About

About Benny Mailman

Benny Mailman was born in Green Bay, Wisconsin on January 8th, 1970. He weighed just over 3 pounds, having arrived a bit early. He jokes that he felt an urgency to spread Love. The truth is that, from the get go, he was forced into being a fighter and a survivor. Determination would underscore his every endeavor and he constantly pushed himself to be the best he could possibly be. Benny’s best was most often the middle of the pack, a place Benny found to be a great observational point for both the top and bottom of society.

 

Benny grew up in Milwaukee, attending Saint Alexanders Catholic School through grade 3. When pressed on his Milwaukee years, Benny brings up the day he set off a bank alarm, while his mother was applying for a loan. He says that he saw a white button, which was eye level for him. He thought it was for a light and pushed it a dozen times. All the doors locked, no one in, no one out. After the swat team checked everything out and found nothing, they asked Benny if he had pushed that button. “Yes, like 15 times but nothing happened.”

In 1979, Benny moved to Cataract, Wisconsin. Here, at age 9 he began a new and difficult life of living the farm life. Benny’s parents had chosen a sustainable living by building a log cabin and heating it with wood in the winter. That meant many hours listening to a loud chainsaw cut trees into smaller pieces. Benny and his siblings threw the wood in the truck. The next step was unloading the truck, splitting the wood, and stacking it. Benny was not a fan of this difficult work, but he did it. A massive garden was tended to by his brother Joe, sister Melanie, and himself. Benny was in charge of the potatoes. Benny often talks about how his brother was in charge of the tomatoes and had a cannon for an arm, and threw with deadly accuracy. Benny recalls having braces and being hit in the face with tomatoes, on the regular. He remembers picking tomato bits out from his braces… not a great feeling, according to his recollection. With a farm comes animals and a lot of shoveling poo. Benny laughs as he remembers that whoever behaved the worst of the siblings was forced to shovel out the poo from the chicken coop… the worst.

Benny was skinny and his front teeth stuck out like a rake. With the last name Mailman, it was hard for him to fit in, and often he got punched and pushed. So, in 5th grade he made the decision to win over everybody’s admiration through comedy and pure shenanigans. While a teacher was reading in class, Benny set off a firecracker in class… mission complete. In his senior year he would win the title of class clown, something he wears as a badge of honor to this day. Through determination to not be discarded, he had indeed found his place… the middle.

During his Senior year, Benny signed up with the Marines. On July 11th, 1988, days after attending an Iron Maiden concert at Alpine Valley, Benny Mailman was on an airplane to San Diego, California for Marine Corps boot camp. He would serve with 10th Marines at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina before finishing his last two and a half years in Okinawa, Japan. While with the recon unit in Okinawa Benny had visited South Korea, the Philippines, and was even in mainland Japan, in Misawa, when his niece Megan was born in November of 1991. Benny values his Marine Corps years, but his soul needed to be set free, and in May of 1992, he was out of the Corps, honorably.

Benny then went on to attend and graduate from the University of Wisconsin La Crosse, majoring in Communications and minoring in public relations. He was a mall security guard for a few years during college and also worked security for many concerts at Alpine Valley, in East Troy, Wisconsin. His favorite concerts to work were the Oz Fest events.

In the year 2000, Benny found himself pursuing a life in comedy in Las Vegas, Nevada. He took up classes with Second City Improv. Benny rode the Bike Taxi to make money for his dream pursuing. Eventually Benny would end up in New York City, where he lived with a Dominican family in Washington Heights, on 164th street. Here he honed his comedic stand-up act before moving to Los Angeles. After a couple of tough years in LA, Benny fell in love with Denver, Colorado and moved there. It was in Denver that Benny decided to go on the big journey, bringing us to this point.

Benny currently lives in Siem Reap, Cambodia. He has been there for over 5 years, and has been married to his wife Vicheka, for 3 of those years. He is currently working on the audio for Book 1, and the release of Book 2 later this year.