Lessons From a Comic
Marklyn T. Johnson Author/Comic/Host/Motivational Public Speaker
Marklyn T. Johnson Born and raised in central New Jersey, he lived in Minneapolis, Minnesota from 2005-2014 before returning to New Jersey. A graduate of the Connecticut School of Broadcasting, Marklyn has worked in the production industry for over twenty years.
Growing up, Marklyn idolized many different men. His first idol was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. that’s usually the first big name outside of Jesus that many learn in their home. As he got older, Marklyn idolized Michael Jackson, Eddie Murphy, Michael Jordan and Tupac Shakur.
Marklyn’s greatest idol was his father, Willie. When he looks back on his life, Marklyn regrets ignoring the life lessons his father taught him. However, when he thinks about the man he’s become today, the way he tells it like it is, the way he tries to lift others up, and his willingness to help others, he is reminded that these are all his father’s teachings. Often times as kids, we take our fathers for granted and don’t take the time to really understand those lessons.
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Marlana
Marklyn T Johnson is an author, comic host and motivational speaker. Growing up he idolized many different men from Dr. Martin Luther King to Michael Jordan and Tupac Shakur. But Marklyn's greatest idol was his father Willie when he looks back on his life. Marklyn regrets ignoring the life lessons his father taught him. However, when he thinks about the man he's become today, the way he tells it like it is the way he tries to lift others up. And his willingness to help. He's reminded that these are all his father's teachings. Welcome Marklin.
Marklyn
Hey, how are you doing today?
Marlana
Good. So, tell us a little bit about you. What was it like growing up?
Marklyn
I grew up in Scotch Plains, New Jersey. I would say I had one of the best childhoods ever. I was a problem kid meaning like I was a pain not behind consistently a pain in the butt. misplaced energy, misplaced thoughts, misplaced ideas. I think a lot of kids are not traditional learners. books, books to me were whatever. I'm more of a hands-on type of person. Like, I could show you a video really quick of my own entire studio that I put together and built on my own. You know, and I don't say that to brag. Just I looked up the information how to do it. And I did it. And I people are still astonished when it comes down here like, so you really built a studio? And like, yeah, you know, it's, it's, you can see it really quick here with the, the two screens. And if I go that way, you can see the multiple, the multiple microphones, there's a green screen, there's a green screen room over there. And as an audio booth over there in front of me. So, I built this whole thing out. And I'm self-taught. And it's I think, I got that from my upbringing in Scotch Plains, because Scotch Plains is like a blue collar, you know, blue collar town, a lot of guys, nose to the grind nose to the ground or whatever, nose to the stone or whatever they say, and get the work done. And I think a lot of people miss that. In order for you to do it, you have to find what you're good at. Yeah, in order to put your nose to the stone and work. Because it's one thing when you do something you don't like, because you're told that that's what you got to do. But it's another thing when you decide I'm going to work, and I'm going to put my effort in. And not only am I going to put my effort in, but I’m also gonna make it make it a go.
Marlana
So, would you say, you know growing up that your parents were supportive of you, or were they hard on you? Or
It was both? I think what a lot of people don't understand. And I believe this wholeheartedly. My parents were from the segregated south, my mom, my dad was born in 33. My mom was born and thirty-eight. When I say this, people take it offensively and I go, but you understand my parents were from the segregated south, raising a kid in a majority white town. They carried a lot of that mentality along with them. Sure. So, they were very overprotective. And they were also extra scrutiny because it's like, look, as a Black man, you're not gonna get the same breaks as white kids. And you know, you've got to work double as hard. And for me, honestly, why the F? I don't know if I can swear it out. But why the F? Do I need to work double hard? He's an idiot. Like, I'm an idiot. Do you know what I mean? Because growing when you grew up around people, what you think is being depicted is not what you see, because you see them as a kid. You see that kid just as crazy as you are? Right? So, my parents were hard on me as a black boy, and I was their only child. So, they were there. And my mom said to me one time she goes; we were overly protective of you. We should have been, you know, we should have let you go a little bit more. And I say that it's hurt me in the long run because I had to take calculated chances versus if your parents aren't over protective, which is weird. I think the story I was telling you about one of my friends that I just stopped talking to her parents weren't over protected. So, from the time she was 14, she was taking a train into the city and going to clubs. You know what I mean? Yeah. Which my parents would have flipped out. What do you mean, you went to the city? What do you mean, you went to the city by yourself? And you're hanging out with all these, like, you know what I mean, right? It's so I always say my parents did the best job they could with what they knew. And I turned out well, I don't I'm not in jail yet. always a plus. Not in jail. Yeah, you know, I haven't been Alright, I don't have any out of wed kids. You know, like some guys are like, I've got 20 kids. I know I have no kids hiding anywhere. I love the fact that my parents raised me the way they did. I, I'm slowly trying to get out of the calculated chances, and move myself into, I've got to take a chance and everywhere I can go.
Marlana
So how do you make that mental flip, it's hard.
Marklyn
I had to quit my job in December, which again, we were speaking about it before I'm my back's up against the wall. The only way I'm gonna get out of it is if I find a job in production, I could literally put a put my I could put my resume out there and get an IT job.
Marlana
I wouldn't be happy, right?
It is not where I shine. I do shine as a host. I shine as a comic, I shine, you know, doing production work. Yesterday, I was helping a guy in a city. And I'm trying to explain to him like you want this look, because this look looks different. You know, and I'm trying to explain it to him, you're telling a story. But visually this is. So, I see. And it's funny. One of the guys that is a mentor to me, he said, You're either a comic and a producer's body, or you're a producer in a comics body. Don't give either one of those up, because either way, you're really good. You know, and it's true. I am pretty good at production naturally. And that's what he said, he goes, most people have been in this industry for years and can't do what you do. And you're still doing it with without a hiccup. And it's now as a producer, I gotta find money so I can produce my own projects.
Marlana
You know, it's interesting to me, though, because comics. When you are out on stage, you are taking all kinds of risks and chances. Yeah, so it's interesting to me that you were, I'm gonna use the word sheltered. I don't know if that's really the right word, but you were protected your parents, but you chose to make that kind of a decision to go out and take those comedic risks and be seen in that way.
I don't it I say this, and I am. I'm actually writing my third book as we speak. If you're an outspoken man of color, corporate America is one of the hardest elements to be in. It's not welcomed. You can be a woman outspoken; you can be gay and outspoken. You can be transgendered and outspoken in corporate America. For some reason, it's not seen as a threat. Black men that are outspoken and have outspoken personalities are seen as threats. And they're not welcomed in the corporate environment. This has been my experience. Most of the people that are successful in corporate America that are people of color are very quiet, head down and get the job done. You work 10 hours; I work 24 hours. For me. I couldn't do that. Because I found no joy. I'm giving you all my time for peanuts. Great to see that check. Let me tell you, right now, I wish I was in corporate America and get in the chat. Trust me on that one. But it's not. It's not very conducive. If you have an outgoing personality, it's very limited, it's very, when we decided you're going to move up that ladder, you'll move up that ladder. And when you're when you know, you can outwork your coworkers when you know you're smarter, and I don't care who you are, this piece goes about goes beyond color barriers, gender barriers, whatever, when you know you're smarter than your coworker, but your coworkers getting promoted, because your coworker is kissing the boss's behind, or because they're friends outside of work. So, he's looking out for him more than he's looking out for you that I have a problem with that. You know what I mean? And I think it's, for me, I've always had the entrepreneurial spirit, but I didn't know how to bring it out. And I had to bring it out by becoming a comic. And part of it is not everybody's gonna put me on a stage, I got to create stages for myself. So, I get on air. So, I will not on air so I can get on stage, and I can present my comedy. So that creates the entrepreneurial production side of my brain, you know, okay, let's, let's figure out how we're going to make this work.
Marlana
So, talk to me a little bit about that. How, how do you create stages for yourself?
You really go to venues you I did it the other day, and you talk to bar owners’ places with stages. You just say hey, I want to do a show. And these are the people I want to do a show with. I want to host it. I did a show at a brewery last, You're eight shows at a brewery. And I had fun. And the best part about it was the guy that hired me said, Dude, I can see a difference from the start to the last show, you have grown exponentially. But that's also because I was doing stages. Other places. I had at that point, I had attained a weekend pass at Broadway Comedy Club in New York City, because I had tried out for what they call the industry room, which if you pass, if you get the industry room, it's an internship for two months, where they just throw you at different shows. And I was in the guy, the guy gives you a critique of your performance. And he goes, stage presents perfect. Confidence, perfect. You know how you're, you know, what you're doing up there, you're not fumbling around trying to figure out and he goes, you just have to learn how to write better jokes. And not that my jokes weren't there. But jokes comes in threes. So, I would say a line, maybe another line, and then I would walk away. Or I would say a joke. That's funny. But technically speaking, if you look at the audience, it doesn't work. You know, I'm telling a joke that someone from the 1970s would recognize what a kick, but if majority of people in our audience are from the 80s, they wouldn't know. Got it. So, it's been able to adjust the and understand that. And part of that is writing and looking and observing, because that's what you do as a comic, you're observing. So, as you're observing, you're looking and you're saying, Oh, this is a 20s. Crowd, same joke. Just alternate the names that you're putting in the joke, huh?
Marlana
And in there, you were saying, okay, look, my brain went into a different direction only because you were saying that perhaps this crowd, you're prepared for this crowd. But it turns out to be a different crowd. Let's talk about failure for a minute. How do you view failures?
The thing about comedy is you have to be ready to fail. Um, honestly, when I go into a black room, I really don't have, and I hate to say black room and urban room. I'm not really an urban comic. My style is not built for urban. That's not my voice. So, I know I'm not going to get as much laughter. But I don't care. Because that, you know, when they say steel sharpens steel, that's what that is. It sharpens you. It teaches you Okay, when I'm in this audience, these, and you gotta listen, because the party, people think comics talk a lot. We do because we've been trained to talk. But we also listen. Because if somebody says something during our set that we think we can roll with. We've got to be ears open. Oh, what did you say? Oh, let me go there. You just gave me cue for something else. So, it's when I go into an urban room, I'm listening. What jokes did they like? Okay, how can I get to these jokes quicker and emphasize them and put them out there? You know, it's if you don't fail in comedy, den, you're not a comic. Every comic fails, every comic literally takes an L. And what I love about comedy is, first of all, the funniest comics are not the comics that you see on the grandest stage. And if you believe that for your listeners that are listening, if you believe the funniest comics are the comics that you see on stage presented in front of you know, those comics are the most marketable. There was something about them that was marketable on a bigger stage. Your funniest comics are the people that are grinding it out night and day, night and day, and they're writing from their perspective. They don't Kevin, big, I don't have anything against Kevin Hart. Kevin Hart has writers. So, he's an actor at this point, give him the material. he rehearses it enough times and owns it, and it's his material. When you want to know what real comics do real comics are in Utah for two days, telling jokes to a bunch of mornings. The next day, they're in North Carolina, telling jokes to a bunch of Bible Belt people, same jokes. Those are the guys that are the funniest, because they're not doing preprogrammed stuff versus, they're constantly writing and they're constantly in front of different audiences all the time. It's a different animal, and they've got to suck it up if they get booed off the stage.
Marlana
So, let's just say you have a couple of those ELLs in a row. How do you not let it affect you?
Where you give up? I wrote a book lessons from a shit talker. Are you kidding me? I was born and raised to talk shit. That's what I like literally We I realized one thing about me is, I'm at my best as a host when I'm just talking smack with people. You know, like, that's just it's, you can't let the negativity of a failure stop you from where you're going. And that's one of the lessons I teach, when I'm doing motivational speaking is, if you're not failing, you're not learning. You're not You're not You're not achieving what you want. Athletes fail. Yep. When you see an athlete, when you see an athlete that can pull off a perfect play, they failed at that play 25 million times. And it's funny, Michael Jordan is who's like my all-time favorite, like basketball player ever. He always says he does this commercial about how many shots he's made. I've seen a commercial, you only care about the shots he's made. But he's missed more shots than he's made. We glorify like, as, again, as a comic, you glorify the comics that are put in front of you, as these are the guys that we want to market to you. But you're not giving credit to these comics that are grinding it out in some of these comics are barely making four figures. And what I mean by that is, they might be making money, but hey, we'll pay you 300 for the night. Hey, we'll pay you 200 for the night, you know, they still got a jobs. But their night job, they've got to be on point, they gotta be funny. And when you get the worry about comedy and comedy only, it's easier to be funny and have less of a fail night. But the quickest way in comedy you get used to it, you do open mics. Because they open mic, every comics heard every joke. So, if they've heard every joke, they're not laughing at you. So, you got to sit there for five to seven minutes in a room full of silence. Silence, absolute silence, and still tell your jokes still keep your rhythm. You know, you've done something special when you're a roomful of comics, and you've got them laughing because you're so in your rhythm. And I've had that happen a handful of times, where guys were like, oh my god, that was really good. It wasn't that I was good. I hit rhythm, and comedies rhythm like a song. Taught punch line, talk, punch line, talk, punch line, talk, talk, talk punch line. When you get that rhythm, and everything you say is on a click. Even comics have to give you your credit, like every five to six every five to eight seconds. Even if it's a slight chuckle it's laughter because that's your job is to make them laugh.
Marlana
Hmm. What how do you know, you mentioned people like Kevin Hart who have writers for them? How do you go forward in a career like comedy and still keep it yours?
Here's the best part about comedy. My stage name is Mr. Direct. Ma my stick when I'm introduced is the next comment coming to the stage as a real sugar honey and iced tea talker. You looked a little shocked when I said the actual word. So, I'll spell it out for you this time. But it's like so much so he wrote a book lessons from a sugar honey and iced tea talker. Right? That automatically puts the set up that I am literally going to be talking smack. That's it. So, I've already created that element of that's what I do. So now when I go on stage, I've because I've already set that expectation, I can now start going at it. And I use my material that I use like I one of the best jokes I tell is I like I like crazy women. I like crazy bipolar unmedicated white women. Thank you, little house, on a prairie. You don't remember Nellie Olson. Oh yeah, they didn't have anything about mental health issues back then. Doc Baker didn't know about mental health. Do you remember episode two-episode season three episode two she fell off her horse and she faked being paralyzed with too tight for like a two-hour special. Right? Yeah, there was no MRIs. There was no cat scans. They had to take a needle and poke it in your leg. If you could fake that. You're nuts. Yeah, I knew at that point. That was my girl. Right? And that when I tell that joke, the people our age because I think you and I are probably close in age. They laugh because here's a black man on stage telling Little House on the Prairie has affected his dating life. It's the ridiculousness of it. And that's how you come up with jokes. No, I mean, I love Little House on the Prairie. But for me, the funny part is really that I knew it was season three, episode two, and I gave you the details. She fell off a horse named bunny. And I knew doc Baker. You know, like, I know, like, I'm saying it and I'm naming it all. And when I tell that joke, it's funny to see people being like, it's not that he likes crazy bipolar. unmedicated white women. He knew every character in little house owner Perry. Yeah, no, I mean, that is where my joke is. It's not that I date crazy women. That joke kills, you know, because people literally, and then I back it up with funniest part is I got to interview the lady that played Natalie. And she laughed, because he was like, how's this black guy know, every character on the show? And again, it's funny. Yeah. Because you wouldn't be looking at me and hearing me, you would not assume I know every character. But that's where the humor comes from. It comes from within, it comes from within the jokes like, to be honest with you now. A Will Smith joke has had comedy. Because it's one thing when it happens in one community, and only a certain community is talking about it. It's another thing when everybody is talking about it, it loses its, its punch. Yeah. So, if you use it, you got to be able to use it to where no one else can pull into it. Like, oh, I didn't see that coming. That's why comedy is such a beautiful art. It's the only art I get to tell you what an idiot you are with laughter. And nine times out of 10 You're gonna agree, because you did something idiotic to make me make that comment. I just put it out to the world. That Yeah, they did.
Marlana
So, what does this look like to you going forward?
I have one more book I'm going to put out and with my, I've turned on. This kind of looks in a way of I'm an author, which I would have never figured I was an author but I'm a two-time author now. Um, I want to travel and do comedy at night, and I want to do public speaking during the day. I want to motivate people, adults, kids or whoever. I have such a unique style. I have a no I have a no frills. I don't care. Um, when I spoke about Will Smith, I said it's upsetting me watching black women. Okay, that behavior and their defenses you should know not to talk about a black woman's hair. You know, he did a he did a documentary about black women's hair. And I go, do you not know if we're doing if we're doing that finding, that's more material for us to tell jokes. Like as comics, our fact finding is jokes. If you are having a birthday party, and I'm having a conversation with you, I'm like, tell me about your life. I'm digging for jokes. Right? Same thing with him. And I realized that there's space for someone that doesn't care. Because really, it's not black and white. It's that this world is crazy. And if you look at it from a different perspective, men do crazy things. Women do crazy things. Black people do crazy things. Asian people do crazy things. We all do. But we're all scared of hearing someone say it, because automatically that person is misogynistic, sexist, racist. And it's like, no, I'm telling you because it's an observation, like my news feed is different. I always tell people jugs based on black people and white people, right? My black people were like, That's right. He stood up for his wife, by white people were like, oh my god, I cannot believe that. He slapped Chris Rock in the face. Someone calls the cops right now. My black people. Why do you mean punch him in the face? Oh my god, he didn't defend themselves. White people, such a class act. Look at the way he took a punch. And people could get mad about that. You know, that, you know, observation, but it's factual. And I love the fact that my observations are based on factuality, that's what comedy is. And if we're too hypersensitive that we can't laugh at ourselves. Comedy will die. You have to laugh at yourself. But outside of that takeaway that take away the comedy aspect. If you can't respect the fact This is the way somebody sees you, based on their observation from the outside. There's a problem with you at your core. Nobody is above scrutiny. I'm not above scrutiny. I've done so much bad stuff and what I mean by bad stuff, bad decisions, not making the right choices moving in directions I shouldn't have. And I only have myself to blame. I can't blame my dead parents. I can't blame ex-girlfriends. Okay, this one ex-girlfriend, I could blame but that's a different story. But I can't blame anyone but myself. But that comes to a point of maturity of understanding that I'm in control of what happens. I chose to leave my job. I'm choosing to fly to Miami twice a month now to do comedy shows. You know, it's choices. And I think a lot of people fail to look at choices.
Marlana
Yeah. Going forward. You said you're a motivational speaker. How do you motivate the people that you speak to into not getting down on themselves how to or talk to me about your how you motivate people?
Lesson number one let's take a real factual inventory of your life. Let's not be as each other. Let's talk about what's your factual inventory is going on. Let's once we take that, what do you want to achieve? Right, write it down. Now that you wrote it down, what are the five things you can do to get to that? Now that you know the five things you can do, what's the easiest thing you can do to start today? Okay, so now you know, you can do this, what's stopping you from doing it? Okay, that's an excuse, it's a viable excuse. What's the next thing on your list you can do? Okay, take away what you want to achieve. Let's break down one of those five of what you want to do and figure out how you can get to it. For instance, I love talking about comedy, because comedy is the ultimate of you have to make a sacrifice to get to it. When I started doing comedy, for real, I would go to an open mic once a week, and missed off because I'm like, I'm not getting any better. Then I moved home to New Jersey, and still, and then somebody was like, Well, you know, you should be going to New York, I didn't think about going in and out of New York, then I got a job in New York doing production. Production was running slow. So, because production was running slow. I started doing mics three times a week, nope, sorry, three times a day, six days a week. And because I had pretty good money coming in Saturdays, I would go in again, and do more. So, Monday through Friday, two to three a day, Saturday, Sunday, I would rest. It became so much cyclical work. My friends that saw me were like, you're a problem. And I was like, What do you mean? You got good, fast. And I told him what I was doing. And I said, well, one, I have a job that enables me to go to, you know, three times a day. And that's my goal. That's what I want to work back towards. I want to be able to go to Mike's three times a day again, that's my old like, I was never happier than being able to do my x three times a day. That's an when I say don't regret. Don't talk about the regret. I do say when people ask me, it's that I didn't do this when I was younger when I could have. I could have made it to the city. I could have been doing my extreme If I knew, but I didn't know because everybody was telling me to shut the hell up. Right? But now that's what I want to because for me, the wrist, you know, constantly going, constantly doing it constantly going, constantly doing it. When you get it in your blood and you're doing it and you're cyclical and your timing is you're a problem. Because now all these other guys that are doing a mic a day, a mic a couple of times a week, they see you on the stage at their mics. And they're like, wow, like this guy's good. It hurts you sometimes because they don't want to put you on shows because they know you're gonna outshine him which I'm sorry. as much of a sugar honey and iced tea talker. I am outshine the average everyday comic because I relate to the audience on a level they can't. When they see me coming out, they assume I'm the urban guy. They hear my voice and they're like, he's not urban at all. But then when I start talking smack, they're like, hold on. So, it's not urban. It's not the other way. He's just another level of that's what he does. And that's how I geared myself. So, I look at it as In a bigger picture, I know that I have motivated myself that I want to be a traveling comic. If somebody calls me up and says Hollywood is here for you, because I've had people compliment me and say, Wow, you're good, you're not great, but you're good. If I could, I can't even say, I, I don't feel at home unless I'm on stage. Right now, because of budgeting and everything. I can't be on stage every day. I feel at home when I'm on stage. I feel alive. And I tell everybody, I posted a picture the other day, I had a microphone in my hand. And then I put it on the bed next to me. So, like I was waking up to it. And I was like, this is the only woman that ever understood me. And only comics understood it. Like, I'm there. When I'm on this mic. I'm alive. I'm ready. When I'm not there. I'm just like, this is boring.
Marlana
Yeah. So let me ask you this, if people get nothing else out of this episode, what you want them to walk away with,
follow your dreams. Believe in yourself. The problem that we have is we set our dreams up so high, that sometimes we don't believe we're achieving the dreams while we're doing. You know, I'm not going to be happy unless I'm a world-famous actress. But your friend calls you and says I love you. I've got YouTube series that I want to start, and I've got all the money, you're not going to be rich, you can maintain your main job. But this is going to be a YouTube series and I'm going to put you in it. Oh, I've only done a YouTube series. So, what you get to act, you get to do some acting, don't you? Oh, I want to be a world-famous chef. Okay, you start doing a chef and everybody in your town loves your cooking. So, you open up a restaurant. And now everyone loves you're cooking, and you're getting paid and you're making a nice lifestyle. You get it to you open up two restaurants. But nobody knows me outside of my area. You're two restaurants deep. You're respected in your community. Maybe the globe wasn't meant for you. But if you keep reaching, maybe the next thing is your franchise, and you allow people to open these up in other states. Does that mean you're world famous? No. But because you never gave up you still achieved what you want it.
Marlana
If that mark, then I just have four final questions for you. First one, what's the best piece of advice you're ever given?
Believe in yourself. If you call yourself a comic, be a comic.
Marlana
Share with this one thing on your bucket list.
I honestly would like to get married once. I would like to find a woman. And I hate to say fine, because it looks like I'm searching and trust me I've been searching. And I don't say that in an arrogant way. I just given up search. And it's just they're married. They're crazy. Or they're angry.
Marlana
Or they're named Nellie.
Or they're named Nellie Olson. There you go. I would honestly love if I found a woman who I absolutely got along with. And we just enjoyed each other's company. And it wasn't a struggle. And it wasn't arguments about craziness. And we just agreed that we bring out the best in each other and let's make this work.
Marlana
When the toy companies finally get around to making an action figure of you what two accessories will it come with?
You it's gotta have a button in a bat. That just drops the F bomb and MF bomb, and s were like it's just got to drop them all the time. Like my MFN Mr. Direct because that's my stage name. You know what I mean? Or it just constantly says F when you prostate fu y. I know it sounds harsh to your listeners probably like oh my god, he's out there. But it's just such a true thing because we all I don't care if you go to church every week. We all know the one friend who's probably the most craziest lunatic friend but you love them because he or she is so authentic. The F bomb just drops to them like drinking water. And that's me. I mean, I regulated myself here, but I love the F bomb. I think if more people dropped the F bombs, we'd have less crazy people in the world.
Marlana
Last one, how do people find you?
You can well if you go to Amazon, you can find both of my books. Less than so much sugar honey and iced tea talker. And Facebook conversations the good the funny the ugly. Those are on Amazon. spell out the name if you can't find the book spell out Marklin ma RK LYNT period Johnson J Li Chen s o n. If you put that into search in Amazon, you will find the books there. You can find me on Instagram underneath Mr. direct m I s t e r di r e c t I also have a comedy page Mr. Direct comedy mis t er Dir. AECT. Colm Edy Mr. Direct comedy. You're in North Carolina, I got a family in North Carolina. I'm considering figuring a way I want to do an Eastern board tour. In December, I did my own. I headlined my own show. And I did 30 minutes. Oh, I could look, you could tell I could talk forever. Yeah, that's so good. I can. Pretty soon within a year, I've had this dream of doing a, I have this dream of doing a one man show. And it's part comedy. It's parts. factual, about you know, what happened when I when Brock was elected and seeing a lot of people, I respected saying wild stuff about him, and not realizing how racism was playing into a part of it. Also pursuing the dream. And you know, of being a comic and how I fell into it. People hear me and see my writing and being like, why aren't you on stage doing? Because you're funny. And I was more so pushed to doing comedy than I just wanted to do it. But I fell in love with it. So, there's that. And yeah, if you go to Facebook, you can find me underneath Marklin Scotch Plains. Here's the warning to you. Oh, and I have a podcast. Mr. directs Sunday coffee. Yes, Mr. Direct Sunday coffee. Am I s t er, Dir? EC tsun da y Co. Ff E is how you spell coffee
Marlana
Corp? Yes.
I don't know. Because you see how I say coffee instead of actually see Oh, cuz you're from Jersey? Exactly. And I know, it sounds like I've got a lot of things. But anybody that knows anything about entertainment business, you have you dip your hat in the different areas. You know, I I'm working on a marketing thing for my book, I would love for my book to go top ten on Amazon. Just because Amazon is the best way for someone to self-promote, self promote. But also, Amazon's the best way for you to publish your own works. Because you don't have to do a book. You could do a six-page leaflet and sell it for ninety-nine cents. You're not I mean, if you market that leaflet for ninety-nine cents, and you're not trying to make if you market it to let's say you market it out to the Midwest, and you sell 100,000 of them at 99 sets. You made $100,000 Right. You know it's Amazon's a wonder if you know what you're doing? Well,
Marlana
hopefully, all of that will happen for you. I will make sure all that stuff is in the show notes. So, people can find it more easily. And I hope I get to see in person one of these days.
If you ever decide to go to Miami, shoot me an email. And I will tell you the dates that I'm going to be in there and I'll do I do a show twice a month on Sundays. So, I fly out Saturday morning stay off the spirit airline. Spirit airline will steal your Spirit. Oh, my first Do you realize if you take a carry on, they charge you $75 For carry on? No, my so you get your backpack, right? If you want an extra bag $75 Oh, my. So, if you're going round trip, which I take a change of clothes because I'm there for two days, three. I've got to bring an extra bag with me. $75 150 So whatever I get paid for doing the show. Just got eaten up by 150 round trips.
Marlana
Wow. Right?
They charge you to go to the bathroom. But they charge you to flush. Now imagine going to the bathroom and the guy came back you didn't flush because he didn't have change to flush. Now I'm just joking with you. That's a joke. I have to tell them, and it kills the look on your faces like they charge you to go to the bathroom. Did you ever see the movie with Kevin Hart Soul Plane? If you ever get a chance to watch it, that spirit airline, literally that Spirit Airlines, just the Nicoma
Marlana
in my head. I'm thinking I have to fly in about 30 days, but it's on delta. So
the happy is delta because at least you know you're gonna get to your destination
Marlana
crazy stuff.
But thank you so much. I appreciate this. This was fun. Oh,
Marlana
thank you so much for being here.
I'm sorry that I talk as much as I do. It's what I do
Marlana
know it's all good.
And if you guys ever want to find me on Facebook Marklin Scotch Plains Mar Okay, Li N Scotch a ce o tch like scotch tape plains PL AI NS Marklin Scotch Plains, you can add me, but um, I had a guy just add me in I used to date his ex-wife so I couldn't add them back.
Marlana
Okay then
I'm just saying, Be careful when you add me if I know somebody that's in your clique, it's gonna make me a little nervous, like, I don't know if I should do that.
Marlana
Alright, thanks, Marklyn.
thank you so much. I appreciate you.