know, “Whatever you do now, you’ll have this—you’ll probably have it nailed down in 10 years.” I go, “Ten years? I don’t have 10 years.”

Peter Margaritis: [01:08:04] Well, yeah. But then, again, you’ve had more in the public eye.

Dino Tripodis: [01:08:07] Right.

Peter Margaritis: [01:08:07] You have much more versus some people who have been in the corporate world or who authors or trying to do this-

Dino Tripodis: [01:08:12] I like to think of the time I’ve spent in broadcasting and podcasting and stand-up and so forth— what is it when you get college credit, when you go back to school for life experience?

Peter Margaritis: [01:08:24] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [01:08:24] I like to think that I’ve accumulated, you know, at least five to seven years on that 10-year plan that he was talking about that I could put into play.

Peter Margaritis: [01:08:31] Yeah, I think you got a master’s degree level, just wanting to get to the PhD.

Dino Tripodis: [01:08:36] Yeah.

Peter Margaritis: [01:08:36] That’s all you got to do.

Dino Tripodis: [01:08:37] That’s all.

Peter Margaritis: [01:08:37] Just a PhD, because you’ve come from a lot, just clearly.

Dino Tripodis: [01:08:41] I would just, “Hey, just give me the bachelor’s at this point.” That would make my mother happy, because I never graduated from college. So, you know, that was always a sore spot with her. Thank God the queen did.

Peter Margaritis: [01:08:53] Oh, yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [01:08:54] Yeah. It’s the good child.

Peter Margaritis: [01:08:55] The good child. Yeah. The good child. Well, it’s great catching up. It’s great to have you on the podcast.

Dino Tripodis: [01:09:01] It’s been a pleasure, man.

Peter Margaritis: [01:09:02] And it’s a lot of fun. And like I told you this morning, I’ve known you for a while, but I learned a lot about you this morning doing the research and some of that we touched on, some of that, we haven’t. I’ll save that for the next time.

Dino Tripodis: [01:09:14] Save that for next time. When you said, “I did some research.” And I go, I was like, “I told you what? What did you find? Because I don’t pay any attention to that stuff.”

Peter Margaritis: [01:09:21] I mean, you had the—there were movie credits. The part, you know, I saw that you acted. And what was the one I was mentioning? Bottom Feeders.

Dino Tripodis: [01:09:29] Oh, the Bottom, ’90s crime epic, the Quentin Tarantino-like movie that wasn’t.

Peter Margaritis: [01:09:34] But there’s a big-name actor in that.

Dino Tripodis: [01:09:36] John Saxon.

Peter Margaritis: [01:09:37] Yeah. Yeah. And then, when I was digging around, I said, “Whoa, he’s co-produced on a number of things.”

Dino Tripodis: [01:09:42] Yeah, I have.

Peter Margaritis: [01:09:42] Then, I find out that you’ve got your whole production company.

Dino Tripodis: [01:09:45] Yeah.

Peter Margaritis: [01:09:45] And the one that drew—in 2017, I can’t remember, we were just talking about the movie. It’s on Amazon.

Dino Tripodis: [01:09:52] The one right now?

Peter Margaritis: [01:09:52] Yeah. Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [01:09:53] The S0treet Where We Live?

Peter Margaritis: [01:09:53] Yeah. That was filmed in Columbus.

Dino Tripodis: [01:09:55] Oh, yeah. Most of it in Clintonville.

Peter Margaritis: [01:09:57] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [01:09:57] Clintonville.

Peter Margaritis: [01:10:00] Easton.

Dino Tripodis: [01:10:00] No, that was our—that was the very first short film I did. I did The Funny Man.

Peter Margaritis: [01:10:04] Yeah, that’s right.

Dino Tripodis: [01:10:05] The Funny Man. There’s-.

Peter Margaritis: [01:10:06] That was in Easton. Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [01:10:06] That was guerrilla film-making at its best.

Peter Margaritis: [01:10:09] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [01:10:09] And we shot at Easton at nighttime after it was closed down.

Peter Margaritis: [01:10:12] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [01:10:12] Fountain scene. Yeah. Wow. That was forever ago, too.

Peter Margaritis: [01:10:16] Yeah. But yeah. That was filmed here in Central Ohio.

Dino Tripodis: [01:10:18] Oh, yeah. But the street where I live was filmed mostly, in the Clintonville, Grand View, and Upper Arlington area. And the factory that opens up the film was shot on the west side. And that factory has closed since then, which is kind of ironic, because this is about, you know, a film that takes place at the height of the recession when everything started to go south.

Peter Margaritis: [01:10:43] Yeah.

Dino Tripodis: [01:10:44] And that whole, you know, I’m two paychecks away from being out on the street.

Peter Margaritis: [01:10:47] Right.

Dino Tripodis: [01:10:48] And that’s what happens to this mom. And a single mom and her kids.

Peter Margaritis: [01:10:53] Yeah. I will give that a watch then, as well as the episode with your mom.

Dino Tripodis: [01:10:58] And everybody says, “When are you going to write something funny for the screen?” It’s like, funny’s harder.

Peter Margaritis: [01:11:04] Well, I mean, do the selective listening. That’s funny.

Dino Tripodis: [01:11:09] It is funny.

Peter Margaritis: [01:11:09] I mean, you had me in tears when you’re telling me.

Dino Tripodis: [01:11:11] But is it a whole movie? No.

Peter Margaritis: [01:11:12] No.

Dino Tripodis: [01:11:13] It’s a scene in a movie.

Peter Margaritis: [01:11:14] Yeah, but you can build around that.

Dino Tripodis: [01:11:16] Yeah. You got to start somewhere.

Peter Margaritis: [01:11:17] I mean, you could take your whole life story build as this—and that be the part of it or you-

Dino Tripodis: [01:11:25] I need to contact Ted Sarandos at Netflix and pitch it to him.

Peter Margaritis: [01:11:31] There you go.

Dino Tripodis: [01:11:31] And then, yeah. Just give him a buzz.

Peter Margaritis: [01:11:32] Just give you a buzz.

Dino Tripodis: [01:11:33] His family is from Chios. That’s close.

Peter Margaritis: [01:11:35] That’s close.

Dino Tripodis: [01:11:35] Yeah, right.

Peter Margaritis: [01:11:35] It’s in Greece. He’s Greek. You know, there’s Greeks everywhere.

Dino Tripodis: [01:11:40] Yeah. So, yeah, I’ll pitch that to him as either a drama or comedy, whatever you want. Either one of them, both.

Peter Margaritis: [01:11:46] Cool.

Dino Tripodis: [01:11:47] All right, man. I’ve taken up enough of your time.

Peter Margaritis: [01:11:49] Oh, no, it’s Monday. I think I’m going to take a nap now.

Dino Tripodis: [01:11:53] Yeah, see, 42 minutes.

Peter Margaritis: [01:11:54] 42 minutes. Yeah. Thanks, Dino.

Dino Tripodis: [01:11:57] Thank you, Peter.

Peter Margaritis: [01:12:00] I would like to thank Dino for his time in sharing his wisdom, stories, and humor with us. I hope you all take time and reflect on, we are the sum of our experiences. How will you begin to change your mindset and let go of that past baggage that hold you back? This does not happen overnight and you have to work on it every single day. Thank you for listening. And if you enjoyed the podcast, please take a moment and leave a review on iTunes or whatever platform you download your podcast from. Also, please subscribe and share this episode with a friend. Make today and every day your best day.

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