E508 Joey Diaz

Theo Von
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Today's guest is a comedian, probably one of the most unique comedians of all time. He has a new book out called Tremendous, which you can check out on Amazon. He was the host of the Fame podcast, legendary podcast, the church of what's happening now. He has his own podcast now with Lee Syette called the check in. I'm grateful to catch up today with one of my heroes, Mister Joey Coco Diaz.

Shine that light on me I'll sit and tell you my story.

Joey Diaz
Shine on. Me and I will find a song I've been singing.

What did he say? Jelly roll? Yeah, go ahead.

Theo Von
So this is jelly roll. Like jelly roll. Every time he wins an award, he gets up there and he's like, I just want to thank right now, there's somebody who's stuck under a bridge. There's somebody out there who's got a size eleven foot in a size eight tennis shoe. And I just want to say, you can live your dreams, man.

Joey Diaz
Every time, dude. Every time they call his name for any, every time jelly gets an award, man, he just, he's so full of feelings, bro. He gets up there and he's just like, I just want, I want to tell you that I was a, I was a maitre d at a macaroni grill, and now I'm a Grammy award winning artist. Like, sometimes it's just I can't like, bro, if they even like at a fat, like, I feel like even at Chipotle, if they just call his name to come get his order, he goes up there, he picks it up, and he's like, I want to let every illegal alien in this motherfucker know in 40 days and with only 90 singing lessons, you can win a fucking american music award. 90 singing lessons, dude.

Theo Von
It was better last night when I did it. Oh, my God, I was dying. I was dying in my sleep. He was. You do him to the tee.

Joey Diaz
It's fucking crazy. Everybody was dying last night. Some people doing real good. Yeah. Joey Diaz, man.

Theo Von
Good to see you, brother. Good to see you, too. You, too, man. That was fun last night. That was a lot of fun just seeing you.

Joey Diaz
It's been four fucking years, theo. I know you. Since the pandemic, man, I haven't seen anybody. Yeah, I realized. So funny.

Theo Von
I realized. I didn't realize how much I missed seeing you until I got out of the car, out of the uber at the mothership, and I was like, is Joey here? And they're like, yeah. And I literally. My legs, like, I ran upstairs, I was so happy.

Joey Diaz
First person I asked for when I got there, I'm like, where's fucking Theo? Yeah. Like, he'll be here later now, man. We haven't seen each other. It's been.

It's fucking crazy, man. What happens to life sometimes. Yeah. Has it been good? Have you been feeling good in Jersey?

Theo Von
It seems like everything's good. You look great. The first fucking year was a struggle. Cause I was lost. I was fucking lost.

Joey Diaz
I was like, you know what I was trying to do was, honestly, was just figure out what happened the last 30 years after the pandemic. When the pandemic hit, we were all gung ho. We were very all gung ho. Oh, yeah. But, like, by May of the pandemic, I was like, what the fuck happened?

I came here, I auditioned for Mitzi Shaw, and I don't know what happened. Like, here we are. Yeah. You know, movies. Talking to this guy, talking to that guy.

The store at the end, before the pandemic, it was something that you'll never, ever see again. I still remember I would do spots and then go to the kitchen after my spot and just sit for a minute and look out into the bar area and stuff. And it would be like, celebrities, mma people, the clippers. You know, it was something. Every night, it was just too overwhelming.

Theo Von
Yeah. Every time you left the store on Tuesdays or Thursdays, you got in your car and you had to fucking drive 30 minutes just to decompress. Yeah. Doctor Dre was hanging out at night before the fucking thing. He was coming into the store every night.

Joey Diaz
It was just a scene that was, you know, hard to believe. We had our own fucking thing. Kenison, dice, those guys had their thing, and we had our thing. It's really true. I didn't realize it either until I went back, like, over the.

Theo Von
I've gone back over the past two years, and it's like, it's not even. It's not even the same thing anymore. It was like a. It was like lightning striking when everybody was there, dude, when. Dude, the lineup sometimes, like, on a Tuesday night, I still have them.

Joey Diaz
I saved everything. I would clip a line up. I would take a picture of it or something and go, yeah, this is where you were with these guys. I want to see somebody try to take something away from me. Like, do you know what I'm saying?

Like, people always go, whoa, he didn't do it. Listen, bitch. And this is these lineups in 2019. What about the lineups? Well, 2009, I wasn't there in 99, I was there, and I remember looking at those lineups, and they weren't good.

But you had fucking animals, like, three of them then on the lineup. So it wasn't like nine motherfuckers coming at you. From Ali Wong to you to Delia. It was a cavalcade every Tuesday and Thursday, and everybody got along. Whitney, whitney, Burt.

Just Joe Segura, fucking Tripoli, Brennan, Eddie Bravo, Owen Smith. It was fucking crazy what was down there. It was crazy, bro. They had MMA fighters that weren't even comedians fucking doing 20 minutes down there. It was fucking crazy.

Theo Von
Eddie Bravo was doing like 40 fucking minutes, bro. Fucking crazy. You think about it, and people walked in there, and it's like. They got high. Yeah.

Joey Diaz
Soon as people walked in, it's like walking into the mothership. You know, you walk in and you're just taken. You just taken. And this is, you know, I didn't do it for one summer. I did it for 30 fucking years.

So now I gotta figure out where they took me. Yeah. You know, where the fuck did they take me? I mean. Yeah.

Theo Von
Just to look at that lineup and be like, it doesn't even feel like you're really the person doing it. No. You ever see oh, God, you devil? Any of those oh, God movies, George? Is it like a black movie or not?

Joey Diaz
No, no, no. George Burns. Oh, yeah. Plays God and he fucks with people. Yeah.

Theo Von
And he got the coke bottle or. Whatever, and it's really weird. Yeah, those things there. Fucking. One of the guys he went to, I'll never forget, like, I.

Joey Diaz
This is way before I got into comedy. Way before I got into comedy, I started watching him, you know, I like movies. And there was one particular guy that. The guy was a musician and he was struggling and he was like a Bruce Springsteen type guy. And then he came to him and he fucking shut out the light.

Cause he was the devil. He plays the devil. Oh, he plays the devil. And he did cut a deal with you to sell your soul. Oh, God.

Theo Von
You devil. I remember the gods must be crazy. Was that him? No, no, that's. That's why you're getting confused with the Africans and stuff.

Joey Diaz
Yeah, but it was. That's what I feel like. The guy during the movie, after he became a star, he would go, what the fuck? What the fuck? And then he would go to a restaurant.

After he knew the devil took his soul, he would go to a restaurant and see the girl he was engaged with. And now she was about to have a baby, and this was his life. Like, it's fucking crazy. And that's what I felt like a lot of times. Like, did I just do that?

Why do people want to take a picture of me? I'm a felon. Your mother told you to stay away from people like me. You want to take a picture of me. And it was just mind boggling.

So that was the first year in Jersey. It was just trying to figure out, coming down, I was coming down. I was. I had committed to coming down and seeing what life was like with the fucking and the sticks, you know, and started going to softball games and basketball games with my daughter. And were you playing or you were just coaching or what?

Nah, I don't even coach. I just sit there. I get high and I sit there and watch. Oh, yeah. Bunch of fucking girls go, you know, it's so funny.

I used to go to my father in law's house in Nashville. That motherfucker's always watching girls softball. And I would look at him and go, I'm not even gonna say nothing to my wife, but this is the most pedophilia fucking thing ever. An old guy watching girls softball. Well, guess what?

I became that fucking old guy. Now I go to her games. I go to her basketball game. You know, it's. There's so much.

Listen, man, for me to get into comedy, I lost her family. I lost her daughter. You know, she's 34. I haven't talked 30 fucking four. Like, this was part of the whole, like, what happened?

Like, I left Boulder when she was five, and now she's 30 fucking four. We haven't spoken in 20 years. No way. 20 years. 20?

Yeah. It's gotta be 20 years now. Is it? Are there times where it just hit you and it just hurts? Sometimes?

It really hurt in the beginning. For years, it really took me. Part of the addiction and all that shit was that. And then I made peace with it. I knew that this wasn't gonna work.

It wasn't in the cards, and you gotta move on. Then I had this. Then God gave me a second chance, and they threw another girl at me. And I'm like, what am I gonna do here? So I said, let me sink in, you know, and fucking be a dad.

Just get. I got a second chance to do this the right way this time, and this is what I'm gonna do. And that was a real thought in your head. You're like, I got this. This is God giving me a second chance.

Fuck, yeah. You know, I've gotten beo. How many second chances have I fucking. I bet a decent amount. So some second chances, you gotta jump on and go, you know what?

This ain't gonna happen again. Yeah, I can make peace with myself. You know, I heard things. I wasn't a good dad. I heard tons of shit from my ex wife.

And now I'm living it, you know, now I'm living. I got a nice house, cars, you know, we don't. I'm not a jet setter. You know that. I'm not a BMW guy or nothing.

I'm just happy and comfortable. Yeah. You know, I retire in four fucking years. My daughter collects Social Security for three of those years, the ones I didn't get when my mother died. So everything comes full fucking circle, man.

Theo Von
Oh, really? So Social Security, you get it for how long? So when my mother died, I didn't get Social Security because they said she didn't work enough quarters. She owned a business. So I had no money coming in when I was a kid, you know, for all those years.

Joey Diaz
And it's weird now. I got a letter about six months ago about retiring and all this shit would benefit. And I'm like, I don't want to retire. I want to keep slinging dick. I mean, I feel great to go out there.

I'm not in the mood to go on planes every weekend. No, it's a lot. It's a young man. It's not a young man's game. It's a young man's game.

Theo Von
But it's a. It really is it's not even that you can't do it. It's just. Can you put up? It's like the stress, it just wears on you.

And you did it for so long, I bet people. And we'll forget. I'll forget sometimes, Joey, how long I did this shit for to the airport? I'd be like, fuck, I just cannot do this. I cannot get on a plane.

And people were like, what are you talking about, man? And. But part of my brain is just like, I don't know what time when I wasn't going to the airport. Yeah. Or wasn't getting the car for a fucking haul.

Joey Diaz
My thing was this. I dreaded the road. Yeah. Until I got in the Uber. Until you got into what?

Uber? Yeah. Once I get in the Uber and I got an edible in me and I'm headed to fucking lax. Look out, motherfuckers. Look out.

Theo Von
Come out of friendly scouts. That's what happens to me. It's the lead up. It was towards the last year, I would wake up in the middle of the nights going, I can't believe I booked this trip to this place. Yeah.

Joey Diaz
Fuck, I should have taken that week off and I shouldn't have booked this. I can't believe I got to go to this town this week. Yeah, like, fuck, he's tickle town or something. There's always something. You're like, fuck.

Theo Von
In Puerto Rico, I. Dude, I did a fucking weekend in Puerto Rico one time, and I was like, what the fuck? Some new joint they put how, like, I never should have when nine people fucking showed up to a couple gay dudes over there, bro. I think it was like a sex laundering or whatever, but I didn't do anything. But I went and, you know, I tried to do my best comedy, but just fucking unreal, bro.

Joey Diaz
Nah, we've been doing this for a long time. You, uh. Some of the shit. Yeah. And it's like, I just went back to Jersey and I was like, to top it off, I haven't lived in Jersey in 40 years.

Theo Von
You got a driveway over there? Yeah, yeah. Driveway, fucking backyard. I got raccoons. Yeah, I got a raccoon that will not leave me the fuck alone.

Really? And he's become, like, friends. He's like, buddy now. He just comes, he tries to. I put two bricks on the garbage.

Joey Diaz
He looks at me at night like, motherfucker, you got me again. Then he leaves. I put a piece of nicotine gum in that motherfucker. I didn't see him for a week. That motherfucker was running up and down fucking my street with nicotine in him.

But, you know, I live in a great neighborhood. It's quiet. Theo. I live around the corner from Jimmy Florentine. Oh, yeah.

Theo Von
He's an awesome guy. Awesome guy. But, I mean, that's a week down. You go down there, you're like, whoa, I gotta learn how to fucking navigate this shit. Go down where, to his house?

Joey Diaz
No, no, to my house. Like, when I moved down to this place. I'm an hour out of New York City. I'm an hour 15 out of New York City. I'm an hour where I was raised from, like, north Bergen, right across the.

Theo Von
City, where James J. Braddock is from. Yeah. No way. Yeah.

Joey Diaz
I used to shovel the driveway. You're lying. When we were kids. Nuh uh. Yeah.

And his son was a fucking cop. And. Yeah, that's the park there. JJ Braddock park. They just put a beautiful statue up there.

That neighborhood was rocking. When we were kids. Not only did he lived in town, JJ Braddock, but fucking the other guy, Jethro's father. Jethro Tull? No, Jethro from the Beverly hillbillies.

Theo Von
That dude had a father? Yeah. Bro. Anybody could have made that dude. Jethro was a bad motherfucker.

Wow. So, yeah. You saw James J. Braddock when you were a kid? Yeah, like, 1012.

Joey Diaz
We would go to Hudson County park, and one day somebody said, go up there. He would just give you, like, $10 to shovel in front of his house, like, fucking when it snowed. So I only went up there, like, once or twice. It was way out of my neighborhood. He probably didn't know it was snow.

Theo Von
He probably was a snow globe. He got hit somewhere. That dude was fucking tough, bro. Oh, yeah, that dude's tough. I saw some tapes of him.

Joey Diaz
That dude was irish fucking longshoremen. He was fucking. He'll fight you with one fucking hand, those guys. Yeah, yeah. Right there.

James J. Braddock park. Right there. Damn, dude. That's one of my favorite movies, dude.

Theo Von
I've probably watched that movie maybe twelve times since. I love that movie. When I saw that, when I was crying up a storm, the funny thing was, I got in trouble for that movie. Listen to this. I'm at the longest yard premiere.

Mm hmm. What? The longest fucking yard premiere that you're in. So that people. So I walk into my seats, I sit down, and the last seat is open.

Joey Diaz
I'm sitting there with my wife. We're talking about shit. And all sudden, right before the movie starts, fucking Cameron Crow sits next to me. And on his sleeve, he's got North Bergen. Did you see the jacket he made for Braddock when he was shooting that movie?

Like a fucking great jacket. He sat next to me, man. And I'm like, oh, what the fuck is gladiator doing next to me? I didn't say nothing. Cameron Crowe.

Theo Von
So that's the guy that made gladiator. Russell Crowe. I'm sorry? Russell Crowe. Russell Crowe.

Joey Diaz
It's Russell Crowe sitting next to me. The guy who played JJ Brown. Oh, really? And he had the jacket on. Nuh uh.

And as the movie ended, I couldn't take any more. The longest yard fucking ended. Everybody's clapping. The producers from the longest yard are sitting in front of me. And I turned to fucking Russell, and I go, yo, that's the fucking movie of the year right there.

And he looked at me and the producers looked at me. I'm supposed to be pushing the longest yard, but I'm telling him, this is the fucking movie of the year. Cinderella man. And he started laughing his ass off. You're from North Bergen.

We started giggling. And then because my friends told me when he was shooting a movie, they would see him at different delis. He was doing different delis around fucking. Town, just checking him out. Checking them out.

Whatever. Cuomos, stuff like that. I love that movie, man. I love that movie. And that's one of the reasons I like this.

Theo Von
I mean, I'm, you know, Dustin is fighting in Jersey, coming up with Islam. Yep. In two weeks. Yeah. That's a great fight.

Yeah. And so part of me is like, I'm like tying it in my head. I'm like, dude, when he told me, I was like, dude, it's like James J. Braddock, bro. It's like Cinderella, man.

Joey Diaz
When are you coming up? I'm gonna come up the day before Friday. Yeah, I got a show Friday. Where? At Beacon.

Well, maybe before the show, I'll take you to JJ Braddock park. No way. Yeah, the fucking. We'll go to the park. We'll eat over there.

They got good fucking food over there. Yeah, I would love to, dude. They got a fucking. A place called tapas right down the block from there and an italian place that's tremendous. Spaghetti with little meatballs anywhere you go.

And if not, we go up to Rudy's. Forget about it. Everything's good. Oh. Oh, yeah.

It's funny. Where I live, there's great food. I mean, fucking. I brought Rogan down there. His head almost blew up.

They got everything down there, and it's so weird. Like, you leave there going, I take Leo all the time. He loses his fucking mind. Who's Leo? Lee.

Lee. I take Lee. When he comes down. Yeah, when he comes down, I take him different places. That little fucking walkie talkie.

Theo Von
I saw him the other night. Dude, he was fucking. Dude, walkie talkie. That little fucking gumball machine is killing me, dog. The fucking jewish Christmas present.

That little fucking. And he's doing comedy, and he's doing great with it. Yeah, he's been doing it, I think, almost five years now. Yeah, he goes on the road. He fucking.

He's opening up for people. Does he close yet? I know he's opening up for people. Yeah, he opens up Rogan, a couple. Not Rogan.

Joey Diaz
Josh Wolfe. Yeah. Josh Wolfe. Yeah. That's when I saw.

Theo Von
I saw him, Josh Wolf and Jacob Wolf the other day at a clothing store. But then, yeah, me and Lee went up to the mothership one night. Yeah, he was excited, dude, I fucking. I'll never forget that. Time to fight.

Think it might've been the first time I came on. On you guys podcast. And in the beginning, there was something in the headphones. It was like, lee, I'm hearing, like, a little, like, a sound in the headphones. He's like.

I'm trying to fix it. So he's over there. I think he was, like, looking on his phone, trying to figure the whole board is in front of him or whatever. Fast forward 2 hours, dude, I think we did some mushrooms or something. Lee is unconscious, or semi unconscious.

I don't want to say he was unconscious, but he wasn't associating with you and me, and we were the only people in the room. So he's over there, and he's like. And I. I hear this sound in the headphones again, and it's like, this time it was him making, like, a wheezy. He had, like, some h vac issues going on or something.

That motherfucker. That was the thing that really killed me, I gotta be honest with you. Like, if you hit a popcorn bag that's been fucking. That's cooked to the max, bro. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Joey Diaz
That's what he sounded like. Yeah. That's when that first, like, kind of what killed you. Sorry, I interrupted you. No, no, no.

You know what fucking killed me, man? Those. Those eight years of that podcast with Lee, that was rough. Like, I didn't know how rough it was till I stopped doing it. Like, what do you mean?

Theo Von
Keeping up every week by having a party every week? You mean we were fucking what party? It was a nonstop party. Yeah. Oh, y'all were Neil Armstrong and that other guy who fights people.

Joey Diaz
We were fucking bizaldren. We were doing 2000 milligrams, mushrooms, vicodins, whatever people dropped in that office. Fucking. What's the therapy people do? Oh, ketamine therapy.

Ketamine. Oh, yeah. We were doing ketamine in there. Y'all put Owen Benjamin into the woods. You guys, fuck that dude in a blender.

There was a couple people that wanted to blend, including myself. Fuck. I put myself in a blend. I was mixed goods for fucking a year after that. When I got home, when I moved home, brackish water.

When I moved to Jersey, I moved to August. Right? August 19. And we stayed in the corporate housing till my house was ready. Oh, you were building a house?

No, the house wasn't. We couldn't move until September 2. Oh, yeah. So we had two weeks in corporate housing. Those two weeks.

Well, like, I was just driving my wife crazy. Yeah. Cause I was eating 3000 milligrams a day. I was bored. I was lonely.

It was a pandemic. Oh, yeah. I was eating Xanax to fucking help me go to sleep. I was eating Xanax on the road. And I'll never forget, I went back there and I got so high one night, I melted the tea kettle.

Cause I used to make Michael Jackson tea at night. Like, I'd make like, edible tea and put 2000 milligrams in there. And sleepy time. Yeah. And mix it up, and it'd be Michael Jackson tea.

Theo Von
Put some Sesame street on. Start jerking off. One night I made that shit, and I was like, I'm not high enough. God, I can't believe you even said that to yourself. Like, it was like the first month in Jersey was a fucking.

Joey Diaz
I wasn't high enough. So I went to make another batch of tea, and I passed out. And when I got up, like, 2 hours later, the fucking steam thing, the chee, it ran out of water and it just fucking collapsed into a little metal thing. My wife's like, we gotta throw that away. And it's just like.

Theo Von
Lee sighs just like. And then I had, like, fucking. I fell asleep at a restaurant. I was taking hash pills, you know? And we were at a restaurant.

What do you mean? Ash pills. Like from a fire? Hash, hash. Oh, hash.

Joey Diaz
Hash pills. Hash pills. Yeah. Jesus Christ. Yeah.

Yeah. No, it was nonstop. What are you fucking on, dude? We were fucking, you know, smoke. I mean, listen, I was going to the weed store every other day.

Theo Von
Wow. And every other day, I'd buy a half ounce every other day. Why'd you have to get so high, you think? Just. It was part of the thing.

Joey Diaz
I didn't know. To top it off, I was drinking eight to ten espressos a day. Cuban coffees.

Theo Von
Bro, what the fuck? What direction you want to go, son? Dog, it was edibles. Sleep edible. It was stand up sleep edibles.

Joey Diaz
It was just too much. Wow. And did you know what you wanted to do at that point? Or were you thinking like, I don't know what I want to do? Cause I remember there was a point, right when the pandemic happened, right after, like, 30, 40 days of not being.

Theo Von
Having to do comedy. First, I'm like, I'll take a little break. It's great. It's great. But then I'm like, I haven't taken a break in my whole life.

Joey Diaz
My whole life. I never made a choice what I wanted to do. I made a choice 20 years ago, and now I'm just still doing that choice. I don't even know what I want to be doing. So there was a time where I was like, I don't even know what I.

Theo Von
You know, what's going on? You know? I remember that. And then, yeah, for a little bit, I didn't know. Thankfully, I kept podcasting.

Joey Diaz
But, yeah, during the pandemic, that's what saved me was we kept podcast. Yeah, fuck it. Kidding. Fucked up in there at night. I mean, listen, the podcast started at seven, and we would get there at six, talk shit.

Me and Lee start doing edibles, and then you would come at seven, kick that mule, baby. And we'd do another hour of chitchat, bongs, edibles, and then a two hour podcast. And then after the podcast ended, we'd hang out for another hour. I wasn't getting home till two in the morning. Podcast started at 07:00 at night.

Theo Von
The church, baby. How the fuck could a podcast be? You know, you're there 7 hours for a two hour fucking podcast, two nights a week, and it was constant, you know? Yeah, I left out of there. They got that set on YouTube somewhere.

Joey Diaz
Yeah, you did the mushrooms. We were non stop. It was, like, fun. The THC scene was growing. I felt like a damn taquito when I left out of there, bro.

Theo Von
That was fucking cool. Yeah. You know, the. The fucking weed scene was growing with us. Oh, yeah.

Joey Diaz
Weed companies were sticking their hands out. Edible companies. It was funny. Giving me fucking edibles. Then comedy chaos.

Theo Von
Who got the most fucked up over the time? Give me the five people that probably, when they showed up at the church, they definitely. They got the holiest of water, bro. Who got doused the most up there? I saw a lot of people go through changes right in fuck.

Joey Diaz
In front of me. You can see their eyes, and I'm. Like, you know, from spring to fall, a damn solstice right in front of you. Sarah Tiana. Yeah, and I love her.

That. That's not good. That made me feel really bad, you know? Cause she's the fucking salt of the earth. I love that girl.

Theo Von
She's so sweet, so funny. She. There was a lot of shit that people didn't see. Yeah. Like, one of the best episodes we did was Steven Bauer the first time.

Joey Diaz
You know who Stephen Bauer was? The guy from Scarface? No. Did he pass away? No, no, no.

He played Manolo. He played Manny. I mean, he was at the store, too. He was going to the store at the end. He came in one time with cargo shorts.

Now, you got to remember, it was like, here the cameras are facing me. Yeah. That's the time he came in with cargo shorts. The camera would face him, and every once in a while, he'd go off camera and take a liquor bottle out of his sock. Mm hmm.

First they were in his sock. I mean, this is classic shit. He would take him out of his sock first and drink em, and then put him upside down over here. Then there were six empty ones. Wow.

Then he started going in his cargo pants, and he would take another bottle out and drink it. We counted, like, nine fucking bottles. Plus the beer he was drinking. Oh, yeah. Plus God knows what else, you know, people doing that.

A guy came on one day. I forget what the fucking guy's name is. I haven't spoken to him in, like, three years. He disappeared. Was it a japanese guy?

No, he's an italian guy. I forget what his fucking name was. He would come on there and bring bags of pills. I'm not talking about, like, a prescription bottle. Like.

Like, he'd come in with, like, oh, I got these. And then when you take these, like, this is the way he carried the bag. If you carry. Took one of these, you did one of these. And then if this don't do it.

This don't do it. And he'd give us pills by the hand. I didn't know what they were. We should just call them happy pills when you just eating pills and you know what the fuck they are. And I remember I did his podcast once on a Sunday, and when I got there, they had bags of fucking pills at the studio.

Wow. And one day I go, you know what? Give me one of those fucking pills. This is the Lord. I got nothing going on.

I was high from 01:00 in the afternoon to fucking the next day. I don't know what type of pill I took. I don't know what he was giving out that day. I mean, I was fucked up. Did it have like a leopard pattern on it?

I have no fucking idea. I didn't see no leopards. I didn't see nothing. Cause I took some shit. Yeah, one time, this gay.

Theo Von
I don't wanna say the dude was gay, but everybody knew he was gay. And he knew he was gay, but he gave me a couple Somas to drive him somewhere, right? Dude, he's like, this was the worst idea ever, bro. And rip, bro. My boy Billy Comforto.

But he gave me a couple Somas to drive him somewhere. He's like Dio, bruh. Cause he looked like Don Flamenco. Remember Don Flamenco from Mike Tyson's punch out? This guy was the first homosexual that everybody knew in our area.

And he also was a prize Billy. He was a fighter, too. He grew up boxing, right? And then. So he would get the one with the rose in his mouth.

That looks more like him. There you go. That's Billy right there, bro. Okay, so he walk, he goes, theo, bro, I'll give you a couple somas. You drive me across the lake, bro.

I was like, all right. I've never taken somas in my life, too. So I took two of them bitches, dude. He went into the service station to get a prepaid phone call or something. Cause he has some domestic issues.

But. So he comes back out, bro. And I fucking. It only been about twelve minutes. I taken them bitches.

We started driving, dude. I took a right turn and it. Place didn't even exist, bro. Fucking road didn't even exist, bro. Right into the ditch, dude.

Joey Diaz
Oh, my God, bro. He fucking takes my body, moves me over to the passenger seat to. Cops came. He went to jail for like four months. So he switched it.

Theo Von
Oh, fucking g, bro. Bless his heart. Cause he knew. He put me in that situation. I was a child.

He was like an adult, bruh. But it was. I was just trying. But who gives their driver fucking two somas, you know? So just poor pill management, really.

Joey Diaz
But pill management, yeah, it is. But damn, that was something, dude. God. Oh, when I think of some of the times, dude, it scares you. Yeah.

Theo Von
When I think of the times that I drove fucked up yoe. When I used to get. I would put both of my feet on the pedals, right? Cause I was too nervous to let one of my feet make all the decisions, right? So I was like, I ain't trusting this one of my feet.

I'm gonna have both feet down there in case something pops off, right? So I had one on each pedal, but even then, it's like playing a. You know, it's a little bit of driver's ed kind of vibes. It's a so. And I would be, like, in a crosswalk, and I would be high, and somebody would be walking through, and I'd be like, do not fucking hit the gas, bro.

Just hoping my feet didn't do their own shit and start a new adventure for themselves, you know? Just got me so. Just being so fucked up that you didn't know if you were gonna be able to rely on yourself, you know, that shit was tough. That's one thing about me I never fucking did. As crazy as I am, I could do anything.

Joey Diaz
Like, if you say to me, Joey, can we do that? Let's go. I'm not scared of cops, you know, when I was running, I was running, okay? When you're running, you're running. There's one thing I hate doing.

Drinking and driving or partying and driving. Listen, I could smoke a joint and drive better than most people. The other shit, I cannot drink and drive. It won't let me. My body shuts down because I know I could talk to a copy.

But if I'm drinking, I can't talk to him. Cause he's got me. I'm guilty. I'm guilty. I'm not gonna fucking try to tell him I had one drink.

That's why I won't even have one drink when I go out. The fear of a cop pulling me over and asking me, were you drinking? Yeah. And then I gotta go. Yeah.

And then he gets me out of the car, and then I gotta do the fucking ten steps. So before I go through all that shit, you know, and we didn't have Ubers, you know, I didn't have an Uber. Now. Fucking great to get high. Yeah, you could do whatever the fuck you want now.

Theo Von
Yeah. People don't understand what that was like, not having an Uber. Shit, you had to get high. Say if you wanted to leave a place, you had to fucking walk off. Walk or fucking run or fucking go through the weeds or some shit, you know, my thing was, I'm still very grateful that in all those years, nothing happened bad on the road.

Joey Diaz
And, bro, I was in situations where, you know, a lot of shit could have happened drug wise. One time in Beaumont that like when I think of nights that I could have died, it's Beaumont. Beaumont, for reals. I fucking odd on Valium. Really?

Theo Von
You could od on the sunset there. It's a beautiful area. I couldn't talk for three days. I had to go to a hotel room. My face was dragging.

Joey Diaz
It's like I had palsy face. Yeah. Couldn't go home, couldn't get on a plane. I blew my ho check in a hotel in Houston. Fucking coming down, hiding from people, drinking gatorades, you know?

Yeah, it's so many things could have happened. Yeah. All those weeks in Miami doing drugs. Houston, you know, Houston was fucking. You came to Houston to lose your mind and do comedy.

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Stand out with Chubbys. That's a fucking. I had a friend that. Well, he wasn't a friend. When I was like, 24, there was an old guy that hung out at one of the bars.

Oh, yeah. He would just drink and then throw punches in the air and say, you're talking to me. And he would throw punches, you know. You know, the whole fucking thing. Oh, yeah, dude.

Joey Diaz
So I'm doing coke in this bar, and every day he talked to himself, yeah, I'll fucking kick your ass. And he throw jabs. And one day I asked the bartender, what's up with this fucking guy? He goes, you don't know Johnny Reed? I go, nah, you know, it was 1984.

I'm a kid. I don't know Johnny Reed. He goes. I go, is he crazy? He goes, you don't know what he did?

I go, nah. He goes, he tried to kill himself. Jumped out of a building and landed in a garbage dumpster. And he just bopped his head. So now he's fucked up.

He would get a check from the government on the first, and he would just give it to the bartender and say, tell me when it's over. By the 18th, he'd be broke and he'd be in there fucking arguing with the bartender. I locked him in the bathroom one day, dog. I locked him in the bathroom. At 230 in the afternoon?

Theo Von
Yeah. Cause in Jersey, the bathroom's locked from the outside. He was driving us crazy, talking about boxing, 1964. I took him to the body and were like, johnny, knock it off. He went into the bathroom, I can't take Johnny no more.

Joey Diaz
We locked him, we left. We leave. Oh, you gotta. I came back at nine. I go to the bathroom, he's still in the bathroom lock.

He came and he's like, whoo. That's the noise he made when I opened the door. He goes, woo. This guy used to fucking like, we give him up. Then towards the end, I would go, Johnny, you ever do coke?

I give him a line of coke, and that would put his embryoism, whatever craziness he had, he'd go even worse. And I still remember giving him a line of coke, like, at two in the morning, like a bump. And then being in the car at five going to the city to get coke, and seeing him walking over to George Washington Bridge, throwing fucking laps. I'm like, oh, my God, we can't give that motherfucking lines. No more.

And then I cracked him one day. I just showed him my dick. I put it on the stool next to him. Oh, yeah. And he was right on the stool.

And he's like. And I go, Johnny. He goes, what? And I go, look at this. And he goes, wow.

And he just fucking. He just watched a basketball game. Wow. And he just. I'm, like, fucking dying.

Only Johnny could do this. I've been asking about him. What happened to him? He's got to be dead by now. He was 50, 60 when that shit.

Theo Von
In the eighties, dude, we had a guy. We had this dude, Mister Dennis, and everybody just called him Denny, right? This guy in our neighborhood. He kind of, like. He was just like an adult, right?

But he had this son named Rocky was his son, right? And so Rocky was like, I don't know if something was wrong with him, but something was pretty much wrong with him, right? Like, he just wasn't. You couldn't really rely on him. Like, if you told him something, it didn't matter because he didn't really know, like, what was going on a lot of times, right?

So you wouldn't share, like, a lot of information with him. But Rocky had a fucking cock on him, right? So one time we're all outside, and Mister Denny goes, Rocky, show him that cock, right? His own son, dude. And we're all like, what the fuck, dude?

And Rocky fucking showed that cock, bro. And everybody was like, damn, Rocky's got that cock on him, bro. And then after that, it would always like, anytime that Mister Denny was around, he would be like, rocky, show him that cock. Rocky would fucking get his cock out now. Rocky wasn't all there.

No, he wasn't all there. He was missing a couple bricks. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He was definitely. But he was like, you know, he was healthy enough.

Like, he could enjoy Christmas and shit, you know. It wasn't like he was like, you know, like, you gotta keep him in the back or whatever. He was definitely, like, you know, he was a cool guy. Like, you could play games with him and shit. Like, it wasn't like he was like.

He just wasn't real bright and his mouth was always wet, you know? But the dad would be like, rocky, show him that dick. Show him that dick. Cause most of those, like, mentally challenged, like, retards, they got big dicks. Yeah.

Joey Diaz
And they're horny, too. They'll fuck you to death. Oh, dude, they'll recock your living room, dude. Them boys I saw fucking. I was up at a.

In Salem Oregon one time, Eugene, and it was, whatever, special Olympian convention at the hotel. We were doing comedy. Mm hmm. Not good. And I was working with a feature act who had huge tits with cleavage.

She was on stage, and one of the kids was walking by, and he saw her tits, and he started making. He started making noises. Yeah, just doing the Biden. You think I'm fucking kidding you? I was watching the whole thing go down, and I'm watching this kid.

Why is he going crazy? He was looking at the tits, and there was two fucking big black guys, like University of Oregon football players that work in security. There was a point they couldn't contain him. He was just going. They had to fucking tackle him.

He was pushing the brothers out of the way. I was like, this fuck. Cause they're strong, too. Oh, yeah. Oh, definitely.

I think they're strong, too. So you gotta be careful. They'll hold you down and fuck you to death with that big fucking special olympian dick. You're gonna have some problems, dog. Yeah.

Theo Von
You can't let him pet an animal for too long. That's for sure, brother. That shit will escalate. Dude, what was I saying? What was that thing in the news?

I just saw that they found. Well, now I'm starting to think that more people will have conditions, right? Because they're having. They just found, like, plastics. What was it?

You see that thing? Microplastics have been found in human testicles. Yeah. Bring that up, dude. I mean, Joey.

This is the kind of stuff, brother. You're lucky you have a healthy. Two healthy daughters. You know? This is the kind of stuff, man, that's happening now.

In 2024, microplastics are starting to look a lot like cigarettes did in the early 1960s, a poorly understood health hazard in dire need of better study and regulation. The latest bad news on microplastics in human health emerged last week when a study from researchers at the University of New Mexico examined 47 canine and 23 humans, testes, nuts, or body nuts, taken from neutering operations and cadavers, respectively. All of those testicles had microplastics inside of them. So it's just like, what's gonna what? Like, you know, what is that causing, bro, if you got pla.

You know, what kind of effects can happen? Does it say they've already been found in our bloodstream and in other human organs, such as the liver, the heart, and the lungs? Michael, I just. You start to wonder what happens when that gets into your brain. Does that make more?

If a kid's got plastic in his head, or whatever. Listen, bro, there's so many things going on right now, you know, there's so many fucking things. You know? Look at this. The pandemic opened up.

Joey Diaz
You know, with the fucking shots and the mental health. It just opened up a variety of fucking. Of everything. Everybody's speeding up for some reason. I got a fucking hernia.

I lost weight. And also I had this bump. I got a fucking hernia. You know, who the fuck knows? Who the fuck knows what they're putting in food anymore?

You know? You don't know what you're really eating. You know, fucking vegetables. Fruit tastes like shit. Sometimes it tastes good.

Theo Von
Others doesn't even taste like fruits. And no, no, guys, it's. We're. It's a different fucking world. And, you know, try to make a doctor's appointment now possible.

Joey Diaz
It's. It's, you know, try to get a heart. Try to make a hard appointment. They'll tell you, like, if you call today, they'll go, yeah, fucking July 8. Yeah.

Because that fucking. The fucking needle fucked everybody's heart up. You know, there's a ton of shit going on. God knows they're not telling me. They don't tell you shit, man.

Theo Von
Has it always been like that, or do you think it's happening more than ever? Do you feel like it's always been like that in life? I think it's always been like that, but we have the Internet now and 20,000 media outlets. Yeah, yeah, that's true. We have so much information.

Joey Diaz
Listen, this metal, this fucking heart, the disease. I think the biggest thing I'm looking at is I've never seen mental health like this. I know people. I grew up with people, and I talk to them now, and they're not the same fucking person. Yeah.

And I know I'm not the same person. I know the pandemic or whatever, the 30 years of comedy, you know, getting hit in the head. Who the fuck knows? But right now, man, you have. Did you see, like, the last ten years, the rise, and everybody's a politician now.

Anywhere you go, people want to talk to you about politics. I never seen like that. Men don't even want to talk about pussy no more. Well, what do you think? You know, it's too much information.

And that pandemic fucked us up, because what were you doing? Listening to music or watching tv, waiting for the next fucking hand job? After the pandemic, I never watched world news ever again. Yeah. I'm an american.

I want to watch that at 630. I was raised on them. I don't watch anymore because they're just scaring white people. Yeah. That's all they're doing.

They're giving you selective news. I don't believe anything no more. I just live my life and I fucking try to my best to decipher what's getting thrown at you all day. Yeah, but the mental health, I think, right now would. And this is what it's gotta be.

It's the Internet. It's the fucking, you know, everybody's a celebrity now. We're living in a world where everybody's a fucking celebrity now. You go to a fucking movie theater now. They got poster boards for you to take pictures up.

Everybody's a fucking celebrity. I've never seen a world like this. I got at restaurants by my house on Thursday nights. You can't pull up. Yeah, can't pull up lamborghinis, ferraris to go to a fucking restaurant.

Everybody's a fucking celebrity. The other half, we're fighting for our fucking lives. And then they keep putting this shit at you every day. You put the news on in the afternoon or whatever, the Trump hush deal this, that. It's constant.

It's always in your face. And if you're gonna. You get sucked in by it. Yeah. I'm telling you, I've seen the people with, we're getting thrown so much information at us anymore.

It's so much fucking it. Somewhere along the line, you gotta crack. Yeah. Yeah. It's too much, man.

Theo Von
I just missed, like, a simpler time too, man. God. Remember how much fun it was? This is simple. Nobody had a phone.

Joey Diaz
You went out. Nobody get a hold of you. We used to go, bro. I remember we'd go to Howard Johnson's, bro. Remember Howard Johnson's?

Fuck, yeah. Bring up a fucking Howard Johnson. They had a fuck, they had that saltwater taffy. Bring up. Show them that cock, Rocky.

Show them that cock, Rocky. I think there's still a Howard Johnson's by me on route three. I hope there is, dude. Howard Johnson's. My mom, when I was like five, we would go.

Theo Von
She would drop us off there to meet my grandparents or whatever. And we didn't know our, like, and they would have, oh, they used to have. And we'd have like, a nice meal there. It'd be nice, bro. They had the bathrooms that had the little.

You ever go with, like, you ever go to a bathroom but it has a little room before you get in the bathroom. It's like you open the door and then you're just in like a little bitty room, and then there's another door, and that's the bathroom. It's like, the room's like, 3ft by 3ft. You know what I'm just saying? You open that shit.

We never even saw. Seen that, like, a little. How many Howard Johnson's could possibly left? I don't know, dude. Shoney's in, bro.

I remember for $11, you could stay at the place, right? For $15, you could stay and eat, right? So it was that $4 up charge. You got that buffet. Shoney's had an inn, and we would go, bro.

And they also had this, like, premier buffet. For, like, two more dollars, you could go. They had, like, this kind of roped off area of the buffet. And down there they had fucking salmon or whatever, you know, damn picks, you know, special pickles. Salmon, honeydew pickles, honeydew melon.

Like, I'd never. Shit. You'd never seen fucking gay watermelon, you know what I'm saying? They had all the special shit down there. Like, black pudding or whatever.

They had all the shit down there. The Reeboks were on sale. They had, like, this special area of the. Of the buffet, but it was, like, roped off unless you got the premier edition or whatever. But, dude, we would go there, bro.

It was so nice, dude, when you're. A kid, all that shit's nice until you get old and you're like, why am I eating this shit? I'm gonna fucking die. Look at the people around me. Look what they look like.

Joey Diaz
And here I am with them about to die. And that's anywhere. Any of those chains, that fucking country croc. What's that one? Oh, crack a barrel.

Crack a barrel. You'll die. You'll fucking die in one of those places. There's like, ten of those fucking joints that you're eating in. You're like, you know what this is?

What's the place that they have the chocolate fountain? Oh, they have one in Burbank. Memphis. No, I don't. No, no, no.

There's, like, an all you can eat buffet in Burbank. Oh, it's like a chain. It's a chain. And they have. They advertise.

Theo Von
Oh, you're talking about Shakey's pizza. No, not that either. We used to do comedy and Shakey's Pizza in Seattle. Did you? One of the night, they had, like, a Wednesday night.

My buddy got leprosy at one of those places. He fucked me. You got leprosy? Oh, this guy would get everything, bro. He's a real susceptible fella.

Joey Diaz
Golden corral. Golden corral. That's a fucking place right there. Oh, you'll die. Oh, there's a lot of.

I see people eating fish at those places. You just want to go over to them and go, listen, he's a good mortician. When they lay out your body, they could take that salmon out, salmon, shrimp, and I don't think there's no buffets anymore. No. Right.

Theo Von
Since the pandemic, I mean, I think. Well, people are still doing them, but it's definitely more of a risque type of thing. It's kind of like the only fans of, like, the dinner community. I feel like. Like if you see a buffet, it's.

It almost feels like it's prohibition or something. Like you should. You know what I'm saying? Like it's a fucking speakeasy. You know when you go to those places and you look around and you're like, like, I went to.

Joey Diaz
I went to fucking. Where did I go? I went to Kentucky. Paducah, my brother in law, lives in Paducah. I love my in laws.

It's my niece's birthday today. I love her, but I can't go to Paducah. Cause they take me to this restaurant, and they put cheddar cheese on everything. They put it on oatmeal, on cereal. I mean, whatever you order, they put a handful of that communist cheddar cheese.

It's worse than the one the government sends you. And I'm eating the one night with my wife. Cause my wife brought it home to me. The one night, she's like, we're gonna go over here and eat. You could stay there, and I'll just bring you a thing.

And I ate, and it wasn't bad. It was like a steak, just cut pieces of meat. It wasn't bad. The next night I went. I'm like, yeah, that play.

I'm excited. Let's go. And we went there, and I'm looking at these people, and everybody's ankles were swollen. They all had a diabetic foot. Oh, yeah, everybody.

It's like going to a Yankee game. I went to a Yankee game two years ago. I was sitting next to a lady. Her foot was purple. And what this bitch do?

She put, like, a blue tattoo on it to throw the color off on the diabetic foot. I'm like, when does it end? Where did this go to? And she's sitting there eating beer. Drinking beer.

Theo Von
If you're eating beer. I seen a woman over there eating beer with a spoon you know them bitches are going downhill. A fucking nightmare. When I see a diabetic foot at a restaurant. Yeah, I gotta go.

Yeah. Or a fat ankle like that. When I looked around this restaurant, Paducah, everybody's ankles were swollen. I'm like, dog, I'm done. I'm on the plane tomorrow.

Joey Diaz
You gotta go. Yeah. You get to some. It is true. I think it's important.

Theo Von
You gotta look around and see who's in the joint. Who's in this fucking joint. Look at these people. They're gonna die. Cause sometimes it is.

It's just cat. It's like people that are almost just like cattle that don't wanna. Yeah. That can't even breathe that good or read. You'll see people like, on, like, on oxygen, you know, sneaking in a fucking.

Sneaking in a little hit of pie. Or something while they're eating or smoking a cigarette. Fuck. They don't give a fuck, man. And it's like, I get nervous in those place, like I'm gonna die.

Yeah. Yeah. There's just a lot of bad food out there, and I think it's gotten more to the place. Now you have to take care of yourself because the government or whatever, whatever. We thought, the FDA, that shit's all been compromised, bro.

Joey Diaz
That's calm. You show up with an envelope and they'll prove anything. They don't give a fuck anymore. You could have damn menthol bread pudding, bro. This mother fuckers will approve.

You know, it's like going on Instagram. They sell every get well cure. Yeah, on Instagram. Like, who would buy? You know?

And they constant, look at your Instagram. It's like bodybuilding recuperation. Testosterone. Yeah, I'm gonna buy testosterone online from some fucking guy. I don't know.

It is crazy eyebrow loss. They have eyebrow, like, what are you even doing? No, man. Yeah, poor vision. Missing grandparents.

Theo Von
You're like, who gives a fuck? It's like missing grandparents for $40 a month. What even am I paying for? It's just someone is shit. Yeah.

It's like everything is for sale. It doesn't matter. Everything. You sit there and you. All these products.

Joey Diaz
I like when somebody goes on Rogan and they talk about a product, and then you go on Instagram two weeks later and they're talking on Rogan about the product and they're selling it just because Rogan was in it. It's like, guys, when does it end? Like using the clips, you mean? Yeah, like, yeah, the clips. Like, it's.

It's just so. It's dirty. Yeah. It's just changed a lot. We've just gotten to where everything is a advertisement.

Theo Von
You know, everything is for sale. I mean, if you look at it, even with, like, a lot of young men aren't having sex anymore. A lot of women are selling their bodies on only fa. It's like there's nobody holding anything, really. You know, it used to be you had to go at least tickle somebody to get some pussy.

You know? It was like, go to a bar. Talk to them, take them out the dentist, lie to them, work the angle. You know what I'm saying? There's always an angle.

Joey Diaz
I don't know. I'm still recovering from my own boyfriend. Well, let's do some coke and talk about it. Yeah. There's always fucking something.

Theo Von
But it's just different now. We've forgotten with. Listen, man, we've forgotten a lot of things. Things are getting right away from us. You know, I was really opposed to texting for years.

I remember that. That's why I even called you yesterday. Really opposed to it now. I'll do it. But I didn't like it because it takes away our connection, man.

Joey Diaz
I want to hear your voice. You could tell me whatever you want on a text. Theo, how you doing? I'm doing great. I picked up an envelope.

Theo, how you doing, man? So I don't. That's why I didn't like it. Yeah, that's why I didn't like it. Because what they're doing is creating a society that separates us even more.

You know what? I can't see Theo now. So we'll just zoom once a week. Let's zoom. Get in a fucking plane and come see me.

Theo Von
Yeah. We're doing everything we can to separate, and I always hated that. I understood the pandemic. I got it. But we need each other.

Joey Diaz
It's like. I'm gonna tell you something interesting. Pandemic started. I was fucked up. I'm gonna tell you something.

You're not gonna believe this. I started doing better going in, and once I was there a year, August 19 of 2021, I was a little better. I was still withdrawing from the Xanax. I was having some issues. But I did something that.

Before I did the knee operation. Cause I went back and my knee went to shit as soon as I landed, like, three weeks later. Cause I was going to cryo every day in California. But once I landed here in the pandemic, there was no more fucking cryo. Oh, there's no cryo.

Yeah, there was nothing so my knee went to shit. I got surgery. I went. And one day I was going for a ride, and I saw a jiu jitsu school, a Gracie jiu jitsu school by my house. And I went in there, and I was scared.

Shit, it's December. Covid's been around not even a year, you know? But people are still, like, not touching each other and shit. And they're like, nah, we're doing great here. We only had to close one time, and.

But when I left there, I had a doctor's appointment, like, a week later. And then he told me how to have knee surgery. So I didn't go back to that school. I never went back to talk to him. Then one day, I got a call, and it's the guy, the brown belt at the school.

His name is Sean. He's like, I just want to check in with you. I go, dog. After I saw you, I got knee surgery, so it'll be a while. This guy kept calling me and not selling.

He wasn't selling. He was just being a nice kid, going, if you want to come in and move a little bit, it'd just be me and you, man. Nobody will bother you, right? We'll work on stuff. I'm like, I don't know.

Fucking jiu jitsu. I went to jiu jitsu the same day that the Soprano movie premiered. It was September 21 of 2021. And I remember I walked in there, I had to cancel the first two. Like, I canceled two classes.

Finally, I go, next Wednesday. Now it's Wednesday. And I'll never forget going in there and we did some shit. And then he goes, just roll with me for a minute. And I remember leaving that and going, I feel a lot better.

Theo Von
Wow. Just human touch with somebody else. I'm not gay or nothing, but just that touch of him fucking submitting me and grabbing me. And I was like, I feel. And then I went to the premiere that night, and I was fucking Covid conscious.

Joey Diaz
I'm like, I'm gonna sit at the Beacon with 2000 fucking people to see this movie. We're gonna get Covid. Yeah. It wasn't even that. When I got out, the driver dropped me on the corner of the Beacon, and I was in a corner with 500 people, and they were all, like, touching me and shit.

And I remember walking out of that circle going, if I don't get Covid now, I'll never get it. Went to the movie theater. Didn't even go to the premiere party. Yeah. Just saw the movie with my family and some friends.

I didn't even go to the party, but going to that jujitsu class and the classes after that, like, I was just going to take privates for, like, six months. I said, fuck this. I'm going into class with these guys. I need these guys, right? I need these fucking guys.

I need to talk to them and touch them and fucking be human. Be human again. Yeah. Isolation is true isolation. It feels like it's what you want to do for yourself to make things easier and more comfortable.

Theo Von
And that is one of the biggest traps. You know? I notice it for myself a lot of times. It's like, I'll. Like, even the other day, I had some friends that went on the boat here on Lake Austin.

Right? First, I was like, I'd rather just chill, work on my comedy. You know, I'm in town. I'm in Austin specifically to work on get up on stage and stuff. And so.

But then I was like, you know, I should go. Cause I always choose the let me stay and work on something. Let me stay and be by myself. I always choose that. And then I find myself, well, then you're always by yourself.

You know what I'm saying? You get stuck with by yourself thoughts by yourself bullshit. You know, when you're with somebody, you get a. They don't. And they don't fucking run off.

You're like, oh, I'm all right. I'm all right to be around. I'm not a. I'm not a complete weirdo, you know? And so that kind of stuff is huge, man.

And being in those classes, it just like. And you make friends. You start to realize people got your back. You're not fucking alone. That there's nothing is as helpful, I don't think, as going to those jiu jitsu classes.

I don't go into them as much as I wish I did. Cause I kept getting hurt, bro. I would just. And I couldn't do anything. I had to work.

I'm like, I'm fucking wheeze. And I got my shit all wrapped up. I got a fucking bunch of lemons fucking duct taped to my rib cage and reading shit online, you know, eating oleander or whatever on the fucking Internet. And apple seeds. But.

But, yeah, just that camaraderie, bruh. I remember one time we'd been in there rolling for the day, and I just started bawling, crying, bro. Like, just shit from my. That was stuck in my body or whatever. It just fucking, like, released, you know?

Joey Diaz
It's crazy. People don't understand now it's what keeps me together. I go every Monday and Thursday, and it keeps me together. I don't. You have to show up with a million dollar envelope for me not to go.

Like, I made that decision six months. Like, I've been going steady, but I got hurt. I hurt myself in December, and after that, hurt my ankle, I go, you know what? I'm doing this a different way. I'm going in there.

It's a plan. Two days. I lift, I go to jiu jitsu. I lift, I go to jiu jitsu. I ride the bike, and I'm done for the fucking week.

Theo Von
Yeah. It's what I do. Like, I don't give a fuck what you got going on. I'm really sorry to you. I gotta go to jiu jitsu.

Joey Diaz
Because if you don't go on Monday, then you're behind the week. Then you're not gonna go on Tuesday. Tuesday, you're gonna get an audition, then Wednesday, your kid's sick. You know, this is just, you wake up, she's sick. My wife's gotta do shit I gotta cover.

And that's why I always go Monday. So you always get at least that wanted. Oh, yeah. If you wanna take Thursday for me, something else will happen. But that's helped me a lot because it gives you a different set of friends and it gives you a set of friends that have, you know, they all trying to get healthy.

One guys recovering from his shoulder, one guy's trying to lose weight. I'm just an old fuck. I go in there fucking to get. I go in there, burn 500 calories. Oh, yeah.

You know, but these are the things I'm doing now to. I even enjoyed jiu jitsu when I was doing comedy full time. Because it got you away from the agents and the managers and everybody talking about the same shit all the time. Yeah. And secret gay dudes too, out there in Hollywood, bro.

Theo Von
Jesus Christ. I remember the first time I ever some guy, you know, I just got into town, I didn't know what was going on. And some guy tried to kiss me outside of a park or whatever. And then I remember another time, a dude, an agent or whatever, gave me a ride to someplace, introduced me to, like, Cuba gooding junior or whatever, and then tried to feel on my leg, whatever, when he was giving me a ride home, dude. And I didn't know what the fuck was going on, dude.

I was like, if I wasn't a little brave, I would have been gay, bro. You know, that's, you know, Rocky got that cock on you. Feel me, bro? That's the fucking rock. Show him the cock.

Joey Diaz
That's just good. You should just fly rocky out here. Take him to LA with you. Whenever one of those guys wants to hit on rock, show them the cock. Rock.

Boom. There you go. You want that roll? Here, I got a cock for you. Suck this fucking.

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Yeah, bro. Dude and Rocky, they grew up, like, downwind from, like, one of those pesticide factories or something. Or, you know, the place that would have the spray rig, you know, dude, remember when the spray rig would come through your neighborhood? Dude, we would fucking get on our bikes, bro, and ride. Cause in Louisiana, they sprayed that bitch fucking twice a week.

We do the whole. The whole fucking. Everybody's stepmother looked like a mosquito in that bitch, dude. But we would get on our bikes and just ride behind that gas. Just pure gas coming out that bitch, dude.

But Rocky and then mister Denny, they live downwind from one of those fucking. That's what probably fucked. Made his dick, though. Fucking damn. People can all move from those places now and go, man.

Joey Diaz
Bro, Rocky made Rocky's dick big. Oh, Rocky ain't been fucking stung by a bee since 2011, bro. I'll tell you that, dude. Fucking crazy. I love.

Theo Von
Yeah, dude. I love. I guess the best thing is remembering stuff from growing up. That's something that I really. That's my favorite thing, is just remembering stuff from growing up.

Yeah. Thinking about the past. I love it, you know, that's where most of, like, the most entertaining stuff is for me. But growing up now feel. Yeah, it feels like, kind of weird.

I think for a lot of times I didn't want to grow up because I still wanted to just be a part. I feel like if I grow up too much, then I'm. Then I lose all the fun. Does that ever make any sense to you? You know, man, it's so weird how you look at your life and you go, what the fuck?

Joey Diaz
I haven't had fun. Like, fun fun since I left New Jersey when I was 20. Like that old fashioned fun that I liked, I enjoyed. You know, just getting fucked up and laughing with your friends, sleeping on the floor and going down the shore and all that shit. And it's like, I've been chasing it for the last 40 years.

What happened those summers when I was growing up? You're just chasing it. You know, it's funny, I look at, like, I was seeing something about a while ago about a club. They were talking about this club and vip and all this. And I looked at it and I'm like, all this is.

Is people chasing studio 54? Yeah, that's all this is. They've been chasing studio 54 since the eighties. You know, us guys like you and I, our childhoods were fucking really special. They were comical.

Comical. When we think of our childhood, we had no other option than to become a comic because all the tools were put in front of us. The stories, the situations, other storytellers that taught us how to tell a story. It's fucking crazy. Yeah, I think now, like, I was always gonna be a comic.

I just didn't know that. I just didn't know that. Everything all goes into one circle. Everything that you've lived. I remember somebody told me one time that when you do a movie, okay, like, you know, I did a bunch of movies early on, and nobody talked to me.

Nobody said, hey, I saw you in that movie. He goes, you got to give a movie culture. Do you have to give a movie years? And all of a sudden, I saw what he meant. Because one day when the podcast and everything else started lifting us, people started connecting those movies.

Do you follow me? At first you can't connect them. But after you hit a little bit and people start following you and stuff, your movies will connect, you know, like, it's the weirdest thing. I don't even know if I'm explaining. I don't know.

Theo Von
I'm not understanding you. Yes, he had a concept that said, like, people do a movie like, you do a movie with, like, who's the hottest star today? I don't know how. Probably Gigi Hadid or something. I don't even know these fucking people.

Yeah, probably Bradley Cooper. Bradley Cooper. You do a movie with Bradley Cooper and the movie comes out. Bradley Cooper wins an Academy Award for it's a great movie. You don't think that you're getting as much as you should.

Joey Diaz
Have you ever see somebody do a movie and fucking, they blow up? Yeah, Tiffany Haddish did a movie. She was. She's been working hard for 30 years. Did one movie, blew the fuck up.

Theo Von
Yeah. Okay. I did 20 movies. Nobody ever fucking talked to me at all. They didn't talk to me till I fucking told the story about muggin a hooker and lightning her wig on fire.

Joey Diaz
That changed my career. That was it. Now people. Yeah, people start. You do a Disney show, nobody wants to see it.

Yeah. You know, you do a tea, nothing. But my point is that, let's say you did a movie with Bradley Cooper, and you call me a year from now and go, what the fuck? All these motherfuckers blew up around me. I got one commercial or something out of it.

Right. You know? But in three years, as you keep growing, your career keeps growing. More people start going, let me watch that movie. Cause Theo's in it now.

I didn't know Theo was in it. Oh, shit, I gotta watch that again. Because now you're somebody to them. And that's how that movie gets big and connected to all the other movies. It's the weirdest fucking thing, because nobody would see my shit, you know, like, I'm telling you.

I mean, I remember going to see. I did the longest yard. That's the only movie. People would come out and shake my hand, and at the end of the show, they would hide from me. Cause they thought I was gonna go up there and do Adam Sandler knock knock jokes.

Theo Von
Yeah. I'm up there talking about snorting coke and fucking getting my dick sucked. Yeah. Putting a coke rock. And people were like, they would just leave.

Joey Diaz
And now you say one fucking joke about mugging a hooker, and you're selling out fucking comedy clubs. Yeah, you don't know what it's gonna be, but the culture of it is what I'm talking about. How you might not think nobody saw you, but years from now, it's like, you could do 18 movies, and the movie you hate the most is the one that people come up to and go, yeah, we loved you. Now you're like, God damn it, I did 17 other ones. Yeah, I did 17 other movies.

That's the one you like, the one I fucking hated. And then you tell them the story. I was coked up to eight in the morning, and my call time was at nine. And like, oh, no wonder you hated the fucking movie.

Theo Von
Yeah, I think. Yeah, yeah. I guess it's like, did you think that when podcasting started, it was gonna be what it was? Did you have any real foresight on it? Did you get into it because you were like, oh, I don't know if, like, acting is gonna be enough for me.

Like, what was kind of your motivation to get into it? I know it's kind of an old question. I just don't know the answer to it. 2009, I moved to the valley. I moved to Studio City where we lived.

Joey Diaz
The office up the corner from the office. At that time, man, I had done movies. I'd done tv shows. I recurred on tv shows. I wasn't at the store anymore, and I was just opening for Joe.

And I would do spots, you know, I would do my own shit. Yeah. And open for Joe. And then I was like, you know what, man? I got a call from the funny bone one time, and they're like, we're willing to give you, like, six weeks of work.

The number they threw at me was so fucking ridiculous. It was so ridiculous. And a year before this, I had had this conversation with somebody else. That guy's name was Billy Gardelle. I saw him in Burbank, and we were just chatting, and he told me that right before he got Molly and whatever that fucking show was.

Molly and Mark or whatever, he was like, I'm thinking of getting out of this shit. He goes, they just offered me these deals, and it's no money. They want me to work Wednesday through Sunday. In those days, that was hard. 2000, no air poop fan, you know?

And I'm like, you know, when that happened to me, I was like, you know what? It's 2009. I got nothing going on. I'm gonna go to the Ford store and pee in a bottle and get a job selling cars. Yeah.

I'll still audition. I'll still audition, and I'll still go out and work for Rogan, but I'm not doing this no more. It's. It's. I've been doing it for 20 years or something.

Right? At that point. Wow. And it's not. I'm not even happy doing anything.

Theo Von
That's the biggest thing, okay? It was like, I'm good. I could do movies. I keep my insurance. I could always book a movie or a tv show.

Joey Diaz
Except lately, I don't know what the fuck's going on. But don't even have any more tv shows. Really? No, but I don't get auditions. I got a two.

I got two. I got an audition for me to go fuck yourself, and I didn't get it. Wow. When you got one line, curse is Steve Martin, and you don't get it. You're not doing well.

Okay, so. So you still audition a pretty good bit, huh? He's still auditioning a decent amount. If they have something, they'll call me and I'll put it on tape. Or lately they've been doing zoom ones, which I'm in fucking shock, but I'm not booking anything.

It's. It's. Look at me. It's over. But you like it, though?

Theo Von
It's something you like, though? No, I like booking. I don't like working. I see my dick gets hard when I get that call. My dick gets hard when I go in the room and there's other actors in there and they look at you like, what are you doing here?

Joey Diaz
And you're like, really, motherfucker? I'm gonna show you what I'm doing here, bitch. Yeah, and then they call you. But then when they call you for wardrobe, you're like, come on, guys, what the fuck? We want you to come in for wardrobe and then wasting people.

Come back for this, and then park, and then we're gonna do a table read on Tuesday, and you're like, guys. Quit jerking everybody off. That's what I wanna do. Wasting people's time and money. No.

So that's my secret. I love booking. That is a good moment. If somebody calls you and says, you. Got something, you got something listening, they made you an offer, blah, blah, blah.

Like, fuck, yeah, fuck that punk in the audition. Yeah, fuck that. I remember going to audition one time, and the guy told us in the audition, go home. I already did the job. I already worked with this guy.

He's gonna give me the job anyway. And then I booked, and I saw him at the store like a week later. Did you ever hear from them? I go, bitch, I booked it. He was pale.

He was fucking pale. But what I was telling you was. The truth was. I'm gonna tell you the honest to God truth. I always had a problem with comedy.

I'm not the best comedian, but I'm a good storyteller. And I always knew if I had a chance to tell my story, it would change things. If it didn't, then I'll go away into the hills quietly. You ever watch HBO boxing? Like 15 years ago?

Yeah. Yeah. With Joe Frazier or whatever? Roy Jones Junior. Yeah.

Like anything 20 years ago with boxing. You know, you look at a guy that's a boxer or UFC fighter. Yeah. All right. You're like, look at this fucking guy.

Tattoos, he's talking all this shit, you know? But then they do those things, you know, 20 for 20. Like those HBO would do, like, let's talk to Theo at his house, you know, so I know Theo. He's got a hat. He's from Louisiana.

He's got icy mike. This, that. But now I get to see you with your mother. Yeah, I get to see you with your dad. I get to see you with your kids.

I get to see that fucking Theo has a farm. I didn't know that. And he gets up in the morning after trading 2 hours, and he goes to the farm and works 8 hours, and then he picks his kid up from school, cooks for them, then he goes back to fucking train. Then he goes back over there and puts his kids in showers. Then he fucking, you know, and you're like, I thought this guy was just a fucking sack of shit.

Yeah, that was my thing, right? But I knew if I could tell my story digitally, like, detail by detail, I could get somewhere, and I was right. Just go up there, and for two months, we were doing what we're doing what people do. So what do you think about p. Diddy?

And what do you. That's not a podcast, right? You just fucking extension of the news when you get into the nuts and bolts with people. And you like, I told you I had nothing going on in my career until I told the story that I mugged the hooker and lit her wig on fire. Yeah.

And all of a sudden, I was selling 150 tickets a show, and you're like, I've done fucking all this stuff, and nobody ever wanted to buy a ticket, but I tell the most awkward stories. So what do guys like me and you do? Tell more disgusting stories of your life, and they ate em up. Get it out. Well, people can relate to stuff, dude, especially with hookers, man.

Theo Von
I remember doing drugs, and then I would, like, negotiate with hookers online, right? Because I didn't have any money. So I'm sitting there like, I'm not like, price gouging or whatever they call it, but I'm like, you know, like, I'm like, how about this? Just stay for maybe 40 minutes or whatever, you know, just give me, like, you know, $75 off the amount or whatever. And I was always so high.

This would happen to me every time, Joey, a woman of the night or whatever escort would come over, I'd be so high, I'd be scared. I'd hand the money out of the door, open the door a little bit, fucking hand them the money, and have them go home, right? 90% of the time. Cause I was so scared. Like, I don't even know why I would do it.

And I would do that two or three times in the night, right? So one time, dude, I remember one time, this russian lady, Sheafa, she had to go or something, right? And I was. And she asked me to watch her dog right at her fucking place. I went over there and she asked me to watch her dog.

And I couldn't understand what she was saying. I thought she wanted to do, like, butt stuff or something, but then she just was trying to get me to watch this fucking dog, dude. So the whole conversation was just ridiculous, bro, because I kept kind of touching her button, she kept kind of pointing at this puppy. I'm just like, what am I doing, dude? I would be petrified to call a hooker.

Oh, it was so scary. Petrified. And never mind on coke. Like, I wanted to. Trust me, you're not the only how to got fucking secret fucking desires.

Joey Diaz
Whenever you do coking, you're by yourself. You. You're dying to call a freak that's gonna take the ride with you. I can never do it. I can never fucking do it.

And if I got somebody to come over, if I jerked off before they come over, then I wouldn't even open the door. Yeah, I keep that little bit of coke for me. Fuck it. You ain't getting none of this. I already cracked the nut.

You ain't getting none of this shit. I'm out of coke. I crash a fucking aspirin and give it to them. Oh, I remember, yeah. Like, I'd feel so bad once a hooker was coming over one time, I remember putting on, like, I didn't want to even seem like I did coke or whatever.

Theo Von
So I, like, remember put on like, an apron or something to make it seem like I was, like, cooking around my house. Like, just being like, an organized guy, you know, like, what the fuck? What a loser. Do this. She's probably like, it's 330.

This guy's a fucking chef. Always. Oh, my God. I just wanted to look like I was doing something important or whatever, and I didn't have, like a, you know, that was the closest thing I had, like, a uniform, I guess, or whatever was that? But I would love to sit with like a, like a fucking, I don't know, one of those psychotherapists that's analyzing people for drugs or something and just sit there with him for three days and tell him the stupid shit that.

Joey Diaz
And it's not even stupid. It's fucking hilarious when you look at it. Yeah. When you think about it years later, you're like, that was. Fuck.

Like a couple weeks ago, I came down here, 420. I came down here for the weekend, and I was thinking about in 86 when the Mets won the series or something, or the player, forget what it was. I went to New York to pick up, like, a couple ounces of coke. I was bringing them back to Colorado, and when I got there, the guy I went to see said to me, your coke is ready to go. You got it?

You got a house. You could stay at my house. He goes, I gotta leave. I gotta go away for three days to a wedding in Connecticut or something. But he goes, I forgot you were coming.

I hooked you up. You're good to go. We went to eat after the fucking airport, and then he drove me to the house. He goes, the coke's in there. Go in.

My sister's dad, my mom. They left you the whole fucking house. I get in there, the fucking hot water heater blew up and the power went out. So, you know, guys like me and you, I wasn't leaving till Sunday. I called some of my friends, but they were fucking busy.

And I stayed in that house from Friday to Sunday, snorting coke with a candle and with my pants rolled up because it was all water. So I'm walking around like Jethro Tull, that album from Jethro Tull with a mirror, navigating myself to the water in this fucking basement with a candle, snorting coke. The sister's, like, 16. She's down there snorting coke with me. I'm like, oh, no, I'm gonna go to jail.

Theo Von
It's a damn underground railroad. He would call me every hour, like, how's it going over there? I'm here with your sister and mom, snorting fucking coke in this fucking. You know, nobody would believe that I stayed there till Sunday. And then I get to the airport, Kennedy airport.

Joey Diaz
It's fucking freezing out. Everybody's got jackets on. There was no tunnels. Then you had to walk out and get on the plane. Everybody had jackets on.

Dog, I've been doing coke for three days. When I walked out there, I had a t shirt on and steam was coming out of me. And people looking at me like, what the fuck is he on? Right? Like, you can't.

That was like a whole afternoon. Then I got on the plane, and I was so coked out, I had the aisle seat. Before the plane took off, they came to me and said, you can't keep getting up and going to the bathroom. I was going every eight minutes to the bathroom to load up. And then when the plane took off, I actually took the blanket, put it over my head, put the lunch tray down, crushed it up, and I would snort and then pop my head up, and I'm like, nobody knows I'm getting high.

But the clinker of that whole fucking. Day, like, punxsutawney Phil, dude, dog. It was not. And this was every week, eight more. Weeks of eight months.

You gotta remember this was going on in our lives once a week, this craziness. And then I go up to. Cause in those days, the planes had, like, a little bar, and you could order from the bar. And I remember the. I'll never forget, there was a black linted bar.

Like black. Wow. On the airplane in the eighties and. Nineties, shit, you had fucking planes with bars and jetBlue. No, people's express was a plane that went out of business.

A company that went out of business. They had a piano. Nuh uh. That the guy would play. Upstairs.

There were double decker planes. This shit today. I don't know what the fuck's going on. No bars. No, today's a bunch of traffic.

Yeah, you go on a plane now. You go on a plane to sit there like a commie and look straight ahead. In the eighties and nineties, you went on a plane, you partied that you could move around and talk to people. That's what Ric Flair always says. He always says about how great it was on plane.

Oh, my God. I could come up with the Theo and go, Theo, buy Theo a drink. Buy that lady in row three a drink. And all of a sudden you're picking up chicks on a plane, dog, come on. Fuck.

I'm lonely, so I go to the bar, I order whatever, a southern company orange juice, whatever the fuck I'm drinking. And Theo, as I'm talking to, it's just me and him at the bar, a fucking coke. Rock falls out of my nose and lands on the lint. And me and him are looking at it like, to see who's gonna speak first. And I go, I look up and I'm looking at the plane.

I go, that fell off the plane there. And I got back in my seat. I was never so embarrassed. Look, I was doing shit that nobody. I remember going on a date with a girl.

To a fucking net. Philadelphia. Six a game. Oh, high on coke. No, I had a half ounce in my pocket.

I was holding it for later in case you didn't want to go home with me. Yeah, you know, the first quarter, I'm talking to her, we're not getting nowhere. And I go, fuck this. I'm going to get it? Do you want a drink?

She goes, yeah, I'll take a drink. I went to the bar to get a drink@the.net. game. The bartender had a bow tie on. This is like a Theo story.

He had a bow tie on. Very decent guy. And I'm like, let me get a double ba. Ba. Let me get another one ba.

And also I go, you want to do a line? The guy's like, yeah, this is 1984. Rocky got a cock on him. I had a net basketball game. I got the bartender in the back doing lines.

By the end of the night, he had his fucking bow tie off. He disconnected the computer. He was just pouring them in and giving them to people. I didn't go back to that seat till three minutes left. Wow.

That girl was like, what happened to you? I'm like, you're not gonna believe it. I had a good time, fucking time sitting next to your fucking tight ass, fucking telling me. I mean, that's the shit that happened all the fucking time. Yeah, anything could.

Theo Von
It used to feel like anything. Anything could happen. Anything could happen. Like, yeah, we're gonna go here. But listen, there was a time when there was a $39 flight to Miami after midnight in Newark.

After midnight. After midnight, it was 39. It was like 59 all day. Like, just to Miami. Straight shots.

Joey Diaz
And 84, but from midnight to it was like $29. Oh, my God. You get on that plane, and there'd be 200 people fucking whacked. You know how you go, we're out of coke. What are we gonna do?

Call Timmy, call Mikey, call Louie. Nobody's around. Fuck it, let's go to Miami. That's what people would do. They get on that plane with the last two lines and pray to God till they get to the airport, dog.

It was crazy. That's how crazy it used to be. After midnight, a fucking on the hour, every hour to Miami. Why would that fucking. Why would you want to go to Miami?

What would make you want to go to Miami at 02:00 in the morning? Cocaine, probably. Yeah. And women. Or men?

Theo Von
If you like men. I don't like them, but women. But you have a thousand of those stories. Thousands. And I have thousands of them.

Joey Diaz
Thousands of, you know, fucking getting high and not getting anywhere. That's all it is. That's the truth of it, is, after you look at it over a long period of time, it's like getting high and not getting. Not getting anywhere, you know? You're talking about that shit about giving the hook of money.

Listen, man, how did I quit smoking cigarettes? I forced myself. I bought an eight ball and I didn't take no cigarettes home because I knew once I had that eight ball in me, I'm not walking to 711. So I stayed in that apartment all night, 8 hours with no fucking cigarettes on an eight ball. The next day, I didn't need to smoke.

I had already beat it in my mind. That's how I quit smoking cigarettes. I bought an eight ball and no cigarettes to go. Fuck. Yeah.

Theo Von
I just miss a time when anything could happen. I've told this story before, but I, you know, I went one time. I used to love telling people that people had died, right. One of my favorite things to do, tell people like, a famous person had died, right? Like we go to lunch or whatever, I'd like, oh, you know, so and so died.

Whatever, you know, and just. We could talk about it during lunch. And they leave lunch, right? And they find out at some point that they didn't die. And like, what the fuck?

I just talked to this guy for a hour about over here, right. Take a piss real quick. Oh, yeah, take a piss, man. Sorry. No, you're good, man.

Joey Diaz
I'm 60 years old. You good, man? You feel all right? Yeah, I just had a pee, I was holding it. I hate that.

Theo Von
Burns me up. Yeah, dude, I remember one time they had a. I had a escort or whatever. I hate to hooker, I feel like, but do hookers like the term hooker? They don't care.

Joey Diaz
They don't care as long as you pay them. Yeah, so. Yeah, and I always paid, but yeah, this hooker got sick one time and I remember I stayed over there for like a day and a half taken care of. Really? Yeah, in west and Beverly Hills.

Theo Von
And. You ever talked to anyone? No. We texted for a while and then I changed my number, but I think it was fine. We didn't even speak really the same language that much.

I think she spoke like Slovakia maybe or something. And. But yeah, but we were, I mean, definitely had been doing drugs, but that was that, you know, I saw my mother, I went. Surprised my mom for mother's day. How was it?

It was pretty cool. Went over to Tucson. She was doing good, man. I got over there and I go to her house, right? And I'd never been there.

I've never been to the house that she lives in, but she's only been there for maybe about a year and a half. But. So I go, I'm knocking on the door and I'm like, she not answering. I'm like, oh, man, don't tell me like, they'll finally come to see her, you know? And that would be my mom, you know?

Cause that's how she is. I finally come to visit, and she goes and dies just to show me up, you know? Like, I can see her doing that shit, but I look through the window, through the blinds, and through the back blinds, it's open. And she's laying out in the back in the bikini, right? Cause my mom would, like, the one time she would spend by herself, she would get in her bikini and get herself a can of beer and go lay on the side of it.

Joey Diaz
How old is your mom? Not if you don't mind me asking. She's probably 70, maybe. Wow, you're lucky, man. She's getting.

You don't see her a lot there. She's growing up. I see her, like, probably twice a year. I'm trying to do a little bit more. This is the first time I'd ever went and, like, visited my mother in years.

Theo Von
You know? Like, she never asked. She never, like, says, like, I want you to come. You know, she doesn't. She doesn't like to assert herself into things, really.

You know, she likes to kind of keep her distance, I think, in some ways. But anyway, so I looked through the thing, and I see her in the back in that bikini and the chair and brought all the memories out when I was a kid, sometimes, like, if she'd had enough, she'd fucking go lay out in the side yard with a fucking can of beer, you know? And if I brought it, look, our whole apartment complex was always sinking in the mud. We was always fucking fighting with the landlord. It's like, give us $45 off, we're fucking.

You know, the dinner table's two inches lower than it was last week, you know, so mom's chair would be over there, just slowly fucking. We thought that bitch was gonna disappear from. Now who's she lived with? She lives by herself. And who's down there with her?

Nobody. She likes to. She likes to be by herself. She likes to. She's always, like, gone.

Like, even I was young, she always was going. That's what I. One thing I remember about her, she always had to go. That's the one thing I think I remember the most about my mom. She always had to go.

She always had to go to work. She always had to move away. Just how she's built, you know? Something inside of her, she. It's hard for her to stay right there.

Joey Diaz
Well, that's where you get it from. I know, me too. Listen, we were talking about that before. We didn't really. That's where I get it from.

You know, I'm in the same boat as you. You sit there and you go, nobody calls me to do anything. And when they do call, you know, I'm living a life now off of bill Hicks. That's what I'm doing now. Bill Hicks had the greatest joke that couldn't be any truer.

Marijuana does not make you lazy. It just makes you realize that what you're going to do just ain't worth doing. And that's why I'm at my point in my life now. There's days I go, you know what? For me to get into this party, I got to drive an hour and a half.

By the time I get back, and I got to hear shit, and I'm going, you know, it's just a thousand variables. You give yourself excuses. Yeah, but then again, tom Hardy says that once you spent time alone for a while, you like it, and some people like it, and there's nothing wrong with that. Theo, Theo, listen. At this age, and at any age from the time I was 20, my favorite thing.

Yeah. Everybody likes to have sex. Everybody likes to eat good food. But between me and you, give me a joint and a good book and put me in the corner, I'm good. I'll smoke a joint every 2 hours, take a bite of the sandwich.

I love reading. Yeah. That's the happiest I am when I'm fucking reading. If I don't have a book now in the hotel, I'll go back and start looking up recuperation for men over 60. Benefits of boxing, you know, benefits of breathing, you know, I'm a fucking idiot, but I like to read.

I love. That's my thing. Then it's a breeze. Yeah. I'm one of those fucking idiots.

You press benefits on my page, and every benefit comes up. Benefits of drinking water, benefits of washing your ass, benefits of doing, you know, I'm the captain benefit. I want to know everything that I can about something that's the happiest I am, and you don't, you don't read a book in a team. You don't read a book with 20 people. Yeah.

You know, that's what, I love it. I fucking. That's a good point. We do stand up. We would not.

We wish we could have joined the fucking improv troupe and been the wallflowers and. No, we like being up there alone with a microphone with four bricks and working ourselves out of there. Takes a certain person to want to be a comic, bro? Yeah. Certain person.

Theo Von
Yeah. I think sometimes I do compare myself to just, like, people that aren't comics that much, but. And then you have to realize how odd it is to do that job. It's an odd job. It's an odd job.

If you saw an animal do it in the woods, you'd be like, that fucking animal's out of his fucking mouth. We're crazy. We're crazy as stand ups. We're not normal. We are not normal.

Joey Diaz
There's something you have to come to terms with. All the things we are as comics, we can't question them. That's who we are. You could have been a doctor. We could have been a lawyer.

We could have been a bum. We could have been a hooker. Yeah. We chose something that, you know, I don't know why I chose it. I just love Richard Pryor, and I.

And I knew once I had the felonies, I wasn't gonna do anything else that I really liked. Yeah. This is not, you know, comedy is a profession for fucking guys like us. Me and you have a little darkness in our past. We can't figure out what it is, but it makes us tick.

Theo Von
Yeah. I loved hearing Richard Pryor too, man. I loved hearing him say the n word. Me too. My mom wouldn't let us say it, and we're like, well, fuck, man, we gotta hear it, you know?

And so I remember we would hear him say it, dude, just those. Just those books. Like by who's the crazy white guy? Mark Twain? No, Mark Wahlberg.

Joey Diaz
The comic. The comic before fucking Richard Pryor. That was a white guy. Lenny Bruce. Lenny Bruce.

Have you ever read any of his books? Yeah, one of his books. Next time you having a hard time with yourself, go order one of his books. Ladies and gentlemen, legendary how to talk dirty. Any of those books?

But he has one particular book. That one. The black one there. The essential Lenny Bruce. That one.

That book will tell you, will tell you more about yourself than you know about yourself. Wow. He lived at the Chelsea Hotel. He partied with strippers and jazz musicians and did heroin every night. There was no responsibility.

He got up when he got up. He didn't have to be out of work till 11:00 at night. Remember, they only did, they only did fucking burlesque shows. In fact, you ever go to Jackson, Tennessee? I don't think I have.

Jackson's like an hour outside of Nashville. Jackson's got a comedy club that used to be a burlesque club. Wow. And Lenny Bruce used to play there in the fifties and sixties. If you ever had a chance to go to this place, go out there.

I forget the name. Just look at it. Google it. It's like a comedy club in Jackson. Yeah, that's it, I think.

Theo Von
731 comedy club. That could be it. That's it. Guy was great. You know, I had been at zanies already one time.

Yeah. And I was going back to see my in laws, so I wanted to do stand up one night. Not a big room. There wasn't a lot of money. Fucking guy could cook, he had italian food.

Joey Diaz
He was telling us stories about all the comics that would come through there in the fifties and sixties in fucking Jackson, Tennessee. No wonder fucking my boy Johnny Cash was going to Jackson, right? Wasn't he going to Jackson? We're going to Jackson. Go comb your hair.

Theo Von
Yeah, see if I can. We're not, you know, that's why I went home. I went home. Listen, I could have came to Austin. I could have moved to Nashville.

Joey Diaz
I had an opportunity in Telluride, Colorado. I wanted to come back to Jersey to find myself. Do you think that you've gathered what you wanted to find? Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Cause now I'm at peace. I'm at peace with myself. I'm at peace with my friends, with my family. You know, I'm just at peace. Did you have any amends to make whenever you got there or.

Theo Von
No, everything was pretty chill. Listen, I thought about making amends, but the people that was on make amends, so weren't worth making the amends to, you know? That was 40 fucking years ago. Knock it off and deal with it. My amends was doing something with my life.

Right? That was my amends. If you really cared about me or care about anybody, you look at them and go, that dude fucked me over 30 years ago. But guess what? He did something with his life.

Joey Diaz
You have two options. The guy fucked me over, but he died. The car accident fucked him. He deserved what he got. He was a scumbag.

Or you know what, man? The guy robbed me. He was having problems as a kid. I'm happy he got his life together. Yeah.

And that's what it was like. I'm not gonna fucking apologize to nobody now. That was a long fucking time ago. Yeah. I didn't know if anything wild had happened.

Theo Von
No, no, I don't have anything like that either. I don't think from my hometown. I just wanted to go home and recoup la. You know, when you've been there for a long time, it's a number on your head for a while. Like, just, you know, we talk.

Joey Diaz
There was a lot of rejection. Oh, yeah, a lot of rejection. Across town, parking, walking, getting in, checking at the station, walking. There. Don't even know my lines.

Theo Von
Don't even give a fuck. Hate the place, hate myself. Fuck them, fuck me. Walk in there nervous as fuck, bomb the shit, walk outside, scream the n word in my head, go back out through the parking thing, return my badge, get my id back, get in my car and fucking go home. It is, you know, people have no idea what we did.

Joey Diaz
We got to LA, figured it out. That's true. Figured it out. Which, listen, that's alone. That alone.

Theo Von
The parking meter's alone. Quarter gets you six minutes, dude. Dog, I had so many tickets when I first moved to LA. They took a car. I mean, my apartment got towed.

Joey Diaz
I lived in my car. Ralphie May and those guys go, oh, your apartment got towed? It was that scrambling. I would do it 20 more times. That not having money to eat lunch and having to rob the gas station for a pack of cigarettes on the way to Josh Wolfe's house to get a turkey burger, you know, to fucking borrow $8 to go to Sunset grill and get a burger with the guy with the bum leg.

You know, nobody knows that. What it's like to showcase for James hot and him telling you, like, why you here. Yeah. You know, and thank God, Jake. You know, Mitzi passed me right off the bat.

Thank God. But then it was seven years of, I can't get an agent, and you can't do this, and you can't do that. Yeah. And most people would have quit the l. We did something that a lot of people just can't handle.

They move back and they go, you know what? It wasn't for me. Listen, I understand that. I understand that. I fucking definitely understand that.

But for me, I think it was time to move on to a next chapter. I'm trying to find what that chapter is now, you know? You wrote a book? Wrote a book. That was cool, man.

Theo Von
I feel bad that I haven't even read it, but I did just order it today. I didn't even know that you had written it. I don't think, actually, you know what I think? When I did your podcast last time over Zoom, I think you remember telling me, yes, that you had done it. But that's awesome.

Tremendous. I was trying to write that book for fucking 20 years. I know a lot of comics always have that book milling around in a mouth. And then I kept writing and making notes and then I kept trying to hook up with a writer. Tremendous.

Joey Diaz
And then I hooked up with Jimmy Florentine's niece. Really? Yeah. His young niece. And she fucking helped me.

And listen, man, we sold some copies. We made it to number nine on the audiobook in New York Times, which, for a dirty comic and a criminal, that's not too fucking bad. Where I can. Rocky got that cock. Rocky got that cock on the motherfucker.

Dude, before, you were saying something really funny and I interrupted you. I had to go to the bathroom. But you were telling me that you used to call people and tell them celebrities that. Oh, yeah. Yeah, dude.

Theo Von
And so we go, like, on Boy scouts or whatever. My buddy was in the Boy scouts. And so I remember one time, we went on a camping trip with them, and right when we started out, I told everybody Jay Leno had died, right? I've told this story before, but I love it. And I was like, you know, Jay Leno died.

And so all the dads were like, oh, gosh. That's so sorry to hear that. And so then throughout the rest of the weekend, I'd be in my tent, right? And I'd hear the dads out there talking. One.

I'm telling the other one, you know, Jay Leno passed away. And I would be in my tent, bro, fucking dying. Howling, bro. Laughing at a level where it was, like, coming out of my fucking spine. And I don't know why stuff like that made me laugh so much.

I don't know if it was that I had control, like a hidden control, or that I was affecting things without them knowing. It just. There was nothing as good as that, bro. I was that kind of shit, dude. When you fuck with people, like, you know, controlled, fucking with people like me, telling Ellie, bravo, Rogan was in the CIA, all that shit, it's always great.

Joey Diaz
But the best thing I ever think I did, and I did it on accident. Remember Chuck Liddell? Yeah. When Chuck Liddell was the fucking king of the UFC. He was the king of the UFC.

Okay. So I get a call from Eddie Bravo. One no. I find out that Fidel Castro died. I got a call from a friend of mine.

He goes, you know, Fidel died. I go, thank God that motherfucker died. And also, I call Eddie. I go, Eddie, where you at? And he goes, I'm sitting here with Dana White or something.

I go, you know, Fidel died. But the phone didn't say it, right. It said Liddell. So he goes, let me call you back. And he hung off the phone.

He told Eddie Brock, he told Dana White that Joey D. Had just called him, told him Chuck Liddell died. I said, fidel, not Liddell. Right now this is Dana White's fucking man at the time. Dana White's got no hair.

And he lost. Even he lost the air. He was gonna give his children fucking. How could this be? Eddie Bravo called dating says Liddell died.

Not Liddell. Fidel, you fuck.

Theo Von
That's fucking great. I love that kind of shit. Did your, um. Did your parents come over from Cuba? I don't remember both of them.

Joey Diaz
Mm hmm. Wow. I'm 100% there ain't no fuck. Well, we went there when I was a student. Yeah, you told me.

Yeah, I remember. Yeah. We went there, and Fidel came and spoke to our class. I remember. But we didn't speak enough Spanish to know a ton of.

Theo Von
They had a translator. Where did you go to college? At LSU. Yeah, over at LSU and University of Arizona. But it was a thing called semester at sea.

It was like a floating college, but we stopped there on a cruise ship. Wow. I was working in a bookstore. So we pull up into Cuba, dude, and all the people are there having, you know, we're, like, throwing all our tennis shoes. Everything we own that they could have.

We're throwing it off the boat, bro. And, like, you would be walking through town and people would, like, have you come up to their windows, and they would tell you, like, just about, like, the control they were under and shit. And it was like, top secret, kind of. Well, we got to go to a baseball game, dude, a cup. Some group was partying this alley somewhere.

I went over there. I'm dancing party, and they cut open a birthday cake. We thought it was, like, a fucking. A party for, like, an old man. Next thing I know, I turn around, this old dude is going down on one of the chicks, bro.

It's some guys in some hookers, and. They'Re like, don't fuck around. I thought it was, like, somebody's grandpa's birthday, bro. I'm over there singing a pledge of allegiance. I look over, dude, this guy's fucking trying to get back in the birth canal.

Over. Dog. Cuba's a dirty fucking country, bro. That's awesome, dude. They got tons of hookers down there.

Oh, it was apparently so. Tons of hookers down there. God, I got. And those girls come up here, and they destroy it. They're all over Jersey, those cuban hookers.

Really? Wow. I gotta get out more. They got. There's a strip club in Jersey that my friend, I grew up with this guy he owns.

Joey Diaz
And they keep closing them down. Cause they're just nasty, you know, they're fucking 60 deep in there. I went in there like three times, and I'm like, this is buck wild. There was a biker chick that would slam her heels together, and every time her heels would come. I gotta get out of here.

Theo Von
Oh, every year. But they had a bunch of cuban girls in there, and I would talk to the. I would go in there once a week just to talk to the one cuban girl, and she would tell me about Cuba, what's going on? And she would tell me right off, why don't you just sit there? Why don't you go get your dick sucked?

Joey Diaz
That's their mentality. They're like, what? Your dick? What are you there talking, watching a game for? I'm like, I'm married.

Who cares? Go have a good time. Your wife ain't gonna mind. I mean, they're fucking open minded. Shit, that's what I might get a real span.

Theo Von
Like a spanish wife or something. Be nice, huh? Yeah. That would balance you out a little bit. Yes.

Joey Diaz
They'll smack you around. Take your money. Fuck it. This is my wife. How'd you know you were in love when you met your wife, dude?

Theo Von
Did you know it? No. Did it grow on you? You think it's hard for guys like us to be in love? Kind of, yes.

Joey Diaz
Because our first love is comedy. That's when you're in LA, not when you're in your hometown. Once you get to LA and you're caught up, that's your love. When you really, really think about it, at the end of the day, that's your love. I was with my wife maybe three years before.

You know, it was like. But thank God she had patience. Thank God I had patience. And it wasn't till my wife and I got together. We're gonna be together 24 years next month.

And it wasn't till I got the longest yard that I. It was 2004. We were struggling. Every week was a struggle with her and I. We're living together.

The relationship was good, but we were always struggling. We had no money. We had six cats. Oh, yeah. And I got the longest yard and I went to shoot it.

And when I came back home, I had to shoot, you know, for eleven weeks, my call time was at 445 every morning. Oh, my God. In Orange County, 445.

So I don't know how many times I got up at three in the morning and my fucking costume would be out. She'd be cooking eggs at three in the morning for me. And I go, what did I do to deserve this? You know, like. And that's when I realized I really love her, you know, I wasn't gonna get married again.

Once you get married and you lose, I'm a Catholic. You do it one time, you move on. I wasn't looking to get married. I wasn't looking to waste anybody's time. I'm not a big time waster.

If it's not working, let's move the fuck on, you know? But with her, it was different, and now it's tremendous. Like, I mean, it's now after 24. I look at her and I'm like, if it wasn't for her, I wouldn't be here. Wow.

Theo Von
Did moving to Jersey help you guys relationship? You think? One thing about me and my wife, I gotta be honest with you. We got into a fight in December in Nashville. Yeah.

Good. Beside that, me and my wife never really. We got into, like, it was a little. A long awaited battle. Her family, me, the whole thing.

Joey Diaz
I just went home. I was in Nashville for Christmas, I just went home Christmas day, and she got mad at me for, like, two weeks. We had a little no problem at the house for two weeks. But ever since then, it's been. And before then, it was smooth, you know?

And we're fucking a great team. And now we got this little girl, and, you know, we bought this house, we paid it off. We did so many fucking things in three years. You know, she's an accountant, so I got pensions. I got a pension for the pension.

Another pension. Hopefully. She's laundering money from you, too. Yeah, she's laundering, too. You know, I mean, she's.

It's great for me. And I never thought I would say something like this. Yeah. That's what I find. This is.

I never in my life tell you, for me, it was the best thing that happened at that time. Was there a fear to do it? Like. Was there a fear to be like, okay, this. Fuck it, theo.

Look at our lives. We go on the road, we bump into a girl, you do things with them for three days, then you come back a year later, and there they are. And then one time, you come back and they obviously have a boyfriend. Yeah. And they bring him to the show, and that's when the relationship ends.

And I was in Boulder before I went to LA, and I had, honest to God, no lie, I probably had six girls on a rotation that would just come over to snorkel coke and have sex. Yeah. That's a beautiful. I mean, yeah, it's a beautiful thing. But it's like, you get used to it, right?

Theo Von
And. Yeah. And then it runs its course, and then time changes, and you come back and you're still living five years ago, and now they've. They got. They got a fan.

So everything changes. So, like, I was never gonna get remarried. I got. I got the movie, then I got. Took me two more years of struggling with coke.

Joey Diaz
I mean, a horrid two years heroin. And then. And that was what was killing me, that I was hurting her. And one day I go, you know what? I gotta stop this shit.

Because, listen, I'm old school. I found my mother dead, and I'm here, you know, I could find somebody dead, but I never wanted her to find me dead. Cause she couldn't handle it. That would live with her for the rest of her life. So if that's what made me get clean off coke, I didn't want her.

There were two reasons I got off coke. One, I didn't want her to find me. And number two, if something happened to me, I didn't want people telling Rogan he was wrong. That meant a lot to me, that he had my back. So now he's got my back 100% because.

So I got clean. And then two years later, I proposed to her on the phone. I just go, it's time. It's time. No more shit.

I was going for a ride, and I go, you know what? I gotta marry this girl. And then two years later, she got pregnant. So it was all like, that's interesting. Man, saying, like, I don't want to hurt you, so I'm gonna stop hurting me, you know?

Yeah. I don't want to hurt this person. She could never handle waking up and finding me on the floor. Yeah. She doesn't have it.

It's not her DNA. She's very sweet. We're animals. We could find anybody dead the next day. Fucking go eat a pizza.

Yeah, but she's from a different cloth, so. Hey, Rocky got that cock on him. What's that? Rocky got that medium pepperoni on him. Look, that's true, dude.

Theo Von
Sometimes I'll be sitting with somebody, I'd be like, if this person died, what would I do with him right now? I literally would think that kind of shit. It's fucking crazy, man. It's just. And I'm just sitting in the backseat of an Uber, and you're like, what the fuck would I do with this guy?

You know?

Do you have to ever have tough moments? Like, when you think back on your own mom. And, like, in just that whole situation, like, do you ever, like, on Mother's Day, do you do anything special? Do you just say, like, a special prayer? Like.

Joey Diaz
It'S like these idiots celebrate 421 day a year. I do 420 every day. There's not a day I don't think about my mom. In fact, I didn't bring flowers to a cemetery this time. I went to a cemetery when I moved back to Jersey.

It looked like a fucking rat's nest. Yeah, I went. I complained. I brought some tools up there. I did some cleaning.

And it's, like, scared me now. And it's like now I don't even want to be buried. I don't want the people to have to come visit me and clean up my grave. Burn the shit out of me. I don't give a fuck.

Well done. The last bowl. Well done. I'm not fucking. Don't come visit me.

She lives in your heart, theo. They live in your heart and in your mind and funny fucking stories and, you know. Yeah. Do you remember, like, a funny story that you, like, do you have, like, a real fun memory that you remember with your mom? Oh, I got 30,000 of those things where it just.

I still remember a night where I was probably, like, in the 8th grade, maybe in the 7th grade, the second time. Cause I got left back in the second 7th grade. Real G's. Do it twice, son. My mother used to fucking own a bar.

And every night at three, she'd come home. 315. And some nights she woke me up with food. Some nights she just woke me up to talk to me, to see how my day went. This one particular night, she woke up and she's like, get dressed.

There's a girl downstairs that wants to meet you. That was my mother. She's like, go downstairs. And I went down, like, with warm ups or something. And there were, like, three of my uncles and there was other women and fucking my stepdad.

And this girl was dancing with me. And I'm like, hold on, I gotta go up and put on my suit. At four in the morning, I went upstairs and put on a suit. And they're all like, go, Joey. And I'm dancing.

Coquito. They would call me Coquito. And I'm dancing with this girl. I'm rubbing her tits and shit. Finally somebody gives me, like, a shot of whiskey.

And, you know, I'm like, in the 7th grade, all of a sudden they're like, take her upstairs. And I'm like. And my mom was there. I didn't even make eye contact with my mom. I just held her hand and she took me upstairs to the attic.

Not even to my bedroom. We had an attic where she was gonna spend the night. And theo, do you know, till this day, I cannot tell you if I fucked her, ate her, kissed her, I think I just passed out from the fucking anxiety. Oh, yeah. And that's the type of mom I had.

Like, she brought a girl, she took me to fight somebody once. She would pick fights for me. She was my Dana white when I went to catholic school. And I come home, she's like, you gotta go home and change. You gotta fight.

At 330 in front of my boss, some guy cursed at me, and I told him, come back here Friday at 330. You're gonna fight my son? I have to go up there and fight two fucking kids? You know, it would never end it, man, with this lady. But those years.

This is what I'm trying to do with my daughter now. Because I remembered what? How my mom got to me. And it was just real. Like, I finally had to tell my daughter a couple months ago that I smoked pot.

Eleven years old, and she looked at me like, dad, come on. I know. Smoke coming out of your mouth and you come out of the bathroom. What do you think, I'm stupid? Everybody knows, dad.

Theo Von
She's like, we have smoke coming out of our house and we don't have a chimney, dad, okay, yeah, I fucking. Go in the garage with it sometimes. She's like, dad, it smells in here. She'll go. And I go, company keeps breaking in my house, smoking dope.

Joey Diaz
And she's like, dad. So I'm really being honest with her. Little steps at a time. Like, I gotta break it to her that she's got a sister soon, eventually. Someday I gotta tell her the story.

Theo Von
Yeah. I don't wanna tell her now because I don't want her to think, well, what if me and mommy break up? You'll never see us again. So I gotta be care. I thought when I put the book out, I would have to sit it down.

Joey Diaz
But it's been two years. No, she's not gonna read them till I tell her. Read it. Yeah. So things like that, you know?

But I miss my mom. I miss my childhood. If it wasn't for my childhood, I would have never became the person I would have become. Yeah. Plain and simple.

Whether it's a criminal thing, everything I did in my childhood came to help me out later on, you know, like, in some way or another. So I have no fucking regrets at all. You know? Yeah. Dang, man.

Theo Von
Thanks, dude. Thanks for just sitting down. It's just so good to just hear your voice. Even. I remember how much, like, when you would go on your lives, dude.

Remember when. When mad flavor was going fucking live, dude, the world lit up. You remember that, Nick? The world. People were like, Joe, Coco's going live, dude.

I would get texts from my friends back at home. They'd be like, coco's going live. And I thought it was like a black stripper was gonna do something. All the periscopes. Yeah, when you would do periscopes.

Joey Diaz
I love them. I love them. And you'd be on your balcony. Yeah, you can't smoke on Instagram. They'll fucking shut you down.

So I can't do that stuff no more. It's. It's been fucking. I love smoking on Instagram and stuff like that. But you can't.

I haven't made a video on Instagram three weeks. That's ridiculous, though. You can link. Yeah, there you go. Oh, fucking seven in the morning.

Seven in the morning. Who? I would get up just to take a shower, to go out there, smoke and talk to these fucking animals. Oh, dude, there was nothing like it, bro. People, dude, I remember a deaf kid even fucking called me and talked to me and told me he was excited about that shit.

Theo Von
Two people fucking came out of their own diseases and malfunctioned. You understand? We were getting up at seven in the morning to do that shit. At 08:00 I was already three sheets to the fucking wind. There was a weed store that opened up at nine that gave out bagels in Studio City.

Joey Diaz
He was a jewish guy. I would be there at nine in the morning with him eating bagels, eating fucking banana bread. You know, it had to give in eventually. Now, listen, I got some edibles. I didn't take them last night.

And that's why I was uptight last night on stage. I gotta drop them tonight. I don't give a fuck. Yeah, I'm gonna drop like 801,000 milligrams tonight and go down there and torture Joe, get some fucking barbecue. Yeah, it'd be good.

Theo Von
I'll be down there, man. Any chance of you moving to Austin? Is that just a myth? You know, Joe throws it around, you know? Well, I tell you what, for my situation now, it would.

Joey Diaz
It makes sense. I miss you guys. I really do miss this. Yeah, I miss it, too. I'm realizing that I don't want a week down here.

I don't want to be down here for a week. That's too much. Three, four days, eight, nine sets. Get back on the plane and go home. If I buy, I'll buy a condo or something in the building.

Like, I told you something, that everything is there. Like my niece in Nashville, everything. She's got everything for $2,200 a month. Everything. Weights, music.

They cook in the building. If I could find one of those down here, maybe get Troy Conrad in with me. Maybe Lee. Just somebody, you know, if I'm not in town, they're in town, right? Watching a joint, you know, they're not watching it.

Somebody else could come in. I don't care. That's what I'm thinking. I can't buy a house down there. I don't want to do that because I don't want to resettle.

I don't want to remove my daughter. She said, you know, for me to remove her again, fuck that. Yeah, yeah, I might. Maybe I might. I do like going and doing the sets, man.

Theo Von
I did 24 sets last week. Yeah, yeah. Just at the mothership, at the different clubs. 22 sets. Where'd you go?

I went to red band mothership. I went to red band sunset. I went to creek in the cave. I went to Black Rabbit. And I think that's it.

But amongst those clubs, I did like. I mean, I probably did twelve sets at mother. At mothership. Wow. Yeah, I did three last night.

Joey Diaz
I left. I went to get tacos and I'm like, dog, I'm tired. Yeah, I went to get tacos after the second main room show. And I wanted to do the bottom of the barrel again to get some other joke. But I was like, dog, I gotta go home.

Theo Von
Yeah, I went home, dude. Ended up jerking off. Didn't want to, but I went home. Smoked some pot, watched some tv. I slept good.

Joey Diaz
Got up too early this morning. Oh, I hate that shit. Ate breakfast, went for a nice walk, smoked a joint, went right back upstairs, watched the rest of some Clint Eastwood movie. And I fucking slept from ten to two. Oh, that's beautiful.

I got up, I washed my pussy. I hit you back. Yeah. I took a long shower. I shaved one of those puerto rican bic raises.

I didn't bring my. I got skin missing. I shaved my fucking ear. I cut my ear. You know, when you get out of the shower, you feel all these little things.

I could see myself as I was shaving in the shower, putting all those little cotton balls all over your face like that. You had all this fucking prison freckles. Oh, but it's good to see you, brother. I'm happy, man. You had me on here.

I'm very proud of you and what you've done. You're a fucking animal. I love that you have a smile on your face all the time. And I will take you up on June 1. We're gonna.

So you're at Beacon that Friday night? Yeah, I'm gonna beacon that Friday night. Just one show? Just one shows. Just one.

Just one. And then you're free? Yeah. You stay in the city? I could stay anywhere Saturday.

We'll do the sad. Let's go to lunch Saturday and then go to the fights if you set. Perfect. Even if you don't go to the fights, it'd be great. No, no.

Saturday will go because you have more time. Yeah. So you come over early Saturday. The ferry? Yeah, take the ferry right there.

It drops. Yeah. Drops you off right down the block. That sounds good. That's James.

Theo Von
That's JJ Braddock. Park. Finish the story about JJ Braddock. That. What?

Just you. But you met him yet? Like, when he was old, though, guys, you know, he was. He still talking about fighting and stuff? Like, was he still, like.

Joey Diaz
He was just. I remember his. His son. He had a son that was a cop. I think he's still in the town.

I think they still own the house. The family still owns the house. But I never saw him box or, you know, he never coached me in boxing. I wish he would have. But you got to see him, though.

Yeah, I got to see him. And did people, like, think he was, like, a hero? Yeah. At that time, I didn't know his full history. I just.

You were a kid boxer, right? And there was somebody in our neighborhood that told us about, like, him. And then they said, if you ever go up there, he'll give you money to shovel snow. And I remember one time we went up there as kids, and he was outside given, like, danishes and $10 if you shovel. And that was it.

Theo Von
Yeah. I never really saw him after that or spoke to him, but you hear the legend, you know, and then it is what it is. But my buddy. Well, we don't talk no more, but my buddy's in charge of that park. Wow.

Okay. He's a committee. He's like a groundskeeper? No, no, no. He's big time, dude.

Joey Diaz
He's in charge of that park. He's a politician. And they keep it nice. And they keep it nice. And he's the one that put them.

From my age. Wow. So he put that up there. They had. And the whole family showed up.

When they put the statue up, it was pretty nice. I saw the pictures. It was pretty impressive, man. That's cool, man. Yeah, I think I saw Natalie Portman at my hotel yesterday.

Really? Yeah. I don't know if that. I don't talk. Every time I'm in Austin, I see somebody.

One day I was in, no, not this time. 420. I fucking walked out of my elevator. I walked right into magic Johnson. Nuh uh.

And he goes, he looked at me like we knew each other. I never met magic. And he's like, hey, man, what are you doing here? I'm like, the question is, what are you doing here? I go, I was in l.

A. For 23 years. You never fucking showed up. One time. Now I'm in Austin, you.

I gave him a big hug. He's like, hey. I go, you want to come do Rogan with me? He's like, ah, that would have been crazy. I told Joe and Joe's like, oh, you should have brought him.

I bumped into him, started talking to him like he knew me for ten years. I don't know fucking magic Johnson. Fucking never met him in my life. I'm like, hey, we used to do coke. They don't fucking know.

Theo Von
Coco Diaz, man. I love you, dude. I love you in all my heart, brother. This is the best part of this trip. Good to see you.

Joey Diaz
You hit me last week and said, what time tomorrow? I was pissed. Oh yeah, cuz I had the wrong weird ways. I'm like, what? Fuck no.

You better be doing it next week. I love you, brother. Thank you very much for having me. I love you too, man. I'm order of the book.

Theo Von
I'm gonna read it, man. And thank you, man. And yeah, I just appreciate the fact that I get to know you. It's been one of the gifts of this show. You're my favorite guy in LA, me Lee.

Joey Diaz
How fucking happy was he to see you when I told that motherfucker you were down here? He lit up. Oh yeah, he lit up. He was like a favorite, just like a warm mcFish. When I got edible with him or anything, nothing.

Theo Von
Smelled his breath for a couple minutes. Dude, he has no more flies on his neck. He looked great. Yeah, he looks great. He looks lean.

He was excited about things. Not more energetic than I heard him be in the past, more vocal, confident. He needed all that. We all needed that break to realize what just. You just need a break sometimes to realize what just fucking happened.

Yeah. And now we're ready for the next. I love you, bro. Let's go get it. Love you, too.

Now I'm just floating on the breeze and I feel I'm falling like these. Leaves I must be cornerstone oh, but. When I reach that ground I'll share this piece of mine I found I. Can feel it in my bones but it's gonna take a little.

Joey Diaz
Can feel it in my bones but it's gonna take a little.

Theo Von
Can feel it in my bones but it's gonna take a little.

Joey Diaz
Can feel it in my bones but it's gonna take a little.

E508 Joey Diaz

Primary Topic

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Main Takeaways

Episode Chapters

1. Reunion and Reflections

2. Life Changes

3. Reflections on Fame

4. The Value of Community

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