Joey Diaz' Seventh Grade Teacher

Summary

The Church of What's Happening Now: The New Testament Episode Summary: "Joey Diaz' Seventh Grade Teacher"

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Introduction

In this compelling episode of The Church of What's Happening Now: The New Testament, Joey Diaz, renowned comedian, actor, and New York Times bestselling author, reunites with his seventh-grade teacher, Mr. John Barone. Hosted alongside Lee Syatt, the conversation delves deep into Joey's tumultuous school years, his interactions with memorable teachers, and the lasting impact these experiences had on his life.

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Reconnecting with Mr. Barone

Joey Diaz kicks off the episode by warmly greeting his audience before introducing his guest, Mr. John Barone, his strict yet influential seventh-grade teacher. Despite the initial tension and Joey's colorful language describing Mr. Barone, it becomes evident that their relationship has evolved into one of mutual respect and nostalgia.

Joey Diaz [02:31]: "Mr. Barone, you were much better after one year of practice."

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Navigating a Tough School Environment

The duo reminisces about the challenging environment at McKinley Middle School, highlighting the presence of antagonistic figures like Mr. Kingwell and the intense drama that unfolded daily.

John Barone [03:02]: "He broke a kid's arm just punching him."

Mr. Kingwell's volatile behavior, including physical confrontations and favoritism towards certain students, is a recurring topic. Joey shares vivid anecdotes about Mr. Kingwell's aggressive nature and the chaos he often caused.

Joey Diaz [04:00]: "He used to give you oral book reports. But I'm happy because now I read because of him."

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Memorable Teachers and Their Impact

Beyond the turbulence, Joey and Mr. Barone discuss other influential teachers like Ms. Brando and Ms. Lovito. While Ms. Brando is remembered for her compassionate nature, Joey candidly shares a youthful indiscretion that led to an awkward but formative experience.

Joey Diaz [07:16]: "I grabbed her tit one day in the sixth grade art closet."

Mr. Barone reflects on the evolving teaching methods and how he managed to connect with students despite the odds.

John Barone [14:23]: "I went up to him, right in his face, and I said, how could you cheat these kids?"

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The Evolution of Coaching and Mentorship

The conversation shifts to Mr. Barone's journey into coaching, detailing his experiences with various coaches and the challenges they faced in maintaining discipline and fostering talent among the students.

John Barone [62:32]: "I coached North Bergen for a couple of years. Ralph was on the team. He was a catcher."

They delve into stories about coaching athletes like Ralph Marino, whose dedication and unique coaching style left a lasting impression on the students.

Joey Diaz [67:54]: "Nobody loves basketball like Ralph did."

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Reflecting on Changing School Dynamics

A significant portion of the discussion revolves around the stark differences between the past and present educational environments. Joey expresses concern over the lack of personal connections and disciplinary measures that were once prevalent.

Joey Diaz [85:16]: "And I could see why kids are the way they are now. When I told my daughter I was coming up here to see Wish I."

Mr. Barone concurs, emphasizing the decline in familial involvement and its repercussions on student behavior and teacher-student relationships.

John Barone [86:16]: "I'll tell you what it is. It's that kids don't sit at the table with their family at night and have dinner."

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Personal Anecdotes and Emotional Moments

The episode is rich with personal stories that highlight both the humorous and heartbreaking moments from Joey's school days. From embarrassing incidents like Joey's notorious flatulence on the bus to the tragic loss of classmates and mentors, the conversation paints a vivid picture of the complexities of adolescence.

Joey Diaz [73:58]: "I still remember walking home in the seventh grade with Anthony Balzano. He couldn't go home..."

Mr. Barone shares touching memories of students like Ralph Marino, who faced significant challenges but remained dedicated to their passions.

John Barone [63:42]: "So sure enough, I said to Matash, I said, where did you learn how to do that? He says, well, that's the three years I was going to be a priest."

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The Decline of Traditional Values and Skills

Towards the end of the episode, Joey laments the erosion of traditional American values and skills, such as mowing lawns or handling cash routes, which he believes fostered responsibility and independence in youth.

Joey Diaz [90:25]: "They don't have the mentality we were having at those young developmental years. You look, you can't learn that. You can't learn that in a classroom."

Mr. Barone echoes these sentiments, reflecting on the challenges teachers face in today’s educational landscape.

John Barone [93:17]: "Kids today are street smart. They might be even better than we were."

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Conclusion and Final Thoughts

As the episode wraps up, Joey and Mr. Barone reflect on the profound influence teachers have on their students' lives. Joey expresses heartfelt gratitude towards Mr. Barone for shaping his character and instilling values that have endured into adulthood.

Joey Diaz [96:35]: "Mr. Barone, I want to thank you for taking the time. Thank you for being a great teacher and a parent and everything that you've done for a ton of kids, especially me. You changed my life."

Mr. Barone responds with humility, acknowledging the positive impact he's had on his students and the importance of maintaining strong teacher-student relationships.

John Barone [95:49]: "You can't treat every kid the same. You know that. But it's a great feeling to know."

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Notable Quotes

1. Joey Diaz [04:00]: "He used to give you oral book reports. But I'm happy because now I read because of him."
2. John Barone [14:23]: "I went up to him, right in his face, and I said, how could you cheat these kids?"
3. Joey Diaz [85:16]: "And Mr. Softie stopped coming to my neighborhood. No kids come out. Only me, my fat ass, my wife, and my daughter out there."
4. John Barone [93:17]: "Kids today are street smart. They might be even better than we were."
5. Joey Diaz [96:35]: "Mr. Barone, I want to thank you for taking the time. Thank you for being a great teacher and a parent and everything that you've done for a ton of kids, especially me. You changed my life."

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Final Thoughts

This episode serves as a poignant reminder of the critical role educators play in shaping future generations. Through candid storytelling and heartfelt reflections, Joey Diaz and Mr. John Barone provide listeners with an intimate glimpse into the enduring bond between teacher and student, the impact of mentorship, and the evolving challenges within the educational system.

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Disclaimer: This summary omits advertisements, intros, outros, and non-content sections to focus solely on the meaningful conversations and stories shared by Joey Diaz and Mr. John Barone.

Transcript

[Joey Diaz]

Greetings, you bad savages. It's Tuesday, the 26th of November. It's the church, the New Testament. Let's get this party started. The church New Testament is brought to you by Blue Chew. Listen, if you've been wondering if Blue Chew is all it's cracked up to be, the answer is yes. Bluechew is an online service that delivers ED meds right to your door with the same active ingredients as Viagra, Cialis, Levitra, but at a fraction of the cost. And you cannot go wrong. I love Blue Chew. You know, I'm old, but every once in a while, I get a little loving to me. And Bluetooth never lets me down. Don't miss out on the best sex ever. Blue Chew got you covered. You understand me? When they're laying there looking at you like, what the fuck just happened? That's you, Captain Bluetooth. Now, Bluetooth wants you to have the confidence to perform at your best. So, discovery [e-mail]. that's. Again, that's Bluetooth calm. And we've got a special deal for the church fans. You ready? Try Bluetooth for free. Just pay $5 shipping at [e-mail] Again, that's bluechew.com to receive your first month free. Visit bluechew.com for more details and important information. And I want to thank Bluechew for supporting the podcast. Turn off your TVs. Run for your lives. It's over. They didn't put you on this planet just to give up. If Uncle Joey could do it, I can rule the world. That's what you gotta be thinking.

[John Barone]

Welcome back to church.

[Joey Diaz]

What's happening, you savages? It's a beautiful day to be alive. We're back. Don't tell me the walls are bare. You know you need. Who gives a fuck? We're coming at you, and that's all that matters. As we build, we get prettier and prettier and prettier. All right, today my guest is. You know, Lee's always here. I can't get rid of him. He's like a fucking. He's like dog shit. He's everywhere. But my guest is somebody who's very special to me. I'm happy I got him on the podcast. I promised you real motherfuckers, and this is as real as it gets. Mr. John Barone, my seventh grade teacher. The second time. What's happening?

[John Barone]

Mr. Barone, you were much better after one year of practice.

[Joey Diaz]

Yes, I was a lot better. It was really amazing. You know, we're just talking about where you came from. And I always knew you had come from a different school. And then your first year there, I had Kingwell.

[John Barone]

Oh, he's bad news.

[Joey Diaz]

And he was. He was rough, this dude. He used to give you oral book reports. But I'm happy because now I read because of him.

[John Barone]

You know how he got in trouble? He. He broke a kid's arm just punching him. Because the kid, I forget his name. He walked up to Kingwell in the hall and he said, let's have a contest. So King will say, yeah, let's go. He said, let's see who could punch the easiest. So he goes, you go first, Mr. King. So King will goes like this to him. So now this kid says, now it's my turn. He. He hits him so hard, they heard it in the first room. All the way down the hall he went. He got so mad, ran after the kid and broke his arm with a punch. Says, kimmy, I gotta get even. And he broke his arm. He had a broken arm. Came into the couple days, couldn't move it for a year.

[Joey Diaz]

I started McKinley in the sixth grade, so I had Levito. But throughout that whole year, there was drama with Kingwell. There was always drama with him. I was not there the day Alex Carvajal's father, the beast, he said something to the kid's daughter. He said something to Martin Perez's sister, or something happened. She went home, told the father. Now, for anybody who doesn't know, I mean, I don't know if you ever heard him talking in your house. Alex Carvajal, this was a different type of animal. His father used to stand on 26th street with a big Cuban cigar on the corner. Tremendous, great family. Maria, I still see them, right? Maria was in our class, all of us. This fucking Mr. Carvajal had a quarter to three. All you hear is. And it's like, what's going on? Come in. And Mr. Carvajar comes in with the cigar with the big gold chain. He goes, I'm gonna do to you. What'd you do to my son? And they started fist fighting in the class. I mean, this was raw. So everybody. And he had another beef with somebody else. So this was the reputation he had at that school.

[John Barone]

I got one more thing about him.

[Joey Diaz]

Go ahead.

[John Barone]

He drove a kid crazy. And like, on him, on him, on him. The kid said, I'm going to get my uncle after you. So he says, get your uncle and bring him in here. Sure enough, a week or so goes by, there's a Marine in the hallway one day. You know how our hallway was. So I. Can I help you? He goes, yeah, I'm looking for a king. Well, I said, he's in everyone next to me. Because I knew he was going to kill him. All you heard. All you heard was, like, when you get punched in the teeth, that he knocked three of his teeth out.

[Lee]

Was he wearing the Marine's outfit?

[John Barone]

He had his Marine teeth. I said, like, what is this guy doing here? But then Kingwald didn't talk to me for months because why did you tell him I was next door? I said, because you're always. I felt like saying, because you're always bullying kids, you deserve something like that.

[Joey Diaz]

He did something. Remember his. My seventh grade year, he ripped his Achilles tendon. So we got Mr. Miss for a while and that's what was pretty fucking cool. Mr. Miss was a good looking motherfucker. He looked like Robert Redford. So whenever he taught, the girls would fucking be like, all fucked up in the seventh grade. Big old white yoked motherfucker. But then I still remember, you know, McKinley was buck wild. And it wasn't buck wild in comparison to Horace Mann Lincoln. I remember you used to always say, the kids at Lincoln, they bring them to the games with chains on. I used to fucking die. You know, they were throwing sinks one year out the third floor. So that's it. They got like, tortured after that. Lincoln School, Kennedy School was buckwild with Colangelo and all those guys. Every school in the system had like this weird thing. When I went to McKinley the first year, it was okay. Like, here's the funny thing. Ms. Brando was pregnant.

[John Barone]

It was the art teacher.

[Joey Diaz]

The art teacher in the sixth grade. But I had the biggest crush on Ms. Brando. So I grabbed her tit one day in the sixth grade art closet. And she's like, what the fuck are you doing? And I was so in love with Ms. Brando all the way till high school. Every time I saw her, I just grabbed the tit out of principal. And she go, joey, what the fuck is wrong with you? Coco? Yeah, this is McKinley in the sixth grade.

[Lee]

You realize if one of these things happened now, the entire, like, school district would be shut down.

[Joey Diaz]

Oh, they'll shut it down anyway. Who gives a fuck?

[John Barone]

He did shit. Something like that. Every week.

[Joey Diaz]

Every fucking week. We were torturing people.

[Lee]

And the principal didn't get in trouble.

[John Barone]

And they write a book.

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah, you have to.

[John Barone]

I might write a book for nine years.

[Joey Diaz]

Listen, man, do you remember the pilot program? You were very Vocal about the pilot program. Pilot program back then was when you hit 16 and you were still in the seventh grade.

[Lee]

I love that it happened so frequently.

[Joey Diaz]

You became a sophomore automatically. The next year. It was called a pilot program. But Mr. Braun goes, you see these kids, they drive to school, they got hair on their legs. He goes, I seen the one guy, he had a kid in the back. It was this kid, fucking hysterical. This is fucking. You can't write this shit, guys. So I had Kingwell, and then I got caught playing hooky with a girl. You remember her? New Yorker? And then I failed, like, two classes. So I had to go to summer school for geography, which I fucking hated, and math, and I went to summer school. But before you leave for summer school, you're supposed to go to the class you're supposed to be in the next year, okay? So if you're in the seventh grade, you sit with your teacher in the morning. And then in the afternoon at 12, you go to your class and you meet your teacher and he tells you, what's going to happen in the summer. What do you expect from your next year? So they didn't send me to the eighth grade. They sent me to Mr. Barone's class. And Mr. Barone started fucking torturing me. I'm gonna have you sit up front because you're definitely gonna fail. You're a fucking loser. You're a mook. And I'm like, this guy's trying to.

[John Barone]

You actually did.

[Joey Diaz]

Well, no, but that's what it was with you. But this is how we met. So he pissed me off so much that I stole his fucking car keys, right? He had the Toyota hatchback.

[John Barone]

Threw him in a dumpster.

[Joey Diaz]

I threw him in the dumpster. I'm home an hour later. We're about to go play basketball and shit, and I see a fucking Toyota coming around the block. You fucking took my keys, yelling, the whole thing. And I'm like, I'm dead. I'm dead. They're never gonna like me ever again. So I go to summer school, I play hooky. Mr. Dalton pulls me aside and he goes, listen, don't come back no more. Just have Carmine call the school and we'll push up to the eighth grade. That didn't happen. And in my mind, how retarded was I that I thought Carmine was gonna actually call the school and just promote me? Cause I'm fucking his friend. So the first day of fucking seventh grade, I'm marching into the eighth grade, and I go, carmine called. They're like, nobody fucking Call. So they put me in his class now. I thought he was gonna torture me. Guys was completely different. It was amazing. It's like he had forgotten it. But then he talked about the Jimmy Pearce. Because we have all these Red Sox fans here. He told the story about Jimmy Pierce. Fierce strikes out.

[John Barone]

Jimmy Pierce.

[Joey Diaz]

Look at that. That's how good of a teacher. I still remember this shit. And all the Boston fans here. You know who Jimmy Pierce all is?

[Lee]

I've heard the name of it all.

[Joey Diaz]

Go fuck yourself. How about you over there? Go fuck yourself.

[John Barone]

When he used to go to the outfield, they used to jump out of the stands and fight them.

[Lee]

Jesus Christ.

[John Barone]

Everybody hated the guy too. Cause he was crazy. He hit a homer and he ran around the bases backwards during a game. Yeah, he hit a home run and he turned around and walked. It took him like three minutes to go around the bases.

[Lee]

Hysterical.

[John Barone]

And I have another Kingwell story.

[Lee]

Is he still alive? Are we gonna have to.

[Joey Diaz]

He's in Florida. He's in Florida. Florida. I heard maybe. Maybe he's in Florida. And Tampa.

[John Barone]

Five Corners there.

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah, there was a bakery. Yes.

[John Barone]

That was his dad who owned the bakery. He used to go eat there every day.

[Joey Diaz]

I never knew that.

[John Barone]

Yeah, it was on the. You know, it was. If you're going Liberty towards school, it was on that first corner. Bakery.

[Joey Diaz]

Wow. I didn't know that. I forget the name of that bakery.

[John Barone]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

Five Corners there. They had the.

[John Barone]

It was a candy store.

[Joey Diaz]

A candy store. The Sugar bowl candy store. The bank. The stereo store where you bought stereos and washer and dryers. I don't know what was on the other corner. I know Mr. Biggson's in the middle. The hair dryer place. The women's haircut in place. Frank the barber. But it was. You spoke about Jimmy Pearsall. And you cracked a joke that they had him in a padded room. And you fucking killed us. You were killing us. That they got him in a room and they tied him up and he ran around the bases backwards. And it was a different approach to teaching. I had been a Catholic school. And then I had fucking Lovito, who was a great teacher also. And then Kingwell was just. You know. Kingwell meant well. Do you know what I'm saying? King?

[John Barone]

In my home room, we used to play volleyball at lunchtime.

[Joey Diaz]

Yes.

[John Barone]

Remember?

[Joey Diaz]

Yes.

[John Barone]

The only reason why I played. I tried to knock his wig off.

[Joey Diaz]

Levito. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[John Barone]

And once. The kids. Once I did it once. One time I hit him square in the head. The Ball and his. The kids went nuts. So I wanted to keep doing it. I never. I was never able to do it.

[Lee]

Wait, are you saying volleyball or dodgeball?

[Joey Diaz]

Volleyball. Volleyball.

[Lee]

Okay.

[Joey Diaz]

The year that I got. The year that I got the McKinley, I was on the up and up. And like, the first month, somebody put acid in Mr. Agresta's coffee in the morning. And at lunchtime, he never came back. You know what, Mr. Agresta, Ms. Lovito came to a show of mine in Point Pleasant. And I go, Mr. Levito, remember when Eddie Lamenta put the fucking acid in his coffee? He goes, ask him. He's here with us.

[John Barone]

I had a big argument with him. Mr. Grestin, on Fridays, let all the kids buy bagels on Friday.

[Joey Diaz]

Who? Libido Lovito.

[John Barone]

Every Friday, if you were in his class, you could buy a bagel. So now a couple of weeks went by, and I said, I can't believe he's doing this for the kids. He don't do nothing for kids. Very. You know. So I said to the kid, how much do you pay for the bagels? He goes, here, he's got a menu. He gives it to me. When I look at the menu, he was added on every bagel. You know what I'm saying?

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah.

[John Barone]

In other words, he knew the price, so he made up his own menu. But he added 50 cents on each bagel.

[Lee]

I love it.

[John Barone]

I went up to him, right in his face, and I said, how could you cheat these kids? Don't see 50 cents any week and you're getting two bagels from them. What a group of teachers we had in that place, dog.

[Joey Diaz]

It was. I will tell you who else I met, dad, that I still think about it all the time. She was the best lunch lady, Mrs. Sabatino.

[John Barone]

Yes.

[Joey Diaz]

She was gold, man, gold. She always gave me that extra oatmeal cookie that Mako made because Mako used to make those at home. Those oatmeal cookies, Fucking tremendous. But since you're talking about volleyball, this is how crazy McKinley is.

[John Barone]

He had some crazy principles, too.

[Joey Diaz]

Oh, yeah? Yeah. I seen Leo Gattoni get hit in the head by Louis Zaldivar in the basement. But this was the classic. This is the classic North Bergen McKinley story. We got a gym teacher called Mr. Turtorro.

[John Barone]

Oh, that guy was a little crazy.

[Joey Diaz]

And we're playing volleyball. We're playing kickball outside. It's the seventh grade against the seventh grade. I don't know what the fuck it was, but we're all playing now. Every Time I go to kick the ball, the Italian kids are going, coco car moco, right? They're just yelling, coco car moco. And Mr. Tatore saying, hey, knock it off with that shit. And the kids kept saying it. The mainly Anthony Balzano. So this motherfucker has the balls to go up to Anthony and say, say it one more fucking time. And Anthony goes, coco Kareemoco. He grabbed Anthony. Martin Perez went to jump in, he grabbed Martin, and then I had him from the back, and he banged their heads, and he grabbed me, and he banged our heads. Fucking Anthony said, fuck you. Blah, blah, blah. This is in the morning. I still remember that I had a Pete Rose jacket. And you told me Pete Rose was Cuban. I almost jumped off a fucking bridge. And I asked him, I go, how do you know? And he goes, I saw him on TV with Kindest Corner, and he was talking like he had a stomach problem. He was speaking Spanish. I was fucking dying. I was fucking dying, right? So I got this little faggy Cincinnati 14 jacket with the. And we're outside, and all of a sudden we're headed to the principal's office. But Anthony breaks away from him and goes, fuck you. I'm calling my father. I'm calling my father. He goes upstairs. Walt's sitting in the principal's office. He asks the lady, can I get a piece of paper? Lady gives him a white piece of paper. Anthony starts doing this shit. And he puts all his hair on a paper. And then he goes, take your hair, shake it in there. And when Carmine walks in, like, he called Carmine. There was a pay phone in there in the principal's office. Then there was a little pay phone. He called him, dad, I don't know what's going on, dog. It must have been eight minutes later, you heard the walkie talkies through the hallway. And it was Carmine with another cop, you know, with a uniform. And they're like, what's going on? Nothing. So he goes downstairs, Carmine comes in, he asks Anthony what happened. Anthony told him. He goes, shut up, Anthony Cocoarini, what happened? And I'm like, dog, what? Anthony said, the guy hit us. We were just talking Spanish. He goes, nobody cursed at him? No Mr. Matash, you know, you had him. Yeah, I had Mr. Mustache.

[John Barone]

How he died. How One day he says, I won't be in for two days. I says, why? He's all this snow. I'm going to my house down the shore and I'm going to shovel the snow. People are complaining, of course, but that was like snowstorm. So he Went down there. He never comes back the next day. So everybody's worrying, worrying. He froze doing it and died. Took a heart attack. They found him frozen in the snow with his shovel. I told him, call somebody and pay him. He wouldn't do it.

[Joey Diaz]

Did you feel guilty because you used to call him George Jetson?

[John Barone]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

Remember he had like a George Jetson hairdo?

[John Barone]

He remembers that.

[Joey Diaz]

Come on, dog.

[John Barone]

I forgot about it.

[Joey Diaz]

You used to call him George Jetson. All fucking George Jetson, bothering me. So we open the office, and Carmine's got the walkie talkie. I'll never forget that walkie talkie. And he's like, Listen, Mr. Mustard, I just want to talk to him to see if my son was wrong. He doesn't want to come out. He's scared. The guy opened the door like fucking Cato, like in the Pink Panther. When he would open up the door, hello. You know, that type of. Carmine had a gorilla hand. Carmine had the biggest prosciutto hams you ever saw. He just grabbed this guy, took him out and started pouncing them guys. And we're like, what the fuck is going on? And he just started punching him. The guy dropped and he goes, come on, everybody's going home. That was it. We went home, we came back, and Mr. Toro's gone. I never saw him again. I walk into the high school, two years later, I'm in his fucking homeroom. And he comes up to me, he goes, cocourini. If you don't want to show, don't worry about it.

[John Barone]

Kingwell thing.

[Joey Diaz]

I don't remember the Carmine Kingwell thing.

[John Barone]

He's having. He's got. His son's got spelling with Kingwell, now the kids fail in spelling. He's getting like he's failing every test. The kid comes in my room and he show. I go, let me see one of your tests. Look at one of the tests. King Wall was giving them 20 words, but he was taking 10 off for every one they got wrong. So nobody noticed it but me. I said, that means if the kid got on the mall right, you gotta give him 200. If it's 20, all for each. Sure enough, the father found out. This kid goes home, tells Carmine, my Mr. Barone said, he's cheating. That's why I'm failing. He came in and I was called to the office. And the first thing Gattoni says is, will you take him in your spelling class? Because I want to switch him to you, so of course I'll take him. Now. He says to King, well, You ever do anything to my son again, I'll blow your head off in front of everybody. There was six people in the room. You can't do that. Think about it.

[Lee]

You don't have to think about it.

[Joey Diaz]

He did it.

[John Barone]

He got away.

[Joey Diaz]

Oh, no, no. He couldn't do that to the kids.

[John Barone]

But he was doing that for, like.

[Joey Diaz]

Probably when I was there. Yeah, he'd had something kinky because he would give you, like, a minus 40 and like that, and look at you with a straight face, and you're like, what? There were so many kids in that class that were so fucking confused. But that whole era when you taught us.

[John Barone]

I didn't know you had Metis. He was.

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah. And then George Jensen. We didn't. We couldn't find a basketball coach. And we kept talking about it. We knew nothing about his fucking background. We're just like, you know. And one day he goes. I go by the courts, this fucking guy starts popping dirty footers without even looking at the basket. And we're like, who the fuck is this guy? And he goes, who the fuck am I? I'll tell you. I'm in the hall of fame, in the job. I'm like, oh, here we go. He's blowing smoke up. This guy came with pictures. The Miami Floridians, the aba. And we were like, no. And I remember showing up at his house one day. Like, we used to get off at 1 on Fridays, and I took my fucking bike and I went up there and I go, you know, I want to learn how to shoot. And he broke it down for me, man. How to fucking drop your wrist. He would make me shoot close to the basket. Your brother Joe used to come out. I still remember getting tackled by Joe, jump on that block. He fucking tackled me one day playing basketball, you know, it was amazing. I went from fucking sucking. McKinley went from 07. He turned that whole team around. Chuck McBreen was taking pointers from him. I mean, he just got the fucking ceremony at his Ramapo College. Jim got named after him. These are all the guys that you touched. You know, there was a bunch of us that you were like, it was just amazing. And then after that, you were the favorite teacher in the school. And then we went to the eighth grade, and I had Ms. Walsh, and the other guy was Ms. Verga. But Ms. Virga, you wouldn't say, give me.

[John Barone]

I was asking her, could you switch? I'll give you two girls for Coco. She wouldn't switch. You.

[Joey Diaz]

I like Ms. Walsh. We talk, we drove. She told us she Goes, I've been here for 40 years. Nobody has ever broke me. We broke her. Don't fucking. You know. We used to go to Shoprite and steal Hubba Bubba and fucking 10 packs apiece and going to class. And we had Orlando Salcedo, God rest his soul. He died during COVID And about 1:30 he would start, wow, wow. And then we had an Italian kid, Michael Allegretta, off the fucking chain, Smart. And we'd hit him in the head. We played hockey. We hit him in the heels with the hockey stick. And he'd go, aye, aye, aye, aye. That motherfucker's gotta be like a neurosurgeon today or something like that. We had Charlie Gizzi.

[John Barone]

I remember him.

[Joey Diaz]

The guy who used to. Every time a plane went by, he'd get up and shoot it down. He was gone during the class. We had Richie Colombo, Mr. Barone. He used to comb his hair a certain way. Like, I don't know, he didn't have a blow dryer or they didn't have water or something. He used to take the comb pocket through the middle and just push his hair down. And one day they're in attendance. Mr. Brome goes, Columbo. What'd you call me? Yeah. With a stick of dynamite. That motherfucker didn't know what. He was just cracking people. And that's. Attendance was the biggest thing in North Bergen. But some people did it lame. And some people did it pretty good. But today I knew that there was something weird about us. That something was not right.

[John Barone]

You know what's sad, though? Teachers today can't do it.

[Joey Diaz]

No. They don't do what you did.

[John Barone]

Got arrested and fined if. If the teacher ever did what I did with the kids. Nothing was bad.

[Joey Diaz]

Nothing was bad.

[John Barone]

But it was fun. It was fun getting along with all of them. Because once they left my room, they weren't the same.

[Lee]

Even just the. The haircut thing would have been enough.

[John Barone]

The haircut thing would have got you hall of Fames. That did it. That did it. I'm in the high school. My high school one, where I played. I'm in the North Berger one for coaching 30 years. I'm in the Hudson county one, and my ball's in the real Hudson county because I got all the free throw records in the one in Springfield, right?

[Joey Diaz]

Nobody has touched your record?

[John Barone]

I think so.

[Joey Diaz]

Really? Somebody broke 74 when I checked it.

[John Barone]

Sometimes it says it's still going. Some people. Sometimes it says it's not. So they don't know what they're doing either. But they didn't realize once they left, people would say it. They would come in my room and go like this to me. Because they saw these guys being good. Like, how did you do that? You got to be nice to them.

[Joey Diaz]

I still remember they had that glue. Not Hellman's, not the fucking white stuff, but no, not cement. The cement glue. And I'll never forget, we're sitting in the front row and Mr. Braun's playing with it, playing with it, playing with it. And all of a sudden he looks at me, goes, what's this remind you of? And I fucking lost it. I had just seen it for. I had just come maybe two weeks before that. So I'm fucking dying. I'm like, ah, he still got it.

[John Barone]

Mr. Barone, if I didn't know your name, I called you Wolfgang.

[Joey Diaz]

Wolfgang.

[John Barone]

Do you know how many people I see today? I'm in a shop, right? A guy go, oh, Wolfgang, they call me.

[Lee]

And this is way before Wolfgang Pug. Like, where did you come up with Wolfgang?

[Joey Diaz]

It's just that name, that was Eddie Munster's. Something that just got me. Who.

[John Barone]

That just got me. Wolfgang.

[Joey Diaz]

Wolfgang. Hold on.

[Lee]

And this might be the wildest start to a podcast we've ever had. We barely introduced him. And we're talking like, how old were you at this point, do you think?

[John Barone]

When I started. When you had Joey, when I started, 22.

[Joey Diaz]

I don't think your daughters were born, huh? No, no, no.

[John Barone]

They were born while I was there.

[Joey Diaz]

And Patty was a knockout. I remember the first time I saw your wife, I'm like, holy, Mr. Brown got it going on. And holy. She was good looking.

[Lee]

And like, what? So you knew. It sounds like you knew. Like you'd heard of Joey when he was coming to your class for seventh grade the second time, like, you, like, did the other teacher warn you?

[Joey Diaz]

King will.

[John Barone]

We got along, but I was strict with him. The first time he was in my class, did you have.

[Lee]

What did King Will tell you about him, huh?

[John Barone]

What did you.

[Lee]

What have you heard about Joey before you met him?

[John Barone]

Kingwell hated everybody.

[Joey Diaz]

Everybody.

[John Barone]

So I could, like, if he was normal, I could say, yeah, I remember him saying so. He hated everybody, had every nationality and I don't know what. He was German.

[Joey Diaz]

Yes, he was German.

[John Barone]

He was German. He hated everybody. He hated the teachers. He hated. One time Maytash says to me, want to play a little, what do you call it?

[Joey Diaz]

Poker on the board.

[Lee]

Backhand.

[John Barone]

In the gym, we used to set the table up and we used to play And I can't think of.

[Joey Diaz]

I don't know what the fuck.

[John Barone]

Table tennis.

[Joey Diaz]

Table tennis.

[John Barone]

Okay, so now, King, he said to me, matish, come on, I'll have your game. So Kingwell hears him, and he comes up to me. He says, I want to play him. I said, he asked me to play him. He goes, no, I want to hit that ball and cream him with it. So I said, yeah, go ahead. I want to see him do it. Do you know, God heard that Matash could have won a gold medal in the Olympics? He killed Kingwell. And what Kingell wanted to do with him, he had a black eye, and everybody laughed at every game he lost. It was like a reward. So I said to Matash, I said, where did you learn how to do that? He says, well, that's the three years I was going to be a priest. He said, that's all we did, the priest. We had a table and we played tennis for, like, 10 years. He did that. Played every day. The poor guy had to die shoveling.

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah, because I think I only had him. We had gatoni and then made. No, I first started with the king. Mr. Muir.

[John Barone]

Jack, I miss him.

[Joey Diaz]

Come on, now.

[John Barone]

When I went there.

[Joey Diaz]

Come on, now.

[John Barone]

Tommy Muir.

[Joey Diaz]

Mr. Muir. He was just abandoning ship when I got. Damn it. And then we had Virgo left, and then Mr. Lindsay replaced him, who was. Yeah, he's coming on the show. Yeah, he's coming on the show in a couple. When he comes up from Florida, because.

[John Barone]

I grew up with him in Hoboken. He lived right across, right around the corner from me. He comes up to me one day and he says, you work in the summer. Do they give you a job? I don't know. He goes, I'll give you a job. Come. Come to Weehawken Municipal. I go there and he says. I go, what am I going to do? Did you know Turk? Do you know Turk Jordan?

[Joey Diaz]

Oh, we'll get into Turk Jordan in a second, okay?

[John Barone]

He said, here's your job, John. See that guy over there with the wig? I go, yeah, He's. He's crazy. He goes, yeah, I want you to work with him. Do whatever he does. And I. And if you. If I only lose 10 votes a day, you're doing a great job. He. He. He's crazy, that guy.

[Joey Diaz]

Who, Turk or Wally Turn, bro.

[John Barone]

He's a crazy. I'm from Hoboken. You know how many nuts I know from Hoboken? He was worse than all of them.

[Joey Diaz]

Okay? He was going to coach us in the eighth Grade for a while. He showed up, he had felonies, he couldn't do it. Something happened, you know.

[Lee]

Hey, when that happened.

[Joey Diaz]

So we kept busting his chops. He's like, I'm going out tonight. Because we're in the fucking eighth grade, seventh grade. This guy's like, I'm going out tonight. I'm getting my dick sucked and all this shit. So in the eighth grade, we finally go, Mr. Turk, when are you going to get us? Because we already had an adventure with him in the city. He took us to see the Sixes against the Knicks on Christmas Day. He told us he had tickets. The day of the dog, the day of the fucking game, we get them. He goes, I got no tickets. We're stubbing our way in. Give me $5 a piece. He took us into the nick game. We're like little fags. We had the basketballs and the Knick T shirts and shit, you know. And this guy's got us all the way in the top. Some guy kept walking past with his family. He grabbed me. He goes, get up one more time, I'll fucking kill you. Then they threw us out of there. Then he went to another area and the guy was getting up and he told him, you could have got more exercise at the ymca. Then they threw us out of that section. Now there's three minutes left. This guy bet the loser because he's a fucking stiff, but I loved him. And some guy goes, he's on the floor. And some guy goes, can you move, please? Ask Whitey. It was me, Whitey, Chuckie and somebody else. And he tapped him. He turned around, he grabbed the guy's wrist and he started, ah. And the guy's like, ah. And we just left him. We just ran out of there, ran to the Port Authority. So he asked us what happened. We're like, turk, listen, if we have a winning record, can you get us laid? And he goes, absolutely, I'll get you laid. Okay, Eighth grade, summer, I go to five star basketball camp. I don't graduate because there was a huge snow week. There was like 18 inches of snow every two weeks. So we were closed for a week. When I come back from Five Star, I get a call from one day. It's like, July 8th, he's gone. And he's like, in lunchtime. I just happen to be home. Hello. Go, go. Kirk Jordan here. You're going to be at the 38th street courts a little while ago. Yeah, all of us, we're going to play right now. He goes, I'm Bringing you down some presents. Now, I had forgotten about the lady. I had forgotten all about that. He was going to get us laid. I thought he was bringing his basketball shirt. Sure enough, we're on 38th Street. Running back and forth, he pulls up with a fucking Cadillac. And he's like, guys, Lincoln, A Lincoln.

[John Barone]

Continental, something, an old one.

[Joey Diaz]

A fucking huge car. And he goes, guys, I got something for you. I'll never forget the way he rubbed his hands. He goes, come here. And the backseat was a chick laying there with her shirt ripped and her tit sticking out. And he's like, there you go. I brought you a girl. And we all looked at each other like, we gotta go home and study for next year. Everybody here's fucking 13 year old kids that wanna get laid. We'd do anything to get our dicks up. When you're 13. When we saw the chick in the back, she looked like. I don't even know. Let's not even get into it because we'll all get arrested on this.

[John Barone]

He was my boss on for Lindsay.

[Joey Diaz]

He's still around?

[John Barone]

No, he died.

[Joey Diaz]

When?

[John Barone]

He just died.

[Joey Diaz]

Because when I got here, they said he was on Kennedy Boulevard. He takes the chain, the change out of the. Out of the newspaper things.

[John Barone]

He owned all them.

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah.

[John Barone]

So he had the kids that are working for us, they used to have to go and get all the quarters.

[Joey Diaz]

There you go.

[John Barone]

One day I use his car and I notice it's like I'm looking this way. So I get out, I open up the trunk. He's got $9,000 in quarters.

[Joey Diaz]

And the trunk would sag.

[John Barone]

And the thing was like this, the car, I'm driving it. He was the unbelievable guy. And I'm telling you, I know a lot of nuts in Hobo Doug.

[Joey Diaz]

When he showed up with that woman and she had those fake tits like from George Washington's day, like that type of shit. They were hard. Only one tit was sticking out. God knows what happened to the other one. I do not want to know. But during all this, and this is why Louie. I'm still tight with Louie. I'm still tight with Dave. I'm still tight with Chuckie. Our friendship didn't come from just being in North Bergen. Our friendship came because all these kids had something going on in their house.

[John Barone]

It's funny how it mixes too.

[Joey Diaz]

All of us. All of us. I still remember going home, bro. I still remember walking home in the seventh grade with Anthony Balzano. He couldn't go home. The feds had the house fucking surrounded they were whipping out machine guns and shit. That was our neighborhood. Michael Clemens won't talk to me no more because Carmine beat him up, handcuffed him and beat him up on giving that terrorist. And he was yelling fucking police brutality and fucking. I mean, this neighborhood was. You know, it just was going on. It was fucking going on. We were. Every night we ripped that fucking pay phone off the fire department phone. We rip it and the cops would chase us. Who does this anymore? We used to run across tunnelly. I mean, the shit.

[John Barone]

I go to work one day and he says, you can go home. You don't have to work today. I said, why am I going home? He goes, because tonight we gotta take two busloads to the Yankee game. I said, oh, that's nice. We get there at night, two, all parents and kids and beautiful. They all got their uniforms on and penance. Everything's going perfect, okay? We pull up Yankee Stadium. The guy with the clipboards there, and he says, open. Where you from? He goes, wee Hawk and wreck. So the guy looks at his. He looks at the thing. He says, I don't have no Wee Hawking wreck on here. So I go turn. Did you get the tickets from the. From this thing? He goes, no. Don't say nothing. Sure. He don't say nothing. The cop arrests him. I gotta bail him out. They figured he. This guy's crazy. And another time I bailed him out in the track. He says to me, you got any money? He calls me up, you got any money? I said, yeah, why? He goes, I'm picking you up. He picks me up. There's a guy sitting in the backseat. We're going to the track, the Meadowlands. So we drive into the Meadowlands, and all of a sudden we get out. He says, bet it all on the seven. The guy leaves us. He says, better. All on the seven. So I look at the horse. This is all fucking. They're going to make glue out of this horse. I'd say he ain't going to win. He says, you know who the driver is? The guy that was in the back seat.

[Joey Diaz]

I gotta take a breather real quick and read an ad. We'll be right back. All right. The church is also brought to you by Mint Mobile. Listen, when it comes to phone service, Mint Mobile has to hit the jackpot. You're gonna be saving tons of money with premium wireless that only cost 15amonth. All plans come with high speed data and a limited talk and text. It's all delivered in the nation's largest 5G network. I love Mint Mobile. Keep you the same phone, keep your same number and keep all your contacts. Jack. The only thing that's going to change is the change in your pocket. And you save a little money every month to get the new customer offer. And your three month premium wireless plan for 15 bucks a month go to mintmobile.com Diaz Diaz again mint mobile.com Diaz cut your wireless built to $15 a month with mint mobile.com Diaz Diaz $45 upfront payment required. Equivalent to 15amonth new customers on a first three month plan only. Speed slower above 4 GB on unlimited plan on additional taxes. Fees and restrictions apply. See Mint Mobile for all the details. We're back, bitches. You know, so I had you in the seventh grade, and then I went to Ethel Walsh's class. But the eighth grade, we had Mr. Lindsay and he took us. He took us to the fucking Philadelphia. They took us to Philly to see the.

[John Barone]

You going to Washington?

[Joey Diaz]

No, we didn't go to D.C. he.

[John Barone]

Took us to Washington too.

[Joey Diaz]

No, he took us our year. They were a little scared with us, all right, so they took us to see the P. Knuckle. What is that? The something. The guy with the fucking sticks. Whatever. They took us to this beautiful thing in Philadelphia, which I'll be at Wednesday night. And we started shooting paperclips at the guys on stage. And they fucking threw us out of there. We went to Betsy Ross's house. They were mad at us. But then they stopped at Hiram's and Callahan's and got us all that shit. And we came back and we were all just playing basketball at that time. And I'll never forget that I went to the courts like any other night. And at 6 o'clock, Marianne said, coco Anthony, come and eat. And I go, my mom's cooking. I can't go over there tonight. And I went home. And that night I didn't go out. Like, I just stayed in. And next morning we went to school. And you took me in the hallway and said, you hear about Anthony, got into an accident, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So this is our eighth grade year. Like, this fucking winded me. It winded me, you know, I still remember the parents being on Saturday Night Live. Carmine and Marianne, during Saturday Night Live, they cut in because they were begging for a doctor to help their kid and shit. I mean, it was fucking real, guys, you know? And that was the beginning of our eighth grade. And till this day, there's a sadness down there still because we lost Dominic two years later. And my Mom a year later, which is all in the same. We all ran together, these kids, you know. But it was really weird. What was your last year at McKinley?

[John Barone]

When I was at 81 and you.

[Joey Diaz]

Were in high school.

[John Barone]

And I was in high school more than I was at McKinley. Yeah. So you figure I was there about 20 years.

[Joey Diaz]

At the high school?

[John Barone]

No, at McKinley.

[Joey Diaz]

Really.

[John Barone]

And then I went to the high.

[Joey Diaz]

School for the rest because I spent.

[John Barone]

That one year in Horace Mann that they said, you three guys, Sperber used to buy lunch every day. And I used to say, what are you getting this money? We used to go to a place every day, Mayhem. And Gallo ordered nice, nice lunch. There was a bar right now, like My lady of Fatima. It's a doctor's office now over there.

[Joey Diaz]

Okay.

[John Barone]

But anyway, we went to that bar every day, had lunch, steak sandwiches, whatever. And give me that check, Sperber. So I said, how are you getting all this money? Where are you getting all this money? He goes, hey, I love you. And Jimmy, I'm so happy you're here because he was there a year ahead of us. Ahead of us. So sure enough, one day, a girl comes in the room. We're collecting for Biafra. That was a country in Africa that you give. They would get raise money and send it to them. So I'm saying, and who sent you down here? She said, sperver. Then it hit me because he came. The girl came in every day for like three months. And we were eating every day with the money that everybody was throwing in the thing, who knew who. I said, you're stupid. We're going to get fired. I said, they find out. He goes, it's on me. You're not going to get fired. I says, well, because I'll squeal on you. I'm not going to get. I'm not worried about it. But you just got to stop.

[Joey Diaz]

You know, I was telling Nick Ask Lease that when we went to school, they just weren't teachers, you know, I always said that we get to school at nine and we're there till six till three. And sometimes if you play sports, you're there till five. You're longer, you're there with them longer than where you really are with your parents in those days, you know, unless your mother stayed home, which a lot of moms did. But, you know, we goof around here. We tell a lot of stories. I still remember the night my mother died, that the ambulance came at like 3:30, and I just sat there and within fucking 30 minutes, I saw a cop car coming up the block, and it was Carmine, because he didn't sleep at night. He would sleep on the couch, listen to the police scanner with the gun, ready to shoot somebody, right? So he came and me, him and Pete went to breakfast in that diner on Tungley Avenue, Conlin's Diner. And then I go, what am I gonna do? And Pete goes, I'm going to school. I go, take me up to high school. And like an hour later, I get a fucking thing. Jose, come to the class. And there's Mr. Barone. He goes, your mother died. What are you doing in school? Let me drive you home. And I'll never forget that. This is the shit that we goof around and we tell these fucking stories and stuff. Now, when did you become the JV coach?

[John Barone]

My first. My, let's see, my second.

[Joey Diaz]

78 or 9? 80. No, it had to be before 79.

[John Barone]

No, no, because I ran the. The grammar school league for two years, and I started teaching at 75. I started. My first year was 75. So you figured I would say the low 80s.

[Joey Diaz]

Okay.

[John Barone]

I started with JV.

[Joey Diaz]

Now, do you remember the ref with the glass eye?

[John Barone]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

What was his name? It's in the tip of my tongue. I was just thinking about it in the bathroom. He had a picture of it.

[John Barone]

He was a substitute teacher.

[Joey Diaz]

He was a substitute teacher, but he was also the one ref that coached, you know, Coach Direct Franklin.

[John Barone]

You know why he. They stopped him from coming to school? Because he was taking care of my class. You weren't in it. And he said to the kids, I'm going to the bathroom and I'm gonna keep my eye on you. He took. He took it out and put it on the desk. So when the kids told me and I told them, I said, went to the bathroom, he took his eye out. I don't want him in.

[Joey Diaz]

Doug, this is old school teaching, okay? They got to you. When the teacher takes his eye out and puts in the cloud gives you the Maluka look.

[John Barone]

Watching you.

[Joey Diaz]

I'll be watching you.

[Lee]

I gotta be honest, compared to breaking one of their arms and like, that's. This is pretty minor. Like, the eye thing, I kind of think is funny. The eye thing I like.

[Joey Diaz]

So.

[Lee]

But can we go back to him coming and getting you when your mom. Like that was.

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah, he came to get me and he drove me home. He told me to keep it together. And he just talked bear mountains.

[John Barone]

With that. With our group. With a group. With me.

[Joey Diaz]

No, no, no, no. I left. We went the great adventure 130 kids.

[John Barone]

We let you go out. They said, let them go out. The lady teaches. Leave the kids alone. I said, you better play games with them. No, let them go. There was bare mountains. I don't know where it is, but there's a forest all around it, okay? So it's time to go. It's time to go home. I say that certain people have clipboards. How many? Anybody missing? So they. I see them talking now. They turn around, they go, 62 kids are missing. I said, sick. How could you not notice that with the group? We only had 170 and 60 is missing. And you just find it out now. I was in charge of that trip. I almost killed the one lady.

[Joey Diaz]

All right?

[John Barone]

So you don't tell me 60. Because I knew all the while. But I figured they come back. They're not going to come back. We got home 8:30 at night. We were supposed to be home. The mothers were waiting 3:30 by school. We got home 8:30. By the time they all come back, girls had their pants ripped. I said, we're going to get in trouble for this one. Bear Mountains.

[Lee]

Was that the last time you went to Bear Mountain?

[John Barone]

I didn't want to go. Damn mountains.

[Joey Diaz]

You know, Mr. Brone, the ref's name? Because this is killing me. You got to love this one. The ref. No, the ref had a glass eye. So we're walking home in the eighth grade, and I'm walking home with Anthony Balzano. And he's pissed about something. And we're all walking home. Anthony Dominic. We're yelling and he goes, that fucking ref. He keeps calling files on me. And Anthony goes, that motherfucker, he's my cousin. We're like, what? What do you mean he's your fucking cousin? He goes, he's my cousin. He goes, I'm gonna go home and tell my father now. So we walk in his house, all fucking rushed up, and he's like, dad. And Mr. Balzano was eating, like with the thing with the thing on. And he goes, dad, that cousin. He had it. Cause he was their cousin. He was their cousin through marriage or something. The capitora. Capitora. There you go, Cap, Cap, Cap. So he goes, dad, Cap keeps calling files on me and Coco. You better talk to me. He goes, cousin Cap? He goes, yeah. He fucking gets up, he wipes his thing, fucking dials the number. Cap, let me talk to you about something. You wrecked the game with my son Anthony and Coco. You call a file number again, I'll fucking go down there and kill you. And he hung up the phone. We're playing Bandero and Composto. We're karate chopping them. They're like, foul, foul. And then we would. Cause he had a glass eye. So if you're on the right and your eye is fucking glass, how you call the foul? So we used to challenge him all the time. Challenge. No, you did not see that. You have a fucking left eye. That's glass. How did you see this thing here? And then that was it. I don't know what happened to that poor bastard.

[John Barone]

Remember Halner?

[Joey Diaz]

Who?

[John Barone]

Eddie Halner.

[Joey Diaz]

Coach? Ref?

[John Barone]

No, student. He was probably after you.

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah.

[John Barone]

His father knew. I said, we were having a cookie drive. So his father comes into my room, I'm in charge of it. And he says, you having a cookie drive here? Because I can get you bur's cookies. I said, how much? How many could you get us? A truckload. I said, get it, get it. So sure enough, truckload one day is backing into our parking lot.

[Joey Diaz]

You know that's McKinley. Yeah.

[John Barone]

You can't come in straight. The guy I go, he was. I tell the principal, we're getting a truckload of cookies. Everybody's happy, all the teachers, the ladies in the office. I go outside, the truck driver gets out of the thing, opens the truck and gives me like three bags. I said, what are you doing that for? He says, well, that's all you're getting. It says, ed Holdner gets the rest of these. They have an address that just used the school for them to give us the cookies. But he wanted to keep them all. They said, I must be your friend. I said, I don't know this guy. Kid goes to school here. That's why I believed him. Three boxes we got. The whole truck was full.

[Joey Diaz]

We built. They built the G. You know, that gym was built when we were in the eighth grade.

[John Barone]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

We got to play. I complained so much about that gym and out of everything.

[John Barone]

Why. Why did I complain? Where was our gym when it was snowing?

[Joey Diaz]

We shovel snow. And I got a D. No, but we were in. We were in the hallway, in the hallways. Yeah.

[John Barone]

Every day these kids bowled with bowling. I said, you can't have gym every day and do the same thing.

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah. And Mr. Fontana. We had. Mr. Fontana when I was there, used.

[John Barone]

To race and I'm trying to teach. It's the whole way to your classroom. So I went to Fishback and I gave it to him. I said, listen, I want to be transferred. He says, why? I said, they take gym all day. Remember? You get eight periods a day.

[Joey Diaz]

That's right.

[John Barone]

So I had to listen. I want to go. The kid wanted to go to bedroom. He gets trampled by a race. They're having like, races. So sure enough, he says, you know, you got some background. You got to help us. Maybe you can talk somebody into building us a gym. So I don't know anybody. But you use my name, I'll do whatever they want. I had to give a few clinics. I had crazy. I.

[Joey Diaz]

Everybody had to do gym. So for you kids at home, you're grateful. We had no. We had a shovel. Snow.

[John Barone]

How do you have a school with no gym?

[Joey Diaz]

I used to. I don't even know where we practiced basketball in those days. I forget.

[John Barone]

And then we had lunch where the kids are running back and forth.

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah, back and forth.

[John Barone]

There's a. Well, there's like a.

[Joey Diaz]

A little table on the side, a little edge.

[John Barone]

But there's kids eating. There's bowling and track games going on. And we're trying to teach in the classrooms.

[Joey Diaz]

And Richie Vaynerchuk would take nails and hit him in the thing upside down. So when you put your hand on the wood, the nail dog. That's cool. I was there one time with Richie Vaynerchuk and his father were talking to Kingwell, and Mr. Vaynerchuk had his hands like this. And Richie was standing right here. He had his little fucking glasses on, and he's looking at Kingwell. Yeah, yeah. And all of a sudden he just goes, bam. And fucking broke his glasses. Richie dropped. I mean, this was McKinley School. It was. But you gotta remember, that was everywhere at that time. Parents would knock you the fuck out, you know, anywhere, parents would knock and nobody would say jack shit.

[John Barone]

Parents are just clocking and they never complain to kids. You know what I mean? What about the cap? At the end of this thing that I just set up is a little room on the corner. Remember where you ate? Where they made the food?

[Joey Diaz]

Yes.

[John Barone]

As soon as you walk in the door.

[Joey Diaz]

Eddie Muntz's house. Yeah. And the walls were like this. Like this. And you walked in there. Yeah, this was real.

[John Barone]

And two ladies making lunch every day.

[Joey Diaz]

Fucking ham. One of those prison county lunches. The ham with the pasteurized cheese, with an apple. An orange drink of milk. And Mrs. Sabatino gave you a cookie to bail you out in case you didn't want the liverwurst sandwich. Who eats liverwurst in those fucking days? We used to go to the fucking York Hotel. That's where we went to lunch to fucking get The. And to look at the hookers. And we get. We put quarters in the machine and go back with potato chips, but. But nobody. This is. All goes together. We got the gym, right? And as they were building the gym, I went to school. And then there's cops everywhere. There's cops on the three that. Because we used to cross. We used to play basketball behind Center Ford.

[John Barone]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

North Bergen had those little courts there. 26th Street. Yeah, 26th street courts.

[John Barone]

They still play there when you go over the bridge.

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah, yeah.

[John Barone]

You'll be. You'll be. I went there one time. Somebody said, o'quaran's playing on the court. O'Coryn at that time, played for the North Carolina.

[Joey Diaz]

Carolina. Yeah.

[John Barone]

Played for the Nets, I think.

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah.

[John Barone]

He's playing in that court.

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah. They all played there.

[John Barone]

Yeah. And it was like, you know, 10 guys like him playing. That was about as long as this was it.

[Joey Diaz]

Even. Biggest. Yeah.

[John Barone]

Kim was about as long as this room.

[Lee]

How did you get a D in snow shoveling?

[Joey Diaz]

I didn't do the corners. You know what I'm saying? I just pushed this like that. But we finally got the gym, and as we were building the gym, they found a body across the street at the York.

[John Barone]

Iceman.

[Joey Diaz]

Iceman. Under the bed. He was alive. Whatever the. So we were having a problem getting a coach. I'm not going to go into this. We couldn't get a coach that could sign on. We had Pete Wolf, who could slam the ball, but that's it. We had a. And then some guy signed up, and he didn't like Spanish people, right? So I started dating his sister. Because if you're going to be a racist, you might as well not have a sister, because you never know what. So this goes on for a few months. She's older than me. She's a cheerleader at Sacred heart Academy on 16th street across from St. Michael. So I would have CYO and I'd walk home with her. One day we're walking home, and he caught us holding hands. And the next day, fucking all hell broke loose. So he, like, called me a spick. What are you doing? My sister, your dad, and all this shit. So I went home and I called Anthony Miles. Anthony's like, this motherfucker. We'll kill him tomorrow at lunch or whatever. I mean. Yeah. This is when we were nuts. Dominic Michael. A bunch of us were like, we're gonna hide in the gym and get him. The first day we hid in the gym, he never showed up. Second day we hid in the gym, he Never showed up. The third day we said, let's go get him in this fucking house. We went there. The house was already put up for sale, all right? That's how much they hated spicks. So that was the plan. We were gonna fucking drag him out to Route 3 and let them die out there because they blame it on whoever killed. We didn't know it was the Iceman. Whoever killed that person on Route 3, that was our fucking plan at that age. Like we were gonna hit him with hammers and shit and fucking. It's.

[John Barone]

I got. I made a deal with Holbeak. They had no coach after you. They had no coach. So I made a deal with Holbein. Remember Holby?

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah. The woman gym teacher.

[John Barone]

Huh? The girl, Patty. So I said, will you. Will you do me a favor? You like sports? I think you'd be perfect. You know the grammar school league that I run? She says, yes. I said, mckinley don't have a coach. I said, could you coach? He says, I'll coach if. If you practice with them. So I says, I got my team. How am I going to practice with your. With the. But we. We filled. I had to practice start a little later. And I gave them an hour and a half every day. Monday to Friday, they won the league. With this girl coaching them, they won the grammar school. That's the only year they haven't won anything. I think with. With Jose Castro, they won two once. Alex Alabaugh, they all played for us at the high school. That was a good group.

[Joey Diaz]

And then we had. And then they had a coach at Kennedy named Rugar, right?

[John Barone]

Larry Rugal.

[Joey Diaz]

Larry Rugar. And in the seventh grade, bro. His team was the state team.

[John Barone]

He made them wear suits to the game.

[Joey Diaz]

J. Kennedy School, he had Picket before.

[John Barone]

I win the league.

[Joey Diaz]

So he had Calandrillo, he had Pickenich down there. He had Cruz down there. And I'll never forget they played Horace, Man B. And they beat him by like 80 to 2. And Rugal was mad, so he made them go back to the gym and run with their hands up for a fucking whole practice. Rugal used to wear a suit. Rugal was a savage. Then he coached us somewhere. But I want to know one thing, Mr. Perrone. How the fuck were you on the bus with us in 1980 if you weren't coaching at the high school?

[John Barone]

Because I coached at the high school all the years I was at McKinley.

[Joey Diaz]

What were you coaching JV for? Say that's what it was.

[John Barone]

Okay, my first five years JV then when Cebelo died, right. You were waiting on Shave. Got the job.

[Joey Diaz]

I was his assistant.

[John Barone]

Assistant. So I think that was the longest stretch I. I coached. Then when Shave packed it in, I think I was 10 years head coach. You know, the school's 70 years old and we only had four coaches. You go to any other school in any other Sport, they got 15 coaches. It's something that. You know. When I played, when I coached my JV coach, Ralph in the wheelchair.

[Lee]

Wait, the JV coach was sitting in a wheelchair?

[John Barone]

He was paralyzed?

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah. He was a good dude. Ralph. Ralph Marino. God rest.

[John Barone]

He played baseball for me. I also coached the Bill Better Boys. Remember that?

[Joey Diaz]

Bill Better Boys.

[John Barone]

After high school.

[Joey Diaz]

Holy.

[John Barone]

Okay. I coached North Bergen for a couple of years. Ralph was on the team. He was a catcher. Okay? So sure enough, base hit man on second. The kid was the mayor of Union City's nephew. I never forget. He rounds her, and I said, there's going to be a collision. Marino, instead of just sweeping and tagging him, he put his head down and he got in the guy's way like this. And the guy ran him right over. He hits the ground. I run out to him. I said, he goes, Mr. Barone, I'm paralyzed. I said, no, you're not. You got a concussion. He was. He was paralyzed. He knew it.

[Joey Diaz]

What year was that?

[John Barone]

So now I go to see him in the hospital. When he's in the hospital, recuperating a year later, and he says, you want to do me a real good favor? I said, yeah, what? He says, he was on a table about that high, a bed or a table about. And they had a mattress on it. They were doing something to him to get exercise. First blood. So sure enough, he says, if you push this to that window and then push me, you could push me out the window. So you. Is this what you want? He says, I can't take it. Lost his fiance. He was all set to get married when he was playing baseball. That's after high school, that league.

[Joey Diaz]

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[John Barone]

1-800- gambler in Connecticut. Help is available for problem gambling. Call 888-789-7777 or visit CCP play responsibly. 21 and over physically president. Connecticut, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia only Boyd in Ontario, eligibility restrictions apply. New customers only opt in required casino credits are non withdrawable and expire in 168 hours. [e-mail] promos Ralph Marino is. This is a good story. I coached him in baseball. He gets paralyzed. He wants to kill himself, and he wanted to use me. Nobody was able to do anything. And he figured being I was with him all these years, I would do it. Slide me out that window over there. You push the thing. He showed me how to do it. So how am I going to do that? I can't carry. Lift you. You don't have to. Look at this. Look at this bottom of that window. It's too. It fits perfect on the table here on. So he says, you open the window, you put it up against the window and you push me out, pull me out, throw me out. So I said, ralph, now, because of that day, I walked out. I just said, I can't do it. Get somebody else to do it. I leave. I always had that guilt feeling because I used to see him watching a game. He didn't want to do anything. He was a great baseball player. And I think he could have been a professional golfer. That's how good he was. I went golfing with him once. He was unbelievable. I said, you're a better golfer than you are an athlete. So sure enough, I said to him, I got the thing for you. What? I said, you could be my assistant. Basketball. That saved him.

[Joey Diaz]

I was just going to tell you.

[John Barone]

That he loved us. Frankie, nobody loves basketball like Ralph did.

[Joey Diaz]

Nobody.

[John Barone]

He'll watch again. 10 games in a row. He'll drive to California to see a game. Huh?

[Joey Diaz]

That's crazy.

[John Barone]

He. He was the best.

[Joey Diaz]

Well, that was a freshman, but he's got too many.

[John Barone]

I said, somebody asked me on a show, hey, how Is Ralph Marino as an assistant coach? I said, if I had. Let's put it this way. If I didn't have Ralph Marino as a coach, I would have won 20 more games because he cost me with technicals. Because he was in a wheelchair. He used to go, what the fuck are you looking at? To the rep. Or he would say, scumbag. I curse these guys.

[Joey Diaz]

I'm gonna.

[John Barone]

I say, what do you do? And he says, I figure I'm gonna cheer. He could have gave me that call. Sucked. You suck. You know, he used to. I think because he was in the wheelchair, he could say anything he wants to. Before the game, the ref would come up to me and say, you know, are you gonna control this guy tonight? The game didn't even start. I said, come on, give him a break. You know how I got out? I got him not to get the technicals. Randy thought of it, but I did it. Oh, Randy did at first. Soon as he got a technical, we got somebody to wheel him into the fucking corner of the gym. So he's looking in the corner of the gym. Somebody come and get me. Coach, I'm so sorry. I see. I hear that in my sleep sometimes. Coach. Bro, come on. I won't say a word. You could tape me. Ralph was great.

[Joey Diaz]

I remember being a freshman. And Colangelo played varsity.

[John Barone]

Maybe Colangelo, Dennis, he played. His best year was the JV year playing with you. Yeah, he played, but he never got that. He never did it for the varsity. He was my best player. But then how he. When he was a junior, he went to varsity, right? And he. They cut him.

[Joey Diaz]

Well, Cello probably thought he was a troublemaker or something, but.

[John Barone]

Yeah, Cello didn't like Downtown.

[Joey Diaz]

No, he didn't like Downtown.

[John Barone]

He wanted the guys from Irish, man.

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah, he didn't. He didn't like me at all.

[John Barone]

That's why he didn't win.

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah, probably.

[John Barone]

Those guys do their homework.

[Joey Diaz]

I still remember Marino sitting in the wheelchair, yelling at dennis, dennis, defense. Defense, Dennis. And Dennis would look at him and go, yeah. And then, like, three. Defense, Dennis, he'd go, time out. He go, marino. Say it one more time, I'll put you in the closet and shut the fucking door. I would say, dennis, you can't do that. He won't fucking leave me the fuck alone.

[John Barone]

My brother loves him.

[Joey Diaz]

Who? Dennis.

[John Barone]

Dennis.

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah, we all love Dennis. Dennis is still the funniest man.

[John Barone]

My brother just asked me recently, is Dennis Colangelo still around?

[Joey Diaz]

He's alive, but he lost his wife, and he's Having a hard time. And he's a fucking sweetheart. I hooked up with him a couple times when I got here.

[John Barone]

John, remember, next time you see him, Joe Barone, my brother.

[Joey Diaz]

Okay?

[John Barone]

Yeah, yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

But we won my freshman year. I played for Reardon and he didn't play me. So for some reason, we were in East Orange, and we're at this Christmas thing, and it is a fucking riot from the time we get there. Because at that time, we used to call Juan Rodriguez's little brother. It was Juan and Carlos. So at freshman practice, we called Carlos Eddie Munster. And he would pull you aside like a man and go, dog, I'm not in on that Eddie Munster shit, so don't even try it. And every time practice got hairy, somebody would say, eddie Munster. And he would stop the game and go, dog, I told you about Eddie Munster shit. So now we're in East Orange for the Christmas tournament and we're losing. It's like three minutes from the halftime. I'll never forget this. And he was taking the ball out. He was going to chuck it into Chucky or somebody. He gets the ball, and the two little black kids go, look at my man. He looked like Dracula, right? And that's all they said. I was sitting on the bench and I could hear the crack. Like, his whole demeanor, like. And you can see on his face, like, I do look like Eddie Munster. It just hit him. We were dying on the bench. We ended up getting killed. But at the time, my mom was always up at the bar. So my mom would leave me a $20 bill or a steak. I had an option. So I would say fuck the steak because it was too cubany and garlicky, the asshole that I am now. And I would get steakums and get all right of fries, throw them in the oven, and then throw two steak ems on white bread with the American cheese. And I kept eating them, eating them. That's what I ate every night. Two, three weeks, dog. There was a week I couldn't shit. I went for like six days without shitting. I didn't know what it was. Now we're in this Christmas tournament and we're out in fucking East Orange and they're shaking the bus, the whole fucking thing. We get out there and finally we take off. And I'm like, man, my stomach hurts. And I'm in the middle of the bus and all of a sudden I go. I'm looking around to see who's around me, who I can blame it on. I didn't know what type of father it was. Going to be. So I let the first fart out and I'm like, oh, my God. And all of a sudden people start going, what the fuck is that? Jesus Christ, what is that? Open the windows. And you couldn't open the windows. They were the high ones. You got to slip down. They were all fucked up. And again another fart came out of me, right? And now everybody's fucking going, jesus, what is that? The cheerleaders started crying and shit. They were crying. That's how bad that fart was. I gave it about a 30 minute window. Everybody was like, ooh, thank God. Who was that? It was Sabatino. We were just blaming it on people.

[Lee]

We or you were blaming it.

[Joey Diaz]

Blaming on everybody except me. I was like, I think came from over there. It wasn't me. Finally, I throw a tremendous fart. This one's worse than the other two. Mr. Barone's holding his face and goes, he's changing flavors. Oh, that was fucking class. They held their faces till they got in front of the fucking high school.

[John Barone]

But you got turned off because. Now what year was Reardon thing when you were in softball?

[Joey Diaz]

I was a freshman, so I played everything I did, I fucking.

[John Barone]

But I was the JV coach then.

[Joey Diaz]

Yes. I don't remember.

[John Barone]

But you won the picture.

[Joey Diaz]

No, but it was eighth grade. I was buck wild. I could jump and shit. Reardon just didn't dig me. So I used to torture him from time to time. I had people threaten him and shit. He held us, he held his ground. We didn't. We never really spoke. And then I went and ran spring track with Compasta and he broke me. Reardon did like. I was like, I don't want to play basketball no more. Just one day I just got up and I go, I'm not doing this no more. And then I would play by the high school after school for money with those animals, Fuvio, Plagario and all those guys. We play for like a sandwich at Hashways. That's what it was.

[John Barone]

Where did you play? In the back gym practice. Where did you practice?

[Joey Diaz]

We practiced at Horace Mann. We had to leave the high school.

[John Barone]

I didn't see you when this was going on.

[Joey Diaz]

No. And then we used to.

[John Barone]

You came out, let's say you were practicing in the back gym. You came back this guy. Don't worry, next year you got it.

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah, because we only played in the back against some team because they canceled it. And that's when you came and all the other teachers were there and a bunch of people and they Were like, why isn't he fucking playing? Like it was obvious I could play. And people were like. But that's the way it went, you know, I still to this day fucking kind of regret it. You know, you mentioned that kid before. I mean, listen, man, when you go to a school or something. I wish. This is why I get pissed at people now, especially teachers. Because you're supposed to open kids eyes, you know. Like I want to still beat up Mr. Longano because he never told me about New York City. I could have gone over there and got an acting class, you know what I'm saying? Like shit like that. But what we talking about?

[Lee]

About you, Quinn.

[Joey Diaz]

And I just didn't want to play no more. And then I got a lung infection. I was going to play for Vinnie. Vinnie goes, come play football with the sophomores. And I went. And the first day I got there I spit and it was just blood. And one of the coaches came over and he goes, what the fuck is this? And I go, I don't know. I got hit in the mouth. But then he kept seeing puddles of blood everywhere. I had a lung infection from smoking paraquat. And I had to be in the hospital for 13 days. When I got out, I couldn't play football. It was too late to play basketball. And then my mother died. And I wasn't doing shit after that, you know, I wasn't going to do shit after that. And I stayed in school maybe for the end of junior year. Then I said, I got a job at Mass Back Century Hardware on 89th. And if you go down 83rd Street, Hill, North Bergen, 85th. And you. What's the street all the way down where all the. Westside Avenue, that last warehouse, that was Mass Back Century. And then I didn't see you. But the problem was I was just embarrassed. I was just embarrassed to see you guys. I was not the type that was going to go up to the high school and hang out, you know. And then. Then I really got into a pinch. And I was really embarrassed around you guys because you guys had seen me, you know, when I was a young kid and how I acted. And now I was a different fucking animal, you know, so. But when I did the documentary, I went to your house. I go, this guy's great. You know. And dog, you made my childhood, you and that other fucking knucklehead. Because nobody. You know, I still remember. I didn't know he sent us home. Make sure you watch the NCAAs on fucking Saturday or something. The semifinals were on a Saturday. And you sent us home. He go, that's your homework for the weekend. And the finals were Monday. And that was the year Marquette played North Carolina in the finals. It was that dude's last game. And I'll never forget that. That Saturday. I just come back from the court. I'm a Spanish kid and I put the fucking TV on. And North Carolina's playing unlv. And all of a sudden somebody got hurt. And the fucking TV said, coming in now is the freshman from Jersey City, New Jersey. My fucking head almost blew the up. I'm gonna get him on here. He lives down the shore. I'm getting o'corn on here. My head blew up. Well, I saw Jersey City as a freshman. And then to top it off, the scored 31 points as a freshman. And then they played Monday night in the championship and they lost to.

[John Barone]

Who are we talking about now?

[Joey Diaz]

Michael Corrin.

[John Barone]

O'Cory.

[Joey Diaz]

O'Coryn. You're the guy that said, go home and watch this college game this weekend.

[John Barone]

He was on that court, though. That's the only guy I remember that was playing in that game.

[Joey Diaz]

Where? North Carolina?

[John Barone]

No, in North Bergen.

[Joey Diaz]

No, they used to come down with spinach. Sergio Baggy. He used to bring somebody else down. Not Jackie Gallon, but there was another kid that played from Weehawken.

[John Barone]

It was probably the Motel that drew them.

[Joey Diaz]

Well, the Motel, but those guys played. Remember when you go over the Lincoln Tunnel? When you're going into the Lincoln Tunnel, before you make that turn, look on. There used to be a court.

[John Barone]

Yeah, I played there.

[Joey Diaz]

And that was a special league.

[John Barone]

It's still there.

[Joey Diaz]

It's still there because I see a football field. But that's where they played during the week.

[John Barone]

I can't stand when you play there, though. All the cars coming in the tunnel.

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah, that pollution. Yeah, you're going to die. That's why.

[John Barone]

That's why they stopped playing.

[Joey Diaz]

That's why we're tougher than fucking death. You know what I'm saying? Because we face debt. I still remember that shit you play.

[John Barone]

And we played for four or five hours straight. Hoboken was the best played.

[Joey Diaz]

Think about that scene a year when Hoboken had those two black dudes, Juicy and Bob Dubois. And they led the county in slams. They led the county and slammed dunks. It was finally North Bergen beat them their senior year. North Bergen beat him. Yeah, senior year.

[John Barone]

And then. And by two points. That game.

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah, in Hoboken. And you know, in Armando Erebus.

[John Barone]

But, you know, do you remember how we Won the game at the end. The guy was taking it out for Hoboken.

[Joey Diaz]

Misinich.

[John Barone]

He was taking it out. Oh, the guy was on Hoboken. They. They're down one, they score, they win. The coach says, oh, he calls him. He went like this and he just threw it. It went to the North Bergen guy and he makes a layup there. Up three, game's over. There's no three point shots with like 20 seconds left. That's how they blew it. And I was so happy because I hated the Hoboken coach. I wanted to coach Dan. You always want to coach where you played first. Once they gave. The guy was Connors, his name was. He was on the board of Ed. A member of the Board of Ed. His son got the job. Never played basketball. I was sick and I came in then. Vinnie was my. My homeroom teacher. He said, don't worry about it. I take it in. Or these. Artie's moving there next week. I'll straighten everything out for you. And he did. I owe everything to that man. I was working in my father's grocery store. I wasn't even going to go back to college. He walked in, said to my father, how's he doing? I'm behind the fucking thing. And my father said, johnny, the coach is here. He gets me outside. What are you doing here? I says, well, I'm going to go back, but not now. He says, you fucking make sure it was like August that you're in school next month, or I never would have probably went back. My father was a bookie. I would have been a bookie. I'd rather do that.

[Lee]

Wait, he owned a grocery store and was a bookie?

[Joey Diaz]

Everybody was a bookie back then.

[John Barone]

Everybody was a bookie. That's only a front.

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah, that's only a front. They sell apples. Any questions you have for the lady.

[John Barone]

Would come in like, you know, he would come in. You have any kumquats? Get lost. We just got oranges and apples. Take a fucking walk. Then he used to complain we're not getting enough business.

[Lee]

Did he ever do anything that made you want to? Like, not like. Not that you wouldn't like him, but did he. Did he ever go too far?

[John Barone]

Couldn't.

[Lee]

He couldn't do it.

[John Barone]

Couldn't do it.

[Lee]

That's crazy.

[John Barone]

He gave me everything. How could you? When you grow up and your father is good to you. I don't really think he ever hit me.

[Lee]

No, I'm talking about Joey.

[John Barone]

I'm talking about my father. Well, I'm glad Your dad didn't hit you? His name is Joe.

[Lee]

Did Joe. Did this Joey ever do anything in class? You're like, it might be too much.

[John Barone]

He made me laugh so much, I couldn't get mad at him.

[Joey Diaz]

We laughed, man.

[Lee]

And like, why do you think you can't. Like, teachers can't act like this anymore, like, have this kind of relationship with their students.

[John Barone]

I wasn't surprised when he hit it. When he did it, I didn't know what he was doing. And then I saw him in the prison movie, the football movie, and I said, this guy made it.

[Lee]

Do you remember the last time you saw him before then?

[John Barone]

I used to see him at games sometimes. You used to come to a game. I remember calling you like, I left.

[Joey Diaz]

In 85, so I still remember going to a game with Greg Askalis and shave. We're playing Memorial at North Bergen, Beat Memorial. And I had his Uncle Greg was a little boy on my shoulder. And I kept giving him money to say pinga and say culo and all these bad words in Spanish and all the Cubans. Memorial were walking out. And then everybody started coming over and give Greg money to say pinga kulo. And Shay was like, you mother.

[John Barone]

He was like this as a kid, right?

[Lee]

And it's a lot to handle now. I can't imagine at 8 in the.

[John Barone]

Morning as a kid.

[Lee]

Holy.

[Joey Diaz]

You know, man, these teachers gave you a reason to live. 12, 11. They gave you a reason to do your homework. They gave you a reason that you wanted to do fucking good. You know, and that was. I always had one of those teachers every year that you had to go into school just to see them so you could feel better about yourself. I look at my daughter's teachers. There's no fucking personality. They're young, they're fucking. They're white. But I mean, white like, they're white like, you know, white like, you know, they're on the level. Like, that pen doesn't have enough ink. You know, shit like that.

[John Barone]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

You know, like, it's. And I could see why kids are the way they are now. When I told my daughter I was coming up here to see Wish I.

[John Barone]

Was a superintendent of schools and I could straighten out what I know. I mean, I taught for 49 years. I know what they're doing. I know it's. Half of it sucks, but what could I do as a teacher?

[Lee]

Okay, when do you think this shift started? Like, around what year did people start. Did you have to start being a little bit more PC or, you know, you couldn't do the stuff you were doing when you were teaching Joey. Like, when did that start changing? In the high school or just what year? Like the 90s?

[John Barone]

No, it was. Yeah. Yeah, because it's 30 more years. Yes, that's about right.

[Lee]

And what do you think made it change? Was it like cameras going around or the attitude?

[Joey Diaz]

It's just something.

[John Barone]

You know what it is? I'll tell you what it is. It's that kids don't sit at the table with their family at night and have dinner. Think about it. How many people you know? I watch Blue Bloods. They every. Every Sunday, they sit around. I ask kids. I used to ask kids. You ever meet with your whole family? No, because the mother works this time, the father works this time. You can never get. The sister has a job. You can never get them together. That changed everything, that family thing. That's why the kids went over. They were a little crazy. Now there's nothing. That's why they don't fear their parents. They're never with them. They're out playing. They come back. Me, if I. If I did something wrong. My father was right there, right. Waiting for me. Today, I couldn't. Sometimes I couldn't get a pair at the car. Or you get a parent and they come and they did their door. Her daughter did something bad. And in school, I forget what it was, but I saw it. And she did it. And she said in front of her mother, I had the superintendent there and the principal because she wanted to sue us. So I said, that's what happened. Because she's. How do you know? Because I saw it. But then she said, but you're lying. So I said, how? Why are you saying I'm lying? He says, I was watching your body, how you acted like, you know, like body language. She said, your body language was wrong when you were talking. You got people like that or people that don't care. You got people that make things up.

[Joey Diaz]

What about when they don't realize King won't make me bring my mom in, But I hired the guy from my mother's bar to come in as my brother. I paid him like the small 20 to come in and be my cousin from Cuba. And King Will was like, next time I have to talk to your mom. And I played it off the next time. He goes, this time, have your mom come in. And I want to talk to her. I'm standing out there with her in Austin. He goes, I told your other son. And my mother's like, what? I don't have another son.

[John Barone]

Kids. And kids today are street smart. They might be even better than we were.

[Joey Diaz]

No, no way. They're street smart on a computer or how to send you a text.

[John Barone]

Let's put it this way.

[Joey Diaz]

They know how to send a bomb to the school through BPN and shit like that. But they don't have what we had. There's no way. I see it every day. I seen the kids that my daughter plays with. I see it in these kids that we're going to have a hard time. But look at the 20 year olds. A lot of 20 year olds don't know what the fuck is going on right now. They just walk around, they don't know and they go to college for four years and somebody pays them a bunch of money and that's even worse. That's even worse. They don't know. They don't know anymore. Listen, there's not one of these motherfuckers that on a Friday night would pay $200 for 100 quaaludes and sell them for $4 and make the quick 200. That would never happen again.

[Lee]

That might be a good thing.

[Joey Diaz]

They won't hustle with football sheets. There's no more delivering papers. See, that was the backbone of America. That was the backbone of America. That you know. Now go get a job. If you're 14, you got to sign paperwork. And the school. Listen, when we were kids, you walked into Tom McCann. You need somebody in the afternoon. Yeah, come back tomorrow at 2:30. When they went, you follow me, all these things went away. We lost a paper route. We lost a paper route. Nobody knocks on your door for the American Heart association and says, I'm going to walk around Hudson County Park. Give me a nickel for every fucking loop. You think I walked that thing every year? I kept half the money and gave the other half to the Heart Association. You know they don't have that. How many people rob St. Michael CYO for all the boosters. And I would sell them to a dollar and take them back. Come on. And I'm not saying you got to be a bad kid. I'm not saying that. But they don't have that mentality. You look, you can't learn that. You can't learn that in a classroom.

[John Barone]

I feel bad for the kids today.

[Joey Diaz]

Me too. And I have an 11 year old daughter. And I see this. I don't see it as much as her. She does her homework, she does all that shit. But I see a lot of boys. Boys are not boys anymore. I remember in California I signed my Daughter up for a ballet class. The class had six fucking kids. Four of them were boys. And the moms brought them in there with the silver shoes and the whole fucking guys. But that's out there. But here, you know, again, when was the last time you went out and you got stuck in the snow and three kids were out there trying to hustle you for $10? That doesn't exist. We can't even get white kids to mow the fucking lawn. If I was Trump, that's the first fucking rule I'm making. I want to see white kids mowing lawns again. White kids don't mow fucking lawns. You know, this is not good, guys. We do not. They don't have the mentality we were having at those young developmental years. You see your child. When I was a kid, my mom goes, you're not doing nothing today. You gotta go to the bar and stock the ice and stock the beer. 20 bucks instead of just hitting me up for a 10, I'll give you 20. They don't do that no more. It's. It's unheard. They have no social skills. Have you gone to a restaurant lately? Have you gone to a cvs? Have you gone somewhere and seen the process that they put you through? They just don't have it no more, Mr. Barone. And then, you know, you can't fire nobody no more. No, God forbid. I'm Cuban. No, let's call the Cuban American association and sue them. You know, I'm Portuguese, whatever the fuck you are. I'm not pointing at anybody, but these are all the things you have with these kids. It's not good. It's not good.

[John Barone]

No.

[Joey Diaz]

Instagram hasn't helped us. Social media hasn't helped us, dog. I had to threaten my daughter to go out. And she goes out now. I said, at least 15 minutes. Go dribble the fucking ball. Go dribble the fucking ball. 15 minutes. And what kills me is that the kids I'm dealing with, their parents all grew up in like we did. Why don't you encourage these fucking kids to go out? They got them in the house all day. Mr. Softie stopped coming to my neighborhood. No kids come out. Only me, my fat ass, my wife, and my daughter out there, Mr. Softie. It's not good, Coach. It's over. Kids don't have that American ingenuity we had. They don't want different, too.

[John Barone]

I have three grandson. You think one of them would have what I had? The girl? My. My granddaughter has it. You know, she's on North Bergen. She played. She played freshman as. She played varsity as a freshman. Now this is. She's a sophomore and she starts basketball. She's got the thing I wanted the guys to have. They're playing with their computers, and I tease them all the time. How could you have your sister a better athlete than you? I tease.

[Joey Diaz]

I go to the gym.

[John Barone]

Doesn't work.

[Joey Diaz]

And I see kids boxing. Like, what happened? That's the first thing your mother taught you? Your father taught you how to put your hands up. And these kids are like. They got no legs.

[John Barone]

Who's the kid from our area? His daughter wrestled.

[Joey Diaz]

Who? Amanda Pace.

[John Barone]

Pace. Donald Pace's. Did you know him? He lived down by you. She's. She could. She got a scholarship that. She. This girl. I went to see her wrist.

[Joey Diaz]

I don't watch any wrestling, not even pro wrestling.

[John Barone]

But she was from North Bergen. This was for, like, the state championship, whatever. And she fucking kicked the out of this other girl. And Donald. I mean, I had Donald at School at McKinley. It was like a klutz. I hope he's not watching.

[Joey Diaz]

All watching. Would you.

[Lee]

If you had, like, were 22 again, would. Would you be a teacher knowing what you know? Like, right now, like, right now, you would?

[John Barone]

Definitely.

[Lee]

Why?

[Joey Diaz]

Why?

[John Barone]

Why?

[Lee]

Even with everything going on, I think.

[John Barone]

For me, I don't want to do anything else. I get even just being in. In school. I used to be proud when I left. And I saved two kids by talking to them or yelling at them and embarrassing them. So maybe they catch it that way. You can't treat every kid the same. You know that. But it's a great feeling to know. And how do you find out? You bunker. I bumped it into these kids every day. They are in every store, shop right there, and they make you feel good. Kids say, oh, wolf tags here.

[Joey Diaz]

Mr. Braun, I want to thank you for taking the time. Thank you for being a great fucking teacher and a parent and everything that you've done for a ton of kids, especially me. You changed my fucking life. With humor. And that's it. You guys got the meat. He's changing flavors finally. Tomorrow night. Tonight I'm at Freehold. Sold out. Tomorrow night, me, Lee, Rich Voss are at Parks Casino. Next Tuesday, we're at the open mic again. And Wednesday we're in Jersey City at White Eagle Hall. It's sold out, so I don't know what the fuck to tell you. I'll add some more dates later. Lee, you got anything for these cocksuckers this week?

[Lee]

I'm with you in Parks.

[Joey Diaz]

All right, I love you guys. Happy Thanksgiving to your families, and thank you for supporting the church. New Testament. Stay black, cocksuckers.

[John Barone]

Welcome back to church.

[Joey Diaz]

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