Felony Flashbacks with Danny B

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Church of What's Happening Now: The New Testament

Episode: Felony Flashbacks with Danny B
Date: March 31, 2026
Host: Joey Coco Diaz
Guests: Lee Syatt, Danny Bianculo
Theme:
A raw, hilarious, and unfiltered conversation among old friends, reflecting on decades of wild living, street smarts, criminal mischief, and eventual redemption. Joey Diaz, Lee Syatt, and Danny "Danny B" Bianculo swap stories and dark comedy from their North Bergen roots, the mayhem of the 1980s, brushes with the law, and how those wild years shaped who they are today.

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Joey Diaz reconnects with longtime friend Danny Bianculo to reminisce about their criminal escapades, neighborhood characters, changing times in North Bergen, and survival against the odds. The conversation blends harrowing crime tales, the psychology of addiction, nostalgia for a vanished world, and reflections on change—tempered with plenty of laughs, ribbing, and affectionate mockery.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. North Bergen Then & Now

• The hosts lament how their old neighborhood has changed: gentrification, Airbnbs on their streets, and stories of sketchy renters and corrupt cops collecting "envelopes" ([01:05]).
• Joey explains how driving through the old blocks triggers a flood of "felony flashbacks," every intersection recalling some wild scheme, mugging, or crime from their youth ([01:53]).

Quote:
"In your mind, you're just hearing felonies. 'Oh, I mugged somebody there. I snorted coke in that building.'"
— Joey Diaz ([01:11])

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2. Legendary Local Crimes

• The infamous TD Bank robbery involving their friend Gary, who “robbed it with a butter knife and a BB gun,” and subsequent chaos ensued ([03:14]).
• Gary’s penchant for self-sabotage, calling the police on himself after crimes, and his life as a serial inmate ([03:53]).

Quote:
"He lived on me for a bit ... every time he got out, he got a different chick pregnant."
— Joey Diaz ([07:39])

• The contrast in punishment: how a guy went away for decades over small-time crimes and accumulated charges ([07:23]).

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3. Prison Life & 'Glamorization' of Doing Time

• Danny B discusses how some inmates glamorize prison, boasting about where they've served as if it’s a badge of honor ([09:35]).
• Joey and Danny talk about friends who can't function outside, seeing criminal life as safer and "home" ([09:35]).

Quote:
"For you to tell people, 'Yeah, I did a nickel.' ... Like, it's a country club, and you're sitting there going, 'What is going on that these people are glamorizing?'"
— Joey Diaz ([10:04])

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4. The Drug-Fueled Heyday

• Flashbacks to 1980s New York & New Jersey, where Cocaine was everywhere, and the city was wild, raw, and corrupt ([16:18], [22:12]).
• Tales of smuggling, constant paranoia (cops lurking, hiding coke, going broke feeding habits), and the effect of new drugs like fentanyl ([16:27], [20:12], [61:01]).

Quote:
"There was so much accessibility. The accessibility I couldn't handle. That's why I left."
— Joey Diaz ([94:34])

• Paranoia and aftermath: Joey’s story about snorting coke for days, hiding from imaginary feds, dumping drugs down a toilet, then scraping for residue ([46:23]-[47:12]).

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5. Police Encounters & Street Survival

• How name-dropping local cops or politicians could get you out of serious jams, unless you had a kilo and a body in the trunk ([27:18]).
• The real risk and gallows humor of driving stoned or carrying drugs through police-ridden neighborhoods ([25:41], [26:40]).
• Joey explains the practical value of street smarts, local networks, and knowing “who to drop” to get a break ([27:29]).

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6. Addictions, Regrets, and Recovery

• The psychological toll and worsening cycle of coke paranoia and the moments that drove Joey and Danny to get clean ([36:39], [37:00]).
• Reflections on lost time, missed opportunities, and the realization that “nothing is worth them taking away your freedom” ([06:25]).
• The role marijuana and edibles play in Joey's current sobriety ([58:25]). Both men reflect on the handful of times they slipped and the guilt afterward ([56:41]).

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7. Changed Lives & New Chapters

• Joey and Danny’s transitions into family life, "softball dads," and embracing a slower pace, contrasting their wild past with present joys ([53:40]).

Quote:
"Nobody prepares you for this. And that's why I love the way I grew up, because now I have this peace. I already had that."
— Joey Diaz ([53:40])

• Both men express pride in the survival and achievements that emerged out of chaos, but acknowledge not all their old friends made it ([68:30], [69:29]).
• Danny talks about his time as "soldier of the year" in the Army, and highs and lows of working in radio and gambling ([35:41], [77:46]).

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8. Neighborhood Stories & Humor

• endlessly quotable, hilarious stories about clubbing, hotels, stealing, being broke, creative scamming, and misadventures with friends that capture the era's outlaw spirit ([31:24]-[44:12]).
• Tales of strip clubs, wild parties, bar fights, and sneaking around North Bergen and NYC ([108:00]-[111:00]).
• Running joke about Joey’s anatomy and the old-school bravado of their crowd ([73:38]).

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9. Generational Contrasts & Nostalgia

• Lee Syatt reflects on growing up in a much tamer suburb and his disbelief at the stories he hears from Joey and Danny ([14:16], [97:51]).
• Both hosts lament and celebrate how much safer things are now for their kids—even if a little excitement is lost ([94:40]).
• Grand Theft Auto segment: Joey is introduced to the video game and laughs about how “it was just a regular day” for him, causing chaos in-game ([99:11]-[101:03]).

Quote:
"I was horrible. I got to practice the gun war, but this is left, this is right, I don't know, this is shooting, then there's a star triangle ..."
— Joey Diaz ([100:24])

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Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• "We go back, 40 years." — Joey Diaz ([00:03])
• "I thought I needed a passport to get in my own neighborhood." — Danny B ([00:51])
• "He was so feared in prison, they kicked him out of Attica. … He bit a pagan's nose off." — Danny B ([08:30])
• "You couldn't survive in the real world. You just feel like that's what safety, that feels like home." — Joey Diaz ([09:35])
• "It's funny how somebody could just live their life like that. It's okay. ... So he's a Cuban kid. He loves those fat chicks, the white ones that are half retarded. So he bangs those and they bring him cookies in jail and shit." — Joey Diaz ([07:39])
• "After a certain point, you care but you don't care. But as long as you get that blast, you'll do anything and worry about it after." — Danny B ([20:30])
• "I got the Jacuzzi room and were coming in and was filled with Arab sperm and bubble gum wrappers." — Joey Diaz ([13:34])
• "You never had any sort of dye in anything but smaller stuff?" — Lee Syatt ([05:19])
• "There was a mentality growing up here. … old Italian, blue collar Irish, right? That was what this area was about." — Joey Diaz ([88:05])

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Important Segments & Timestamps

• The Old Neighborhood & Gentrification: [00:03]-[01:25]
• Felony Flashbacks, Old Crimes: [01:53]-[07:31]
• Inmates Glamorizing Prison: [08:35]-[10:37]
• 80s Cocaine Stories: [16:18]-[24:11]
• Paranoia, Coke Benders, and Recovery: [37:00]-[47:12]
• Name-dropping and Cop Encounters: [27:18]-[28:37]
• Softball Dads & New Life: [53:40]-[56:38]
• Regrets & Survival: [68:30]-[71:55]
• Grand Theft Auto Segment: [99:11]-[101:43]
• Bar/Club/Late Night Stories: [108:00]-[111:16]

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Conclusion

The episode is a masterclass in storytelling: brutally honest, wildly funny, and deeply reflective. Joey and Danny B present their past without glorification but with clear-eyed nostalgia, self-deprecation, and genuine gratitude to still be standing. For listeners, it’s a window into a tough, bygone America, a cautionary tale, and a celebration of endurance, friendship, and finding peace on the other side.

Final note:
"Stay black and beautiful. And for you motherfuckers, always stay black. ... Uncle Joey, Lee, and Danny Bianculo love you."
— Joey Diaz ([123:44])

Transcript

[A]

Kick this motherfucker mule. What's happening? Beautiful people. It's Tuesday, April 31st. The rent is due. The church of what's happening now New Testament is in full effect. I got my main man, Lee Syed here, the Cato of comedy. And I got my main dog, Danny Biancolo. We go back 40 years.

[B]

So a little longer than that.

[A]

Go back, grab some popcorn and. And make some notes and if you like, call an attorney and see what the is going on today. What's up?

[B]

Danny, your math is wrong. 40 years. It's more like 50 years, pal. Cool.

[A]

It's 80 years and cocaine years.

[B]

Dog life. Dog life. I was gonna say, you know, 40 years. This is really nice. It's great to be with you, pal.

[A]

It's great to see you long. And you came up, you saw the old neighbor and it was like a fucking horrified.

[B]

I thought I needed a passport to get in my own neighborhood.

[A]

I saw the fucking roads. I know.

[B]

It was nuts. I know you saw potholes. I saw a guy on a roof with a machete.

[A]

Yeah, it's not good. It's not good, but it's.

[B]

Where did find a parking spot?

[A]

Motherfucker. It's what got us on the map, dude.

[B]

They told me they're renting Airbnbs now on my old neighborhood. 78th street in Berger Line.

[A]

Yeah, I believe it.

[B]

Talking to the guy.

[A]

Yeah, they go right into anything that's close to that fucking Big Apple. And they don't have to pay those fucking prices in the city. They'll keep. Somebody hit me up on Twitter. I'm in a hotel in North Bergen. Where do I get something? I'm root fucking three. How's that?

[B]

Oh, man, I tell you what, it's frightening down there. It's funny because the guy was talking to owns the eyeglass store there, and he's like, yes. So bad. They're renting out these things Airbnb. And the funny part is the North Bergen cops are always in the neighborhood collecting envelopes. I guess they're zoning illegally or whatever he was getting. I don't know if it's true or not. So I'm just going by what the guy said, and he's owned the store for 26 years, so I kind of believe him.

[A]

It's funny because I only come up here on Mondays.

[B]

Don't blame you.

[A]

And I'm gonna be as honest I can with you. Every Monday is a psychological thriller because I go up a different block every fucking Monday. Some Mondays I go up 76. Some Mondays I go up 80. Some Mondays, I go up 82nd Street. Whatever lets you go up. I take those rides just to see the town. And in your mind, you're just hearing felonies. Oh, I mugged somebody there.

[B]

Flashbacks.

[A]

I snorted coke in that building. We robbed that place as a kid. You know, I come up here with my daughter, and before we're. We're on the turnpike and we're about to hit, you know, Route 46. And right there it says that. What's that fucking gas station I robbed?

[C]

Which one?

[B]

Which one?

[A]

Which one? No, the big one. The one with the football coach. Lombardi. Like, I was driving past and I felt like saying, mercy almost robbed. I said, fuck it, leave it. Well, you.

[B]

You robbed the rest area.

[A]

The Lombardi gas station.

[C]

Like on the. On the Main Turnpike.

[A]

On the Main.

[C]

I thought you were doing small ones.

[A]

That's like a no. If you want spend your envelope, that's where cars come in every.

[C]

Oh, that was one of the ones you wore.

[B]

Seconds, actually. Speaking of flashbacks, I was showing my oldest son Jaden the bank. TD bank where Gary took down, that led him to prison for.

[A]

The TD bank was on 69th of

[B]

March, right by the White Castles. If you passed away heading down Fairview Avenue. TD bank there.

[A]

No.

[B]

Rubbed it with a butter knife. Don't you remember?

[A]

I thought he robbed it with a fishing line and then he.

[B]

He might have had that. No.

[A]

Yeah, the fish.

[B]

Butter knife. Yeah. He took a deposit bag, butter knife and a BB gun.

[A]

So he fucking threw the fishing line down. This is in the 80s. They weren't hip to fucking North Bergen mentality. You just dropped a bag in there and there was this motherfucker went in there like Jacques Cousteau with a fishing line. Tagged out the bag, stopped the cab driver on Kennedy Boulevard and said, take me to Kennedy Airport.

[B]

I should have never bought him that Pocket Fisherman.

[A]

No. And then he got caught because he tipped the tip. He gave the guy, like $200.

[B]

Oh, he always ratted on himself.

[A]

Yeah, he ratted himself.

[B]

Gary would get high as a kite and just. I can't take it. I'm calling Bodhi. I'm gonna turn myself in. Jenner. I did it. You know, he. He lived on me for a bit. And he'd be gone for like four hours. I'm like, where the fuck is he going? What did he do then? Somebody knocking on the door. I'm paranoid, like, what the fuck? And it's Gary. Where the fuck were you? Oh, I was on the roof talking to Bodie and Jenner, and they're the cops. You know, the cops had busted me three. They got me for a hat trick in one year, three times in a season. But I'll be like. So you were on the roof talking to Bodie, Jenner and Corey. Those were the dirty detectives. The. So he. Yeah, he always ratted on himself, always got himself into trouble. But his worst one was the TD bank. That's when the bag blew up. He had to die on him. No, no, no, no. That gets better. Gets better. He's with another kid that's younger. The kid's young, and they've both been up for two or three days. So they find the one kid in the cemetery hiding, you know, behind a tombstone. His mother was the getaway driver. She died a couple of years later. That's why they didn't even bother prosecuting her. But Gary decided to hijack a truck, right? A car. Guy in a. And he don't know how to drive stick, so he crashed it. He crashed it.

[C]

Then when you said he had die over him, was it on his face?

[B]

Do you like it was. You know, in the Summit.

[A]

Those things blow up.

[C]

I've seen it in movies. I didn't see anyone actually get it.

[A]

I remember people blow up with that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Really? You can't take that ink off.

[B]

No.

[C]

Have you gotten hit but the dice.

[A]

No, I never robbed the bank.

[B]

No, That's. That's out of my.

[C]

I didn't know. I didn't know what else. They put dyes in that. You never had any sort of dye in anything but smaller stuff?

[A]

No, no, no.

[B]

But anyway, they found him hiding underneath the car with the blue legs. He was pale, and the only thing you saw was his little skinny legs shaking with the blue dye on it, and the rest is history. He's been locked up since then. That was.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

He started doing time in 91, got home in 97 for a cup of coffee, like, six months. Went back into 2012. He was on the podcast, got back out for six. So out of the last 35 years, he's been locked up all but a year. Yeah. Yeah. Now they got him sedated in that northern state by Newark, the airport. That's where he's sitting. Then he heads for the Feds for another 15 years after that. So looks like game over.

[A]

You know, man, it was crazy. Like, we lived by no rules, you know, like, for years, I lived by no rules. Cops didn't even bother me when you said, the cops are coming. We got this, you know, we'll hide for a few.

[B]

We knew all of them anyway.

[A]

And they forget, you know, Once I got locked up, I knew one thing that was not the way. Like, there is nothing that's worth them taking away your freedom.

[B]

That's awful.

[A]

Nothing. Nothing. You go and you fucking say, I'm never gonna get in this position again. But I had a friend in LA, in Colorado, the night I won the amateur contest, December 18, 1991, he got caught. My friend's nephew got caught stealing a suitcase from Kentucky Fried Chicken. He went there to get a bucket of chicken, and he saw the briefcase and he took it. He went home and he realized he had nothing in there but coupons for chicken. But they caught him on the camera and they went to his house and pulled him out of the bed at 2 in the morning. Do you know that motherfucker just got out four years ago? Wow. And I said to him, I go, dog, he could have done a comedy career. He got arrested. 91, and he just got out. Four fucking years.

[B]

What are you looking. 35 fucking years.

[A]

Yeah, because that charge. He got into a fight in there, then they let him out. He got caught robbing the coupons. Yeah, it's just. It's just.

[B]

Are the coupons valid still, though, Coco? Can he still use them?

[A]

I don't fucking know.

[B]

I would hope so. After he got to get.

[C]

I don't think she buried the Cooper.

[A]

It's funny how somebody could just live their life like that. It's okay. And my buddy, every time he got out, he got a different chick pregnant. Different fat chick pregnant. So he's a Cuban kid. He loves those fat chicks, the white ones that are half retarded. So he bangs those and they bring him cookies in jail and shit. Cause only chubby white chicks bring you food in jail. There ain't no hot chicks visiting here.

[B]

I never had any visitors when I was locked up. I had maybe a handful over the three years I was down.

[A]

But it's just really funny that some people, man, 20 years in prison, you get out in the world, you think the world has changed for us now? I think if you were away and you came out and all, some people, like, where's a payphone? There ain't no more payphones. What do I need to make a call? Can I just get a cab now? Uber. What's Uber?

[B]

What's an apple?

[A]

What's an app? You know? So I can't imagine even doing something.

[B]

Like, it's hard. It's. You know. And he was, I guess, in. In Jail, he was somebody. He had a clout, but that's what happens. And he liked that role. They called him the Leprechaun, for Christ's sakes. They feared him. He was so feared in prison, they kicked him out of Attica. We talked about this. He bit a pagan's nose off. A Pagan who was in life for double murder. He cut his girls, you know, what, out for cheating on him. So this was no little punk that he took down. But the guy pressed charges, and Gary refused protective custody because the gang wanted to kill him. And they just figured for the safety of the prison system, just ship him up to Auburn. And that's where he was released some years later. But, yeah, he bit a pagan's nose off. And I think that was the hardest. And he had it easy when he was home. We talked about this years ago. He had everything, beautiful homes. Didn't have a car, but he got rides everywhere. Cell phone got his teeth fixed for him, hooked them up, everybody went out of their way. IPads. He just. I don't know. He was just a criminal by nature, I guess.

[A]

You know, you just feel like that's what safety. That feels like home, you know, no responsibility. You talk shit all day. You brag about the prisons you've been in and what crimes you committed, and people, ooh, yeah, you went to Hannah car. I could see if he said he went to Notre Dame, went to fucking Yeshiva Institute. And people go, holy shit, mit. You know. But for you to tell people, yeah, I did a nickel in. Ooh, really? Oh, my God. How was it? And the guys, like, telling you, like, it's a fucking country club, and you're sitting there going, what is going on? That these people are glamorizing. Yeah. They let you up till midnight, you get free clothes, you get to swim in the summer. And you're like, these are things you do at home saying like you just couldn't fucking handle it. And that's what it really is. Once you see those people and you see that they're in a fucking. Listen, they couldn't survive in the real world.

[B]

Yeah, well, I did try to tell Gary when people like, where you coming from? Where you been? I said, just tell him you just graduated Auburn to prison. But, you know, college. It could go either way. But he didn't understand that. But, yeah, he just. I don't know. Cokes. It's sad because I loved Gary growing up. He really became nuts. You know, he did some serious time with some serious people. For example, Mark David Chapman killed John Lennon, he used to serve him up his food. I got a letter, handwritten and signed, from Mark David Chapman, wishing Gary luck in life and preaching the word of God to him. God loves you and he will forgive you. Did he forget you're still locked up? I guess that doesn't work, but he did some serious time. What's his name? From Goodfellas, the one Robert De Niro played in?

[A]

Jimmy Conway.

[B]

Jimmy Conway, yeah. Then he hooked up with the Russians. And he did a lot of crazy stuff, Gary, you know, And I think he really became. Well, he was always nuts to begin with. Remember when he was young, we. He did the mushrooms. What was that, when you were like a yahai?

[A]

I come back with like 20 guns and a bag of mushrooms. I put the mushrooms on top of the dinner table. His mother's gonna cook. We're in the room going through the guns, the bullets and the coke and the whole fucking deal. And all I can hear is. And I go, gary, I go, danny, somebody's eating the mushrooms. We go out. The kid's 14 years old. It's like potato chips. He's eating them like chips.

[B]

Watch him.

[A]

His dad, I didn't know what they were. Yeah, okay. Put the bag down. Danny took the bag. Give me a fucking bag. We went out, we partied. We went to some bar. We come back at 4 in the morning. The house is black. Even Danny pulls up and goes, something's not right. There ain't a light on in my fucking house. We walk upstairs, he turns the light on and there's Gary on the couch in the dark. I'll never forget this. And he looks up and he goes, what? I ain't tripping. He's 14 years old.

[B]

Oh, man.

[A]

Yeah. You don't come back from that. A couple walks up and down the hill, 46ft, some vodka. You drink some fucking water from Lincoln School or something like that in the fucking pipes. McKinley, Franklin, those three schools. There's something wrong with the fucking water, okay? And that's it. Couple years in North Bergen, that's it. We saw. I saw people in front of me lose their fucking minds here in the mid-80s. This was no joke. Up and down those streets by your grandmothers, that was no joke. You could be walking the streets at 4 and bump into two people looking for a bottle of vodka. Like, what are you doing? Nothing. Looking for vodka. It's four in the fucking morning and you're by 82nd Street.

[B]

I might have been wondering. Periodically, I gotta raise my hand.

[A]

From his grandparents. Hotel, yeah.

[B]

One of those dives down there, our dog. And it was another one down a

[A]

little bit with a Jacuzzi in it with three rooms connected.

[B]

Yeah, you were big time when you got the Jacuzzi room.

[A]

I got the Jacuzzi room and were coming in and was filled with Arab sperm and bubble gun rappers. And you were in there like, yeah, look at me, I'm on Tunley Avenue.

[B]

That was.

[A]

Take a picture to put on ig. Get the out of here.

[B]

Yeah, that was Joe Tobias spot. Remember Joe Tobia.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

He loved that place.

[A]

Yeah, I beat him there one time too.

[B]

Yeah, well, he got robbed every other day.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah, he would. He deserve. He drive around with the. The bracelets on, sticking his hand out

[A]

the car that you couldn't get close to it because I had an alarm and it would go right to his page. He used to drive me crazy because he would put the coke right by the back window. All you had to do is break that window.

[B]

Oh, he was the worst show off. Yeah. Did this happen in your neighborhood, Lee, by any chance?

[A]

No.

[B]

Where'd you grow up? What type of neighborhood did you grow up?

[C]

I grew up in. In a neighborhood where, honestly, like, I. There was like, one guy in my high school who has since passed away, but would, like, he was a very good dude to me. He grew up down the street from me, but, like, would occasionally go to prison for like a year or two.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

But no, not. Not much.

[B]

That's all you got one guy in the whole town?

[C]

I think so. It wasn't.

[B]

Did you grow up in a synagogue?

[C]

I'm so sorry. This is the only. This is the only room where that's like, listen, you kind of go up in a place.

[B]

Yeah, no, I. I don't know. Nothing wrong with that.

[A]

No, it was.

[C]

We. I used to joke, like, the police station in my town, they didn't like, maybe a couple DUIs. If you look at the.

[B]

Probably from out of towners, too.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Or your buddy that goes to jail once a year.

[A]

You know, it's crazy because when I drive on these streets. Yeah. We see all. All these disasters and all this, but there was a lot of good stories in the streets. You know, we tell some crazy stories about drugs and all that, but we saw some pretty interesting stuff going on that most people don't see as a. Like, people say to me, why don't you drink? Why don't you drink and drive? You know why? I'll tell you why. New Year's, 1980, I went to see Aerosmith at the Nassau Coliseum.

[B]

Oh, gosh.

[A]

Somebody. And on the way back, his cousin, his uncle got stuck. They had a flat fucking mike. Yeah, they got stuck with Nikki Delucia.

[B]

Oh, Nick Delucia loves the car washes, I think.

[A]

Tow truck.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

But I came back with my Denny. The Devil. And as we were driving back on Kennedy boulevard, I saw RX7 take a tree out a pole out by Marex. And it was in the middle and the one person was dead and the other girl was yelling. And that Lesson alone said 1980. When they were cutting the roof, the guy goes, vodka bottle or something. Alcohol. I go, God damn it. And that's. That was it. You know, I never seen nobody O. D. That's why I think I kept snorting coke. But if I would have seen somebody purple like, that didn't happen.

[B]

We lost a lot of people to car accidents over the years.

[A]

Yeah, but think about it like. I have a friend that. She's 30. She was snorting coke about five years ago with four people. They all took a line of coke and it was fentanyl. They all died.

[B]

That's a shame, dog.

[A]

Can you imagine that in North Bergen? We would get killed because one of those sons were gonna be some of these important.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

People that were running with us.

[B]

Well, that's.

[A]

Yeah, people all walks, you know, chief of police's sons, you know, mayor's.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

You had everybody in those parties. Did that happen?

[C]

You haven't told a lot of stories about ODs.

[B]

A couple.

[C]

But that didn't really seem to happen.

[A]

No.

[B]

That's some. Scares people. Paranoid more than anything. I think I'm dying. How about. Well, I don't want to throw out names here because. But we've seen some people get frightened though, like paranoid. And I wanted to say something, but it probably better off not.

[A]

Let's start with me.

[B]

No, I'm not.

[A]

I saw the evil, but you didn't see that part. That's the part when I was alone, the part of fucking. You know, if I went to pick up a package and I was driving home and there's a cop car. Let's say I live on 50th street, but there's a cop car parked on 70th Street. I look at that cop car and I keep going. It's got nothing to do with me. But after about three hours of snorting coke, I'm thinking about why that cop car parked.

[B]

What was he doing down the block?

[A]

What was he doing down the fucking block?

[B]

What does he want?

[A]

And that's when it Starts. Yeah, you start hitting the curtains. And then fucking peekaboo. You see a fucking shadow under the door, and you're like. You know. And it's horrible. Listen, it's fucking horrible. I'm gonna tell you the worst one ever. I fly back here, the Mets are

[B]

in the 86 World Series.

[A]

86 World Series. Okay, I'm coming to see you. I get here, and you're a gentleman. You go, your shit's in the thing. Give me the money. Next time.

[B]

I remember that one.

[A]

I'm going. Away he goes. You told me my house is your house. Stay here till Sunday and catch a plane. I'll pay for the car. I said, fine. You left me money. What you didn't fucking tell me was that the pipes broke in the house and there was three feet of fucking water everywhere. So I got this, you know, I got six ounces of coke.

[B]

Is this Bassiano's old house?

[A]

I don't know his house.

[B]

So it must have been Doranum Avenue, dog.

[A]

It was downstairs in the basement. Next thing you know, I'm sleeping on a. On a bed that's floating, right, that waterbed. Then I would walk. And then finally, I couldn't take it no more. It was cold outside, the water pipes. And I start snorting.

[B]

Wow. I got scared in that place.

[A]

My sister came down with beers. She saved my life. And she brought me, like, a case of beers and a bottle of something. For eight hours I was snorting, like, holding a thing and going through water, like, with a lantern.

[B]

Swish.

[A]

I couldn't electrocute at any point.

[B]

Why would you stay?

[A]

Because I had nowhere to go. I was.

[B]

I was probably in a hotel.

[A]

He was in a hotel by Sheridan.

[B]

No, I was at the Sheridan, by the Meadowlands. I used to go there.

[A]

And then Sunday comes, and the car comes as planned. And I get in the car. I remember I got a white. I got the same shirt on. I got a white flannel on that. They were big. In the 80s, you could wear these as a shirt, like I'm doing today. And I had a white flannel and a hooded sweatshirt. And I'll never forget this. I get to Kennedy fucking Airport. And in those days, there were no tubes to the plane. You went outside, and all of a sudden they're like, all right, go to the plane. And there's all these people with winter jackets on. And I'm walking with the flannel. Steam is coming out of me because I've been snorting coke for three days, and everybody was looking at me. Like, whoa. I mean, the steam was coming off my shirt. Everybody was like, is he a saint? And I got on the plane and, dog, I wasn't sitting down two minutes. I had to start snorting coke. So I got up and down while people walking in. I was walking to the back.

[B]

Yes, that was common back then.

[A]

I got up 10 times before the plane was landed. Took off or landed before it took off. Jesus. I was already coked up to the gazelles from being up for three days. And I got so high I couldn't get up anymore.

[B]

Thank God there's a bathroom I might have to shut.

[A]

I couldn't get up anymore. So I was putting the blanket over my head and putting the tray down and doing the coke. Snort it and then. And then pop back up again like nothing happened. And people are like, hey, how you doing?

[C]

It doesn't sound like a really good, like, hiding trick. Like, it sounds like you're snorting coke.

[A]

It was the worst day.

[B]

You don't care. After a certain point, you care, but you don't care. But as long as you get that blast, you'll do anything and worry about it. After the blast, pick up like six

[A]

ounces of coke, per se. By the time I got to Denver, because I had a collecting flight, I had to go Denver to Aspen. So they leave you in Denver now. Let me tell you something. In those days, nine out of 10 times you're getting stuck in Denver if it snows, right? It was just the way it was and you accepted it. But in those days, left the airport open all night. The bars stay open till three in the hotel, at the airports. So I would put my shit in one of those lockers. And I still remember putting like 4 ounces of coke in there. I spent $300 taking the coke out of the locker.

[C]

You can only open it once.

[A]

I would. I'm only going to take one more gram. And I would take another gram and then snort and then have to. Let me get some quarters at the bar and then go. It was a nightmare. I must have done an ounce at the hotel and spent 300 quarters. Get the coke in the airport, out of the fucking. The locker. Just because I didn't want the 4 ounces on me. So I would put them in a locker like, what's that movie? Get Shorty?

[B]

Get Shorty.

[A]

Then I would go back, pull it out, snort it, and put it back.

[C]

Did they have cameras back then?

[B]

They had them, but they were gonna

[C]

see if anyone was watching you going

[B]

back and forth to the locker banks had cameras. Certain parts of the airport might have, but the common spots, nah.

[A]

I still remember meeting a dude that was in the record industry. We started talking. I go, you want to do a blast, man? This got up at the airport. Like, you get on a plane and you couldn't even sit still. You couldn't stop blinking. You got an hour flight and you're so cooked up, you're fucking blinking and shit,

[B]

man.

[A]

It was insane.

[C]

Was it normal to see it at the airport? That seems scary, dog.

[A]

You would see it everywhere.

[B]

Everywhere. It was the 80s in New York.

[A]

Like what you see once a month, a guy nodding, right? You saw all the way up to 42nd Street. And then it cleaned up a little bit once you got up about 1:25. Ooh. Everybody was out in full faith. Everybody was doing the nod.

[B]

Then they pop up like nothing happened. And they start running and they start running. Shit.

[A]

They were everywhere. And forget going into the Bronx or

[B]

Yankee State really low.

[A]

It was a fucking planet of them around the city and all these places where people paying the high dollar in the Village, the ABC Alphabet City, right? That was Zombo. I think in my whole years of getting a party, I think I wanted that twice to get coke and it was not my cup of tea.

[B]

Yeah, we. We spent a lot of time in that city and we didn't care. We go into the Dominican areas like it was nothing. Two o'. Clock. But if they knew you, you were kind of protected. They didn't bother.

[C]

You're saying Alphabet like the Lower east side was bad.

[B]

Yeah, there was.

[A]

Oh, yeah, they called.

[B]

They made a little Alphabet City. Yeah, it was pretty with that Italian

[A]

kid and the good looking girl. Vincent Span on the good looking girl.

[B]

There you go. You got to remember, Lee, this is the 80s. Things were different. You had all the dirty cops going on and you got away with a lot of shit, you know? But when you were in the city, that. The Dominicans, they didn't bother you, they wanted business.

[A]

No, because they bother you. All these cars are white kids from the suburbs spending big money, right?

[C]

That's why I'm just.

[A]

If I shake you down or I take your money, you're going to tell all your friends now you're going to blow it for us, right? If they find somebody out there robbing people, they will fuck them up. Now, they came back in 93. It was very interesting because in the 80s it was all outdoor. We had a place on 135th in Amsterdam. Remember the Colombian disco downstairs where they had roost fights and Shit roosters. They sold you coke. But it was in the disco. But if something happened in the disco, you met him outside. When I came back 10 years later, everything moved inside buildings. And it moved to a building on 178th right by. When you get off the George Washington Bridge, instead of making a right, you make a left, dog. It was planned perfect. Even the corners, the way you had to turn, everything was perfect. You got off, you made a left, you made another right. And then the street actually went around. And then it put you right back on that street to shoot right back on. But you didn't go back on because they were watching you come in.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

So what you did was you got weed and coke, and now you went down west side highway. You stopped on 57 to get yourself a chili dog.

[C]

Because if you went right back over, they knew what you were.

[A]

Yeah. You come in a Lincoln Tunnel.

[B]

Yeah. They would wait for you sometimes in Fort Lee, though.

[A]

Yeah, they pull you off.

[B]

One time we got. We got hit there. We got hit.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Nobody had a license.

[A]

Oh, yeah. On a bicycle. They were taking his bicycle. They had George out there.

[B]

We.

[A]

We came take his bicycle.

[B]

We got Flag coming back in 86. I'm not going to drop the names. But nobody had a license. It was a rent a car. We had like three keys in the car. Drink in open containers. And we thought we were all done. One of them was crying. I ain't going to say ho. But for some reason, the guy just said, let's get back to North Bergen. We just looked at each other like this just didn't happen. They just let us go like that. I mean, open containers, no license, rent a car. We had a scale in the back. I don't know how many. It was a decent amount, at least a key or two.

[A]

But it was always how you listen. The city in the 80s was raw. I got pulled over many things. I got pulled over with Lisa Gallo one time. It was hysterical. Me, Lisa Gallo, the baseball player from West New York. Oh, my God. And it was high. Those guys in the city, they know what you're doing, right? They see a Jersey plate, you're on. What's that street on Tuesdays in the Bronx, you're on Webster Avenue. What the fuck are you doing on Webster Avenue with a last name Askhales? What, were you coming to see your grandmother? Really, Askalise? Really? What the fuck are you doing here? If you fucked around with them, they take your shit. Unless you were a fucking rich white dude that's a geek like you know, why are you opening up once you start playing that?

[B]

Dude, once you play lawyer, you have

[A]

no permission onto my. Whatever. Really. Get the fuck out of the car now. We're taking the car because you live in Connecticut. You went over state lines, so that's what would happen. They caught you coming back from Fort Lee. They took your car.

[B]

Yeah, if you were a dick.

[A]

If you were a dick. Yeah, but how many times did a cop pull us? Like, officer, what are you gonna get your dick sucked around here? And right away, kids, what the fuck is wrong? We came up here to get our dick. He's not even thinking about drugs. Where the hook is that? And they were looking. You crazy motherfuckers. Give me your license. All right. Get the fuck outta here. Go back to your little punk ass. Fucking white neighbors. If I see you up here again, I'm going to beat the living fuck out of you. And that's it. Now go over there. Now it's a fucking. Excuse me, can you step out of the car? But even then, we always had Hudson County. You always had that one name to drop.

[B]

You drop a name. Yeah, it was always. Everybody dropped the same thing.

[A]

Get out of the car. Okay, Right as they're putting the couch

[B]

on you, the neck. By the way.

[A]

By the way, look in this pocket here, I have a police card from Carmine Balzano.

[B]

Who?

[A]

Carmen Balzano. No big deal. He's not going to do nothing. You know, car Bowan? No, I just go to his house every day for lunch and dinner. All right, give me the card. And it would say, extend all courtesies.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

And then you.

[B]

To what extent, though?

[A]

To what extent? And then the next day you'd bump. You'd be walking to school, and all of a sudden that cop car right up, right on you, Coco come in, you gave some fucking cop my name. I'll fucking kill you. You know? Cause they knew. They got the call that night. It was crazy. You always knew that if you dropped a name. Listen, if they caught you with a body and a kilo, it's not going to happen. You're not going to say Vinny ask? No. What the fuck is wrong with you? Even Vinnie's going to go to the police station and smack you for dropping his name. You got a kilo back there and a body. You don't know nobody. You know Si Lawrence? Yep. You know, you know Joe Marco, you know, fucking this guy.

[B]

Oh, they were nuts Demarcos back in the day.

[A]

And that was the thing. Everybody knew everybody. You get busted, you Know how many times I got pulled over on Kenny Boulevard doing 90 with Coke and they would just look at you?

[B]

Louie Stitzer got me like three times in a night.

[A]

Come on, guy. Come on.

[B]

You again? Are you wearing a different car? What happened to the Trans Am?

[A]

I still remember going over there with ray. Go in 93 in the afternoon to get coke and coming back and seeing George walking back on the bridge and us pulling over on the bridge.

[B]

Oh, you were one of them?

[A]

Yeah. Get in the fucking car. They caught him every time.

[B]

Did you do the TV thing, Louie?

[A]

He taught me. George taught me that if I went to Safeway on the other side of the bridge, and you went at 8:01 in the morning, 8:30, you were good. I walked in with a suitcase like I was a businessman in a suit. I had $3 in my pocket. There was no business, okay? My business was thievery. I would walk in there and they would have, like, the shit on the shelves. But if you looked up, they had the whole cases. So I would stick a whole case of aspirin, vaginal cream, because that's what they paid top dollar for in Harlem. All those Puerto Ricans get fucking dirty vaginas. They're getting dick when they're 14, 15. You're out there doing your thing, dog. A yeast infection is in your fucking future. And I would take that one and walk out of there. And sometimes I wouldn't even have the money for the bus. I would just get on that thing with my suitcase and my little suit, sweating 90 degrees in the morning with humidity, and I would walk over the bridge, find the Dominican grocery store, sell them the stuff. If they gave me 40 bucks, at least I got the day started. I'd go get a 20, and now I had 20 to eat something on the way down Manhattan until I bump into another purse or whatever. Fuck. That was the day. That was it. Yeah.

[B]

When you think about it, it's kind of sad to think about that. Your whole day, that's all you wanted to do is get high.

[A]

And from 83 to 85, living in North Bergen.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Was just that. It was just that. It was going to Sharp Midtown Lounge at 11:30. And by the time you left that one, somebody came up to you and said, hey, bro, where can you get a quarter ounce of coke right now? Let's go to Harlem. It's one o'.

[B]

Clock. Yeah.

[A]

Now you're in Harlem. I want to go. That means on the way back, little bumps.

[B]

Remember Duncan Projects?

[A]

Duncan Projects. Then we come to the Midtown or we stay in the city like what, 2120, guy.

[B]

The rooftop.

[A]

And you're in the city at fucking two in the afternoon drinking cocktails. Where's my life going? Like, when I think of that shit, that makes me.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Depressed.

[B]

I'm sad. When I look back at. I spent. The 80s was a blur. I remember shit. But it seemed like it came and went.

[A]

I'm happy it happened to open our eyes.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But if I could avoid it, what I know now, I would avoid. I was just driving up here. I dropped my daughter off. I drove up by the Galaxy. The Galaxy was like. It was a disco in the 80s because you all ended up there for coke or chick, or you ended up at the Grinder.

[B]

They were like the Human Grinder.

[A]

They were like the eight. Studio 54 was the grinder.

[B]

And the Rooftop was fun too.

[A]

And the Rooftop was the other part of the building. That's how it was to us. Like when somebody invited you there for an after party at 3 in the morning.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You were going in there like.

[C]

Well, we weren't done.

[B]

I mean, we. We even came back from the Rooftop to Amos's in Guttenberg.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And he'd open up at like 6:00', clock, 6:30. And then the Midtown would open up. It was like a. They used to call me, what Moonday, See me Friday. And I'd show up again.

[A]

Mundi was the drug dealer that was across the street from the Border Vet.

[B]

We'd been going for days at a time. Oh my God.

[A]

The gas station I used to rob with Rego that we always talk about in the stories is the Amaco across from the Border Vet. And he was very good friends with North Bergen as a whole. He made donations and I started robbing. And then he went to Mr. Askelise. Mr. Askelise talked to us. And one day I was talking to him, to Georgie, and we're talking about coke. And George goes, listen, I don't know where you're buying your coke from, but the best coke is right here. Because he was bringing up coke in fruit trucks. Right there, Right there in that corner, you see the fruit truck? Come on. When you see 50 Cubans out there unloading oranges. Come on, man. Come on, man. And the guy's name was Mundi.

[B]

I remember him. But what was the mug's name at Joe and Mary's in the early 80s? Like 82.

[A]

What mug?

[B]

That's the Cuban guy that used to come in at local or something.

[A]

Like Loco. Loco lives in Texas now. Christy Lorenzo.

[B]

He Come in, get you all high and then get you going. And next thing you know, you're hitting them up.

[A]

And motherfucker, he would give you coke out of a leaf.

[B]

Yeah, he would keep in the leaf. Remember? That was real shit.

[A]

Yeah, that was fucking scary. 20 years old. 21. You're leaving. You're leaving your house. You just told your grandma, grandma, I'm taking you to the doctor tomorrow at 10 in the morning. I'll be here at 9:30 and shit, 9:30, you're in a hotel with me and 18 other gorillas looking at two broads that are there. There's two broads sitting there and every guy's like, I'm gonna kill that bitch. And now it's nine in the morning. Now you're waiting for six people to leave, but ain't nobody leaving. It's eleven in the morning. Then somebody goes, I just made a call. We got a half ounce on the way. Wash your faces, wash your feet, do what you need to do. We're in here for the remainder.

[B]

I've spent many a morning. Well, it started off as a night in your grandfather's house in the basement, watching game film over and over again, slowing it down. Rewind it. You see, here's the block here that opened up. Then we scored. I mean, it was like being game. I was like a football camp or something like that. Yeah, yeah, you know what I'm talking about. I don't want to bring up names, but yeah, I watched a lot of game film.

[A]

This fucking lunatic. I grew up in this Cuban world. I grew up in this Cuban fucking crazy world that I'm proud of. I don't give a fuck. They were crazy and I learned a lot from them. They were revolutionaries. The way they thought was different, everything. And my mom dies. And like, you know, I knew these guys, but I lost contact with them one night this fucking lunatic comes up and he goes, listen, this Cuban dude has been asking about you. His name is Malagamba. Malagamba. You made me meet him on 60th street by park App. Right off it was off the beaten path.

[B]

Wasn't there a bar there?

[A]

A bar there?

[B]

They hustled out of there.

[A]

Yeah, they hustled out of there. And I always knew that dude was weird. I mean, he was very good friends with my mother, Mark. He was good friends with my real dad, the whole fucking deal. But recently I found out that guy was like the leader, really. Alpha 66, remember? You were like, he's a dangerous dude. I always knew him and his brother were Fucking ferociously dangerous.

[B]

A lot of people were. They just came off as gentlemen. But don't cross them, you know. And they were always kind, generous. Buy your drinks. Yeah, don't worry, you get me in a week. See you in a week. You know, they were. I don't know. Things were different again. I'm like you. I had a lot of fun, but I wish I could have done things differently. But again, I always say if I did one thing different, I would have never met my wife. I would have never had my family. So I don't know. You know what I'm saying? If I made one. I stayed in the army, for example, or I stayed in California.

[A]

These motherfuckers. What happened with you in the army? Tell them coming out of North Bergen so people know. Tell them. Your biggest fucking star in the army.

[B]

Well, I was soldier of the year for the 101st Airborne.

[A]

A kid from North Bergen, right?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Was soldier of the fucking year. And a year later he was snorting coke with us at Corky's till six in the morning with his medals on and shit. Snorting coke off the medals. He didn't give a fuck, Jack.

[B]

Well, you know what? The first time I actually did was exposed to cocaine was in Panama on a. A training exercise. They let us into Cologne, which is a danger. Roberto Duran's place and Taxi Driver took us. I was with the oldest soldiers and they got some Coke for like 50 bucks. You got like a. Yep, the best out. And that's the first time. And I kind of liked it, but it was different. It was real. It didn't make you scared. It didn't do. Made you nice, you know? And then as I came home, North Bergen, one thing led to an. You remember the first time you ever got paranoid? Like, you didn't get paranoid right away. It took.

[A]

No, no, no. It's like gambling. You win money in the beginning, everything's fine. You get a hard on, her pussy smells great, everything's fine. Then out of nowhere, 10 times you're getting the dick sucked. And then you start eating pussy but looking out a window like, let me eat your pussy right here. Because I got to see if they come to the garage. Like that's when you.

[B]

I remember the first time.

[A]

Bills and bills. And I would quit because of the paranoia.

[B]

Oh, that was awful.

[A]

But the paranoia grows. Like it just keeps growing.

[B]

Every so often I would get lucky and not get paranoid. But nine out of 10 times, I

[A]

couldn't imagine going line.

[B]

First time, I'll tell you, it was 1984, Quintessence. I think it was the same night I met Gina, maybe Philpot, Bantha, Paris. We're all hanging out and we partied at my house. Now we're sitting in the park and a lot of quintessence. And they're all ready to go. And I just. Something came over me. I'm like, I'll be with you in a second. I couldn't explain it. Couldn't get out of the car. Fifteen minutes later, they're knocking on the window. What's. I said, I don't know, fellas. I don't know what happened. This is an awful experience. I'm worried. I'm scared. Of what? I had to go in and chug a log. Like six drinks to come. You know how the drinking brings you down. But I remember the first time. Quintessence. Everybody thought I was. What do you mean you're scared? Why are you scared? This is great. I don't know how to explain it. I'm worried, I'm anxious. I think people are looking for me. And obviously they were because they knocked on the window. But that was the first time. Was a few times, like I said, that I avoided it. Probably too much drink. And we did the volumes too, to help a little bit. Remember, go to the city, put up the little signal for the V. But

[A]

you got 12 for. You got eight for $10 back at the old McSolly's Ale House.

[B]

What the hell was in that weed you gave me? That's things like edible, for Christ's sake.

[A]

Yeah, that's good.

[B]

What is that?

[A]

It's pretty funny, because I never got paranoid before.

[B]

Now I know why. You look the way you do all the time.

[A]

And then

[B]

this is a dungeon.

[A]

And then in 85, I get clean and I stay clean for about a year and a half. 16 months, I stay clean. I get a call from this hump. Hey, what are you doing? None. I'm coming out your way. I'm coming to ask him to see you. Came up to the house, the general.

[B]

You were watching a general's house, right? Nomad's Village.

[A]

That was insane.

[B]

That was a cool joint there.

[A]

And you left. That was. You know how much that house cost today? For a month? A hundred thousand a month for the month.

[B]

I can see that. Yeah.

[A]

And they redid it. I mean.

[B]

Yeah, it was nice back then.

[A]

It was nice back.

[B]

You had the trailer. Yeah, you had the little trailer off to the side. I remember we wind up spending most of the time in that little. We had access to this huge palace. And here we are in a little trailer. There's a little room, four of us in it. Yeah.

[A]

A little tiny bedroom with a tv, a little tiny bathroom, a little tiny closet. But once the guy left, I lived in the house.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

Wearing his robe.

[B]

But that night, though, I put his jewelry. That night, for some reason, we. We felt safer in a little.

[A]

Yeah, we confined. We always did. Because the house was big.

[B]

It was too big. You'd be hearing shit.

[A]

Heard shit. And then you walked around the house. But I remember you left me, like, an ounce of coke and said, start slinging, motherfucker.

[B]

And that's what I was telling the story.

[A]

Everything fell into the guns. And it just became.

[B]

We left there with guns, too. Yeah, we got three or four pistols, right?

[A]

And they were like, can we buy one of these? Yeah, you can buy all.

[B]

Buy them. Not only were we able to buy

[A]

them, but ship them.

[B]

Dude. No, we took them right on LAX.

[A]

We gave you a box.

[B]

A little box.

[A]

50 bucks.

[B]

I'm like, here we are pulling guns out of lax. Like, four of them. Hey, we got guns. Oh, no, you can't bring them on unless you have a box. So. So we can actually bring these things back. Because we weren't. We had a. Rent a car. We left Snowmass. We started tripping on the mushrooms that you gave us. I said this earlier to the fellas, rent a car. We didn't know where the windshield wipers were. And then it starts pouring out and we're laughing. We can't find a thing. And Russo is driving and seems like the car was hanging over the cliff from. You know, we hallucinate and everything. Then we wound up going to Vegas, stopped at Death Valley, watching our Reeboks melt in the fucking blacktop. That I do remember that. Then we went to la, stopped to see my closet, and checked in those guns. This was 85, maybe 86.

[A]

80. Then you came back to. Then I got a call one day. This is the best story ever. I'm selling cars. I had not gotten arrested yet. I had not gotten arrested yet. And I got a call at the car dealership. They're like, joey Diaz. Coco Diaz. I'm like, Coco. Fuck. Calls me Coco. And I pick up the phone, it's Danny. It's either Danny or Russo. And you guys like it.

[B]

No.

[A]

Let's get back to the basics. The original story goes like this. I got a call from my girlfriend that I don't even live with. She lives with her parents. My girlfriend calls me at 8 in the fucking morning in this house that George moved into later on. And I answer the phone, I'm like, what's going on? And she goes, hey, man, do you know Mrs. Sabatino? And I go, yeah, good people. I thought she died. I go, what happened? She called here looking for her son, Anthony. I go, that's funny. And now I go, really, Anthony? So I called Ms. Sabatino back. She's like, yes, they were out all weekend. Then they left Sunday night. And it's Thursday. And I'm concerned with them, dog. I don't hang up the phone. I go to sell a car and bling. Coco Diaz. Hello? Listen, it's us. We're on our way. We're in Vegas or some shit. We'll be at the airport at 9:30. I fucking clean up a car, the best car on the lot. I shoot to the fucking airport. I get to the airport, everybody knows me. Three people. Coco. Coco. Yeah, Coco. What? What happened? Your buddies were here. They tipped their fucking joint. Oh, at the airport, These guys like, yeah, your buddies were here. And I'm like, oh, my God.

[B]

And I'm like, we got everybody messed up.

[A]

Shotgun. The best strip club in Colorado. In Denver. Shotgun Willys. Look it up. Somebody Google it. That's a bat. There's two of them. There's the steakhouse one, and there's that one. You motherfuckers again. The dudes at the airport, the shuttle people outside. It's 9:30. They're like your boys over at Shotgun Willys. Shotgun Willys. Shotgun Willys. Okay. I take the fucking rental car, you know, whatever the fuck it is, the loaner. I park, I go in the thing, and there's 400 people on a Tuesday night. This place is packed. There's women on every circle. And there's 20 guys around them throwing money. I'm like, again. I go up to the door guy, go, listen, I'm looking for three of my buddies from Jersey. Table number four. They were over there. They had the thing closed off. They're fucking tipping the waitresses. The girl is dancing. They're having their own. Russo had a smile. Face to face. I'll never forget that.

[B]

Reeboks, everybody.

[A]

And they gave me, like a bag to take into the bathroom. It was a chunk. It felt like one of those things that you grab and work on your wrist. It was just a chunk of cocaine. And I remember I couldn't crash it. I'm like, danny, what is it? He's like, just break it off. We started breaking it Off.

[B]

Be a man.

[A]

And then they threw us out of there. They threw the lights. And the girls wanted us to stay. These guys were like. And the girls were like, let them stay. And they're like, no, we gotta go. So we went somewhere and then we went back to the hotel room. We snorted coke till like six in the morning. And we hid it in the bathroom. Toilet paper thing. The toilet paper that's in the wall when you go into the public bathroom. No, in the bathroom in your.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

Where you take the thing out. They hit it in there and about nine o'. Clock. Dogs. All right, we gotta go. I'm like, where are you going? We gotta take a plane back to Vegas. Some shit.

[B]

No, we. We drove to Vegas. We had to rent the car. If this is the same trip.

[A]

Yeah. And then Danny busted. He busted my balls about that. 17 grand for years. You still owe me money, man.

[B]

I don't know if it was that much, but.

[A]

Let me. It was.

[B]

I probably owed it to somebody else too.

[A]

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

[B]

Was it 17?

[A]

You started with an ounce, and we did all that, and there was 17 grams.

[B]

All right, so I'll waive the interest. I'll take 15.

[A]

No, it was fucking Russo. Russo was like, you owe me the money, okay? I take that fucking rock of coke and I get in my rental car and I go, you know what? I'm going to snort this whole fucking thing. So I find the hotel. I get it. I go into a liquor store and I buy like, a bottle of vodka, like a case of beers. It's fucking one in the afternoon, guys. I was burnt at that time. 25, had nothing going on. I was selling cars and I had this great girlfriend. I call her up and I go, hey, I got something. Because she used to snore with me. I go, I got something. Meet me at this hotel in Denver. And she goes, okay. But then she. Something happened. I called her from the room, and she goes, you know what? I can't go. My father. I gotta do something with my father at 8:30. I go, all right, fine. Even more coke for me. So there's a window. I got the beers and I got the vodka. And I'm just making, like, little drinks and drinking, and all of a sudden I start snorting. The paranoia goes right through me. I start looking out the window and I see a car. And every. The car would stop and then it would take off and another car would come. I'm like, it's the feds. And now I'm hearing So I'm thinking they're drilling through the walls to put like a wire in there to see what I'm doing in there. So there's a big tub and I fill it up in the shower with water, cold water. And there's a big Coke rock. And I take the Coke rock and I throw it in the water to see how long it's going to take to melt in case they kick my door down. I just throw the coke and the water to melt. This glee. I'm out of my mind.

[C]

You time it?

[A]

How? I just draw it in. You see, it's trial and error, you know? And I'm sitting there in this water.

[C]

One Mississippi.

[A]

And this water is sitting there for the whole time. And I'm snorting, I'm trying to jerk off, but I'm too paranoid. And I'm looking out the window and finally I go, fuck this. I take that whole bag of coke and I throw it in the fucking toilet. And I throw the thing and I take like the baggie and I eat it in case the feds are coming. But then after about two hours, like,

[B]

I wish I didn't do that, I

[A]

realized there's no feds, there's no Coke. Now I'm sitting in the toilet and I'm just looking at the toilet and I'm taking all the. All the brown piece and putting in my. I sat there for like six hours because the Coke goes to the side of it.

[B]

Oh, God.

[A]

And like with a watered way, I sat there. But this is what gets better.

[C]

And you didn't clean your toilet very well.

[A]

No, no, this is a whole tub toilet. It was great.

[C]

Even better.

[A]

So now I'm sitting there and I'm jonesing. I'm like, what the fuck?

[B]

What did I do?

[A]

And I drank all the beers, all the vodkas, and there's really no water in those days. There's no bottled water. But there was a tank, the pitcher that I filled up with water. I forgot. I threw the Coke rock in there.

[B]

Oh, no.

[A]

So I throw like a 2 gram coke rock in there and a little bit of water, but I forget all about it. And I'm sitting there, I'm like, fuck, I wish I had Coke. And I start drinking this water.

[B]

Oh, no.

[A]

I'm like, oh, that's right. And all of a sudden I lost my voice, right? It fucked up my.

[B]

It's like Donald Duck.

[A]

And she kept calling me. Yeah. And I'm like, what's going on with you? Did you finish it? And I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, dog. It was horrible. And when I went downstairs, the reason why people were stopping, because it was an ATM machine. And that's why people were stopping, taking their money out and going. I thought it was the fed switching cars.

[B]

So you throw out all that coke.

[A]

11 grams at least.

[B]

And then I put like, I've done shit like that.

[A]

I did like 9 diluted in my nose. And that's when, you know, like one time I got so paranoid I called the cops on myself. We all did that one when the cops even told me, listen, put the bag away. I got to the third time, it's three hours. They're like, joey, you should make like a game.

[C]

Like cocaine bingo. Like what did everyone be. You call the cops on yourself. You threw the bag away. This is crazy.

[B]

Hangman.

[A]

You have no idea, Lee, how crazy this whole. I'm in the halfway house, I don't know, I get one of those furloughs for the weekend. And my godfather, my in law, my father in law, puts me in the trail outside, which is a hundred thousand dollar trailer, TV showers. At the time, he just bought it. And I'm out there, I bring it, I bring it. It was like an eight ball, maybe like a quarter, but it was really good.

[B]

The rehab was working at this point.

[A]

No, I'm in the halfway house from prison and I'll never forget, I'm snorting coke in there. And it's sometimes when you open the bindle, the coke just flies out of the bag like hip hip hooray. And now I'm walking all over and at one point I'm looking out the window, I'm crawled up without a weapon. And I'm actually watching my guys get on a rope and slide down with white jackets so they can mix into the snow with the machine like James Bond. Yeah. And I'm like, I'm gonna die.

[B]

Russia with love, right?

[A]

You know. Then they switched to cocoverly. So by 87 now, it started having a little speed. That's why the shit he got in Panama with the ether, with the wash and everything, right?

[B]

That was clean, priceless.

[A]

That you can't get no more.

[B]

No, they stopped that.

[A]

Now you do coke, you might lose 6 inches the next day. You don't know what they're putting in that, you know, what does speed make you do?

[C]

Like if, like, how does that add.

[B]

Makes you paranoid, makes you more, makes you want more. I. Yeah, everything's changed.

[A]

Especially if you snort that shit.

[B]

No, I only. I did that only one time on accident. Thinking it was coke. And I was up for like 72 hours off of one little line. I thought I was able to sleep. Two hours later, I pop up like a zombie. And I did it on accident because I never wanted to be like that. I always made fun of them. They got the teeth, they got this. They look like. But I did it Saturday morning, like 8 o' clock in the morning. I was up to like Monday night. Maybe one little blast. So, yeah, like, none of that. No, that's gone.

[A]

I've never done Adderall. I don't know.

[B]

If I don't do it, I don't do the pills. I don't.

[C]

That I know of. Who knows? It's possible, but I don't think so. I've heard. That's great. I wanted to try that for. But like, none of. I think it would help me.

[A]

Austin.

[C]

I did.

[A]

Yeah. Carly gave it to you.

[B]

What an.

[A]

Oh, I had no idea. Straighten right out. Remember you were up from the edible and the.

[C]

I remember the edible and the tequila. I don't remember the.

[A]

I don't.

[C]

I don't remember.

[A]

She gave. Yeah, she gave.

[B]

College kids.

[A]

You wouldn't shut the up about tacos. And what time did taco place close? What time does.

[B]

Wait.

[C]

All you talk about is tacos. But I had no idea. I forgot about that.

[B]

Don't the kids in college use that

[A]

to stay up and study?

[C]

Well, you're supposed to like it. How it's supposed to help you focus.

[B]

Focus. Right.

[C]

But yeah, I think people do it as like. They just do it as like a way to.

[B]

Now it's just to get hard.

[C]

Study. No, that's Bluetooth.

[A]

You know, yesterday.

[B]

No, I didn't say hard. I say hi.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

Perverts.

[A]

Sorry.

[B]

Perverts. You guys confused?

[A]

I know you feel this sometimes. And I want you to tell your story right real quick.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

It's a three minute story.

[B]

All right.

[A]

Yesterday I drive my wife. My wife and my daughter left at 9 to a softball game that started at 11:15. I leave about 10. I get there about 10:30. They're warming up the girls on this side and all the parents over here. And I'm watching this game here. There's a game here and there's a game there. I'm on a corner watching this game. You know, I'm high. The sun's out. It's beautiful. Yesterday, but it was cold. I'm just sitting there watching this game and I'm looking at the girls warming up. I'm seeing my daughter catching. I look over at my wife. And I look again at the field, and I finally go, hey, Terry, come here for a second. I go, let me ask you a question. I go, when we lived in Hollywood, and at night we'd go out and we'd walk home, and there were those palm readers. If we went into one of those palm readers, you think he would have told us, hey, in 30 years, you and this schmuck are gonna have a daughter that plays softball, and you're gonna go to her games. Me and my wife looked at each other. We were like, that would have never happened. Like, nobody prepares you for this. And that's why I love the way I grew up, because now I have this peace. I already had that. I told Mercy today, if we all had jobs at 8 in the morning, I'd hate that house. Because then we all fighting each other at 8 in the morning for hot water, the toothbrush. Who's gonna use this? Who's gonna use that? I go, it's such a different life from what I was exposed to. But nobody, dawg. There's no fucking way. I even told Terry. I go, tell me the truth. In 2005, do you think we're gonna ever have a kid? She's like, no, I gave up on you when I turned 40. She goes, I just didn't want to tell you because I didn't want to get tested to see which one it was. It was the weekend. And then we all. You know, because once you take those tests and you women take that shit seriously, you don't have no sperm, you can't smoke pot, you can't eat carrots. What the fuck are you talking about? Yeah, like, they'll say you're a loser and shit. But she goes, nah, I didn't want to do that with you. I just thought we fucking lived without a kid. And then the kid came, you know, so obviously we're both okay. But you don't. You don't see any of this. No, there's no way. And I wanted this, but there was no fucking way. Like, no way. When George would tell me about his life, I go, good luck, buddy. Softball, two daughters. Wow. It's never gonna happen for me. And now I'm going to softball games like a half a fag.

[B]

Well, I'm playing softball, so that's a little. I'm playing softball.

[A]

Are you still playing?

[B]

Yeah, I got invited to play.

[A]

Don't do it. Get hurt, everybody. Jimmy Florentin, my neighbor, did it for one little.

[B]

My wife's begging me not to be honest with you.

[A]

No, no.

[B]

You know, why don't think I'm a kid.

[A]

It takes you at this age, it takes you 20 minutes to really get warmed up. Like, really get warmed up. And you know what's gonna happen one day? You're gonna. You're gonna go to two games, you're gonna hit a home run, you're gonna steal third base, and you're gonna feel like you're Johnny Bananas, and you're gonna go down, and you're not gonna warm up, and you're just gonna swing the bat, and all of a sudden you're gonna hear. And all of a sudden it's like, we just ripped your a muscle that couldn't rip if you fucking wanted it to rip. That's what happens.

[B]

I tell you, I was telling the story earlier in 2019, I was up in North Bergen, charity softball thing for Amorosa and all them. And it's like series of games, six, seven games to win it all. It's like the last game, I'm catching, I think we're winning a little bit by two or three runs. I got the ball in my hand. This guy's just barely round in third base, right? And he's built like a college football player. 256 something. I'm casually sitting there, ready to slap it easy, you know, tag him. He's out. And he ain't stopping when I said, oh, shit, he ain't slowing down. I tried to dig in a little bit to ground myself. Too late. Lifted me off of my feet. I flew back six foot. Busted my ribs. I held on to the ball, though, and everybody's like, what are you doing? He's an old man. He's an old man. I'm sorry, sir. I'm sorry. It's all good. It's part of the game, you know?

[A]

And you can't get mad at them. No, he's doing the same thing we would have done.

[B]

Yeah, but that's what he said with

[A]

two lines of coconut.

[B]

But I did lead off the next inning and hit a nice double. I ripped it and I looked at him.

[A]

You know, it's just we're at an age now where you got to be careful along the way. You don't want to be that.

[B]

Put my socks on. It hurts sometimes, you know, it's six in the morning stretch before I put my socks on.

[A]

You're still lifting.

[B]

I'm still in the gym. Yeah, but still, you know, I'm in a gym. I still do all right, you know, But I. I Know what you're talking about.

[A]

Great color. You know, you look good. I know you still love your cocktails. Ain't nothing wrong.

[B]

No, we like our happy hour, Jamie and I. I don't go out with the fellas. It's always me and Jamie. We like day drinking. You know, we don't get stupid. By 8 o' clock at night, we're lights out. We're sleeping already. Yeah, we don't stay up. We don't.

[A]

When's the last time you did a line of coke?

[B]

It's been a bit. I, I ain't going to say it's been like years and years.

[A]

10 years.

[B]

No, probably about two years, but no, but. No, no, no. In all defense, I, I held out and I admitted it to my wife because she looked at me silly and she goes, did you party with those fellas last night? And I'm in a swimming pool at 6 o' clock in the morning and I didn't even do a lot, but I just couldn't sleep. I felt guilty and. But since I've been married for 26 years almost, if I'd done it five times in 26 years, that's, that's a lot. But the last time was a couple years ago and I felt awful if I did one or two bumps and, you know, I do it on the key. We used to do railroad tracks. Then we said like, you got to do it like a gentleman. You got to put it on the key, walk away like little one of them and walk away. But then you do another one of them and another one of them and. But yeah, it was a couple of years ago and I felt like shit. I felt guilty. But I did cop out. I did rattle myself.

[A]

That's what else you could do.

[B]

Well, she was looking at me. I didn't want to lie to us

[A]

as I can't do it like it's 19 years this November feel, and then next year will be 20. And I'm petrified because you know what I realized? I realized I did this much damage since I was 44. Can you imagine if I had events and stopped when I was 30? I would have had more years to accomplish my goals. Yeah, I did what I did in a short period.

[B]

Your comedy career took off when you got straight.

[A]

Listen, everything, everything took off, you know what I'm saying? So I know I could eat the mushroom, which I haven't eaten in nine months. We ate a happy pill and half a muscle relaxer, which I eat for my knee because I'm having surgery.

[B]

Understandable I'll tell you what.

[A]

A couple weeks ago, I did the codeines on my knee. Puked them still in the.

[B]

Oh, yeah, that. Yeah, that.

[A]

All those things get old. Like they get old, you know? And now I have my reefer. The reefer.

[B]

That's not reefer. That's whatever that is. That's, that's, that's. That's morphine.

[A]

And I've had people write me privately and go, joe, why do you still smoke? The reason I still smoke is because it lets me know I picked up something from the past. That's it. I had a lot of bad habits. We all did a lot of bad habits.

[B]

Not just you. We all did.

[A]

The only bad habit I took into this was marijuana and edibles. And I'm okay with. Everybody knows in this room I got to eat 2000mg.

[B]

I don't know how to do that

[A]

because we grew up here, we drank river water. Especially with those on the dog, you know, we did things. You know what I'm saying?

[B]

Lila, sweetheart, stop pissing on the dog.

[A]

Oh, my God.

[B]

But darling, you keep hitting him in the eye.

[A]

I know. How much. Like, I remember coming out of prison, getting a hot dui, then put me back in the halfway house and them going, joey, the next time we catch you, they're going to give you six years. Guess what I do after the door locked? I did a line of coke. That's youth. That's stupidity.

[B]

That's.

[A]

That's a fucking jerk off.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I didn't have any value in my life. You want to throw me in jail, Throw me in jail.

[B]

Fix a woman. There's a one, Terry.

[A]

And then I just said, that was it. One day. You can't keep throwing your life. And then, bro, it got in the way of comedy.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

Towards the end, what I did at the end, at the improv, when I got the Ontario Improv and I'm settled in, it's 11 o' clock and I'm like, man, I wish I'd go for a line of coke. And I drove all the way back to Hollywood Grammar Coke. And I drove all the way back to stay up till 8 in the morning. And I miss radio. Oh, they interviewed usually for a fucking year until I had to talk to them and tell them what happened, you know, from the heart. And that's why. Now listen, there's been a couple times, like in the last 18 years, there's maybe been twice where I could go, hey, that chick is pretty hot. She's giving up that Monkey, if you put a rock of coke on it and I'm like, you know what? But I'm not going back to where I was. None of this is worth it.

[B]

No, it's not worth it. It's not worth it.

[A]

And now you don't even know what you're doing. We get a little crazy here. We drink a cocktail, let's go to the city and all of a sudden there's some fucking guy walks in that looks like the mayor. Yeah, Shalomi, whatever his fucking name is. I got cocaine. You give him a grand and it's got fentanyl in it, you know. And now three people die. We can't. It's not the same.

[B]

No. And you know, even my friends and they still party pretty often without mentioning again names. And I worry for them. I like guys. Oh, we know the guy, we know that. Like does he know the guy that knows the guy?

[A]

But you know, they buy the test strips. If I have to test cocaine.

[B]

Yeah, that's.

[A]

You have a problem. Can you imagine us picking up an ounce at 4 in the morning? Now we got to test it. We're going to do that. Coke. Nobody can whip out that test. Little chicken there with fake titties filled with milk. You know what I'm saying? It's something. But anyway, let's take a breather real quick and we'll be right back. Jack. Hey, what's going on? Uncle Joey here. Listen, it's that time of the year. It's always the time of the year. Be healthy. If you want to replace your nicotine cravings with a good habit, check out Fume. Fume is a flavored ice device designed to help you quit vaping and smoking. Fume breaks the hand to mouth pattern and it swaps the bad chemicals to for the natural flavored air. No nicotine, no batteries, no vapor. Just a weighted tool to reach when you get cravings. It's that simple. And it tastes great. Listen, I don't need to quit smoking. I don't smoke. But I've taken a couple hits off that fume. Not bad at all. Don't try to quit cold turkey. Reach for Fume instead. Listen, Fume has already helped over 700,000 people take steps towards better habits. Now it's your turn. Get a free grift with your journey packed when you use Code Church. C h U r c h@try fume.com again. That's t r y f u m.com trifume and use code Church to claim your free gift today. Give It a shot. Take a chance. Columbus did trifum.com. thank you. Hey, Uncle Joey here. What's happening? Beautiful people. Listen, I want to talk to you about dick, okay? If you want to get that dick ready for action, you got to start with Blue Chew Gold. Blue Chew Gold is a 4 in 1 tablet for ED. It dissolves under your tongue, so you could take it to the hoop in as little as 15 minutes. Listen, I've had the Blue Chew and I've had the Bluechew Gold. Tremendous. But the Blue Chew Gold, oh, my God. Listen, all I'm trying to say to you is this. You want to sling dick? Take the stress off your shoulders, right? You go on a date, you want to give her a stabbing or him a stabbing, you want to be remembered? Give it some bluechew Gold. They'll send you a postcard the next fucking day. Make life easier by getting harder. Discover your [e-mail] Again, that's bluechew.com and we got a special deal for the church family. You're going to get 10% off your first month of Bluechew Gold with code Joey J O E Y. That's promo code Joey J O e y. Visit bluechew.com for more details and important safety information. And I want to thank Bluechew for sponsoring our show. Listen, I'm an old man. If Bluechew Gold works for me, can imagine what it does to you. You're healthy, you jump up and down, you drink carrot juice. You know what I'm saying? Give it a shot. Bluechew Gold. I love you guys. We're back like herpes.

[B]

Oh, no.

[A]

Anyway, I want to thank Bluechew. Always keeping the podcast alive with some funny ads. Anyway, Danny.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

I want to talk to you about some stuff here. You know, there's not a lot of guys left that were from our circle either. Death. They're retarded. They read too much about Trump. It's something with these guys. Did you think ever you. Like when I wake up every morning and I'm in the fucking shower? When I wake up every morning and I go in the shower, I look at the water coming out of my face and I go, how the fuck am I still here? Like every morning I'm like, how the fuck is this possible? You know, I never owed divorce. I took two Quaaludes one day, two heavy duty Quaaludes, and I passed out at fucking Joe Lucci's barbecue. When Joe Lucci was the man, the king of Northburg. And I loved that motherfucker.

[B]

Yeah, that was a good spot.

[A]

That was a good spot. And that's the only time I owed and stuff, but only time. I still cannot believe. I still cannot believe that. I just can't believe it. Sometimes when I just sit there and then I'm.

[B]

For yourself.

[A]

And then I have coffee and I write. And when I'm writing my journal, the same thing comes out at some point in the two or three pages that I write that I'm like, what the fuck? And it's not doing good for yourself. For me, it was just still being here. And I always felt that. And you. I mean, dog, people would have quit if they heard half of your life.

[B]

You know, I'm grateful.

[A]

You were just telling everybody here before that you moved back up here for 15 months and you move back. You did this in a twilight of your life. You just decided, I'm getting the fuck out of Pennsylvania.

[B]

No, I had an opportunity. I grabbed my balls and, you know, I moved here to get closer to the city and, you know, when I got there, the radio station was being sold. They didn't tell nobody, and they were going in a different direction. I walk in there one day, I'm, you know, I'm a cheerleader and everybody's loving me. I'm hanging out with Sid Rosenberg, Curtis Sliwa, you know, all the. The guys at 77. And it was great. I thought I was going to be the next star. And they wind and dine me and Jamie acting so like they're going to build a show. So one day, walking in, it's like everybody's got their head down. I said, would somebody step on their cat or something? What the hell's going on? They just fired 100 people. I go, well, that sucks. Well, they sold the station out little by little. First it was WPLJ they got rid of and, you know, and they went in a different direction. So that's kind of why we went back. I did sell. I shouldn't have sold. Cost me a shitload of money. But I saw the opportunity. I'm in my late 50s. Was it six, seven years ago? Yes. I was in my mid to late fifth seventies. That's coming. And I took a shot. You know, some people say, oh, you got balls to do that. But I should have been a little bit more careful. But I sort of.

[A]

I'm not criticizing. Talking.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

About your ball.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Like, I'm talking about, you know, if people knew half this shit. Like, it's a funny joke that we cracked before this motherfucker was the soldier of the year. He had dinner at the fucking White House with Ronald Reagan. And again, eight months later, he's starting coke at fucking whatever the fuck it was. But he got there. And you didn't get there to be soldier of the Year because of what they told you. It was the survival. I always say that. Now I look back at what we grew up with, I can name five guys right now off the bat that I know you grew up with that had not the best houses. They were divorced. Dad was an aucky. The other guy's dad was a half a wise guy. He decided to take a watch one day and they killed him. You know, we grew up and I think that our bond was made over that. We weren't perfect kids. No, George, I made a bond with him. 1979.

[B]

You guys go back that long, huh?

[A]

1979, he's from Cliffside. Went to summer school smoking joints in between the 8:30 and the 10:30 session. Him and his hot hippie chicken. Look at us now. Look at us now.

[B]

You know, still alive, doing good.

[A]

Yeah. Whether we, you know, listen, man. But then there's a kid I grew up with from North Bergen, but I know he's homeless right now. He's living in Walmart parking lot.

[B]

That's sad.

[A]

He's 62. You know, he's collecting Social Security. But he went to too many women's Skinner concerts. He thought the party was never over. You know what I'm saying? You know Those guys, they're 55.

[B]

I do know that.

[A]

Throw shirt on like, oh, yeah, we'll

[B]

go wearing a T shirt.

[A]

But we all picked our fucking. Our path. You know, I'll tell you when I think about you myself. Glenn Conti.

[B]

You know Glenn Conti.

[A]

A lot of guys like Glenn did exceptionally well.

[B]

Yeah, he did.

[A]

I'm probably over tired. Nobody over. He won't tell you, but he did exceptionally well. He still has the record at UPS for years.

[B]

Still there, I think, right?

[A]

Recently, yeah.

[B]

I was telling my neighbor's a UPS driver and he knows Glenn. He works out of what they call a hub.

[A]

Everybody knows Glenn. Yeah, well, he knows you're at UPS. Everybody knows Glenn.

[B]

And he's been there 20 years. And I said, yeah, he's been there like 47. He goes, that's impossible.

[A]

You got to remember we applied for that job December of 81. He got the job December of 81 and he just fucking retired. It's the only ever job he's ever had. Like, he went right from High school ups. He took some things at some college.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

UPS was paying him more and everything. He was supporting his mom, he was helping out Keith.

[B]

Mom good lady.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. You know, and all these kids, the kids I was with downtown, the Balzan, all those kids had something going on. And then you have like a Mike Asley's type of situation who lives in a great house but he wants to hang with the crazy people. He don't want to hang out with the Chip. Chip Halle. Oh, part of North Berg. Oh. Do you want a martini? No, that. That didn't exist back there till this day. I won't get a nice car because we grew up in Nutburg.

[B]

Have a nice car. It's not the worst car. Sorry.

[A]

I should have like people you could have with a Maserati or something.

[B]

Well, I've done that.

[A]

But believe me, three years old, five of them, I had cars.

[B]

I know. I made that financial mistake too. Those things are like we five Maseratis.

[A]

I know when you're pulling up with that Beamer, you're hiding something as a man. When you're a man, you just walk in there. I like when I see a guy has a dirty shirt on, like up hair and the hottest chick with him. And all these other guys have the typical outfit now the suit with the watch with the brown shoes. Make sure you see the watch a little bit flooded. They're all fake watches. Nobody's got. Not everybody's got a Rolex in the society. So somebody's fucking showing up with one of those fucking Shoney Otani makes ten million dollars, he gives everybody a four thousand dollar watch showing he take this watch and take it back to Japan and make a fucking super one that hits home runs. You're gonna be a not for nothing.

[B]

The ones with the watch with the Amani suit, they never pick up a bell.

[A]

They don't pick up a bill, they

[B]

run, they go to the bed, put

[A]

that cologne on, they're shooting steroids, they get the perfect trim.

[B]

You know, I was with one of

[A]

them not too long ago and you see it. I went to Miami and you see the exact same cutter, cookie cutter guys picking on girls and they don't even grind no more. At least when we're stone coat, we take girls and drive.

[B]

They just sit there like this, waving the handkerchief.

[A]

Yeah, like waving nothing. An empty hand, you know what I'm saying? You better put a half gram or 20 in that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It's just so weird when I see that now. And you go, what is he? Why Is he working so hard with that?

[B]

You know, I got caught. I lost my license for so many years, you know, over 10. Just tickets. And then I went to jail. And it all escalated. Driving without a license. And it finally, in the late 90s, I got it back. And, you know, everybody would bust my balls. You don't have a car at your age. So I said, oh, yeah. Once I got my license back, I went out and got a brand new Cadillac. Had it for about a week, and I got a dui and I got a refusal. So I lost it for 18 months. And I just met my wife. We were together for, like, two weeks, and we were. She was a lot younger than me, so I'm like, wow, I guess I got a keeper. I need a chauffeur. I always joke about that. How do you and Jamie. I had a dui, and I needed somebody to drive me around, so I kept my wife, who at that time was just my girlfriend. But we got married shortly after that. And then I just started making a lot of money. A lot of money. Crazy money. I just spiraled out of control. I needed one car. Had to be better in Florida. Our parking lot had, like, $3 million worth of cars. And just. Just spiraled out. Then I got into the Maserati. Kick was addicted. I would. They would see me. Here he comes again. But they were leasing out goods. That was always my excuse. Oh, they lease out better than Mercedes or BMWs, you know, and. Yeah, I had a little habit that. And sneakers. Cars and sneakers have been my. No, I don't like ties or fancy suits, and I don't like the collar thing. Even at the wedding I was wearing. Had a hat on. People like. But the watch thing never impressed me. Like my little earrings.

[A]

But no, I got a big dick.

[B]

He always did. He always had.

[A]

I got a big dick and a lot of personality.

[B]

Yeah, that's.

[C]

You know what?

[A]

I work in that room. I'm walking into the high school on a Friday night during a basketball game. You better come prepared. I remember you out there.

[B]

Clear the bar at Joe and Mary's to get a seat. You drop it on. Boom, you hear? Then my cousin would run. Oh, no, the Turtle. He had a name for it. And you would. With him. Didn't you put it in his hand once or twice? No. And he'd run to the bathroom if

[A]

you'd fake with me, dog. I take that thing out and put it in your hand. I remember him on your back. Did it to me on your mouth.

[C]

I.

[B]

He'd run to the bathroom. He go, he did it to me again. I go, what? He goes, coco, he put his dick in my hand again. I go, how does that happen? He goes, you know, I talk and I had it down on a seat, and I just feel it slap on my hand. I'm talking, getting ready to play pool, and the next thing I know, it's not the cue stick, it's his dick.

[A]

You know, I'm human. I'm a man like everybody else.

[B]

I'm not whipping that thing.

[A]

My asshole smells funny. You know, I got a fungi toenail. But you know what I'm saying, When you show up as a man, people, we're old school men. And I've never lost that. Like, I don't need a tattoo. I've always been a. I don't need a flower on my hat. I got a big dick and I'm gonna eat. Listen to me. I'm gonna lick your fucking soul. I'm gonna stick my tongue in you. I'll lick your soul. I love you to death. You know what I'm saying? But fuck it.

[B]

I. Fuck it. I'm not big on anything.

[A]

No, me neither. I don't need to impress. It drives me crazy.

[B]

I downsized a lot. I still have a nice car and stuff like that. And, you know, my wife's the best thing that ever happened to me. Jamie. You know, We've been together 26 years. Over 26 years. Married 26 years in July. You know, we talk about getting into trouble and stuff like that, and I'm on my way. I'm making millions of dollars. My wife's eight months pregnant. I think I told you the story down in Florida. You know, I was working for a company at the time. We were making like, I don't know, half a million dollars a week, if not more. It's just crazy money. This is when, before social media and that, we were under investigation. The company was under investigation before I even got there. Right. I got there in 2001. They started an investigation back in the late 90s about the company. And I had left after a couple years. I'm like, I made a lot of money. I don't like these guys here, you know, they're a bunch of show offs. They're always going downtown, Fort Myers with their fancy. They go visit Jacob de Juror. They come back with $200,000 worth of watches. And I never really dug them, you know, they weren't my crowd. Jamie got pregnant. So I'm like, you know, let's get out of Here. But just so I just grabbed my memorabilia off the wall, I packed up and I left. A couple of months later, I opened up my own business. April of 2004, April 8th, it's like five o' clock in the morning. Jamo's in town. Of course, the fucking James, like, the cops are at the fucking door. Cops are out, like, what the fuck did he do with the rent, the car? I thought Jamo got into trouble with the rent the car. No, they fucking rounded all of us up. Fucking stole $14 million as my wife is 8 months pregnant. We were broke. They took everything. They seized everybody's money before they actually arrested us. So we couldn't hire counsel. It was like we had a rat on the inside. Ratted on everybody. He got caught buying drugs. We found out. Still won't admit it, but we found out he did it and he took us all down. Nobody really went to jail, though. We all got house arrest, probation and loss of funds. But for me, thank God, because I opened up my new business. That money, they took it anyway. But I said, the only way I'm going to plead out if you give me that money back is that you're not entitled to that. That wasn't part of the investigation. I had a good attorney, too. So they agreed to give like a half a million dollars back. But, you know, here she was, eight months pregnant down in Florida by herself as they're dragging her husband away, you know, biggest arrest ever, Southwest Florida, on the TV, on ESPN, you know, for like two, three weeks.

[A]

But then 10 years earlier, you're on HBO Sports 1997, talking about fucking picking winners and shit.

[B]

I'm like, yeah, that's right. That's really started my career, actually.

[A]

HBO Sports, real sports.

[B]

Jim Lampley and Brian Gumbo. Yeah, I remember everybody calling me up. They thought they were wired out of their face. I'm. I'm in Pennsylvania at the time, and they're like calling me the next day, Dan. I was watching tv and there you are on tv, two o' clock in the morning, you know. But yeah, that was in 1997. They all got Emmys for that too, as well. Not me. No, I got a fucking. What's the box about? Oscar De La Hoya signed boxing. That's what I got.

[A]

Let me ask you something. How did you get to this thing in Florida and how did you get this thing on hbo? Did they. No, no, no. Before you answer, nobody fucking trained you. You got this from what you got walking around here?

[B]

I did. I had the street smarts personality.

[A]

And when you give like, that's one thing I'm grateful. In North Bergen, the people that were in this town at that time, they were all Italian families that come from Hoboken and had been abused in Hoboken by the Irish. So now you know Rick Capozzi, that whole generation, 5 foot 8, 240, 225, they were fucking, you know, they all look like masons. Anthony Avillo.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, and I don't know, it was. I'm sure Lee has a bunch of questions.

[B]

Yeah, you've been quiet over there. Like I've been listening. Yeah. Amazed.

[C]

Amazed.

[B]

But it's too stoned.

[A]

Both.

[C]

Mixture of both.

[B]

You can understand that. Because I'm not feeling that best my myself here. But how I got into the business was kind of on accident.

[A]

You got into it hanging out in North Bergen, talking about 5 time as a Joe man.

[B]

Well, I was booking at one time. I was always around the gambling business, you know, Owen or booking and whatever. Yeah, I mean everybody. If you didn't know you weren't a man. Everybody owed money. So, you know, 1994, I go out to California jamo. My cousin's out there and he's like, I'm working at a gym. He goes, yeah, we gotta. In August, they come out with this ad. This guy hires guys to give out picks. I'm like, who would pay anybody for a sports pick? That's how I went along with it. I went on the interview and a guy like our New York voice, they're California laid back California surfer dudes. But he was very successful. He owned the 900 numbers back in the day where you get pics not on the Internet, right on the phone. And he also owns 2520, 257 depending on what. And he also had a huge income through sex line sex, sex, phones and stuff. And you know, he hired us. I right away I was making money, I was good. I sold the first guy I spoke to. And then somebody got sick that did radio with him. He goes, hey listen, I need you to fill in for radio. I'm like, not the fuck though. And he was just follow the script or say what I tell you to say and you'll be fine. And that's how it all started. By accident, somebody got sick. He asked me to fill in and yeah, the rest is history. A year later, my mom's husband died. Went to see her in Pennsylvania. I was only there for a week. Supposedly met a guy at a gym who introduced me to Jamie. Years later he said, oh, man, this is a good business you're in. Let me introduce you to this family who just opened up an offshore sports book. And they were doing radio. The Attia family. They were wrestlers. Lsu one of them won the gold, was not the silver. He'd lost the Schultz back in the Olympics, back in 84. And they were gangsterian gangsters, though. And they liked me and put me to work, got me on the phones. They started a radio show, a television show, the score phone. I'd update the score phone. Remember that to get scores back at you live at the top of the hour. Let's take a look at your games. Underway in the first inning. It's the Yankees 1 nothing over Toronto Mets getting pounded by Pittsburgh 7 to nothing. We'll probably look at the score. That might be happening, but yeah, so then I wrote an article. The guy had a magazine called the Las Vegas Sporting News, and I wrote an article called behind the Scene of a Multimillion Dollar Scheme. HBO was, you know, they were investigating the business in 97, and they read the article and they wanted to meet the guy who wrote the article. And they served me up to the HBO people. And, you know, they liked me. They had me on and they actually hired me for a couple of shows as a consultant after that, too. But because I ran the advertisement too, for the company, everybody in the business, like you, come work for us, come to Vegas. We'll pay you a lot. We'll do this. So after two or three years, you know, Jamie, you know, we just got married, she goes, let's do this. Let's take this job in Fort Myers. You know, the guy's telling our, double your salary and make this. Grabbed our balls. Went down there and sold everything. Jumped in the Cadillac, still wasn't able to drive because I had my DOI Threw my parrot literally on my shoulder. We packed, the car was snowing. April 19th of 2001, snowing. We, like, we got to the one of the West Virginia, whatever you go through, and it was night. And we got down there, we started a radio show, and magic happened for a while anyway, but, like, you know, all good things come to an end. And we weren't even doing anything wrong. We were just giving out picks. But we were making too much fucking money. We're making too much money. The kids were getting stupid. They were all 22, 25. If you didn't make 10, $15,000 a week, they were salty, like, fighting over. That was my lead. That was my guy on the phone. That was my client. And it just Spiraled out. And I saw it coming to that. I saw it coming. The. If we would have stuck together and people didn't rat on everybody, it would have got thrown out. But people panic. Too much money at stake, you know, $14 million is a lot. And yeah, then since then, I've been on my own, you know. We moved back to Pennsylvania shortly after that, like a year later. He was born in Florida. Under duress, I should say. That might account for a lot of things.

[A]

It's funny, because you and I at that time were the only guys in our clique that were traveling.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Everybody else stayed in North Carolina. Oh, yeah, we're going down to Belmont. And me and this motherfucker travel all around the country, right? I'm trying to beat two Cubans in Miami, and then I end up in la. Finally succumbed to my uncle, and I go to la. And the first two days with my uncle, excuse me, is fucking brutal. He's just running me ragged on fucking attitude about my mother, telling me how she was involved with people. And I'm like, you know what? You opened this bar because of my fucking mother. Where's my end, right? He was like, you gotta stay at a hotel and all this shit. Then he let me stay on top of the bar one night, I just robbed him. I said, enough is enough. I fucking put a hole in the wall. He gave me a bartending job, and I just draw hundreds in there. Oh, man. And that night, he kept bugging me more. And I'm like, fuck this motherfucker. I kicked the door. I took the money out of that fucking hole. As I turned around, there's my fucking uncle with a gun in his hand. And he's like, get out. Leave the money. And I already had like a thousand in my sock. I wasn't going nowhere. I gave him the money. I had his jewelry from upstairs. And I walked out and I made believe and I pulled the gun on him. How you like me now, motherfucker? And he goes, you're an animal like your mother. Get out of here. I'm a captain.

[B]

Thank you, Mother. That's awful.

[A]

And I got. Because he kept saying that my mother was a murderer. Because my mother stuck up for his sister, right? Her sister was getting raped, and my mother stuck a bottle of him. So he kept saying, you got your mother's blood, You're a murderer. I'll never forget getting in the cab and just telling the cab driver, take me somewhere. I was. My spirit was done. Like, this was my last hope. My uncle, he's my mother's brother, right? And he's breaking my balls. And I got a rob. I'm back to where I started. And here I am in this hotel in Orange county. And I called Danny.

[B]

I remember that too.

[A]

Showed up with jmo, with a pizza and dog. I'm out. I'm like fucking. They just walked in. I remember the jewelry. My little jewelry right there. They gave me like 150 bucks and I. They left me a pizza. They goofed on me. Look at the shape of you. You're bleeding. You can know I remember that, man. Oh my God, that was terrible. So you guys left and I didn't want to get caught by the police. So I get back on People's Express. You don't have to pay till you got on the plane with the credit card.

[B]

99 flights.

[A]

There was no credit card in my world back then. Unless it was stolen. I'll never forget that. I kept telling the lady I had money on me. But I kept telling lady, lady, the cards in my luggage. Don't worry about none. We'll catch you next time, bro. When I got out of Newark, there were three cops waiting for me. They took me downstairs, they searched for my shit. I kept saying, I got no money. I lost my whole wallet. I couldn't say I had money in my sock. So you're not getting here till we pay this. So I called Vinieri at 6:30 in the morning to give him his credit card over the phone. He was pissed, Anthony.

[B]

Yeah, we go back quite a while. Yeah, he had his black El Dorado baritz then. I remember that blackout. See, my memory is still pretty sure. All the shit I did to myself, I still can remember.

[A]

But you don't remember what you did yesterday for breakfast?

[B]

I don't really eat breakfast. That was an easy answer. No, my memory is still pretty good. But when I drink though, the kids got to tell me, dad, you got to stop. I do black out from drinking sometimes, but it's all in fun. They're like. I wake up like I'm so. I'm like, did I work out last night when I was drinking that like bad? You would like doing push ups one handed. You started working out with that thing and I'm like, oh, God, wrestling the kids, you know, they're younger. I know. I still feel I can fight them, but they're younger, I can still them.

[A]

And I've always told Lee, growing up, we weren't bad kids. No, we were lighting people on fire and killing people and burying them in the woods. And shit.

[C]

That's not a bad kid, dude, that's a fucking. We were having serial killer.

[A]

We were having the best time we could have for what they gave us.

[B]

Yeah, we were all tough though. Everybody was tough.

[A]

Everybody knew how to fight. Fight and get around.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

And then you learn how to fight for what's yours, right? And then you just learned this. There was a mentality growing up here and it was that old Italian, blue collar Irish, right. That was what this area was about. And it really inspires you when you see these guys at Ray Dalton's bar and you look at their hands and their fucking hands are hanging and they're drinking and you're like, you know what? That's not what I want to do. But listen to what that guy's saying. He's talking, he's dropping knowledge. We were around really good people when we grew up. We were around a couple of bad people. The good people we had in our lives were fucking that good.

[B]

Yep, they were. They looked out.

[A]

They were that good. And we got looked out after. And like, again, my daughter. Your sons will never know that.

[B]

Well, they hear the stories.

[A]

They hear the stories. But to see it. We also read about George Washington in the slips. You know what I'm saying? What'd that get us?

[B]

But my son's also hear other people co signing it, so they know my stories are true. And I do leave out a lot of stuff because I ashamed of some of the stuff or I don't want them to know.

[A]

What are you fucking ashamed of?

[B]

Well, some of the things I did.

[A]

I'm not ashamed. Listen, I asked myself once a year,

[B]

I gotta say, there's things I wish I didn't do that might be better,

[A]

you know, Things I wish I didn't do weren't crimes. The things I wish I didn't do were the people who love me. The people I went off the Renovation reservation with that they really love me. There's one in particular. I stopped talking to her and she died. And till this day, I think about like every day in the shower, man. Thank God she looks over me. But me robbing Michael, I'd do it again. Me robbing a drug dealer on Tunnelly Avenue and getting attacked by a cat. I do that again.

[B]

You know, I. I would say the only people I ever robbed were drug dealers.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I never took down a store or anything. No.

[A]

Everybody was in the game and we

[B]

did it properly and we really thought we were the man. And we got away with a lot things I'm ashamed of I guess would be like getting. Just selling drugs to my friends and stuff. Looking back, you know, wish I can take that back, Knowing now that, you know, a lot of people never came back from that. You know, I wasn't alone, but that's about it. When I say I'm ashamed, and maybe that was the wrong word, but I wish I didn't get involved in that part. Wish I could have avoided that.

[A]

Your son, my daughter, even if they go to a fucking club in Atlantic City on a Saturday night, get in the middle and jump up and down, they'll never have the amount of accessibility we had here. Lee. If you didn't snort coke, you didn't snort coke. Lee. It's like we are now. Lee, I'd love to do heroin with you, and I tease you, but I don't. You know what I'm saying? Everybody gave you. There was no such thing as, you're a pussy if you don't do this. We never worked out. Now we did it because you did it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Nobody put a gun to your head. If you want. You knew that your parents were at the Board of Education, or you knew that your father was a cop, where you knew that your father was the chief of police. So it was all on you, what you wanted to do. You know, I think if I would have had a mother, I wouldn't have done that. But that's bullshit. I was going to do it no matter what.

[B]

I had a mother, and I still did it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So, yeah, that's.

[A]

You know, so you have to consider it wasn't. I don't say that we were junkies. The availability in 1980, from 1980-85, Lee, with drugs, you had a better chance of getting an ounce of cocaine for free than, like, common things like, you might take you a week to find the job, but you'll find the motherfucker the same day that will say, take this. See what you could do, And I'll be back in a week.

[C]

Is it like weed now or even more intense?

[A]

Dog, all we have now is weed and edibles in the store. And then when you go out on Friday nights or you go to Ultra, you have festivals and you have pink cocaine and all these other drugs that kids are doing today. And that's fine. I'm not ever angling them in them. I'm not saying that. But the amount of availability here. There was mescalinely. There was acid always in town. There was no mushroom. That was a West Coast.

[B]

No, there was a lot of mescaline.

[A]

A Lot of mescaline. A lot of that. And all you had to do, Lee, was either go over that Lincoln Tunnel or go over that bridge and you could do things nobody needed to know.

[C]

Did they have a train back then or.

[A]

No, it doesn't fucking matter, you know what I'm saying?

[B]

They did have a train.

[A]

They had everything.

[B]

We had police escorts, one of our buddies, a cop would just put the badge out there. Free travel through the tunnel. Nobody fucked with you.

[A]

You have no idea, Lee. So that was America's playground. Now you see white people smoking vapors. Oh my God, I love this cafe in Alphabet City. You wanna go up to them and smack em in the face. Like if you knew what went on this street 30 years ago, you wouldn't even walk on this fucking street. Meanwhile you're sitting here with that fucking snickerdoodle. I don't know who's uglier, the dog or your fucking skinny boyfriend.

[B]

Is that one of those dogs and

[A]

you're smoking a vapor pen? They're all faggy fucking dogs. My point is they had no idea what the, what day it was. Sitting on. Manhattan was a place that you went at 11, not to come home at 1. That was never gonna happen. You were gonna find yourself in a car with us with sunglasses on, coming over the bridge like, man, that was fun. It ain't even done. We're going to Shypool's, we're going to Ernie's to pick up three cases and the other car is going to get a hotel room. We're not even fucking. I thought I was gonna go to work at 10, tell them it's over. I missed the last two days, quit. It's over. That's how easy. And you had a new job on Friday?

[B]

Yeah, I was with. I was in the elevators union real quick for like three or four weeks. And the guys were laid back. I was a. You know, I helped with the tools. It was. Good job, Otis elevator. And that's how I wound up quitting. You know, I got my first check, it was for like $900. And I looked at it and I was like, you know what? Fuck this.

[A]

Fuck this.

[B]

I ain't go. I'm having a good time. And plus I just made 3,000 yesterday. Fucking turning over something.

[A]

That was fucking insane.

[B]

Yeah, it was insane.

[A]

After a while you're like, why am I getting a job for? I can make more money sitting at midtown and running errands. Like going, giving somebody a ride.

[B]

Yeah, it became too easy. That's what it was.

[A]

And it was so much accessibility. The accessibility I couldn't handle. That's why I left.

[B]

It was overwhelming.

[A]

It was accessibility for women, drugs, hideouts. If you didn't want to drink in North Bergen, you went to Union City, to his uncle's, his great uncle's bar and drank there. If not, you went to Hoboken to a dive. If the cops were looking for you, you went to Guttenberg, to that. What's the apartment building? The first one we spoke about, the Galaxy, had a little bar in there in the corner. They made the best daiquiris. And you could snort. You could do anything in there. Nobody knew anything.

[C]

That's where you go to hide.

[A]

Yeah, that's where you went with a broad. Nobody. And then I had, like, an apartment upstairs because I was the maintenance man. So I'd see who needed a room, and I'd go to their fucking rooms and sit there with their robes on and like Marlon Brando. It's a different world. And I'm happy. I'm very happy that our kids don't see this. But in a way, I'm sad that the kids. You'd mentioned my boy. That dude never talked to me again. Paris Pizziona.

[B]

Oh, Paris.

[A]

And I loved him. There was one kid I really loved.

[B]

He talked to him the other day on the phone.

[A]

You know he became a state trooper. What he won't tell you is the time we were in the city in the eighth grade, we went to a peep show and his neck got stuck.

[B]

Oh, gosh.

[A]

On one of those things where you don't put enough quarters in. Doug, who does that happen to?

[B]

Fucking Nagui.

[A]

And he's a state trooper, isn't he? Doesn't he become a cop or something?

[B]

Oh, Paris.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Oh, Paris. Stayed in California after the Navy, and he became an aircraft mechanic.

[A]

Oh, okay. I thought he was something like, bro. I was nervous of driving there, and one night he pulled me over. You're the motherfucker.

[B]

It wasn't Paris then. Paris joined the Navy in 79, never came back. Stayed in California.

[A]

I met Paris. So Paris was, like, 16 when he joined the Navy.

[B]

Well, 17. You have to be. We all joined at the same time.

[A]

Me, Mike, played basketball with him in the eighth grade.

[B]

Oh, he was a good ball player.

[A]

Excellent.

[B]

He wasn't good in school, but he did. He stayed in San Diego and did very well for himself. Actually, he was just in Jersey to attend a wedding this weekend with Denise Mick. You know Denise Mick?

[A]

Is that where you went to that wedding? No, no, I went he was cousins with him some way.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, they are cousins.

[A]

They're like second cousins or some shit like that. But yeah, think about that, Lee being in the eighth grade, telling mommy, are you excited about your math test? And all of a sudden you're in the city at 10 in the morning after we smoked a joint, and now we're playing Three Car Monty with a bunch of brothers and a bunch of German tourists watching us.

[B]

German. Fuck it.

[A]

And then from there, after you lost your money, you walked up two more blocks, and next thing you know, we're talking to one of those guys that barks outside the dingiest strip club you've ever seen in your life.

[C]

They had barkers for strip clubs.

[A]

Oh, yeah, big motherfuckers. Come on in, come on in, meet the girls. We don't. Oh, yeah, they wave in 13, like. And we'd sit down, the girls would sit on your lap. And at that time, every hand that you had on your body came out. You were like an octopus, you were grabbing. And they'd say, oh, stop it. You have to buy me champagne. And then the champagne would come. It was like a diss. And they wanted 20 bucks. And it's like, I ain't got 20 bucks. All right, get out. We would do that from strip club to strip club.

[B]

I remember those little champagne bottles.

[A]

Yeah, those little.

[B]

Wait, they pull you right off the street.

[C]

Eighth grade, dude, I can't even. I wouldn't have been allowed to walk around New York by myself in the eighth grade. I don't think.

[B]

What?

[A]

Probably not.

[B]

You have lived a sheltered life, young man.

[C]

That's true.

[A]

Well, some. Like I said, some parents at that time.

[C]

Your daughter's getting close to eighth grade.

[A]

Yeah. Would I let her walk over there right now? Would be a shock to assistant. But yes, if she went with girls that knew what they would do. A little older. Okay. But she's not scared to go over there.

[C]

No.

[A]

I wouldn't say right now in her little mind, I would have.

[C]

I would have loved to have done it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. They're not prepared, but they are. That's how you get prepared. First time she walks past a junkie jerking off. First time she walks past somebody puking. First time she walks, somebody bleeding. Yeah. That's how you go. Okay. I gotta. Really? Because I could tell you all you want, Lee, don't look at your phone when you go down that place. Look straight ahead. You open donut shops, and all of a sudden some guy gets hit by a car and ain't nobody stopping the Guy's just getting hit over and over again. Oh, I got to tell you something, that's going to make everybody very happy. In fact, it's. I'm going to announce a date on it. It's going to be that big. So last week, my daughter got me Call of Duty.

[B]

Oh, I don't know. Those video games.

[A]

The video game again, we don't need. We lived.

[B]

Exactly.

[C]

I don't think you lived.

[B]

I was never good at that stuff.

[A]

So I said, enough is enough. I went Theft Auto, would you believe? So I went upstairs. We couldn't get the Call of Duty to work, but she did have Grand Theft Auto and. Holy. Grand Theft Auto was us.

[B]

I just said, would you believe Grant? Theft.

[A]

Holy. All I know is it took me an hour to get out of the parking lot. And then I kept losing Lamar. You lost Lamar? Lamar, Lamar, Lamar. Who the fuck is Lamar? And then there was a scene. I couldn't control the steering wheel. I couldn't control the speed and shit, but the steering wheel, dawg. I was hitting pedestrians. I was hitting hot dog people, bro. I hit an old lady with. He was like, dad, you hit an old lady? Fuck us. We were fucking going off.

[C]

Oh, dude, you don't even have to do missions. They would be hysterical. But you can just go around killing hookers and like, robbing people.

[A]

That's all. I would. No, no, no, it's not that. Listen, anybody I killed, I killed on accident. I'm not going to sit here and tell you. Oh, you should have seen me. I was horrible. I got to practice the gun war. But this is left. This is right. This, I don't know, this is shooting. Then there's a star triangle.

[B]

Oh, I could never do that.

[A]

I had to get in the car. So you have a PlayStation circle for him to throw punches and shit like that.

[B]

Don't they have grenade launches on those things?

[A]

Listen and let's start basic. I ain't no fucking James Bond, okay? But for. I tell you what, even when my wife got home, my wife was fucking howling.

[B]

Laughed at you.

[A]

I told you, I was really like fucking had to stop a few times because I thought I was going to sick. So I can't imagine I'm that bad. I'm that bad. I could put a season premiere of Uncle Joey Plays Call of Dwitter.

[B]

That would be funny.

[C]

Ben.

[A]

Theft Auto and put it on Twitch and it's going to be all over the shot.

[B]

That would be huge.

[A]

That'll be the biggest entertainment. Don't know what I'm Doing okay. Anybody can go on there. And look at me. Me going on there with 10, 22 joints in me and 2,000 milligrams just hitting poles and shit. Because you can't kill that car.

[B]

Well, let me.

[A]

There was a scene when I was chasing somebody right in the snow.

[C]

Right.

[A]

I couldn't get out of the snow. I kept falling backwards.

[C]

You're in the snow.

[A]

Oh, yeah. Come on, Lee. Come on, man.

[C]

Once you're done with that one, you have to do Red Dead redemption, too. For your cowboy.

[B]

Let me be playing number two. That would really be entertaining because I. Even back in the 70s, the Atari I could. I was horrible back then.

[A]

We weren't cut out.

[B]

Oh, my cousin Jamo would tear up. Silver ball. Remember silverball? Yeah, he was the king of silverball. But he was also selling six for five joints. Remember? Remember six or five?

[C]

How long were you playing Grand Theft

[A]

Auto for stoned edible dog?

[B]

Oh, I was loving.

[C]

Well, perfectly. Especially after your surgery.

[A]

I would laugh. Oh, I'm gonna get really good during my surgery.

[B]

You're gonna get better.

[A]

Yeah. Wait till they give me those pain pills. The first three days, you'll be running

[B]

over people for sure.

[A]

Oh, I'm gonna be running over.

[B]

I watched the kids play, and I'm like, they really have games like this?

[A]

Never been in my thing, but once I started seeing them, how realistic they

[B]

are and they are.

[A]

You watch army shows. They're watching them.

[C]

They're about to come out with a new one.

[A]

Which one?

[C]

Grand Theft Auto.

[A]

A new one?

[C]

Yeah. It's been years. That five has been out for, like, wow. I know.

[A]

I got to get myself on one of those shows because that is my life. They get up and they just rob. Cause people. Yeah. But I got killed. Lesbian.

[B]

He got killed a few times, right? You've been killed a bunch of times. Oh, my God.

[A]

I did mafia 3.

[B]

I know your movies, they always seem to kill you.

[A]

Yeah, I get killed.

[B]

I got blown off. And all the saints of Newark.

[A]

It's a.

[C]

They have to hire writers. Rockstar. Took years and years to develop a story that you're saying it was just your life.

[A]

I'm counting that you were in game. I didn't know whatever I played the other day. Right. Was just a regular day for me in the old days. Get up.

[C]

Were you the crazy guy, the black guy, or the. The guy in the suit?

[A]

I was all of them mixed in one, though. I'm saying I'm my own. Remember the island of Dr. Moreau?

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Dr. Moreau.

[B]

John Voight. The actor was John Voight.

[A]

That would do what?

[B]

The island of Dr. Morio.

[A]

No, it was Martin Brando did it, 1990.

[B]

Well, he did something. Wasn't he in it with him? John Vo.

[A]

Remember? I don't know. We're talking about.

[B]

We get to movie. We went from a video game. Damn weed you gave me. I'm sitting here just trying to.

[A]

You know, I eat edibles.

[B]

I don't know how you do it. Especially with that staircase out there.

[A]

The staircase.

[B]

You need an elevator.

[A]

I remember one night we had a party. Hudson county park on the river, you know, on the little island. And you had to walk.

[B]

I was just there today telling stories about that.

[A]

You talk to your son. They used to have. And they used to roll a keg across. This was not nor the focarachio. That part of town were the fearless leaders. They invented that. The Broadway boys. Yeah. What's Cuomo's? That's. That was them. And they would push the keg across, launch it and then start drinking. They invited me one year. It was the coldest night of the fucking winter. He did a stupid Cuban ass. Wears a flannel with a hooded sweatshirt. Thank God I had some Quaaludes because I ate some Quaaludes. And I went to the Wing Funk with folk and Lubes. And we watched Folk. Aracho ate a lube, a lud. And he just fell asleep in the pork fried rice. And he has a big nose. So he started Ringo, he was fucking breathing and snoring.

[B]

He was a madman.

[A]

And Lubes was like, wake up, Joe. Joe, wake up. You're embarrassing me and all this shit. Fuck it. And then I ended up walking home and I ended up falling asleep in the apartment building. Dragon Grocery, they just had it on Facebook last week that in the 70s they made the best Chinese food there on Sunday. But if you went next door to it, there was an apartment building. And upstairs Lisa Ganipkinop lived. She was a high Jewish girl. Yeah, she was a Jewish girl. I didn't know how to say her last name. So we just called the Lisa Ganipkinoff. She was fucking beautiful. She was fucking beautiful dog. But I woke up one morning like this in the door jam with my feet, keeping the door open. When I woke up, the sweatshirt was light blue, but it had like a thin frost on it. I was like the Tin Man. I was frozen dog. And people say I lose fingers and shit. Not when you eat two Quaaludes in the Village in those days.

[C]

Those were.

[B]

Those guys did they were the original tough guys. Folcorachio Duffy, who was the other. There was a few of them that Avillo was involved in that crew. But Joe folk always reminded me of Ringo Starr. If you look at his younger pictures, Joe's a good. He's down in North Carolina now.

[A]

Yeah, he moved down there. I see him on Facebook. I go back and forth with him sometimes.

[B]

I always loved him.

[A]

He drove me to get Pink Floyd tickets. And fucking. We're driving on the turnpike. It's 19. It's 1979. Maybe two weeks after my mother died. And I get in the car with him. Let's go. That's when he's. Let's go.

[B]

That was him, too.

[A]

Seven in the morning, drinking, fucking. We got to stop. I think it was me and Dee Dee and Lubes in the car, and we're driving. He goes, give me that fucking joint. He starts smoking the joint, and the thing falls and it burns his shirt. And all of a sudden he. You know those little orange barrels? He just hit one.

[C]

Oh.

[A]

And the barrel went up like 80ft in the air that we all were like, holy. And it just landed, like, on the other lane. Cars are going around this shit. Oh, my God.

[B]

Yeah, I think he was the original Madman Joe. One of the original. He was a good hockey player. Him and his brother Ralph, they used

[A]

to have these parties right next to Loreg's in Gamio's house. Gamio had in the garage that you pulled in like this. But there was always a painter's ladder in the garage, and it led to a little attic. All right. He would have parties up there, but you got to remember, there was no door. You just walked up and one Halloween, Joe went dressed as the devil. He was always the devil because that was his nickname, the Devil Joe La Folk. Satan.

[B]

Satan. That's what he was, Satan.

[A]

So he had the red suit on, the whole thing.

[B]

I remember that out.

[A]

Me and your uncle and Lubes were eating gorilla biscuits around with him, talking about Satan and all this. We keep walking them back one inch at a time. Yeah, we keep walking back. And the hole was right there, dog. And it was a drop like that. And also we kept walking him back, and he goes, Happy 1012. And that's all you heard. I remember we all went back to see him, and he landed on his head and his horns were bent, and he's like. He's bleeding from one side.

[B]

Didn't care, probably.

[A]

This was like every other weekend we would do acid and go in that attic and See who we could throw down that hole.

[B]

Oh, my God. Yeah, he was. He was crazy. They hung out at the Yon Tap a lot, too. Cappuccino's joint. Yeah, I remember I had my first out of the army. That was the first place I went for a drink was at the On Top and the Colonnade. Remember the Colonnade? And then you had that.

[A]

I never went to any of those.

[B]

No, you didn't go to the TikTok?

[A]

I was too young even for Corky's. I would eat pizza at Nick's and watch what happened to Corky's. Every night. There'd be snowball fights and shit. I'm like, man, I can't turn. He was very strict about being 21 or 18.

[B]

He was 18 back. Yeah, we were grandfathered in.

[A]

He was old school with that. You can't go in my bar.

[B]

Oh, Tapuccino.

[A]

No, no, no, no. Porky. When it was Tom.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, I remember.

[A]

And he called it Gregory's. Yeah, Seven day weekend.

[B]

Oh, that was a madhouse, too.

[A]

Oh, right there on the corn. Monday nights when they had the. Do those vodka orange juices. Bluebirds for $2.

[B]

Then John Kelly work at the bar there Sunday nights.

[A]

God rest is so.

[B]

Yeah, I was shocked to hear that. Unfortunately, just like that. That's how life is. That's why every day I wake up, I try to enjoy myself.

[A]

I felt so bad when he died that morning. I threw ice cubes. I felt so guilty. I'm like, I'm gonna have to go to his wake. I used to throw ice cubes at him on Sunday nights, bro. We used to bombard him. It was a different.

[B]

We did pick on him a bit at the bar.

[A]

Every time he'd turn around, the whole bar would throw ice cubes at him. You would just see the ice cube, and it would take him, like, four minutes to turn around. He'd go. And then he would turn around and go. The next person who throws an ice cube, I'm throwing you out. And he'd turn around, and every fucking body was throwing ice cube. One night he just left.

[B]

I think I remember that.

[A]

He left Dog.

[B]

That was a hot spot. Yeah, and they made a good steak there, too.

[A]

Sunday nights was. No, not at Corky.

[B]

Gregory's. When Gregory opened up, Gregory opened up. Corky was a madman when he was on the, you know, marching powder.

[A]

I remember when he fought. He had a fight with Nick the pizza man. And they were out there throwing snowballs at each other, calling each other motherfucker.

[B]

Nick, that's another one.

[A]

And we're in high school, just getting a slice of pizza. And these motherfuckers. I still remember being out there at 11 and the door would open for the night before. There'd be like three guys with blood on their shirts. They'd hug each other. Ah, I'll see you next week. And you're like, what the fuck? I can't wait to be able to go in that bar to see what the fuck goes in there. Weird times.

[B]

The boss that. There's some bars that we were getting. What was that strip? The COVID Remember the COVID Oh, with

[A]

the guy that had the wig. The ugly chicks that. They were one Guttenberg.

[B]

Oh, my God. Everybody was allowed in the COVID Yeah.

[A]

You were 10. The guy had a wig. And I remember my finger. The girl. One day, I had to take three

[B]

shots right on the bar, right?

[A]

My whole body stunk from fingering like a cute mulatto girl. And Holloway got. Rest his soul, was in love with her. And he was trying to fuck her. My God, those were fucking. That was that strip club then you had the one on Tunley when we were way before the one you're.

[B]

Oh, that was a fun spot there. Wasn't there long, though.

[A]

The army base that came after my.

[B]

The naval base.

[A]

Was it called Naval Base? I was a Meadowlands Inn guy with the bottles and the pussy.

[B]

I really wasn't much into the strip clubs. I did. I went along for the ride with them, but I wasn't. That wasn't my thing.

[A]

I went to the Obregon brothers took me to the 10. Remember? Jesus.

[B]

I loved him.

[A]

Loved him.

[B]

Big Led Zeppelin fan.

[A]

And they had a candy company. So at night he would steal his father's candy truck and take you to Harlem to cop. You'd be in the back, stolen Coke, there'd be M and M's. Fucking frosted peanuts. Everything you need with weed. I'm snorting coke. I don't eat any of this shit. He passed off. Yeah, I heard. I'll fucking fill. Because they were filmed the night before. He would sneak it out at 12 and go to 88th Street Park. Who's coming into the city with me?

[C]

I'd be there and not get any coke.

[A]

Candy everywhere. Stickers, hundred thousand dollar bars.

[B]

Lollipops, my favorite.

[A]

Those Blow Pops. And the lollipops are too flavored. I used to take like 25 of them. He would come out, who took all the two? My father's gonna freak. Yeah.

[C]

Was he, like, selling it, like, as a Like ice cream wholesale. Okay.

[A]

And his father was also partners on a candy store where Pathmark is today. There used to be a candy store there. Not like a. It wasn't a candy store that you went in there. It was a candy wholesale place. Come on. And they used to sell Devil Bubble Devil, Red Devil Bubblegum, Red Devil Dog.

[C]

Spicy.

[A]

Oh, and this is 1975, when there was no FDA. They just threw like fucking pig's feet in there. You were chewing. It was so fucking good. Pepper spray, there was. RC Cola was over there.

[C]

Oh, that's the worst.

[A]

You like RC Cola for a quarter in the summer. A dime gross. For a whole big bottle. A dime. When you're.

[C]

I remember it was.

[A]

They were by here and then 38th street, we had the iced tea company.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

So for 30 cents, they give you an iced tea. Arizona or lemonade? Arizona.

[B]

No, not definitely.

[A]

You got canceled from iced tea. That bottle shit came in the 90s.

[B]

What the hell was the brand that everybody used back then?

[A]

What was it?

[B]

There you go.

[A]

Clayton and I like. I always like Lipton. The powder.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. We all had.

[A]

Dope it up with some lemons and an extra orange.

[B]

The country time, remember?

[A]

I don't like country. I like lemonade. Cubans make lemonade. All right? Cubans throw sugar in there. It's a metal pot that's been dented. And they squeeze the lemons, two limes. And then they throw some Santeria juice, a tons of liquid. Dog. Was a pleasure seeing you.

[B]

Oh, my God. Yeah, yeah, it was great. I appreciate you having me.

[A]

Yeah. Come on. During football season.

[B]

Oh, whatever. Whenever. I'm a phone call away. Always. I'd love seeing you. It's been too long. I had a blast here. Unfortunately. I was a little rocked. I was a little what? That's not wrong with that, right?

[A]

Nothing. And I'm holding my hair, snorting coke. Oh, no wrong with that.

[B]

No, you'll never see me in that mattering. That'll never happen again. I told you. A couple of years ago he slipped up. But it wasn't.

[A]

I would love to get my hands on a Quaalu. And I had.

[B]

How about a lemon? 7 14, right?

[A]

Oh, there was that kid. North Bergen. No mention.

[B]

They didn't last long.

[A]

His mother was dying of cancer. So on the 1st of the month, she. He would. He would sell all her pills. They used to give her two minols.

[B]

Oh, two minutes.

[A]

He would sell them for 45 a piece in 1980.

[B]

Secondals tuminals.

[A]

You want to get fucked up, you eat you split one of Those fucking pills, M66, and you see the devil. $45 a pill.

[B]

The 714s, though, they were considered a pretty safe pill back in the day. It wasn't addict. I just watched something on social media.

[A]

About the funniest story was when I saw that one kid that used to hang out with Rego before he died. His sister had a barber shop on Kennedy Boulevard across from Nick's. Not Rocky, Oli.

[B]

I think I know who you're talking about.

[A]

I was a kid, and I remember him going, hey, you want to do a Quaalude on a Friday night? And I'm like, nah, I'm good. I was like a softball. And he went up the 46th street hill. That's a mean hill. He lived on the bottom of that fucking hill. And the next day I saw him and the bike was ruined. He had stitches. He ate those Quaaludes or for a bike ride.

[B]

Oh, man, a lot of great stories. I mean, we can sit here to midnight and beyond to finish them, and once we get going, there's another story that'll remind you of that time and another time.

[A]

But next time we come, we'll tell them the New Year's 83 story.

[B]

Oh, when I bit Roger's ear off.

[A]

God rest his soul.

[B]

That was 82.

[A]

82.

[B]

82. Turning 83.

[A]

82. Yeah. I just. Michaels. And I was only in town.

[B]

Who's that? Joanne Ligios.

[A]

Joanne Ligios.

[B]

Oh, yeah. Poor Roger. I kind of warned him, though. And then Conti tried to break it up, and I just thought. He goes, oh, I'm good, Doug.

[A]

At that time, we were going to parties. We were going to party. I still remember going to a party two nights before that. Russo had a cousin, Wayne or something like that.

[B]

Oh, his cousin, yeah. Georgie Clegg. One of the Cleggs?

[A]

No, some other guy. A friend of a cousin.

[B]

Not Freddie Clegg. There's another cousin, Georgie something.

[A]

And they were. We got there, and we were like animals. They passed the hat around, and I think Russo took the hat with the money in it. Like, they were like, what happened to that? It's ours. That type of shit? Yeah, like that type of shit. It was like we were getting thrown out of Christmas parties. Roger would roll up at your house, and right in front of your parents, grandparents or whatever, he'd be talking to George, and all of a sudden he'd go, hold on. He'd spit on your rug. And you'd sit there like, what the fuck Roger, he was doing that. That whole night on New Year's Eve, he was on fire.

[B]

He used to get messed up.

[A]

So he'd be here with you. Your mother could be in the corner serving us. He'd be over here going off.

[B]

He pisses. Wasn't he pissing a lot in the bars and stuff?

[A]

Me and him would piss on Lila's dog.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

Every other fucking Friday, darling. That dog would get up dripping, sweetheart. Cause our job was to piss on that fucking dog.

[B]

I remember that.

[A]

He'd get so fucked up. What about when I gave you the Quaaludes and I told you they were Quaaludes and everybody slept for three days?

[B]

I remember something vaguely like, what the

[A]

fuck did he do? I used to rob the janitor at the high school.

[B]

Oh, the one that got the epileptic medicine, right? The fucking nephilim.

[A]

I remember that because the first couple weeks, it was all valuable. The container. I would go up to him, buy him a mug. A mug was a dollar back then. 60 cents with a bag of chips. He wouldn't say two words. I'd buy him a mug of beer. I'd go in his pocket, go in the bathroom, take the Valiums out and put everything back. This went on for weeks. We would wait for him on Fridays, like, where is he? I don't know. He's coming. They had a mat, you know, when they watched the floors at the high school on those nights he's having dance till midnight. Where is this guy? I don't know. He'd walk in, sit down, we'd send him a beer. I go up, hug him, pickpocket them. One night I go in the bathroom, no value, these white pills. And they look like Quaaludes. Oh, man, they took them all out. Everybody's salivating. Where are the pills? They go, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. We got no Xanax, no Valium. Tonight. Tonight we got baby Quaaludes. They're from France. I was fucked up. And these idiots are eating them like, pah, pah, pah. I went home like every other idiot until I woke up the next day and I was like, no, I didn't

[B]

take any of that.

[A]

I don't remember that. Took me three days.

[B]

I remember Jamo was a mess from it.

[A]

Jamo was a mess. I think Greg was a mess.

[B]

I remember that. Yeah.

[A]

The only person who asked for more was Fernie Basasuto. God bless.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Everybody else is like, those are the worst things I ever took for these.

[B]

That was A fun place. Joe and Mary's. I know we're winding down, but that was one of my favorite spots. Playing pool. You know, they always play. I wasn't.

[A]

John Cowan brought the chicken.

[B]

Good baseball player. Oh, my. My old baseball. My old paper boy. He was my paper boy.

[A]

I still remember being in there for John. John Kelly's birthday and my birthday are very close together. It's the 17th and the 19th. So Judy, the great lady that she is, would always throw a birthday party for us. And one night she got an ice cream cake. Rudy was doing so much coke. Nobody touched the ice cream cake. It just melted. She just stood there crying, like, how come nobody ate the cake? I'm like, judy, Cause we ate different type of cake tonight.

[B]

Well, getting back before we cut this out, remember my mother had a huge party at the vfw and I went

[A]

over there and ate the chicken.

[B]

You loved the chicken. Nobody showed up. My stepfather's 50th. Nobody liked the guy, so nobody showed up. And it was my mother's, like, crying over the food. I go, I'll solve that problem. I went into Joe and Mary's. I whistled. Whoever could eat came and eat. If not, I know you took down all the chicken.

[A]

I took down all the chicken. Like that.

[B]

Coco really liked that chicken. Oh, I see. Tell him to come back. There's plenty left. Fun times, fun times.

[A]

Different world. But you know what? We're still here to talk about it.

[B]

Yeah, good. Good memories, good friends. A lot. I moved on, unfortunately.

[A]

What do you think, Lee? Talk to me.

[B]

Tell me what's up with you. You're very quiet. Quiet for a comedian.

[C]

Yeah, I'm doing my list. I don't. You're a guy. You guys have a lot to talk about.

[B]

What do you do on stage? I'm sure you have more. No, what do you do? Sign language?

[C]

No, I just. I just sit there and stare at you for 15 minutes.

[A]

I was Dallas.

[C]

I'm sorry.

[A]

I was Dallas.

[C]

Fort Worth with. With Jessame was great, great, great shows, fun club. Jessam is the silliest. She was hitting on. We went to the stockyard and she had me go hit on cowboys for. The guy was married to his 8th grade sweetheart. She was pissed. She was just taking pictures of. Of dudes in, like, cowboy boots and, like, salivating over them. She was the funniest.

[B]

So you got into comedy through Coco then? Really?

[A]

Or through the podcast.

[B]

Podcast led on to it.

[C]

I was always a fan, but I never thought I'd be a stand up.

[B]

Were you a Fan of Coco before you met him.

[C]

I had just moved. I reached out to Joey maybe a month or two into living in la, so I heard him on Rogan's podcast.

[B]

That's where it all started for you. A lot of people. That's how you met the other one, Mike Klein, through your podcast. I knew him before the podcast, so.

[C]

But yeah, I'm very excited. I'm gonna be headlining Uncle Vinny's Wednesday and Thursday.

[B]

Nice.

[C]

And then I'll be in Toronto with Josh Wolf Jacob on Friday and Saturday.

[B]

Very good. Good for you. Good for you.

[A]

I got nothing.

[B]

And you, you got. You got everything. You know, I'm proud of you. Are you kidding me?

[A]

I got West Nyack on Wednesday and I'm gonna go down open for Bert at Ocean Casino.

[B]

I like him.

[A]

Either Friday or Saturday night or both. Let's see how I feel.

[B]

How was he as a person? Good.

[A]

Very good. He was my neighbor, really.

[B]

He's funny. I know you did a little thing when you were smoking cigars together. I forgot.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. On Netflix. Yeah, but he's a. He's one of the good.

[B]

Then I just watched something with him where he decided not to take his shirt off like people. Like, he got it.

[A]

He's got a sitcom on that.

[B]

Yeah, it was a series. I was pretty fucking good, you know, it wasn't his best work, but it was. It was good. But I always liked him. And who's the other one? Tom Segura. Yeah, they're buddies on that booze, right? The.

[A]

I was in Texas last week. I never went to his bakery.

[B]

Oh, no.

[C]

That looks good as.

[B]

Oh, yeah, no, but he's definitely funny. But you, out of all of them, you've. You're my hero. I'm proud of you.

[A]

You did good, brother.

[B]

You did really good.

[A]

Fucking talking shit on the corner.

[B]

You worked your way up. You know what I like really about you? You paid. A lot of people don't understand. Besides paying your dues on the street, you did it through the, you know, Hollywood. You didn't. Nothing was given to you. You know, you worked hard and you were so. When I was at the movie Inside Game, the premiere, and I was with Scott Wolf and Will Sasso, I remember you call me. Tell. Tell them I say hello. They were good. We. We laughed. They laughed about. They were telling stories about your days out there.

[A]

I had my adventures with Will. Oh, he's a funny Scott.

[B]

I knew. No, they both were talking. I was. That Will was just such a funny guy and a gentleman, too. Very Very nice.

[A]

Very.

[B]

Because he played a tough guy in the movie Inside Game. He played Jimmy Batista. Now he does that other thing. George and Mandy's first wedding. You see that?

[A]

No.

[B]

Oh, he's fucking great in that. He's plays the father in law. He's fucking good. But he's a Canuck. He's a Canadian.

[A]

What? Yeah. April 15th is all I got left is Brooklyn. I don't know what's going. Nashville is. The comedy festival is the 18th. So I'm excited to get down to

[B]

the Wind Creek by us. It's not far. It used to be the Sands Casino.

[A]

The deal with Parks.

[B]

Okay. Okay. So you have an exclusive with them?

[A]

Yeah, I'm back there again.

[B]

So you're married to them?

[A]

Yeah, I like the married.

[B]

They take care of you. That's all.

[A]

I'm from my house, but I'm happy you came on.

[B]

Yeah, I'm happy.

[A]

Stay black and beautiful. And for you motherfuckers, always stay black. We had a great episode tonight. Hope you guys enjoyed it. And we'll be back next week. Remember, my surgery is April 23rd. We're talking about doing a couple fucking

[B]

episodes at the hospital. Wild at the hospital. No.

[A]

And that's all we got right now. So I'll see you motherfuckers next week. Stay black. And Uncle Joey Lee and Danny Bianculo love you.