Transcript of #685 - Joey Diaz New

He's a legendary comedian, podcaster, and friend. You know him from the Church of What's Happening Now. He's gonna be popping up in Austin more too, it looks like. Uh, I had a great time catching up with the great Joey Coco Diaz.

Shine on me and I will find a song I've been singing.

Good to see you.

What'd you end up doing last night? Did you go to watch Burr?

No, I didn't. They got some guy freaking had a stroke over there in the audience or whatever. Some guy who fucking couldn't hold it or whatever had a heart attack. And then, uh, and they had to start the show an hour late. So I was gonna stop over there because I'm staying right over by, um, Gotham Comedy Club on 23rd. 22nd, 23rd.

How long you in town for?

Till Monday. I'm gonna go to the US Open.

Okay.

I never been before.

It's a blast.

You been?

No, 'cause I don't wanna sit there going like this.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But if the cops come, that's my answer, right?

But it's a great time. It's good to go up there. A lot of bitches.

Really?

A lot of bitches looking for fucking husbands. 'Cause one of my friends hit me up, so I'm going over. US Open, wish me luck to find a husband, so.

Oof. Yeah, so I'm excited about that. But dude, I was walking around here, dude, I saw that somebody drew us Tony Hinchcliffe on a building here. Do you see that?

No.

Here in Asbury— Asbury is what this is called?

Yeah, Asbury Park.

Asbury Park, is that it? Look at that shit.

Is that Tony Hinchcliffe?

For sure.

I don't think so.

Oh, that's him for sure. That's gotta be him, dude. Do you know, uh, you know Bam Bam Bigelow's from here?

Bam Bam, the wrestler?

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, somebody's from—

Did you ever meet him?

No. Oh no.

Yeah, that's him right there. That guy's from here. I had no idea.

Wow, and he's older than I am. That guy, he dead.

Oh, he could have fucking faked it. His name was Scott.

That's a tough career being a wrestler, guys.

Yeah, because imagine it's basically like being a comedian, but when you get there, you gotta fight something. Like, imagine you get on stage and you gotta fight somebody for a half hour.

I'm not even worried about— I'm worried about getting there and then like, oh, tonight you're bombing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I don't know, tonight you're bombing and somebody's gonna throw a chair on your head. Okay, I feel better about myself.

That's true, dude. Fuck, bro. Yeah, a lot of my friends are at Burning Man actually this week, man. Did you ever go?

Are you fucking crazy? You don't go to that deal. Don't get involved in that. That's Ugly people and all that pussy skankin'.

You think?

4 or 5 days without washing it, puttin' it in a hole, not eatin' right, no vitamins, out in the desert with sand crawlin' in your uterus. That ain't no good for your snatch, dog. Dirty, filthy white chicks. Those are filthy white chicks, bro. 20 years ago, I'd be over there eatin' ass and gettin' my dick sucked, but now I'm too old. One of those diseases catches you, right? You end up with Lyme disease or something goin' to fuckin' bitches up there.

Oh, dude, I'll get— bro, I'll get Lyme disease in my lungs, dude, shit I'm into, you know.

Those people crazy. They're at 6 in the morning, they're out there. Damn, what are we— there's a war going on and you want to dance in the desert? Come on, bro. Fucking, how lost are you?

Somebody will have an anthill in their ass out there, dude. It's a lot, bro. You get the dust on it and you'll see like one of those, like a woman will have an IUD in, but it's like a dreamcatcher version or whatever. It's like they got some wild shit out there.

Yeah, they got shit to catch a boar.

Yeah.

And they snatch it, but boar wants to go, it fucking stops it.

Oh yeah.

No, you don't ever want to go to that.

You're trying to maintain a They'll have a falcon doing tarot cards and shit. They got people on all kinds of shit out there.

And they're all rich.

Yeah.

They're all rich. They're all trust funders. Don't believe the hype.

Yeah, it's like going to a fancy club, but they move it out to the desert.

That's what it is. That's all it is.

For the regular junkie that's out there who took his bike out there, who drove, freaking rode 200 miles from Laughlin to get over there or something, that motherfucker is gonna have a tough time, I think. You know, they'll have a caterpillar out there, like, uh, you know, like doing a Ouija board and shit. They got all kind of— Huh?

Are we taping?

Yeah. Can we?

I didn't know. I thought you're gonna welcome me and shit.

Oh shit.

For sure.

No, I'll bring it.

I just didn't know.

But yeah, dude, it's fucking— it's a lot out there, man. It's a lot. Yeah, dude, I had one chance to go, but it was like my, my, my neighbor went and he was like, they had, uh, Diddy was out there and I think, um, who else was out there? Like, it was like Fat Joe maybe, I think they said. Just people out there in the desert. Michael Strahan.

Yeah, but then in the desert they got fucking a van that picks them up and they get cooled off and shit. That's a big difference.

Yeah, yeah. They got an Inuit out there blowing cool, cool air on their back and shit.

Yeah, they got— they hooked up, hooked up like a motherfucker.

It's different, man.

It's not for me though. I don't want to be out there with sand and no showers. Yeah, I'm anti-anything where I can't wash my ass. Yeah, yeah, you understand me? Like, for years I wouldn't go camping because Listen, when I wake up in the morning, I got odors, you know, and I don't want them lasting all day. Yeah, you wake up with a stinky asshole and you put shorts on and go back out, it just compounds.

Yeah, it just compounds.

So I've never been into places without showers. Yeah, I gotta take it. And then I met a girl and we used to go camping, but she would take me to those, you know, little places where it's a cheap camp. If you don't want to take a shower, you can bathe in the lake, but they got 2 showers over there.

Oh, right there.

I'm in. Yeah, I don't mind cooking outside. I don't mind fucking her outside. I didn't mind any of that. I just need a shower. Yeah, brush my teeth, you know.

I don't like it if somebody sneaks off. They're like, I'm gonna go for a little walk or something, but you know that they're going to shit somewhere or something. Like, you can't really hide. Like, you know, somebody's like, I'm gonna go over here and look at something, but you know that they're shitting or whatever.

Listen, I know once a year I'm gonna shit somewhere. Yeah, once a year. I'm— every year I have to shit once outside. Yeah, you're not gonna make it as a human being. Maybe you do, but there's nights where, you know, I want to shit on the toilet. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? I don't mind pulling it off one night, we gotta shit in a hurry. Yeah, but again, I'm a toilet type of dude, you know what I'm saying? I'm a little spoiled.

Yeah, yeah, I'm a little spoiled.

I grew up poor, but I'm a little spoiled.

Yeah, I'm a little spoiled, bro. That's where I am, dude. Uh, we're in your home area, bro. Asbury Park.

Yes, we are, brother.

Bro, it's awesome.

Yeah, I grew up 2 hours from here.

Oh, you did?

Yeah, but I would come down here to concerts. They have a great— they used to have, or maybe they still do, the Asbury Park Convention Center. And we were kids, the same people who played the Garden played that. Lynyrd Skynyrd, it's on YouTube. Lynyrd Skynyrd tore up this shit in '77. You know, I came down here to see it in 1981. I came down here to see Iron Maiden opening up for Judas Priest.

Wow.

I came to another concert down here, and I think I came down here to a basketball camp. So I didn't really— I wasn't in this area growing up. I'm more North Jersey and shit. Yeah, look at them. They fucking ripped it apart in this bitch.

Wow, that's amazing. Was that the first concert you ever went to?

No, no, I'd gone to concerts for like, uh, 4 years prior to that. I was maybe 17 when they threw the bottle at us, and I was like, all right, yeah, I'm good.

When they threw the bottle at you?

Oh yeah, we got out of the car. We weren't even out of the car, I'm telling you, and we fucking got hit with a bottle. Some guy just threw a fucking beer bottle at us. We got out, we turned around, it was 10 brothers with no shirts on.

Oh.

Like I told you earlier. And I'm like, fuck Judas Priest, we'll park on the other side. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, yeah.

Guess who else was at that concert? Jimmy Florentine. Not knowing. I heard him on his radio show one year talking about that show because those motherfuckers used to throw smoke bombs at concerts. And I, and I heard him talking about— I'm like, I still remember that, being a kid and having to cover your eyes because of the smoke bombs. He was the motherfucker doing the smoke bombs, and they threw him up, and his mother had to pick him up. He tells the whole fucking story.

So he's a legend, dude. Oh, that's great, bro. I used to have such a good time with him on, um, on Opie and Jim back in the day, man. Jim Florentine's a— he's the best, dude.

He's a good guy. He's my neighbor.

Is he?

2 doors down. How do you think I ended up here? I called him and his sister-in-law sold me the house.

Oh nice.

He's got a great family.

Does he?

I call him the Florentine crime family.

Yeah.

They don't stop. They don't— they do a party every 10 days, something. The family's so big, they got— they take concerts. They go to like Miami Dolphin games. They'll take 40 people, the family.

Wow.

They'll spend the whole weekend down there.

Yeah.

You know what I'm saying? It's not bad. It ain't for me because I work weekends. I got my daughter. But that's a great— I mean, my daughter plays softball on the weekends, so Yeah, that's a great—

yeah, that's a great life over there. Yeah, dude, I love Jersey, man. Jersey has some of the most entertaining women I've ever been around in my life, man.

Yeah, they'll fucking talk your ear off.

Oh yeah, they get— dude, yeah. And you got to put them on a phone and they're interesting.

They're interesting to an extent. But I like— I was always— I always wanted to raise my daughter here. There was something about North Jersey that I, I learned a lot of lessons up there.

Yeah.

And I wanted her to at least— those lessons are all done today, but I wanted her at least to feel what I felt in a way, to a degree. She'll never, you know, feel the shittiness I felt, but that was part of when I left LA. It was— I knew I was leaving LA. That's what people never understood. I was planning it. Yeah. Before the pandemic, we were coming down here April 4th to buy a house. I was coming in March And then we would come back together as a family in April. We're going to buy the house, finish up the school year, and then move here that August. The pandemic just rushed it up and lit a fire under my— you know, it broke my heart to fucking, uh, leave, but it was time. I had already, you know, I felt that I had gotten the most I did out of LA.

Yeah.

I'm 57. What else could possibly happen? You know, more happened than I anticipated, so I'm just going to take my winnings and leave. Yeah, why bank it and start getting cocky? Let's shoot a pilot and let's drop 400 and get the fuck out of here. So that was my decision in moving here.

Yeah, I think it's a beautiful place out here, man. I love even just driving over to here, bro. It's nice. Like, we went through like countryside and stuff. Oh yeah, like there's a river right out here.

Yeah. Oh, there's rivers everywhere. Listen, I live in central Jersey, which this is considered that on the borderline. So I got foxes in my backyard, I got raccoons, I got fucking deer, I got, you know. And it's— this is why I like it. At this age, for me, no. But if I would have came here when I was 42, for example, you buy a house in Central Jersey and you just go, you know what, I'm going into the city on Tuesday, I'm going to do 4 spots. Because anything after 4 spots, it's a law of diminishing returns.

I agree.

2, 3, 4 spots. and get out of here early. And I'll tell you what, how I got introduced to this area down here was one of my brothers lives in Morganville, which is 10 minutes from where I live now.

Really?

One of the gangsters I grew up with, like, his family took me in and shit. He lived here and I would come and stay with him. So part of the deal was I helped him with his fish company and he paid me. I would help him and it was unreal how we would get in the car at 4 in the morning, shoot into Manhattan. I'm a comic. I'm a feature/headliner. Yeah, but when I come to Jersey, I would stay with him. I would do like 3 or 4 weeks instead of having to go back and forth. I would do like 3 or 4 weeks, Rascals in those days, Bananas, maybe something else. And I would deliver fish with him in the mornings, help him pick up the fish at the Fulton Fish Market. That was a fucking adventure.

Really?

Yeah, because I would go to get fish, I'd come back home with an 8-ball. It was great. 4 in the morning, I'm walking around with an 8-ball. I got a discount price for $180 at the Fulton Fish Market.

You got a fucking—

Had everything there.

You got a long trout in your nose.

You know how many times I pulled out of Fulton Fish Market and there were hookers there?

Wow.

4 in the morning, you're gonna get fish. 5 in the morning, that's, that's when the party starts. They're over there, they're looking for guys that had a lot of protein in them, so they like those fucking fish dudes. There were hookers there. We deliver 5, 6 deliveries, we'd be done by 10:30, 11, and by 12 o'clock, after a 44, 45-minute drive, I just went from people cutting each other off, bike guys flying through air, double parking, hey, fuck you, to this serene lifestyle.

Yeah.

Let me tell you how— let me tell you how cool it was, the setup he had. You walk through his backyard with your fish clothes on and you just rip yourself naked and you jumped in the shower and washed the fish off and we'd go right in the pool. So I go talk to his mother while he was doing his ritual, and then I do the same ritual, jump in the pool. Then his father would clean off the fish and start grilling fish in the afternoon. By 3 o'clock, I'd be in fucking heaven, getting vitamin D, fish. I got an 8-ball I picked up at 4 in the morning.

Yeah.

So I enjoyed— I, I liked that one minute I was in the city, and the next minute I was in— it's like if you live in LA in Hollywood but you live in Calabasas. It's a hike of a ride. You're not going to do it every day, but when you do it, you strike. But that's when you see the beauty.

Yeah.

You go from being at the store, chaos. Who stole a joke? Who did this?

Yeah, who's a fucker or whatever.

Yeah. And also, and all of a sudden you're at the fucking— you're in your home and, you know, there's no red lights, right? People ain't cutting you off, there's no homeless people. So really, and that's what I saw in my life when I moved to Jersey, that I could still do the city but an hour later. all that shit's out of my system.

Amen.

I'm home with my family, my daughter. I'm a different person.

Yeah, you can kick your feet up on the ottoman and it feels like you're actually at peace.

Oh, I got my chair. As soon as I moved here, I got one of those Archie bunker chairs. Did you lay back? Oh, fuck.

Oh, Archie.

And I live my— I put my little blankie on it, my legs get cold at night. I got my little remote control. I got a little refrigerator right here in the family room. I put my little Blooms in there and a couple Snapples and some water. I got my peptides in there in case I just want to get up and shoot one. While I'm sitting there.

Yeah, dude, I watched John Wick and fucking blast myself right in the neck with one.

Oh yeah, they even have a John Wick peptide.

They do?

You just start shooting people. You just get a gun and start— What's going on in your world these days, brother?

What's going on? Well, yeah, for one, I mean, I just— I, I, I do want to say this. I love— one thing I love about Jersey and Philadelphia, some of the funniest women, best senses of humor, bro. I mean, and it's— I mean, Jersey, some of these little broads, I agree, they definitely— you got some violent little princesses around here, you know?

You got a fucking dangerous woman. There's a couple women that are that hot that they're dangerous. Those Italian chicks.

Oh, they got sharp— they got, they got sharp tits too. A lot of—

some of the little ones. I just sit there and watch and giggle. Like, yeah, look at how these motherfuckers are just racking up victims. People buying them cocktails, and these bitches are going home solo. Yeah.

Yeah, dude, a lot of bitches just collecting Miatas at their house.

I love Philadelphia, and I'm gonna tell you why. Because they didn't get the memo yet. And even if you send it to Philadelphia, they're not gonna honor it. Yeah, to really want— some people like comedy, stand-up comedy, they think that's great to laugh, and it is. I love watching stand-up comedy. But then again, I like comedy that just happens. And if the only place in the world where I could count on that happening is Philadelphia, 10 for 10. They just don't get the memo.

Yeah.

And you're like, Joey, well, give me an example. When we moved here, I looked at tickets for the Yankees, the Mets, but I wanted to see somebody was playing. San Francisco was playing in Philadelphia. So I asked my wife, take a look at the tickets. She goes, they're okay, let's go. So a bunch of us went. Florentine, his kid, the neighbor, me, my wife, my daughter. My wife had— my daughter was 8. And in LA, we hung around people that didn't really curse. You know, once I moved to Jersey, I was like, we might as well start cursing because even the moms are fucking saying fuck you and all this shit. Yeah. And my daughter would just sit there lost. I'm like, go ahead, you can't curse though.

She—

my daughter won't curse. She's not allowed to curse till she goes to college. So fuck it, that's my rule, because if not, they won't take her into college if you curse.

Yeah. And then it gives her a reason to want to go to college too.

Yeah.

No, because a lot of kids, you let them curse early, they're not even gonna go to school.

No. No, this one has to go to school.

Yeah, a lot of kids— I'd apply to college just to say motherfucker when I got over there, you know what I'm saying? It's like, it's kind of like, that's sort of the best way to do it, dude. But yeah, they got some short ladies around. They got some— well, what's the tallest woman in New Jersey? Bring that up, dude, if you can. They got some violent little princesses, dude. I mean, some—

you go to my boxing gym, there's a couple chicks in there that'll knock you the fuck out. Oh yeah, I know for a fact.

Oh, there you go. Tallest one in New Jersey, 5'8. So damn.

And that's not even all, you know.

But it is for here, bro, because the God don't want to— they, they so, they so potent they can't make more of it, you know. It's like, it's like if you get like a, you know what I'm saying, it's like they're a, they're a high milligram edible, them little bitches, boy, that's for sure, dude. But some of the most entertaining women ever, bro. They'll fucking— some of them—

I wanted you to— I, I really hope you would have came down last night. I would have canceled my gig and take you to dinner at a fucking really great place, man. Like, Central Jersey— listen, New York City is New York City, Northern New Jersey is Northern New Jersey, but I got some spots in Central Jersey that'll take your fucking lights out. Like, you're eating fucking— this is good shit. I understand everything to the last detail. So I'm taking my daughter to Philly, and she's 8.

To the ball game?

Yeah, to this, uh, Phillies game, the baseball. I pull her aside and I go, Mercy, listen, when you get to Philadelphia, you're going to see things and hear things you've never heard before.

Yeah.

I'm just preparing you, okay? And she's hip. She's been listening to me talk for years. So we pull up at the game, we park, we're walking through the front door, and I'm not even at the front door, my daughter hits my leg and she gotta go, what? She goes, look, right on the wall there was a picture of a big dick. I mean, it had to be 15 feet long. You know, walking to the Sixers, whatever, but there's a dick somebody spray painted.

Right.

Now you know what I'm saying.

Yeah.

And once you walk in there, it's a complete different place too. They say shit. They just say shit.

Yeah, they're the most— I mean, at the most next level.

Then like they say— I went to a Sixers game with her and there was 2 guys making out.

Mm-hmm.

And I'm like, that's not gonna last long.

Yeah.

Not in Philadelphia.

Yeah.

And sure enough, they were gone. Somebody came and tapped him on the shoulder and were like, too many kids around though. Yeah, hang on. But I have my rights. Listen, we have our rights too. We'll fucking put you in a dungeon. We'll put you in the fucking dungeon. How's that?

And a lot of gay dudes, they dress like they want to be in a dungeon sometimes too. So that's kind of the trick.

No, I don't have nothing against the gay dudes. It's just some places that fucking don't fuck around still, right? So they didn't get the memo.

Yeah, some places they make their own rules.

They didn't get—

and you show up and you got to kind of rock with him. Dude, we would go— trying to think of where we went that was very— yeah, Philly's one of a kind though. Do you see a fucking bird out there selling dope up near Temple or something? You see a Black dude like dress up like an Uber and give another Black dude a piggyback ride, fucking crazy, 150 feet for a couple grams. You know, we, we would see all— I mean, yeah, some of the shit we would see, bro.

And audiences are very real in Philly. Like, I've never— I remember doing a casino one night and I had such a good time, I just jumped Chubby Joey just jumped into the audience and they caught me, you know what I'm saying? I was like, this is spectacular.

How are the people that caught you? I wonder how they doing. You checked on me?

I think I fucked up one guy's shoulder, you know what I'm saying? He just didn't have it no more.

Yeah, dude.

But it's, it's just, it's a fun place to do comedy. I think it's a fun city because when I go down there, I like watching like, you know, where the chick sewed the first flag, Betsy Cline, what's her name?

Yeah, Betty, uh Betty Wilson or whatever.

You go to Betty Ross— Betsy Ross's house.

Betsy Ross.

You go there, you go to— they have a lot of neat stuff that'll bring you back. Yeah, like, you're like, holy fuck.

Oh, the museum's there, bro.

Yeah, bro, bro, it's next level. Stop it, stop it there. That's where it all went down.

Yeah, we— people forget about that. People think it's—

what's interesting to me, like, when I go to a town, I don't want to go to a club, I don't want to do nothing. I want to see this shit, especially these East Coast North Carolina. Yeah, all those places have some great stuff at those states, man. When you travel, it's not even about the restaurants to me anymore. Yeah, but a fucking good museum— look at this shit.

Yeah, and look at that lady dressed up like Betsy Ross, probably.

Yeah, you could dress up like Betsy Ross, and they do that every day. You go there and they school you, and then, bro, but it's, it's non-stop. Yeah, the, the history of fucking Philadelphia alone, you know, where you went and got off the car that night And took the picture with the boxer from North Bergen. Oh yeah, you get on that road.

James J. Braddock.

James J. Braddock. I'll take you to a place where George Washington's fucking, uh, whatever's there— not the bowling ball, cannonball. That's what George— it's a little ledge in Fort Lee. You walk down, you have to walk in the park. Yeah, under the George Washington Bridge.

Wow.

If you ever get a chance to do that, you know, I used to walk that bridge to cop. I could walk the George Washington— I would walk it twice a day sometimes. Wow. So you could just zip in, because if you take a car, they watch to see what cars go in and out.

Oh, you have a walk-in?

They'll pull you over and they'll fucking take your car. Your car gets confiscated. So in those days, they used to say, why are we going through all this shit? Yeah, it's a mile walk. Yeah, it's a mile walk. And I mean, you would loop out, get off the plane, get off the fucking bridge cop, and get right on the ongoing, and nobody would fuck. And meanwhile, when you land in Jersey, you see a line of cars with their hoods open. Yeah, getting fucking searched and shit. So I would just walk over and it— but the things I would just see in there, it wasn't about— I mean, it was about the addiction, but it wasn't about like— I would get surprised. Even when you land on the other side of New York, if you go underneath. Yeah, like that area there, when I was growing up, that's where you dropped your car off if you didn't want to pay for it no more.

Really? Just left it there?

Just leave it there with a $20 bill in the front seat and put the keys in the ignition. Yeah, you'll never see that car again. Oh, okay. That's one area in New York, right under the George Washington Bridge on the New York side. Just drop your car off down there, come back the next day, it's gone.

Oh, you see a family of brothers driving it a month later, probably.

They probably take it, burn it, get money for the parts, whatever. But it was well known, just drop your car off.

Oh yeah, dude, I love like just places from growing up, places from the past. There definitely was a lot of stuff about Jersey. Like, did y'all ever go on any like family trips and stuff around here?

Yeah, yeah, this is what my mom liked, this shit too.

She did? Oh, like history and stuff?

Yeah, she loved American history. She loved the American culture, you know. Yeah, when we came here, that's what really like blew my mind. My mom wouldn't go to a baseball game. She couldn't stand for the national anthem. And don't get me started on my uncle. He has to watch the game from beginning to end. 7th inning, he gets up and does—

they love all that shit, the tradition of it, because they were anti-revolutionaries.

Castro took all their shit, so when the United States took them in, they always felt like they were endeared to the United States. And that was a good way, you know, I learned a lot from that. I didn't think they were into that shit, but my mom was pro-America, pro-everything, A to fucking Z. And it was, you know, like I said, I, I didn't know my mom had it in her, but she wanted me to be a Marine.

She did?

She wanted to walk me in there. The plan was a Marine for 4 years, get out, law school, and then go back as an officer or something.

Wow, an officer and a gentleman she wanted.

I don't know about no fucking gentleman, but officer would have come. And I think about that.

But look, you met a lot of officers, bro.

Yeah.

And I'd say you're a gentleman, bro.

Fuck yeah.

Yeah.

I've always been a fucking gentleman.

You know what I'm saying?

Who the fuck they think they're dealing with? Joy Bananas?

Was, uh, what, what, what ended that kind of like, what ended the Marine thing, you think?

Her dying.

Oh yeah.

Yeah. Once she died, I was like, ooh, there goes the rawr.

You like, you took it—

And I still considered it. And when I got in trouble—

Like in honor of her, did you consider it? Or you just considered it?

Oh yeah, I considered it in honor of her. And I even went up there and talked to the recruiter, but I got coked up the next night and I missed the blood test. Oh, so I was always embarrassed, and I thought I'd faint at the blood test. When he said blood test, I threw a fucking wrench in it. In those days, yeah. If I knew now what I knew then, I would have signed up in the service.

Yeah.

And I still believe it.

Yeah, I think so too when I look back, because I wasted some years.

Wasted some years. Listen, I've been in Jersey officially 6 years. That's a law degree.

Yeah.

That's how you have to look at things sometimes. Like, that's why when you're in high school, when I come to you and go, all right, Theo, you want to join the Marines? I'm going to sign you up for 20 years. You're like, 20 years? But guess what? You get out when you're 38 now, and you have a second life with a pension, somebody financing that.

Yeah.

And medical benefits and all this shit that comes with it.

And you can be a badass too.

And now you're a badass.

Yeah.

You're 38 years old, you just lived a complete different life, and you didn't even have to pull the trigger. Yeah, there was no war for you to get deployed to. Maybe they sent you for operations to Chicago like my nephew, to learn about operations and fucking, you know, intelligence and shit like that. But think about it, how much time we blow as Americans. Then you're like, bro, that really happened 8 years ago, Theo? And you're like, yeah, that happened 8 years ago. You're like, I could have done so much with my life in 8 years. But that's the path we chose, and I'm happy I chose it now.

Yeah, I think about that too, man. It's hard sometimes. I chose, I think, like, just be a social kind of screwing around. I love to be around people. So it's like, sometimes I think like that was always like, well, I just don't want to commit to something, you know. I just want to be able to be free. But I think, yeah, I would have loved to have had that, like, uh, what's it called when you stick to something and you— organization built into me, you know, if somebody would have led me there, you know. As you guys know, MoonPay is my go-to place to buy crypto, and they've just launched something new. It's called MoonPay Agents. It's tech that lets AI actually handle your crypto for you. Think of it like a smart assistant that can buy, sell, trade, swap coins, set up recurring buys, and even convert crypto back into cash. All on your behalf. You, you just set up a wallet through MoonPay, verify your identity once, fund it with a bank transfer, Apple Pay, Venmo, or PayPal, and your agent can get to work. Your keys stay on your device, so you stay in control.

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When I was 16.

When you were 16. And you found her, right?

15. 15. Yeah, I found her. Holy shit. You bad motherfucker. You— thank you.

Wow, look at you, bro.

I even got medals there.

Hell yeah, dude, that's beautiful. Yeah, look at you. There you go, dude.

Wow.

What was something else that she liked to do?

Gamble.

She did? What kind of gambling though?

Heavy.

Like, you talking dominoes and stuff or no?

Baseball.

Really?

A lot of baseball.

She'd bet on games?

Fuck yeah, and go to them.

Wow.

And then it got— once she sold her business, it got worse because now she was bored. So now she started picking horses, and that's not a good thing to do on this side of the country because you have a noon race and about, uh, you know, like somewhere at Monmouth, or you have like— so there's all these tracks that one ends and one picks up. So you might come here in the daytime down the shore to see afternoon camp, which is great, going to the track in the afternoon, you put like $50 in your pocket, you get a clam chowder, and you're out in the sun watching degenerates laughing your asses off.

Yeah, yeah.

But my mom would go from that, and then she'd go home, cook dinner, and then go to the Meadowlands at 8 and catch the night at the Meadowlands. If the Meadowlands wasn't good for her, she'd get into another car and go to fucking Yonkers. Now, we were talking about addictions and what addictions make you do.

Yeah.

What would possess you to get in a fucking cab at 11 o'clock at night to make it to Yonkers for the night racing till 2 in the morning. You don't get out of there till like 2 in the fucking morning.

Was it dogs or just horses?

It was horses, dogs, pigeons, whatever the fuck they did. So here she is, bored to death, going to games, gambling. At that point, she invested in a jewelry company, but she was buying the jewelry herself for her. She'd go in there every day, oh, I think I need this ring. So yeah, what did we accomplish here? Yeah, it was what she was going through. with the divorce, you know, separating from my stepdad and all that. And then her health wasn't good, she kept drinking, and she came home one night and punched a ticket.

Damn.

And everything changes, you know. At one point you're like, fuck, everything changed in my life, Theo. And then I didn't want to live for a long time, but I wasn't going to kill myself, do you know what I'm saying? Like, I wasn't gonna— I didn't want to live, but I'm not gonna cop out and jump off a bridge. I'll just do something fucked up and hopefully they'll shoot me. Yeah. And thank God that never happened.

What do you think that is, that part of us? It's like— because I have, I have, I have had that, man, where it's like, I don't want to live, but I'm not going to kill myself.

No.

You know, I don't want to live, but I ain't going to kill myself.

I can't do that.

There must be something inside of me that does want to live, Dan.

Yeah. No, that's it. It's just maybe it's an excuse, but I know that there's tons of people that walk around and be like, I don't want to live, but I don't want to jump off a bridge and embarrass my family or this or that or, you know.

One foot in front of the other.

Yeah.

That's what you just got to keep proving yourself. Even when your brain is like saying whatever, I think that's what— if you just can keep moving your feet, you know, just keep trying, you know. And a step is the easiest thing. Sometimes it's the smallest thing you can do, you know. Did you feel like your mom like deserted you kind of or no? Did you ever think like, was that feelings or she just had had enough?

No, she had just— she died of a broken heart. It's what the Chinese call. a broken heart disguised as a— disguised as a heart attack. And it was sad because sometimes I think that what her last feelings were as she was getting the heart attack, and she was yelling for me, but because she had a fucked up habit of waking me up at 3 in the morning cooking, on that particular night I'm like, I don't want to go downstairs and eat. I don't want to go downstairs and hear this shit. And then like 40 minutes later, I woke up and I saw that she hadn't come up, and I go, let me go downstairs and see. And she was on the floor, dead as disco, you know. And it's, uh, it's a fucking realization, you know. I was just talking to a friend of mine and I kind of got upset and I told him, I go, my mother's been gone for 47 years and there's not a day that I don't— at one point you're like, fuck. And he's got something going on with his mom. And I said, so if I was you, I'd go take care of that.

Mm-hmm.

Because she's at an age where she could tip tomorrow and now you have to live with that pain. And I go, let me just give you an example. I died on good terms. of my mom, and I still have like this pain that just, you know— and then I learned things about myself. Yeah, I learned that when I was— and I remember, I'm not gonna lie to anybody, into part of the healing process for me beside the acid and the fucking, you know— I was a sophomore in high school, so I couldn't stop living my life, right?

And at that time, and you're also really coming into your own life, and you're kind of obsessed with your own world at that age as a teenager. That's when my dad died.

I had an option to move to California with my uncle. I had an option to move with my godmother in Harlem, but I was already set in North Bergen. I had already put this work in North Bergen just to be somebody.

Yeah.

Just to try to be cool at parties and, you know, be funny or whatever the fuck I was thinking. But this is something I realized when I moved back here. Part of my healing process from my mother at that time, because I'd be out with you till 4 in the morning, like a year after she died. Yeah, I'd be out with you, whatever. And also on the way home, I'd go, drop me off over here. And they— you said to me, like, don't you live around the corner? Yeah, but I'm gonna walk a little bit. You go, all right, man, you good? Yeah. What I was doing is sneaking to my mother's house. I would just go to where we grew up and sit on the steps. Nobody was in the house yet.

Wow.

Just to see if maybe they made a mistake. Just, just, just Maybe, maybe she took the wrong bus home that night. Maybe she went to the wrong house. You lie to yourself. I was a 17-year-old kid.

Yeah.

So it was whatever was maintaining me. But I remember thinking to myself one day, you know what, man, she went to Cuba and she gonna come back.

Yeah.

And this is all gonna get straightened out. I'm gonna live my life till I get the call. That's the biggest lie I ever told myself.

Wow.

And do you know when I moved back here 6 years ago, the first year I was struggling, and it was because of that, because she lied to me. I thought she was going to make a comeback like John Lennon, but she never fucking did. Yeah, so it fucked with me. I'm, you know, I'm man enough to say these things.

Because she had said that? She had said she was going to move to Cuba and come back?

No, she was dead. Oh, in my mind, I made up this lie.

Oh, that you kind of—

as a coping mechanism, that part of you still believed? Yeah.

You know what, bro? She went to Cuba for the weekend.

And I'll get a message from her eventually. Maybe they arrest her in Cuba.

So now when you came back, that thing never came to fruition.

Like, when I came back after 2 or 3 months, I'm sitting on my balcony one day and I'm like, she never fucking came back. And honestly, as grown of a man as I am and as settled, it bothered me. Like, she didn't come back. But then at the meantime, it's like, Joey, nobody dies and comes back. Yeah, they might leave you a note, you know, like a little flower might fly out of the sky one day or something. But I had to deal with that. But it was from the lesson that I had learned when she died that I used that as a coping mechanism, telling myself that maybe she just— right. I remember one night I got so fucked up, I went to the grave and started digging it up with my hands, bro.

Wow.

Like 2 months after she died, I went to the grave one night in a fucking coked-up state, and God knows what I was on, and I just found sticks and shit, and I You know, after an hour and a half, I only dug an inch.

Yeah.

I just wanted to make sure she was dead.

I didn't—

maybe I wasn't seeing things right. Maybe the acid lasted a little too long. It was just— it was that unbelievable to me that she had died. But here we are, 47 years later, slinging dick. And at the end, I became what she wanted the most. She wanted me to be a man. And in her world, a man wasn't a guy who slings dick, and a man is somebody who provides, who is responsible. Because one of the last fights we got over, like 10 days before she died, I had a curfew. I, I never had a curfew growing up. My curfew was, if you're not home by 11, call me and let me know what time you're gonna come home.

That's fair.

And if you don't get to that point, if you told me 11:40, at 11:39 I better hear from you again telling me again what time you're gonna come in.

Right.

I don't wanna know what you're doing. That was the deal we had at home. I never could figure that out. I thought it was a control mechanism.

Right.

And the last time I did that, I came home one night, she smacked me. I was 15 years old. She just took a fucking— and smacked me in the face. And then I just walked to my room. And then the next morning when I woke up, she was there and she goes, I smacked you in the face because someday you're gonna have a wife and you have to be responsible to your wife. She has to know where you're at all the time. And I thought about, I'm not gonna get married, you know, you're 15, I'm gonna be a playboy.

Yeah.

But now I understand. I understand those things. So that's what I, you know, it's like me moving from LA to Jersey was to really see if I was a man. All right, I'm out there with my friends giggling and, you know, now let's see moving back into a neighborhood and a community and being part of that community and having it be, uh, having a child in that community. And that's how I judge that stuff, you know. No drama, no arrests, no DUIs, no nothing. Just living my life and trying to be a little better every day. Just a little bit. Just a little bit. Not much. Is there—

is there ever like moments where, dude, where you like— where you have like a moment with your daughter and it almost feels like you're giving that moment to your mother? Does that make any sense in a weird way? You know what I'm saying? Like, is there ever—

Absolutely. And I'll tell you, you throw it, brother. Thank you very much for being a gentleman, a scholar.

You know, I'm talking about like you kiss her on the head and it's almost like you kissing your mother on the head. Like, is there ever— because—

No, no, no, I'm— I, I took that question the wrong way. I'm sorry. It's like, well, there's more. When I was born, I also had a sister. When we came from Cuba, my sister wanted to stay to finish out the school year. She never got here. So part of my mother's pain and sadness that underlying, what's deep in your veins. And she wouldn't realize it till what time? 2 in the morning. Wow. Once you get home and the party's over and the cocktails start, all of a sudden those old feelings come back. And she would get sad at night.

She missed her daughter.

She missed her daughter. She raised a child without a daughter, without her family. And we— she did everything. She fucking congressmen, she fucking, uh, donated, bribed. They could— and then I come— anyway, not to even go there right now and confuse the audience. So that was always her underlying whatever. So she always wanted a child, and here I pop up with a daughter. Now, my, my daughter has the same kind of body as her, sassy Cuban attitude. Yeah. So I see a lot of that in my daughter. When I kiss her, I'm kissing my daughter, not my mother. She's dead, you know what I'm saying?

Like, I'm kissing my mother. Yeah, I just meant like, is there some psychology there, you know?

Absolutely. I think somewhere along that, when I hug her, it's from my mother. Listen, that's what I'm responsible to this little kid. Like, you know, I, I go to Austin and I just come back not because I want to come back, but because she has softball games. I want to be a part of her life.

Yeah.

So I try to be involved with her as much as I can. I drive her to practices, I take her to stand-up shows with me. Yeah, because I want her to hear what men talk about in the green room. When I go in there, I sit her down, I go, deal with it.

Right.

And they're talking about eating ass and shooting heroin or whatever the fuck. They're not. But I always wanted her to feel comfortable around men, so I've been dragging her to green rooms since she's 12, maybe 11. Just— I took her down to Rogan, popped her in the fucking green room.

Wow.

Let her smell that marijuana smoke, you know. Let her see what really goes on in life so when she does get 18 and get— gets let out into the world, she's not in shock.

Yeah.

I wanted to see what men think about, what men talk about, what is important to men when you're sitting there.

What's going on?

What's going on? Yeah, because I always wanted to feel comfortable around fucking men, and I wanted to feel like she's got the situation under control. So every move I make is around that psychology. I'm raising on a different tip, Jack. Yeah, everybody wants a smart kid. I want a smart kid, but I want that kid to be street smart. And that's what these children are missing today. There's adults walking around that they wouldn't know what to do unless somebody told them, their wives or whatever.

So yeah, there's motherfuckers running around that couldn't buy an 8-ball if you gave them fucking 4 days.

Yeah, and gave them the money and a straw.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, dude. Losing a parent, man, like, I remember my dad, like, my dad was older, so I was embarrassed of him. And that's the thing, like, if I have like a regret when it comes to it, it was like I was embarrassed of how old he was. But it's like, so it kind of kept me away from him. But also I was at that age where like, uh, you're just kind of coming into your own and your parents, you're not even really super connected to your parents at like 14, 15, 16. You're doing your own shit. You think, you know, you're just kind of like, you know, your nuts are just starting to fucking look around, you know, peek over your dick and look around. You know, it's like things are, you know, things are starting to get different. You know, maybe somebody's flirting with you. Maybe you sneak in some chick in your room at night or whatever. It's little things. You become, you're growing up. But yeah, dude, I was embarrassed of him. And sometimes— but that dude, my fucking dad, bro, he like— I think I told you he had bought like a, uh, a Delta 88, an old Cutlass kind of car, off of some brothers, right?

And he couldn't hear. And so he had speakers in the trunk, so he had fucking .22s in the trunk, right? He's driving this car and it would play like, um, Paul Harvey, Rush Limbaugh, you know, just with bass, dude. It'd be like, Paul Harvey.

like, good day, you know?

And this fucking thing was just, just fucking rattling. He bought this car for like $800 off a couple brothers around the corner. So he would drive us around in that thing and the fucking doors wouldn't open, dude. 2 of the passenger side doors, we'd always have to jump in the window. Everything in there was just a bunch of shit. He like, he like would— he delivered candies for a little while and was putting candies in vending machines and shit. So we'd always have fucking like— Like 9 boxes of fucking melted chocolate in the back of his car, bro. So we'd have to sit in there until you fucking get out. Dude, you were half black, you were mulatto by the time you got out of that motherfucker. And they'd have like dogs come licking your arms and shit because you're just covered in fucking chocolate. And you'd have to go to school, dude. So I was already embarrassed because we were poor, and then I had to fucking walk out of here with fucking half a Kit Kat hanging off my neck, you know. And this— and the fucking teacher's looking at me like she doesn't even know where to start.

And then sometimes he would come to pick us up from school and he would fall asleep in the fucking carpool line. So now it was embarrassing because the teacher's like blowing the whistle and he's fucking— you know, when there's fucking Reese's Cups fucking falling out of them. It just like was like, dear God. I just felt everything about it gave me like so much shame because I think there wasn't a conversation like, hey, we're gonna have some pride in this shit. This is who we are, you know. But, uh, anyway, I don't know why I told that story, but bro, that— but that makes your life.

But it's so crazy how as kids we don't see that. Yeah, listen, my mom would go to Met games and she'd act like a complete— in fact, my mom spent so much money at the Met games they wouldn't throw her out. But something happened with Rusty Staub, so she would sit in left field and throw chicken wings when he came back because He didn't make a catch one year and she lost $800.

Yeah.

So she had it out for Rusty Staub and she would throw chicken bones at him. They had to move her to the other side of the stadium. They didn't throw her out.

Yeah.

Because she'd go there, bribe— you know, we go there to games, bro. We go to games. She had a guy that she'd give like $20 to and the guy would bring you to like the first row and he'd look at the people's tickets and go, you're sitting in the wrong place. People with real tickets, he would throw them out and put them somewhere else and give my mom the tickets. This was insane, you know. This was fucking insane. And I would be so fucking embarrassed. And then she stole a church from the bell. My third—

He stole the bell from church?

Yeah, stole the church. And she'd take it to Met games and ring them for good luck. And then when the Mets lost the fucking playoffs to Cincinnati Reds in '73, she actually gave me the bell and she goes, get that fucking voodoo shit out of my house. It made me lose. I go, they've been winning all season. You having a good time with the bell. Now I got caught bringing the bell back to my own. She stole the bell from my school, not from some store. She went to a church on a Sunday just for me to do whatever the fuck, sing in the school band, and she saw a little bell and took it in her purse. And now a year later, she's giving it back to me to bring it back because it's voodoo. I'm like, you're fucking— this is the house I lived in. So we're embarrassed about these things. But once— like, that sounds intense where you go out to the car and your dad's asleep.

Oh.

That's fucking— and that's when you just turn around and make believe he's not your dad.

Yeah.

Son, get in here, son. You know, I remember one time I was swimming at a pool. My mom told me, when you leave today, make sure you make your bed. People are coming over. I'm like, Mom, I'm not making my bed. And I'll never forget the conversation. I said, listen, why am I going to make my bed? I'm going to go back to sleep. And she looked me right in the face. She goes, why do you wipe your ass? You're going to shit 2 hours later, right? So I left and went to this pool party with some girls. I'm playing like a pimp. I got my gold chain on and shit. And also I hear, Jose Antonio! And that's my real name, Jose Antonio. Jose Antonio! She actually came to the fence and was yelling, and people like, who is that lady? I'm like, I don't fucking know. Dial 911, get her out of here. My mom heard that shot. 911, you're a pussy, I'm gonna fucking kill you. Then I saw her trying to climb the fence. She threw the stick over and was trying to climb the fence and shit, and I just took off.

And she chased me for like fucking 20 minutes, hit me with the fucking stick. And then when I put my hands up the block, she lost her mind and she went and got a bounty— a Bounty roll and lit it on fire to burn my hands because you're not supposed to lift your hands to your moms. That's the world I came from.

Wow.

I came from a heavy-duty fucking world. I had something on Sunday, people came over And all these people are talking about shit. And I looked at them like, I don't know what the fuck— who raised you?

Yeah.

But in a fucking— my house, you couldn't— a kid couldn't talk at the fucking dinner table.

Yeah.

They look at you like you were Val Kilmer in Heat. Remember when Val Kilmer didn't say nothing?

Yeah.

That's how they looked at you, like, why are you speaking?

Yeah.

And in my house, I got these people talking about shit. I still remember going to a friend of mine's house, and I couldn't believe how loose white people were at the table. And he was Irish. But at one of those conversations one night, he told his dad, he's like, you know what, Dad, I don't even believe in fucking God. I think you're all fucked. That motherfucker got up and started punching him so many times in the face in front of me, I almost fucking died.

Good.

Just pouncing his own kid. Teeth were missing and shit. People talk too much shit at the dinner table. Shut the fuck up.

Especially kids. What the fuck?

Yeah, what the fuck are you talking about?

They don't know shit. Dude, my mom always had like this air of like this odd superiority of like— we would fuck— like, she would like— we would go to the McDonald's, you know, once we get the chores done on Saturday. The big thing was we would get to go to McDonald's, right? So she would make us listen to Bryan Adams and Leonard Cohen and shit. And like, we fucking didn't even know what this shit was. And we're sitting there like, have I told you lately that I love you? I'm out there just fucking nose deep in a toilet bowl, fucking cleaning this bitch, cleaning whites, bro. I was 4 years old doing fucking whites and coloreds, bro. And, you know, because those are the two that I knew just from the neighborhood we lived in. But those are, you know, those are the loads I was responsible for, dude. Then she would take us to McDonald's, bro. But we kind of had this like pattern where we got to order and then she would like kind of shush us a little bit and she would order a McFish. But like, it was like a— like it was on like a special menu.

Like it was like, like an entree or something that they had there, you know. She kind of like She always had this weird superiority. She's like, all right, now quiet down. And she's like, and I'll have a McFish. You know, like it was a fucking— like, like these motherfuckers don't care. It's the same shit. It's just chicken that they fucking squirted some fish flavor on. It's fucking— but she always had like, I don't know, my mother always had this weird—

You're still tight with mom, right?

Yeah, it's gotten better over the years, you know. And like you're saying, it's like these days I'm just— I pray— my gratitude is I'm just grateful my mother made me. Right? It's like, I don't know what was going on in her life, but somehow, whatever it was, she found enough energy or love or whatever happened to at least make me, you know? Like, and I got here, and the rest of it, it's like, yeah, it wasn't up to me early, but it's up to me now, you know? And so I can try my best. It's not always great, but, um, yeah, I got over some of like the old, like, I'm gonna like hold stuff against you. Life was fucking tough. My mother, when she was growing up, like, her dad was kind of crazy. Her father was crazy. He would, for months at a time, he wouldn't even use the front door. It was her and my grandmother. They would do— they were cleaning. My grandmother was a cleaning lady, so they would go clean houses. My mom would go with her sometimes, but my grandfather would stay in his own room, and then he would go in and out through the window.

He wouldn't use the front door. He made them slide his food under the door over there. So something was obviously wrong with them. So I imagine like a little girl thinking like, man, my dad doesn't even want to see me, or some, you know, who knows, who knows what happened. But yeah, when you hear about people's lives and shit, it's like, fuck, people are trying their best, you know? And we had some good times. My mom would date some strange guys sometimes, or people were trying to come over and smash or whatever.

I'm sorry to interrupt. How old were you when your dad passed?

16.

Okay, so we're in the same boat. We're nothing special.

Yeah.

You know what I'm saying? We ain't something special. And how long did it take your mom to date again?

Oh, she fucking was probably dating about 4 years before he died.

Oh my God.

So it didn't take her that long, you know. But it was like, yeah, they just, you know, like— but dude, my dad was just fucking— dude, when I think back on it, bro, it was kind of— bro, he'd, he'd pull up at the post office, there'd be no parking spots or whatever, and he couldn't see that good. So he'd ask us, is there any parking spots? I don't fucking No, you know, I'm a kid. I don't know what a parking spot is, you know. So he'd be like, all right, you're getting pretty tall, you know. And he'd be like, I'm gonna run in here, drive around the block, dude. And this thing had no power steering. I would fucking take this fucking thing. I would have to extend my foot to get the gas to go down. Like, remember, extend my foot, like push it long, dude. I'd take this bitch around the block. I'd hit 4 or 5 cars, dude. Fucking boom, boom. And his car was so banged up, you couldn't take it. It had hit 2,000 cars. Every car in town had been hit, had been hit by his fucking car, dude.

This motherfucker, bro. And I just keep going in a circle out there till he came out.

How old were you?

Uh, I was probably, I don't know, 12 probably.

Weren't you the guy who told me that you used to sit on Yellow Pages? Was that you?

When I was a kid, dude, we would—

When you drive— I'm sorry, when you drove, you sat on Yellow Pages?

I can't remember.

Somebody told me a story that they used to The dad used to make him drive and sit on yellow.

But now the stories are, you know, it's like, yeah, but that's some of this stuff is hero— as tough as it is or whatever. And people have tougher stuff, man. I mean, your life, I can't even imagine that. No, but it's like the, you know, you just, you, you find these little things that make you a storyteller, that make you curious, that make you pay attention. I think I was always paying attention, you know, like somebody— there was a lady who would fucking come out in the evening by the— at the other apartment, and she she would come out and fucking like, she'd have like a daiquiri and she would be like, she, you know, just lay on her fucking car and ask me how her body looked and shit. And I'm out there, I'm fucking— I'm 6 years old, you know, dude. We would light shit in the ditch and like, you know, she fucking just be out there, how does my body look, you know? And I don't fucking know what— and I would get up real close to her leg and like look at it real close like that, you know? Like, I didn't know what the fuck I was looking for.

I didn't know. I would get right up by her neck and shit and look at it. And I'd be like, yeah, it looks fine. Um, look, I work out, okay? I'm in there. I'll be honest with you. I know my way around a barbell, okay? I know how to get to the second story of a StairMaster. But I'll be honest that sometimes it's easy to fall into a routine. The same 4 lifts every week. You just kind of get plateaued. And I'm on the road a lot too. And sometimes it's hard to find a good gym nearby or And sometimes even any gym at all. So I want to recommend this app called Ladder. They set me up with a real coach. His name's Brian and he's on Team Vitality. And his whole approach is, is built for exactly my situation when I'm on the go. You got dumbbells, bodyweight stuff, mobility, conditioning, nothing that needs a gym. I've done his workouts before in green rooms, um, in the back of the bus, anywhere. Think of it like having a personal trainer in your headphones, and it's less than a dollar a day. So if you're a guy who keeps telling yourself you'll get back into it once your schedule calms down, look, I've been right there with you and it doesn't calm down.

Go to ladder.fit/tpw and take the quiz. They'll match you with your own coach. You get a free 7-day trial, no credit card. And $10 off your first month if you join. That's ladder.fit/TPW. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. If you could wake up tomorrow and do one thing better, what would that be? What would that be? Well, for me, it would be listening. I just want to— sometimes I want to listen in a way that's, I don't know, I feel like you could master the art of it. I feel like, cuz it, it's a skill like anything else, maybe just, you know, just, I wanna be able to absorb things in a way where I'm not trying to do anything. I'm just trying to listen. And then maybe like the right question would just kind of light up inside of me, you know, like in my brain or in my, even in my heart first, it would just kind of spark up like a, like a little pilot light, you know? Or sometimes it wouldn't even be a question. Sometimes it wouldn't be a question at all. It would just be, hey, Just stay listening.

So I think for me, that would be it. How could I listen better? And better is a feeling defined by you. And for BetterHelp, it's a BetterHelp therapist who really gets you. It's a focus on global emotional wellbeing with thousands of therapists and millions of members in over 100 countries. It's progress. Sign up and get 10% off at betterhelp.com/theo. That's betterhelp.com/theo.

It's so funny when we look at our lives and we think that we grew up fucked up, and in a way we grew up with action in our lives. We shunned it at that age. Like, there was a lot of action in my house. Yeah, we could go here for— we could sit here right now and go hours about what was going on in my house. Yeah, at that age. And I dealt with it. It was something that was there, and I stayed away from some of it. I participated in some of it, but not in a bad way. Like, my mom and stepdad were part of 2 different fucking bookmaking operations, so that added, you know, pressure to the house.

Yeah.

After she trained him all those years, he decides to partner up with somebody else. So there were just so many things towards the end, and I just lived my life around them. You know, I moved out of my house when I was in the 6th grade, right?

Did you?

When I left Catholic school, when I got thrown out of Catholic school, I went home and there was just too much shit going on in my house, dude. I couldn't sleep at night. And I moved in with my friends in, uh, Union City and lived with them for the whole 6th grade year.

Wow.

I didn't like sleeping in my house.

And you just made that choice yourself?

Made it myself. My mom lived there because my mom's bar was 3 blocks from where I was staying. So I would leave school at 3, go up north, go to karate or basketball practice, eat dinner at my mother's bar. On the way home, I'd get a bag of clothes and I'd just fucking go there that night. I had some clothes there, take a shower, and walk to school from Union City instead of sleeping in North Bergen because I didn't like what was going on in my house.

Yeah.

And there was nothing bad going on, but first off, they both came in at 3 in the morning talking shit.

Yeah.

And then she'd cook an 8-course meal at 4 in the morning, wake you up. I gotta get up at 7:30 in the fucking morning. Yeah, but I made steak, eggs, black beans, a lobster tail. It's fucking 3:30 in the fucking morning. So it was just so many of those things I couldn't fucking handle in my house. Yeah. And again, now you look at it and go, Joey, that's exciting. It's exciting for a few nights, right? Because you come downstairs, my uncles would be there half coked up. They'd each give me $20 for school next day. That was great.

Yeah.

But everything else, now I gotta sit there and listen to these fucking wayos at 4 in the morning like it's 2 in the afternoon. Yeah. And they would cook while they were coked up. Oh yeah, why are you cooking?

That's just—

the food would land and everybody would be looking at themselves at 6 in the morning. I'm like, the fuck is wrong with you retards? But that's the house I grew up in. Yeah, that was the shit that was going on. And this is why I always— I'm very strong in my homes.

Yeah.

Me and my wife's got that southern you know, Tennessee shit. And both— there's no alcohol in my house. I mean, listen, if you come over, you want to drink, I got beers downstairs, right? But there's no real alcoholic parties at my house. I don't want to see alcohol on the fucking tables. That's just me.

Yeah.

Because that gives them the green light now to live like I did. Next thing you know, your daughter's 18 and she's drinking like Bert. No, I'm gonna fucking— I'm gonna fucking— you know, I don't want none of them in my house. I sleep— I smoke pot outside the house. I do everything I do inside the house, and when I walk in the house, I check myself when I walk in to make sure I got no bad spirits on me, you know what I'm saying? So I walk into that house and it's normal. We live like an American family, as crazy as that is, right? People think I'm at home at night fucking watching porn. Nothing. I haven't watched porn since I was fucking 13. I go home and it's just a regular, normal American fucking life.

Wow.

There's no butlers, there's no nannies.

After all you've been through?

Never had a nanny, never nothing. I don't want nobody in my fucking house.

Yeah.

Nobody. At night when I go home, it's to relax. So there's never any pressure on my daughter. I wanted to make it, uh, a warm home for my daughter. I didn't grow up in a warm home.

Yeah.

I grew up in a home where I could— I get up to go to school, my mom would call him a fucking cunt in Spanish and I don't need that in my life. My daughter doesn't need that.

Yeah.

So that's why I strive so hard to have a clean home. I keep everything out of my home. I mean, I got weed there, I got pieces, I got shit, but it's a, it's a clean home. Yeah. You know, and I take pride in that.

Amen. Yeah, I think creating what you couldn't have too. And that's what it is.

Yeah, that's what it is. Because you, you knew you loved your mom and you knew they worked hard. But that was not how you chose to live anymore. I'd rather live a different fucking way. And that's exactly— you know, I didn't want alcohol. It used to bother me to get up and there'd be beer bottles in my house. Nothing bothered me more than that.

Oh, that's great.

And they put a cigarette in that beer bottle, and by mistake you knock one of those beer bottles over and that shit goes into your furniture. You never get the stink out of nicotine beer out of your fucking shit. So I've— oh, as much of a cokehead as I was and all that shit, There were nights I did coke and wouldn't drink. I would never drink. Yeah, because I didn't want them to spill. I'd rather snort this bitch, you know what I'm saying? Yeah.

Yeah, dude, I remember my bike seat would always get fucking stolen or whatever. Some dude was using it for something or whatever. And, uh, so a lot of times I'd go out in the morning, my bike seat would be gone. So I'd still ride my bike, but I have to ride standing up the whole way, you know, just little shit like that that was like— but every time you just take it in your own head and just kind of move it along, you know. But I do 4-mile rides. I just fucking— because I didn't want people seeing me get off of the bus with the, like, the real poor kids, because it was like embarrassing to me. And shit was already embarrassing enough, I felt like. So it was like— but it's interesting the way you kind of like manage stuff as a kid. Once you start having to kind of manage shit, that's when life kind of gets different, I think, for some kids.

Mm-hmm.

When you— they got to start kind of man— when things are some sort of way where it's uncomfortable and they got to start managing a little too early, that's when it's— I feel like it's different.

different.

But, but yeah, dude, we had some fucking times, man. We, uh— oh dude, did you ever take Greyhound to go up to the shows or whatever? How was it up here?

What do you mean Greyhound?

Greyhound bus?

Yeah.

Or Peter Pan? You ever take one of them?

No, just Greyhound.

Greyhound, bro.

I used to take Greyhounds when I was a feature act.

Yeah. Oh dude, when early on I would be taking some Greyhounds sometimes, dude. Bro, we had this one stop, it was over by like Hammond, right? And they had some dude, he would always— they call him the Hammond Slurper, right? This dude would get out and he was just a gay dude, or he pretended like he wasn't gay or whatever, but he was really being gay. But he would be like, you know, hey guys, if anybody wants it here in Hammond— he would just make an announcement. I was like, you know, like, I'm giving it out, you know? And everybody'd be just sitting there like, fucking, who's gonna get up, you know? Who's like winning the gay lottery or whatever? And every now and then you'd see some dude Like, I'm gonna step out to smoke or something, and somebody go follow him over there. And he was blowing dudes over there and hamming over there. Hamming Louisiana, where the blowjobs always wet, brother, because of the humidity anyway, you know. You fucking just put your wiener in the air and you feel like something's sucking on it. Just that kind of area over there.

But yeah, Greyhound. I'm trying to think. Bring up anything on Greyhound. You got any crazy stuff? Some of the stuff that's happened on Greyhound I used to get on Greyhound Twitter feed, right? This is what I used to do. I would get on there because they have a bus help. It's at Greyhound Bus Help or something. And people would be like, look, we pulled over here off the LIE. This motherfucker's on fire, right? Somebody's calling somebody's 4-year-old a fucker or whatever. And I would be like, I would just reply from my personal Twitter. I'd be like, don't you worry, guys. We'll be right there, right? These motherfuckers. What do we have here? Oh, here we go. Here's one right here. The dude on the— the dude on the left is doing knife hits of meth on a Greyhound bus. Both, both are arguing constantly. Oh yeah, that's Hound, baby. That's Hound, dude.

So that's, that's the neighborhood where you would take the bus at?

No, this is just random people talking about stuff on Greyhound. During reloading in Tallahassee, the driver left me at the station and, and most of my luggage was in the bus number 8685. 46 heading to Jacksonville. It passed now, then 24 hours I reported about it, no feedback still.

Same shit here. My silver luggage was stolen on 8/22 from my way to Buffalo. I made a claim and they didn't do shit. Want me to wait for what? Yeah, you're done. You lose anything on Greyhound, there's no customer service.

Bro, they motherfuckers, they won't give you a hug. They won't even give you a fucking hug.

That's a cold way travel. But when you're making $400 for fucking 18 shows and you want to snort coke and have a good time, you got to cut back at some different divisions.

Yeah.

And that's why I used to take the LA bus to El Paso, Texas.

Nah.

As a feature act. And then he started headlining. He didn't pay much, so I would take the fucking Monday night express, 11:45, got you to El Paso at 1 o'clock the next day. You were on that bus overnight. Yeah, but the express only made a few stops.

Oh yeah.

But fucking, I was on that thing one time and the heat broke and there was like 20 Asians going to Texas. And after about 2 hours, that bus started kicking. Not that the Asians were dirty, I'm not saying that. Yeah, but it was hot and the body sweat, that whole bus smelled like a yin-yang fucking factory. Oh yeah, I was not— I was on— and then they had great coke in and whatever. So my first time ever in El Paso, I'm about to leave Saturday night, I just got paid, and some guy's like, hey man, you want to do a bump? And he gave me 2. And I looked at him, you know, I could buy some. He goes, nah, just take the rest out of this. It was like 4 grams of coke he gave me. Wow. I'll never forget the next day I got— I didn't do it all that night. I'm gonna save some to take back.

How did you save some?

Listen to the fucking story.

Yes sir.

Something made me pass out. I woke up the next day, got up you know, got the 3 grams, whatever was in there, put it in my pocket, got on the bus, take off. I'm happy as shit. I go in the back of my pocket, I do 2 bumps, and I'm ready to sit there for 11 hours doing little bumps. And all of a sudden, the bus gets pulled over by 3 fucking immigration cops and with dogs and shit. I'm dead. So I did the best possible thing. I took the fucking grams out and I snorted in one fucking swipe. Grounded it up, threw it in the bathroom, washed my hands. He's like, get to your seat. My hands were washed, there was no coke on me, but now I had to deal with the fucking 3-gram line I did. Also, I couldn't catch my wind and shit, and then I just started sweating, bro. By the time they got there with the dog, the dog was barking at me from a distance, you know, like, because it was coming out immediately. I'm sitting there, £390, fucking sweating cocaine juice.

Wow.

Malamalenka juice, and God knows what else was coming out of me. That was not a pleasant experience. Another time I was on one going to Buffalo, and I started a conversation with the girl. I didn't even say nothing. She started telling me how she's a stripper and she got an STD in Buffalo.

So it's not that girl whose pussy can hum up like A Christmas Carol or whatever?

Is that that girl? No, this is a chick on a Greyhound. That never met her. And even if she did, what How do you get to humming A Christmas Carol with your pussy? That's a complete different conversation. Usually that involves money and cocaine before you get to be that open.

I didn't know if it was a different— same girl.

No, no. And she's telling me that if you go to the doctor and they prescribe something, it goes on your stripping license or whatever. So it goes on a report and they won't let you dance until you go back to the doctor. And she's like, I got 3 kids, I gotta dance. So she was going from like Buffalo to Syracuse before the paperwork shot over, just so she'd get a couple wiggles and get paid before the fuck— and everybody knew she had VD. This is the kind of people you meet on the bus, which makes it entertaining.

Oh, the best.

And it's part of comedy.

Yeah.

It's part of the fucking gig.

Yeah.

You know, think about it. You might go to a gig now and take a private plane. This is great. We've earned it. But at the same time, look at how we used to take a bus and be just fine. and get there with a story. And as a comic, we base our lives on stories. Before I even go on my material, I took a bus here today. I got an hour of material of what I saw. People having sex. I saw this fat couple fucking in the back. He got stuck. They started yelling. Shit like that.

Yeah, for safety or whatever.

What makes you think getting on the ground you could fuck? And I mean, what— where's your mentality? You want to fuck somebody, fuck them in first class or in the bathroom on a plane.

But I fucked on a Greyhound before, man.

You did?

Yeah.

Oh my God, I did. You're a hell of a Christian. You're a better Christian than I am.

Look, dude. Yeah, dude. And I don't even know if I wanted to, but I think you just met her, huh? No, it was a girl I knew. Okay, we were riding.

No condom, fuck it. Yeah, she's going from point A to point B. You're going awesome. 2 strangers.

They didn't have any condoms on the bus. I remember even asking a driver And it was at night, and he's like— I told him straight up, I was like, I'm trying to make out with my lady back here. And he's like, well, I'll drive real slow if you break me off an extra $40. So I fucking hooked him up, and he drove like— he probably drove 25 on the interstate. Almost like a romantic sort of thing in a way, because you don't get to go that slow on the interstate. I mean, this was back when miles per hour was probably 55, but he put the flashing lights on and shit. I felt like a fucking— like a president or something. I felt like I was traveling to heaven. But yeah, she was like sitting on my lap or whatever, making love back there. But yeah, I remember that, dude. Graham, they'd always have something. It would be like some dude set his dick on fire or whatever, or 2 dudes were looking for somebody's dick, or it was always— the stuff that happened on there was crazy. One time I'm on there, a guy's like, he said, hey, you want to see something, right?

And I thought it was going to be, um, his wiener or whatever. He opens his bag up and it's just a jewel. It's just a bag of jewelry, right? Like he just robbed a jewelry store. Then he picks the bag up and hands it to me to look in it. When he does that, under the bag, got his wiener out. So I lost, you know, or he won or whatever. I don't know what it was.

But, um, if you were to stop comedy tomorrow—

Yeah.

Just disappear, what would be the memories that you miss the most about Doing comedy?

Going up at the— in the original room, for sure.

Me too.

And also bringing somebody up. There's something also special, fun about bringing somebody up. And I think also just watching comedy in the original room.

Me too. That's one of the things I miss about getting high, sitting in the back, sitting and watching comedy. But I mean, like, this is about— if I was your son and I came to you and said, Dad, I'm 21, I know you've earned money and you want me to go to Notre Dame, but Dad, I want to follow in your footsteps, you know. And you, at first, you'd be a little upset, you know. Can we do this later? I don't want your mom to hear this shit, you know. And then eventually you got to deal with it. And in the process of dealing with them, you have to think of what you went through— the hotels, the buses, the people not paying you and all this shit. And I got to be honest with you, including my jail sentence the first 10 years of comedy and everything else that's happened the last 40 years, I would do it all over again. I would do it all over again. It was well worth it. The ride, the education that I got of being a comic is world-renowned education. The shit we've seen—

Yeah.

On those trips when they lose your luggage or plane rides or who's on the plane with you. And I think I missed the struggle. I miss struggling. That's, that's what gets your dick hard the next day.

Yeah.

I still don't like it easy. I gotta struggle a little bit. There's something that's out there that I want a piece of, and I'm gonna do whatever I can to get it. I'm just making up an imaginary scenario here, but that's, that's what I enjoyed about living in LA, that every day I could hit the lottery.

Yeah.

You know. You, you try to motivate people and speak to people, they understand what you're saying but not really because they hadn't had it happen close to you.

Proving myself, I think that's one thing that I love.

You know, I think about somebody like Ralphie May. I just remember me and Ralphie going to ShopRite and shoplifting turkeys and shoplifting Coke cuts and doing all this crazy shit. And all of a sudden, one day later, he's living on Wilshire Boulevard in a fucking penthouse, and he's got a coffee table with £3 of weed on the coffee table of 3 different weeds.

That's nice.

See, when you see that, you go, okay, that's what I want for myself. And if he did it, I could do it. Okay, that's what it's opening the door for somebody else. Like, I'm trying to get this guy on the podcast that I've been a fan of since I was in the 8th grade because he changed my whole life. He played for North Carolina and he started as a freshman. White dude, Irish kid, 6'7. And I still remember turning the TV on for the final game and them going, from Jersey City, New Jersey, Mike O'Corrin. And me going, that dude is a freshman and he started at North Carolina.

He's doing it.

White.

Wow.

If he could do it, I have a chance to get the fuck out of here. Maybe not as a star like him, but it let me know that there's more beyond Jersey City and your neighborhoods, or, you know, more than someone in Louisiana. I'm not putting Louisiana— Yeah, no, but you're just saying the back of your mind, you're like, there's something bigger out there, and if he went out there and got it, I'm gonna go out there and get it. Yeah, that hit home for me, and it still does. I think about Michael Corrin once a month. Wow. Because I knew the door he opened for me mentally. He opened this door mentally without ever knowing. Yeah, I want to get him on the podcast to thank him to his fucking face.

Michael Corrin.

Michael Corrin. They even did a write-up about his mother in Sport magazine because it was Rosie, her name, another Irish mom, and she was a waitress raising this single— you know, she was a single mom. Yeah, yeah, this motherfucker started as a fucking freshman. In the semifinals, he had 33 points. The Final Four, yeah, he busted out 33 points. Then as a freshman, they ended up losing to Marquette, but it didn't— that didn't matter to me. The fact that he was a kid from my fucking neighborhood that was doing something, that was doing something, just let me know I could fucking do this.

Amen.

Not being a millionaire, not doing it, being a big—

Just doing something.

Just doing something, letting me know. Yeah, you know, look where you're from in Louisiana. It was— there was a big-time football player from there. That's you.

Oh yeah, we had—

And you had him, and you had him. So let you know that you have a fucking little bit of a chance.

Something's possible. Yeah, we had a Nilo Sylvan, was this dude who like, who lived like right— he lived in a neighborhood right around from us. He lived over in the Ozone, and he was like, he had like the letterman jacket and he played football, and I think he went to play University of Tennessee. Look him up if you can. Nilo Silvan, American former professional football player. Oh, he played for the Buccaneers. That's who it was. And where was he from? Look, can you click on his wiki? From Covington, Louisiana, right there.

That's where you're from? Covington?

Yeah. And so, man, it just— yeah, and he played college at University of Tennessee, dude. So, so yeah, there was something when you saw him, it seemed like, oh man, I Something— there's something possible. There's something possible out there.

I can do something.

I could do something.

I could be a waterboy.

And, uh, Pistol Pete Maravich lived in our town, so that was like a big deal.

Why you always got to get me started on Pistol Pete? Oh, fuck, you know that's my idol, dog.

He lived over there off of Jenky. Oh dude, I got a pair of socks I got to send you, some Pistol Pete socks. I bought them years ago, never took them out the package.

They're nice. They're designed like, uh—

They're nice. It's like a nice pair.

Oh, he wore them?

Oh no, he didn't.

I'd sniff him if he wore him.

Oh, fuck it, bro. I let my wiener sleep in when I'm at night, you know what I'm saying, bro?

So how close did Pistol Pete graduate from you? Oh, I'm sorry.

No, he grew— but his 2 sons grew up in our town. So he, uh, his ex-wife lived there. He had gotten a divorce, or he passed away, right? But, uh, they had a half court and a bat and a top at their house. So I remember we'd walk around and they had this house house and was just kind of ridiculously shaped. And he just— he was a different dude. He'd build a half court in his attic, but it was like a real half court. Like, it was— the attic was just a unique looking house. And so things like that were always interesting. And then Lee Harvey Oswald went to our middle school. And so it was like shit like that. I was like, I could be a fuck— you know, I could—

I could shoot the president.

Yeah, something, bro. I mean, you just— but little things, it didn't even matter. I don't care if Dracula went our fucking kindergarten. It was like something could have happened, right? And there was like a lore in the air. That was another thing. It put lore in the air. One of my favorite stories, um, that I tell people all the time now about you that I just even learned like 2 years ago was when, uh, was that James J. Braddock that y'all used to go shovel snow in his driveway?

Yeah. How crazy is that, dude?

That's like— did that Cinderella Man is my favorite. I remember when Poirier fought over there in Jersey I went and prayed at the statue before I went over there, dude, because I was like, this is it. Because he's kind of like, you know, he's my Braddock. He's a lot of people's Braddock in a way. But when you told me that story that he would break you guys off a couple bucks to shovel snow in his driveway—

That's crazy.

And he was just a regular guy in the neighborhood.

Just a regular guy. And he had kids in the neighborhood and they became cops and shit like that. And it just went and went and went.

Yeah.

I didn't know about the, the how big James J. Braddock was when I was growing up. It was too late. I was 10, maybe 11, 12, and they told me that he was a famous boxer and shit.

Yeah.

I told my mother. My mother said he was good, whatever the fuck.

And he was good.

That was it. Yeah, he's good. She liked him or some shit. She saw him fight at some fucking thing because my mom would go to the Garden to watch fights. She went to Muhammad Ali-Frazier at the Garden. I still remember being fucking crying and shit. She left me with a babysitter. I was heartbroken. That's right. I tried to get the babysitter to suck my dick. Yeah, for $20. And she took my $20 in quarters and blew on my stomach. I was gonna kill this bitch. Oh, I worked hard to get those $20 in quarters.

Oh, at that age? For sure, dude. How could you even—

I was— and then the next morning, my mom used to wake up with me and make me like this pseudo oatmeal, and then she'd have to give me, uh, yeah, we grew up in a Cuban house.

I'd have to drink orange juice with not, uh, the cortada in it or something.

Cortada, this shit, what's it, some oilseed, something like fish oil. Like fish oil? Oh, I forget. It's still around now. They got it in different flavors. It must taste worse. But for 3 years, my mom would give me that. 3 or 4 years every morning. You puked it up, she didn't give a fuck. You're gonna— you're not going to school till you drink this. Because I was a sickly kid. Yeah. And I still remember her pouring the thing for me, like, Ma, I gotta talk to you. She had just woken up, she was probably hungover. And I'm like, Ma, I gotta talk to you. Tita— I gave Tita $20 to suck my dick last night, and she didn't suck my dick. And my mom's looking at me like, what the fuck are you talking about?

Yeah, that's unfair.

$20, Mom. And if I don't get my, my money back, I'm gonna fucking kill her. I want my fucking money back, Mom. I'm gonna go in there and stab her right now. I was a kid, so $20 to me was a lot of money. I was pissed.

That's a year's salary.

I still remember being fucking pissed about— she just— but I remember I got all fired up. I took a shower. Yeah, I put VO5 in my hair. I put a gold chain on. Yeah, and I just sat in my little room, my little dick out, and I thought she was coming in to suck it. No. So I told my mom, I go, I want my fucking money. So my mom goes, enough, enough, enough. I'll give you the $20. Just don't ever let this happen again. And she goes, can I ask you something? She goes, let me ask you something.

Yeah.

I have a bar and there's always a bunch of hookers there. You think they'd suck your little dick for $20 fucking dollars? It's usually $100. So when she told me, I'm like, what the fuck? $100 for a blowjob at my mom's bar?

Oh dude, my mom, I don't know if she was blowing people or not. I can't even remember. I'm trying to think. She dated though, I remember, dude. And whoever she would date, I'd always have— we'd have to be— she dated one guy, uh, who gave us tickets to a football game. My brother and I went, and a scalper, fucking the dude, some undercover cops, you know, offered to buy them from us. And then they tried to arrest us for scalping our tickets. And they're like, you guys are trying Scout, you know, sell to. I'm like, but you're— we didn't know. You asked to buy, you know, just fucking— we had another— my mom dated this guy Donnie Ferrari. I used to— I worked as like a, um, they had to do this whole door-to-door Italian food. He had a little wagon, he'd go around and just sell it, selling Italian. And I worked as his apprentice. My mom was kind of— I think they were dating in hindsight for a bit.

Now this is after your dad passed?

No, no, no, this is before. He was still alive because they'd been separated for a while.

Right, okay.

So they got separated, but yeah, my mom was She was, uh—

I thought your mom said, listen, honey, I love you, but the dick don't work no more.

Oh, I think—

I gotta go out and get mine. You know what I'm saying? I gotta go out and get mine. I've been a mom. I raised these motherfuckers. I gotta go suck something, dude.

Well, my mom— my mom dated this one dude, and he would take us just to the continental breakfast at a motel, and we'd go sit in there and eat, dude. We didn't even stay there, bro.

You were eating an apple for breakfast.

We'd get all dressed up and go eat there, dude. Dude, he wore like a cowboy hat. We didn't fucking know. He would take us into the fucking Holiday Inn over there and we'd sneak in off the side and just go fucking eat in there. But, uh, what else happened? Yeah, but she dated this guy Donnie Ferrari and he had like this, um, it was like that, you know, just Italian. I was his apprentice when I was probably like 9 or something. We're selling fucking strombolis door to door and shit. Dude, we had a little wagon, or he had a little wagon, and we'd pull up and dude He was— but he was trying to smash all these women. And I finally caught on, like, this dude's supposed to be talking to my mother, but he's out here. And I'd be waiting there, fucking— they'd have a couple Bunsen burners. I'm fucking there warming up a little tray of fucking, um, you know, uh, uh, manicottis or whatever. And he's in there massaging the lady's shoulders in the kitchen and shit. Like, it was always some bullshit, you know. But that was pretty fun. That's back when they had like the Schwann's truck.

The different food trucks would come through the neighborhood and you could buy the food directly off of some guy, you know?

Wow.

But yeah, we sold door-to-door Italian for a while, and I wasn't bad at it. It was just so fucking hot, dude. You're lugging £35 of fucking manicotti down a bike. No, walking. We'd walk in and put it in his van and then drive it. Fuck.

How were you left home?

When I left home, I was 13, man. I went and lived with friends.

Okay. And then how long till you left that area? How old were you when you left that area?

So I went and lived with my mom because then she moved out to Arizona. I went and lived with her for one semester out there, and then I moved back for my senior year of school. And that was fun, dude. That was so much fun. I was so lucky to be from Louisiana, bro. Just fun people storytelling, bro. Just people telling stories and just weird shit happening, dude. I remember the first time I got a little bit of cocaine, you know.

Cocaine?

Oh God.

Oh, down there?

Yeah. And it's wet. It's always fucking wet, you know. The top half inch is fucking, you know, it's the only— it's like comes with a head on it, you know?

It's like Mikey. It's like I see Mike's head though.

Yeah, it's like, yeah, yeah, it comes with a fucking head on it, dude. But I bought some cocaine and I thought it was a performance enhancer, like a creatine or something. So I'm fucking snorting this shit. I ran 8 miles out there on the railroad tracks, dude, and I didn't miss a fucking— you know, you go on railroad tracks, you're like, boom, those— the things going across, the wooden I didn't miss a one, boy. I fucking was cruising.

How old were you the first time you did cocaine?

Probably right then. Uh, it probably was about 14 or something.

Oh Jesus, you beat me by a fucking year and a half.

Really? Fuck yeah. But like, one-eyed dude, this one-eyed dude, he, he would ride a bike to work and he would, uh, and I'd give him some of my tip money and he would do a little bit of cocaine. He had 2 eyes when I met him, and then when I re-met him, he only had one eye.

The coke was good.

I mean, something was good, dude.

That shit was banging, Jack.

His eye left town with some of it, you know. That shit was fucking good. But yeah, it was— I'm trying to think of something else. Oh, from growing up, dude, we had like a job that— one of my first jobs was, uh, we had this one dude named Fozzie who had this fish finder service, and it was like he had this thing like a fish You remember those like 1-900 numbers you could call to get like a tarot reading or whatever, like Miss Cleo or whatever? Well, this dude had one and it was a fish finder. He would call you, you could call this service and they would tell you where the fish in the state, where you could fish, right? So it was like, we got the bet, you know, like Lake Beauregard's got the fish, right? Or Chafunka, you got them in Chafunka today. They got flat, you know, they got tarpon out there on, you know, in South Lafourche, or like, you know, they got, um— um, you know, they got bream off of Pecan Island or something like that. He would— so you people would call this number and pay a fee to talk to him, and he would tell them where the good fishing was for that day.

And so I worked over there at the little call center over there, and you would just answer calls, and you had to keep them on the line while he was waiting with the person he was already talking to because the guy lived in our area. So that was pretty crazy, dude. You just bullshit with these motherfuckers who were trying to get like a hot read on some bass or whatever. You know? So, but even just shit like that, you get into it and then like life becomes like this sort of thing that's like, all right, you know, this is interesting. And then I think God just blesses you with different characters that come by. We had a guy at work. I've told this story before, but he would deliver pizzas and we'd make up fake— he never watched any pop culture. He never watched movies or anything. He was like a born-again Christian or like reborn again or whatever it's called. Unborn or whatever. Fucking twice baked or whatever for Christ or whatever. He was just like a little potato skin for the Lord, this guy, you know? So So he, he— but we would call— he was a manager at the pizza joint, so we'd, we'd make up fake pizza orders, you know.

We'd make up a, you know, a pizza order for like, uh, you know, it could be anybody. It could be fucking Wesley Snipes, right? Like 4 miles away, wanted 6 pizzas. So we'd make the pizzas, he'd go take— he had no idea, never heard of Wesley Snipes. He never owned a television, anything like that. He was always at church. So he'd go deliver the— he'd go out there. We'd get drunk while he was gone. This motherfucker would come back, he was always wearing like a Heathcliff t-shirt. Remember Heathcliff, that cartoon? He was always wearing— it said like Heathcliff loves Christ or whatever on it. And he was always wearing that bitch. And he'd come back and we would fucking be leaning on the brooms, just bent out of our minds, bro. And but when you get back, it was almost like he was bringing the pizzas back for us because we'd forgot he would even send him out there. We drink so much draft beer while he was gone. And the pizzas were still good enough, you know, to eat. So we're like, fuck yeah, we got pizzas! And we cheer him on when he got back.

We're all excited. This motherfucker just— whatever money the business was gonna make for the day was just gone, bro. And these pizzas was wet in the middle, bro. And I'll say that till I die, bro. The pizzas that they sold were wet in the middle, and that shit was a turn-off to me.

Interesting, you fuck. That's pretty interesting shit.

It was just interesting shit, you know. It was entertaining enough, you know. Um, I heard that you were going to be spending time down in Austin, man. So am I.

I had to do it. I had to do it. Just the mathematics is better for me.

The stage time.

The stage time.

Yeah, same.

Um, like I said to you, Central Jersey is very nice. I'm out of the city an hour, but where I live and my situation now Comedy's rough some nights, you know, and I find myself maintaining but not improving.

Okay.

Yeah, I don't want to maintain. I gotta— and for me, I know this from day one, for me to get anywhere, I gotta do a couple spots multiple nights.

Yeah.

So I started going down there, you know, when the Austin boom came. That wasn't for me. I'm not that— I didn't need that that bad. I had already purchased a house here and I wanted to to establish myself here. So Austin was nice, I always enjoyed myself there, but I wasn't going to just pick up and move because everybody else was doing it.

Yeah.

And bring my daughter. And then over the years, I started going twice a year, and I started going 3 times a year, then 4 times a year. And you miss tacos, you go back down there again. And I noticed that ever since like last November, I started going down there once a month. And it was always the same thing— Tuesday, leave Friday, get there Tuesday morning, do 3 spots Tuesday, 3 Wednesday, 3 Thursday, and get on the plane. But then I come back here for 3 weeks and I do another one a week. So I was like, this is just—

It's not enough.

It wasn't enough. And I just started making friends. And then, you know, I've been friends with Carly for I don't know how long. And as a friend, she's like, have you ever considered playing GTA? And I'm like, No, but I never played a video game in my life. I was always too busy stealing. Yeah, I don't have time for fucking games.

That's what the game is.

That's what the game is about. So you're streaming now? Yeah, I stream twice a week, bro. I didn't even know that. Grand Theft Auto, whenever you want to come on, it'd be fucking— dog, it is a blast. It is a fucking blast. I'm an old man, I get it. I know. Don't you have a life?

I don't think so.

No, no, who cares?

The game wouldn't exist if you hadn't lived your life.

Yeah, no, you're right.

Fuck them, they owe you copyright.

I'm over there running over people, robbing liquor stores, shooting people. It— look, yeah, this is— I'm trying. I don't think you got ammo. Yeah, I just started shooting motherfuckers. I just blew a guy up, bro, with the fucking—

Can they do blowjob? Can you get a blowjob in this?

I think you get a blowjob at the strip club, but then Twitch will ban you. Oh, right, Twitch will ban you if you get a blowjob at a strip club. Listen, I didn't know what I was doing. These guys taught me how to do it from scratch. Yeah, and I go on there like tonight. I might go on there, but maybe not because Carly can't stream tonight. Maybe I'll go on there Sunday nights. The other night I got on at 1 in the morning. I went out to do comedy and podcasting. When I got back, Carly was streaming. We have another friend, we have 3 of us, Pedro.

Mm-hmm.

And we fucking go off on there, man. I eat a few edibles, I smoke some dope, I put my little earphones on, I got music, everybody's sleeping. I got my little office in the back to play it. And if this is what I'm doing now, this is what I'm doing.

Dude, it's how the times are. There's not— some people, they can't— there's not even a lot of jobs out there. You can't grow a crop. You grow a fucking— you grow a pumpkin or whatever, it's got damn, uh, you know, it's got metals in the middle of it and shit. Everything's got a— you know, things are so messed up now. You got a cornfield, but half of the corn's got fucking Velcro on it growing out of it and shit. Like, everything is just merged out. It's like, yeah, if you're an adult playing video games I didn't do it as a kid.

I don't— I didn't play any fucking games.

Then you earned it, dude. Every kid should be able to play video games.

That's why I tell people, I'm 63. I'll let you know what I want to do when I grow up as soon as I find out. I don't know what I want to do when I grow up. I'm having a good time doing what I'm doing. And you know that, uh, having— I love seeing Joe once a month. Oh yeah, perfect for me. 2, 3 days with Joe. talking some shit, smoking some dope in the green room. It's not even that. I like going to Sunset and hanging out with Red Band. Yeah, you know, I'm gonna start going more to Creek in the Cave. I gotta start going over there and torturing Rebecca. It's a nice little comedy community, and for guys like us, we're right there. You want to do another spot, go to the Vulcan, right? And beside that, how many open mics are there there?

Oh, well, dude, you can go down there and what would take you a year in another city, I think you can do in 4 months down there.

Yeah, comedy-wise, I really believe that.

Even in LA, if you're around, it's still extra popping around, you know. But there you can manage it up and get it in, especially if you're really working on it.

Look, you could do 3 spots by 9, good spots in front of good audiences. Go to fucking Austin. The show started at 7. Yeah, some of them start at 6. It just mathematically, it just made sense. The more I kept going on there and seeing my hotel bills, seeing this, I'm like, I need a pad. Yeah. And then I went to Red Band's building. Have you gone to that building? And that's why I picked an apartment. I'm in Red Band's building. I'm on the 44th fucking floor.

Is it fancy?

Oh yeah, fucking everything. Red light sauna downstairs, cold plunge, poker room, fucking supermarket downstairs that if you need food you can get the supermarket. They got everything. They do it all for you. Amazon returns.

They'll return it for you? Oh my God.

Put it in a room and they—

I have a bunch of shit I'd never wanted. And I just have it, dude. We started making ornaments out of some of it last year. We fucking hanging this shit on the tree of just Amazon returns.

There was so many, you know, the people who come to our shows love us and they bring us gifts. And I would just come home, put the gifts in the closet, open what I could.

Yeah.

When I moved, I cleaned out that closet. It was 6 feet deep with shit all the way to the back. I opened up like 2 hours worth of packages. Guess what I found? I found $3,400 in cash that people would put money in cards to me. You just paid $30 to come see me. Why are you putting a $100 bill? Yeah, you're giving me more money than you paid for the fucking ticket. But that's the people we have coming to our shows. They're very grateful. So you got to take the fucking extra leap if they're going to be that cool. When I opened that up, thank God there was books. People give me books and I'd open them and in the middle be $500 cash. I had like 2 books like that.

Really?

A couple guys put the money at the end of the book. Damn, it was fun.

I gotta look at some of them then. I've had some books. Yeah, would you do a monthly show down there?

Yeah, I got them. I got my dates already.

You do?

The first, uh, 3rd Thursday of the month, 7 o'clock show in the big room.

And that's October?

October 15th, 16th.

Oh man, I'll be down there.

November something, and December I got booked. And then what I'm doing is, so I'll do that room Thursday and then hang out Friday, and then Saturday CA is going to get me something I go do, like a casino. Yeah. a theater, and then I come home on Sunday. November's interesting, December's interesting because I'm gonna do Tulsa, Houston, and then I'm going right to Austin. I'm gonna stay there till like the 18th, finish out the year there. So when I come home, I'm home for Christmas. Got it. But my wife wants to go back down the 26th of December.

Does she like it down there?

Yeah, and my daughter really fucking liked it.

Really?

Remember, I was gonna get a one-bedroom and I'm like, one bedroom? I need some more fucking room, you know.

need some room. There we go. Joey Diaz at Friends.

Look at Joe Rogan. Look at the— look at the flyer. It looks like they made it from fucking papier-mâché. I gotta talk to Adam. Oh yeah, that's crazy. I'm doing that just to— one show a month covers my rent and the fucking plane ticket.

Yeah.

And I get to see friends. I get to eat.

That's the biggest thing. You get to watch and see people. That's the thing I start to notice, man. You know, I had to take some time. Like, thankfully I've had some time off. I was having— like, I tried to get on New Med. I tried to get all off of my meds and I was trying like different plant medicine stuff because I really wanted to get off meds, right? You know, I've always wanted to because I got on them 23 years ago because I was going through a bad time in a relationship, and I've still been on them bitches.

I went on one 6 years ago and I'm trying to get off it. Yeah, I don't even see it affecting me anymore. Like, I don't even see— if you work out and do all the other shit and you get some, man, I Somebody watching Jaws.

Is it affecting us or no?

We're good? No, no.

Um, yeah, that'd be— but it'll be so good down there, dude. And it's like, yeah, but yeah, I had to take a little—

Listen, man, when I went down, I told you what happened last time. I was headed down there Saturday at 10 in the morning. That night I get home from whatever I'm doing, I open up Instagram to see what's going on, and you made a pop. And I'm like, I didn't want to call you to tell you I was coming down. I want to give you a hug and surprise you.

Yeah.

So when I went down Saturday, that's when all I was doing. And I went to do a show on the other side of town, and somebody goes, Theo's at the, uh, Mothership right now.

All right, Mothership.

Yeah. And I said, all right, let me shoot over there. When I got there, they said, you just missed the motherfucker. Oh. And I stayed there for an hour, and then they called back again. They're like, we're all at, uh, whatever, Betty, Becky, um, uh, come on down, you know. Yeah, Theo's down there. And that's when I got on the bicycle with the 5 girls. One of them is my niece. One was Carly, my partner. And yeah, and then there was, uh, Christina Mariani, who was—

she's the best.

She's the best. And little Orr. And I had a blast with those bitches. They took me to fucking the bed seat. We walked out of there at 4:30 in the morning. I don't— I haven't stayed out past 1 in 20 years. Yeah. And here I am in Austin, Texas, 4:30 in the morning, not even sweating, not even— I had a couple cocktails in me, that was it. But I had the best time.

Oh yeah.

And that's the other thing, man. I gotta do a lot to find happiness in town because at my age, the biggest thing you wanna have is communication in your day. It's great, you wanna be alone, that's great, but you have to communicate with other people. That's why I go to gyms in the morning.

Oh, isolation is bad.

I go to boxing gyms. At this age, this is the biggest thing that'll get you. Yeah, it's boredom and not having social. I'm 20 years older than all the other dads in my block. I get it, right? I'm a fucking dinosaur compared to them. And when they talk, I don't know what they're talking about either. So So the only people I have, a couple girls that are my friends, like moms. Yeah, that I met through softball and shit. They'll call me and say, we're meeting up here if you want to come by, have a drink. Besides that, there's no guys who call me.

Wow.

I got like 3 neighborhood girls.

Dude, my friend— yeah, one of my friends ended up working with me, so now we're co-workers, which is nice. We're still friends, but we— it's working also, so there's part of that always in it. One of my good friends, he was playing football there, and now he He graduated over there. He was playing at college. And then, uh, some other friends have moved out of there. So yeah, Nashville's like, it's good, but I don't have as much of that. Like, I got a good Bible study over there though, but I don't have some of that like day-to-day contact that I want. But, and AA's gotten better over there.

Okay.

So that's been good for me.

How are you doing with the program? Let's talk about it.

Yeah, it was getting choppy, man. I had some tough times this summer, you know. But it's gotten better.

Sorry.

No worries. It's gotten better, man. Um, yeah, I don't know. I think there was just like— I don't know what was going on. Life just fucking got kind of crazy at certain points. Just like sometimes there's just a lot going on, and it was just like, you know, I got away from my program, you know. I think there was a point too where I think over the years I was just touring too. It was just too much, you know. And you don't know, like, I guess you do know, but I don't know. Some of you just learn them for the first time. You're like, I don't know what's going on here. You know, you make some money, you don't know what that's like. You know, popularity, some of the— some things get scary. Um, but yeah, I just gotten away from my program, you know, and so I had to lock back in. And so now it's been good. Um, because most of the time I've had, it's been— has been sober time. You know, it's just when you You know, it's just I've had— yeah, more recently it's just, it's been choppier than I would, than I would want.

Um.

This is very much a con— you do the same shit every day to get you to where you're going. And for me, ever since I moved here, I'm not gonna lie to you, 6 years ago I was struggling with mental health. Signed up and spoke to a therapist, went on some type of medication. It was not good. I look you in the face and tell you, my— I got dark when I left LA. And then I was— that shit with my mother started about— she never showed up. So it was like a long 18 months, and therapy really helped me. I figured out what the trouble fucking spots are. And if I wake up at 3 in the morning and Theo's on my mind, there's a problem. I have to talk to Theo.

Yeah.

I used to ignore those things, you know. I would get up to piss at 3 in the morning, go, fuck. I'm thinking about this date I took and I shouldn't have and all that shit, right? And once you start getting a lot of those in my life, something's not right. So I had to eliminate those. Like, something happened last week, I woke up 2 nights in a row thinking about something. I got up this week and cleaned that shit up instead of letting it ride, right?

Can't do that.

Because I was so busy with comedy and being a dad and podcasting. Yeah, that you overlook a lot of things. So, and right now I'm about to do that again at the age of 63 with podcasting and stuff like that. So I just had to learn how to take care of my mental. I started paying attention to it a lot more. Anything that jolts me a little bit, I'm done with.

Yeah.

You know, I was doing great in LA. I was doing theaters, 2 theaters every weekend, 2 podcasts a week, 8 spots a fucking week. I'm doing all these fucking things. And now— and I wasn't happy. I just was not fucking happy.

Wow.

I didn't like how things were being handled in my life. I didn't like the bullshit that was going with it. So I said, you know what, I switched agents. I stayed with CAA. Nothing with the other agent, I just didn't like how we were doing business. I didn't like— I shouldn't cringe when you call me. I shouldn't look at the phone and go, fuck, what's this motherfucker want? And that's what was happening. So I had to go back and clean all that up. And I decided I'm gonna do comedy, but it's not corporate comedy. It's 63. I don't give a fuck if I get canceled.

Yeah.

I don't give a fuck about anything. As a matter of fact, there's only one thing I care about is being funny and making sure those people have a great show. I don't have Netflix on my mind. I don't want to do a special. I don't want to do much. I got an audition for a voiceover. I'm gonna do it. It's for Ghostbusters. That I'll do. But yeah, everything else, I'm not in the corporate mood anymore. I'm not in the mood where people are coming up to me with 3 people after the show. You're great. I'm not in the mood for that shit.

Yeah, that's a bunch of fucking shit to regale you.

That's just a bunch of shit to take you off your game. So now this is why I incorporated Austin in my life and incorporated what I'm doing now. I'm just going to be funny at 63. Yeah. And I have an 18-month window until I turn 65, and that goal is to give it all out, balls out, and try to be the best I can until I'm 65. Then I'll see what ticket sales are and everything else, and I'll reevaluate. I'm a lucky 63-year-old because right now I'm supposed to be on a ship.

Yeah.

Meanwhile, I'm out here handpicking gigs that are offered at me. Casinos, they pay well, you know, little residencies, because—

Oh yeah, you can do something. And yeah, there's a lot of possibilities.

So why am I stressing? I was doing the road completely different before. It was corporate. and it was business. I was only there to pick up a check on Saturday. Yeah, I was not happy till that check came in my hand. I don't look at it like that no more. I don't even want the fucking check. I want to have a good time. Yeah, if I don't have a good time, why have the check? Yeah, I'm just— so that's my outlook now. I think that with this window, somebody asked me why 5-year window, and I'm like, dog, I'm 63. I got one foot in the grave, one on a banana peel. Ain't no window. It's like a fucking flea window.

It's like a doggy door.

Yeah, it's a doggy door. So, and but then I said, no, you have to live with some type of purpose, and you have to have some type of purpose where you stand up. And this is what I'm doing.

I'm happy to hear that, man. Yeah, I'm glad, dude, because yeah, and we need your energy there. And I need to hear that because yeah, I'm getting back. It's like I take some time off, you know. We gotta, uh, we put a special together that's gonna come out at some point soon. But yeah, I'm just taking some time off. I just started getting back on stage. I got up with Giannis Papas a couple weeks ago, dude. Okay, bro, that was one of the— he's one of the funniest.

He's a funny dude, Giannis Papas. He does not fuck around, bro. It—

his, his show right now is probably the fun— it's one of the funniest shows I'd ever seen.

Really? The tour he's doing now?

Oh, it was so good.

Oh, so you jumped on stage with Giannis in Austin then? Yeah, right. Yeah, you went up before his set? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, he's a fun guy. He's a good guy. And I like Joe DeRosa. There's a lot of guys down there that I really think the world of, like the young comics that—

And that young energy. If you're young and want to kill, you want to be a hustler, you want to be in it, they're down there, man.

And that energy is really good for guys my age. We both have something to give each other. I have the wisdom of 30 years that they ask me a question, I can put them at ease.

Yeah.

And they have the gift of making me feel young.

Amen.

Give me the opportunity to go up there and rock like I was 24.

Like you're saying, Being around people gives you energy, bro.

Energy.

Yeah. It's like I'll go hang out around like, I'll go like, I'm a Vanderbilt football fan, right? You know, like, I like LSU because that's obviously where I'm from. But Vanderbilt's the city that I live in, right? They play out of Nashville. And so like last year, I went to like 9 of their games last year on the road, at home. I mean, they played 11 games. I went to 9. They played 12. I went to 9. And it just gave me so much life. Because you're just around—

you're surrounded.

But it's a maximum amount.

That's real. College football is real energy, Doc. Yeah, that's not fucking around. That's, you know, I tell people, you don't know what life is till you go to a college football game. Oh yeah, NFL's the NFL. Yeah, college is— you feel the love in the air. Everybody's having a good time.

Somebody's got their fucking tits out.

Yeah, so always at those games, one girl isn't doing a somersault and she's fucking beautiful.

Oh, you could throw your dick into the crowd, it'll land than some girls have had.

Yes, you could feel the— you could feel something that's unlike pro football.

Oh yeah, it's something real.

Which is real, you know.

Pro football's turning into just more gambling and people just trying to like, uh, you know, people trying to just gamble and just probably lie to their spouse or whatever. Um, but it's definitely— yeah, pro football's turning into a bit more of a racket.

Um, what I wanted to talk to you about before I left was our plan for, uh, the future. I love you a lot. You're like a stepson to me. And, uh, when I bumped into you in Austin, you said something to me that night that really made me think. And then I started counting for you. I started counting the days for you to give you as much support as I can give you. I'm not there all the time.

Yeah.

I'm not there all the time. And I really want you to do well with this now. I really want you to put your— because you have a whole world ahead of you that you don't know, and I'm going to explain it to you now. I did cocaine from 1979 to 2007. What's that? That's 21 years plus 7 is 200— 28 years.

28 years.

28 years I had that in my body. It was in my thought, and it does affect you. Yeah, you know, it's not just one package once a week. Now you're doing 5 packages a week, and it starts becoming you. I ended up kidnapping somebody. I ended up paying my debt to society. And what did I do when I came out? I went right back to the bag.

Oh dude, I fucking—

yeah. And I started comedy during the bag. I got married, I got divorced, I was dead broke. I went through hell for a lot of years.

And you were in the bag the whole time?

Oh fuck yeah, there was no stopping or nothing. There was, there was always a bag. I got divorced. Yeah, I don't talk to that daughter. It's been 20-something years since I spoken to that daughter. Yeah, all because of that patch of life. But I want you to think about what I'm telling you. At 44, I made a decision to stop snorting coke. That was 19 years ago. This November will be 19 years. I want to tell you what I've accomplished in 19 years to what I accomplished in 44 years. It's not even close.

Wow.

Marriage, a child, a career, podcasting. I did all these things in that little fucking window. So every morning when I wake up, my regret is I wish I had 15 more of those years to see what the damage I could have done, or how high I could have worked if I would have ended up in arenas or whatever. I'm content with what God gave me. I'm grateful for what I don't have and for what I do have. Even if you have a cocktail one time, even if you decide to eat a 10 milligram edible— I'm talking about the shit that gets us down the most, the drug that has driven us—

Yeah.

down the most is what you have to get out of your system. And Jesus Christ, in 19 years I became a dad, the saint.

Was it stuff you never thought you could do?

Never.

Wow.

Never. And you get this superpower. You get, you get to see who the real you was.

Yeah.

Once you uncover that thing, what's about to come out, if you stick to the program— and what's working the program? I have to go to a meeting 8 times a day. That's bullshit.

Yeah.

I want you to go to a meeting once a day. I want you to wake up every day with the intention that you're there to make someone's day, whether you give them $1,000 or open up a car door for them to— so their day is better. Sobriety isn't just fighting off the devil. It's us morphing into the new us and figuring out what the fuck the drugs have covered, what views have been covered by the drugs, what part of our lives have been hidden. Oh yeah, and that's when you're gonna— a woman will pop into your life, she gets knocked up in 2 months, and she's gonna give you twins, and they're beautiful 2 girls. You know, this is the things that I'm saying to you, right? That just springs at me.

Yeah.

Because your options are so much when you're sober from the shit that almost killed you. I mean, how long was I going to continue to do it, bro? How long was I going to go to prison again?

Or how long—

put me in fucking prison. You know, and I still went out the next week. That's the monster that addiction is. But once you cut that motherfucker's head off, yeah, the shit that comes out of you, man, it takes a while, but you'll start thinking things and going, hmm, I never thought like that before.

Oh yeah, I mean, the best times I've ever had, I think, or the best— that, yeah, the, the time I've operated the best in my life has been times when I've, when I've been sober, you know. And most of the time it's been that way, but it's like when it's gotten off where it hasn't been, it's definitely— it's been tough, you know? And then you start to get isolated too. That never helped me. Um, sometimes it was like over touring, that didn't help me. Um, but yeah, I've always gone to meetings, you know. I just had— there was just— there was a time where— yeah, like in the past probably 6 months has been tough to keep a lot of time together, you know. But, uh, But now it's, it's back on track. And so that's been the best feeling. But I appreciate that. And I always—

I got your back, man. I got your fuck— even though I'm 20 miles— 2,000 miles without you, I think about you 3, 4 times a week. I don't like bothering you because I know you're on— you're in different time zones every 15 fucking minutes. You're in a different time zone.

Yeah.

But I want you to know I have your back. I'm cheering for you because I really want you to get the happiness that you've been looking for for years, for years. It might not be a woman, might not be a kid, it might not be a horse. You're gonna feel— this is way better than a peptide. Yeah, no peptide, no blowjob, nothing can make you feel what you're about to feel once those fucking rocks start getting out of the way and the real you comes out.

What did you notice for yourself? Like, was there one kind of thing or two things that really—

There was something right off the bat. that I had forgotten in all my addiction. The first thing I forgot was that I was a fucking man.

Hmm.

And there's a certain way to talk to me, and there's a certain way not to talk to me. Whether you're a talent agent, a producer, a director, you're going to talk to me a certain way, and I'm going to give you the same mutual respect. And I remember one night I flipped out on a fucking director on a commercial shoot, and everybody loved it because the guy went on— he's one of those guys that comes up with the sleeves rolled up to show the tattoo and the hat.

Oh yeah.

With the feather and the Chinese assistant.

Some fake-ass orphan or whatever.

And I found myself sticking up for myself more, not giving a fuck about— because what I really gave a fuck wasn't ruining my career, it was ruining my little secret that I'm not— I might not be able— I'm not going to stick up for myself because I won't be able to snort coke 3 nights from now. Once I didn't have that no more, I became a fucking animal. That's it. You gotta treat me like a man, bitch. I'm not one of these motherfuckers in Studio City. Oh my God, I brought you a cake. Nah. Yeah, I got talent, motherfucker. All right, I don't have to show up with nothing, right? It was things like that that I started, like, in LA. I started, you know, people call you, hey, it's 3:40 in the afternoon, you want to go to this audition at 6 downtown? Can I ask you a question? Would you send your mother down there at 6? Yeah. Why are you sending me down there?

Fuck you.

Fuck you. And yeah, sticking up for yourself, not in a weird way. Nah, I'm very appreciative that you got me an audition. But just the things that Hollywood gets you confused.

Yeah, they start tripping your brain up a little bit.

And when you see them, those guys are all the same.

Yeah.

They talk a big game until you say, how about I slap you in the mouth and watch what happens? The police get involved. Oh, this is not right. Yeah, but when you did it, it was right. When you walk around this set and embarrass people and talk, you know, to women, just fucking around. I heard the director tell a woman she was too fat.

Yeah.

I don't want you standing over there. He didn't say nothing about the lighting. He just blatantly, because he thought he could do that, tell this girl that was like 28, you're too fat, I can't have you stand there. When I heard that, I was like, yeah. And you take that shit because you think that's part of—

you think it's part of it.

Fuck you.

Fuck you. A lot of these Hollywood dudes, they get bad. They get bad. They give bad, uh, they give a bad name to real cool gay dudes and regular facts or whatever. They ruin them.

Regular facts.

Because they're— you know what I'm saying? Because they ruin them because they're trying to be fucking—

That shit, that shit was holding me back. Your original thoughts of how you feel, whatever religion you're part of.

Yeah.

There's something that you paid attention to younger, now you feel stronger about it.

Yeah.

There's so many things that you see that have been cut off from your life and you're like, how did I forget that? Yeah. How did I forget this?

So yeah, some disconnection.

In a nutshell, I think it's hard, but I want to be on this planet when you start reaping the rewards from that, because I want you to call me every 3 months and go, Joey, this is getting fucking crazy.

Wow.

This is getting fucking crazy. I'm not talking about you involved in an orgy. Life is going to get crazy. Yeah, numbers are going to start changing, people are going to start changing. It gets real, and this is what you were supposed supposed to feel since day one. When I started coke and I do a show the next night, it would be great, I would kill, but I could feel the connection wasn't there. I'm connected now. I've been connected for 17 years.

Yeah.

I know exactly what passes through my mouth and how it goes out. So if I could give anything to anybody, I want you to feel that, what I feel, because I know it's going to solve 89% of your problems. Yeah, I, I could promise you that. I can— I could gamble my life on that. If you stick to this program you're on right now, a couple weights, you're not doing like— you don't have to become Mr. N.A. and get a tattoo.

Yeah, no, I don't need all of that.

You know, you don't need all that. Just where your heart is, you're gonna be a fucking killer. You're a killer now.

I just need to keep my— yeah, I just got to keep building more time.

And right now, I don't know, I clock you at 40. You're gonna have the last 20 years of your life be how you intended to live them. And that's something I can't sell you, and that's something NA can't sell you. And I love those programs because those programs really help you. I didn't like the Hollywood NA. I went to it a couple times when I stopped snorting coke. It would drive me back to snort coke because they don't adhere to the program.

Well, sometimes they'd have dudes in there selling coke.

Yeah, they're selling coke. They go to a doctor that gives them replacement pills to get you high. They all come up with— did they— I, I still remember being at that meeting. It was on, uh, I think off the—

no, it was Santa Monica Boulevard.

Yes, I went to a couple of them there. Too many people had NA tattoos.

Yeah, people have like a bag of coke tattooed on them and shit like that, you know, have a fucking— they had a gay dude in there was always sucking on people. He had a fucking Big Gulp tattoo, that gay dude, that big big black dude. They call him the Vacuum or whatever. That motherfucker, bro, do not even take your wiener out around that guy. It'll end up in his mouth. But yeah, it was a trying time over there.

Let me try it.

Yeah. But yeah, dude, thank you, bro.

I appreciate it. Because I love you. You're the real deal. Holy shit, I've always loved you. It's easy.

So love you too.

That's what I want you to really get in your life.

So I appreciate that, dude. Yeah, I'm, uh, I feel better than ever that I'm—

You look better than ever.

Thank you.

I could see it. And this time, out of all the other times, I see a little bit more confidence in your eyes. I watch your podcast, dog. I watch you. You know, whenever I see a video of you jumping up and down in Vanderbilt, I look at you and I make sure—

Oh yeah, I was fucking gooning out there.

You ate last night and, you know.

Yeah, Lane Kiffin's got people out there. He's, he's 2 losses away from probably getting busted for something, but TBD. That's his life.

That's it, brother.

He keeps things exciting. Um, what else? I'm trying to think if there's anything else we want to talk about, then we can— anything else you wanted to talk about, Joey?

No, I'm pretty good. I got it out of my chest, what I wanted for you, and I love you, and that's it.

Appreciate it.

We could promote some dates or whatever, but I don't give a fuck. I have nothing in September. I have, uh, the 30th in Brooklyn.

Can you pull his dates out?

And that's all I got, brother. Just happy to be here with you. I'm happy you came to New Jersey.

And, uh, yeah, right there we got Brooklyn, New York, September 30th.

Um, Chicago Theater, November 5th, I think, for the comedy festival with Bert. I think I got a Riverside Theater in Milwaukee on the 7th.

Oh, that's gonna be beautiful, dude.

So that's where I'm at. But who gives a fuck about the dates?

We'll put them up. Yeah, put them in.

Figure this out, brother.

Uh, Coco Diaz, bro, love you, bro.

Love you, brother. Thanks for thinking of me, and have a great week, and I'll see you.

I'll see you in Austin. I'll see you in Austin next month. I'm gonna wear this piece of my life out.

I can feel it in my bones. But it's gonna take a little—