The HoneyDew with Ryan Sickler - Joey Diaz - Back to Colorado
Episode Date: July 27, 2020My HoneyDew this week is Joey Diaz! The saga continues as we cover 1985-1986. Joey leaves New Jersey and heads back to Colorado. If you’re all in on Joey’s life story, it’s a wild ride. This epi...sode is no exception. I love Joey Diaz but he’s the reason I lock my doors, even if I’m just going to get the mail. SUBSCRIBE to my YouTube channel & watch The Dew there every toozdee! https://www.youtube.com/rsickler SUBSCRIBE to my new Patreon show, The HoneyDew with Y’all, where I highlight the lowlights with y’all! It’s been a wild ride so far! What’s your story?? https://www.patreon.com/TheHoneyDew Sponsors: Go to​ hellotushy.com/HONEYDEW get 10% off your order and FREE shipping Superhero Stuff You Should Know - Available on Spotify, YouTube & iTunes https://apple.co/3hqIO2F Hurry to http://upstart.com/honeydew to find out HOW LOW your Upstart rate can be! Checking your rate only takes a few minutes
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This episode of The Honeydew is brought to you by Tushy, Upstart, and Superhero Stuff You Should Know.
More on that later. Let's get into the do.
The Honeydew with Ryan Sickler.
Welcome back to The Honeydew, y'all.
We are over here doing it at the night pan studios.
I'm Ryan Sickler.
As always,
Ryan Sickler.com.
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Um,
submit at honeydew podcast at gmail.com.
Had some crazy stories
crazy stories you guys are sharing
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follow along there
the merch, Night Pants Nation, Night Shorts Nation
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you guys are killing it out there
you look good too god damn it it's good merch, I know it's good merch. You guys tell me it's good
merch. And if you live in LA, I always mention I got the love for the Santa Monica Music Center
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way uh you know what we do over here we highlight the low lights i always say these are the stories
behind the storytellers and uh ladies and gentlemen it is great to have back first time here in
the night pan studios ladies and gentlemen, Joey Diaz.
All right.
You look good, God.
The mask you brought me to the podcast association has no beef with us.
None.
We're fucking doing our thing.
Number one, I want to thank Jimmy's Seafood in Baltimore.
Fucking straight up gangsters.
John Minidaga, shout out to Jimmy's Seafood, Baltimore.
They sent me the
dip. I had the crab cakes yesterday.
You know, you gotta help out.
Every week I try to throw something somewhere
and I order a couple crab cakes
and I'm getting two boxes.
So I want to thank you. I want you to
let you know to reach out to
Jimmy Seafood and fucking order something.
Yeah, they do free tutation. You want these fucking
crab cakes? Fuck Phillips.
These are crap cakes.
Phillip and his brother can suck my dick, okay?
It's Jimmy's Seafood when it comes to crab cakes.
And the fucking stuff.
And so let me see Rancher on the fucking table.
Ruin my afternoon.
You filthy fucks.
It's so good.
And people say, how much does he pay up?
Nothing.
He's a friend.
We've gotten to be friends all because of the Rogan podcast.
That's it.
He sent me a package.
I'm like, this guy.
And I do my shows there now.
It's a great family business.
If you're looking for the best seafood, crab cakes for sure in the country.
Jimmy's Seafood, Baltimore, Maryland.
All right.
Tommy, pull that mic up because that visor, you sound a little quiet on that visor.
I'm all right. I'm all right.
Yeah, there you go.
Tell me about your new Patreon.
I wish I would have had one of these when I was snorting coke outside.
You could fucking just put it around.
Forget the Patreon.
Let's get to the fucking story.
All right, Patreon.
So last time we sat down, it was the worst year of your life.
We did all of 1984.
So let's just start wherever.
January 1985.
So when we left off last time, I was pulling out of the hotel with Mr. Terranova, and the
drug dealer, Joel, was pulling in.
That's exactly right.
And I pulled out.
And this is a story.
This is funny, because I was talking to Theo Vaughn about it.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
What happened was this.
Mr. T was
a good guy. He was one of my high school
teachers, but
great guy. He had gotten clean.
So when I saw
him, he's like, look at the fucking shape
of you. You look fucking
terrible. You gotta go to a rehab.
You gotta get it together. He goes, I got a friend that runs a detox, so I go, alright, let me think about this,
so I owed so much money, I was in so much trouble, I go, how bad would a detox be for
10 days, I go in there, he goes, they'll feed you, they feed you like a fucking king. You'll love it. So as we pulled away, I had, you know, 2,000 bucks maybe,
and we were headed to the detox.
It was New Year's Day.
I get to the detox.
I got a two-week waiting period.
Why?
Because everybody gets clean on New Year's Day.
People went right from the fucking boozer straight to the fucking detox.
You either go to the gym or detox.
It's what it got.
It was like fucking Corona.
It was like people were walking past me in stretches and shit.
That's it.
They had had enough.
They were out.
I walked in.
They're like, you walked in?
Look at these guys.
They're fucking people like swatting flies and shit. I saw him. I saw him. I was in. They're like, you walked in? Look at these guys. They're fucking people like swatting flies and shit.
I saw him.
I saw him.
You know, I was in Columbia.
People were fucked up.
It was the end of 84.
So he goes, why don't we do this?
When can you get him into the detox?
And the guy goes, ah, I don't know what day it was.
He goes, I don't know.
Maybe next week, one day.
Leave your number, and we'll definitely put him on the priority list.
So I'm like, what do you want to do?
He goes, well, come over, and you can stay at my house for a few days.
So I went to his house.
He was in the program.
I think the first three days, I just slept.
I just basically got up to eat dinner, and I would go back to bed.
So did he just assume like sort of a coach role for the week or
was he keeping an eye on you or were you free to fuck up if you were gonna fuck up you know what
you know what and then he had he had two kids at the time like four and two wow and he let you stay
and his wife and they had a bedroom upstairs, a little bedroom.
And I just stayed in there like with a blanket I brought and a pillow and just shivered for a few days.
Like I was just shaking, not from the detox or the drugs,
but just of what I had been through for those five or six months.
You know, I had been through a lot.
It was like seven months of getting
pounded, just getting pounded.
People are right now.
Right now, it's six or seven months. People
are getting pounded. On top
of COVID, they lost their job.
Their mother-in-law died.
They lost a house.
It's one of those type
of years where you just sleep for
three fucking days.
I basically slept.
And he goes, listen, the guy called.
He'll have a bed for you in a few days.
And then we were talking, and something happened where he said, you know,
I can't fucking believe it.
I'm kind of light on the mortgage.
And I go, how how much you like and he
goes like eight bills or something something weird i go why don't i give you the 800 and just detox
here with you because he was already taking me to meetings you know so i started going to meetings
with him fucking hilarious what the shit you're hearing at the meeting? By the fourth day, I was already shaken for a line.
Emotionally, I was beat
up. And I'm going to these meetings
and these people... You know, a meeting
in Hollywood and a meeting in New Jersey
is two different stories.
I was talking to Theo that
when you go to a meeting in Hollywood,
everybody's like, you know, huggy-duggy.
I remember people getting
insulted in the meetings in Jersey.
Like, some guy comes in, like, yeah, when I drank, I used to drink like a bottle a day.
And people were like, a bottle a day?
Go fuck yourself.
You fucking pussy.
I would walk into a bar and tell the bartender, give me the bottle, no ice cubes.
I didn't even drink fucking ice, you fucking pussy.
They told me right away, first off, if you want to complete these meetings, you gotta smoke.
If you're going to be sober in these
meetings, it's not going to work unless you smoke.
Cigarettes or weed? Cigarettes.
You might as well start smoking now.
So I tried it, but by then I was still
an anti-cigarette. I was like,
I can't do it. And then I figured,
I went to like two weeks of meetings,
maybe a week of meetings,
and Miami Vice was coming back that Friday night.
And I made up a story.
I go, listen, Friday night, I got to do something.
I got to go see a guy about a fucking job.
And he's like, job?
I go, yeah.
This guy wants to hire me.
I don't know.
Let me go talk to him.
And I remember, he lived in Crestville, New Jersey.
I remember from going to the supermarket, I kept seeing the buses going by.
That means all those buses go to New York.
So I ran up to the corner.
It was fucking freezing.
I ran into the city.
Got a nickel bag of weed.
Like I hadn't smoked in like nine days.
That had been the longest ever.
Since I started smoking.
And I remember it was freezing out and rolling the joint on the platform
at Port Authority on 81st Street.
It's outside.
You're outside.
There's no fucking, you're outside.
There was maybe like four people shivering,
and I'm like fucking rolling this joint with frozen fingers.
I smoked it and I walked in.
There was the episode with Glenn Fre Fry, Smuggler's Blues.
I'll never forget that.
It was fucking, and tea was going crazy.
Look at this.
This is fucking tremendous.
Did I ever tell you when I went to Columbia,
I saw the coke with the fucking Galindo family.
I mean, he was just going off.
So we're fucking howling.
So I got this job.
I stayed with him. I stayed clean uh i stayed with him i stayed clean
i stayed with him all right so hold on i want to make that clear like so
because i hear about a lot of aa clean some people say they use marijuana some say aa
i hear you but clean for you was a little bit of weed i'm saying clean for me at that time
was we a little bit of weed and then i figured. Clean for me at that time was weed. A little bit of weed.
Just weed.
And then I figured out that if you smoked weed and went to an AA meeting,
it was really a party.
I'll bet that was.
That's a party.
I'll bet that was.
I'm like, T, listen, I don't know about you.
I'm not a boozer, but I love my marijuana.
He's like, Jesus fucking Christ, you kids.
You can't do the program.
I have cocked.
I go, I'm not using coke, and I'm not drinking.
That's what got me here.
Reefer don't bother nobody.
It doesn't.
So I would take two hits off a joint and go to those meetings and just giggle.
Oh, yeah.
Giggle my ass off.
The only way I could get out of going to meetings with him is if I had a job.
So one day I applied for a place called Crestkill Liquors.
Just three white guys that didn't have a clue.
The owner was a good guy,
but he was just the whitest dude in America,
and he was a sweetheart.
They had one of those old registers.
Again, one of those registers that you had to hit a nine,
eight, and a nine, and then plus,
and it would give you the tax.
And if you got a bottle of scotch that was $49.99,
I'd put $9.99
and then give you
change like you gave me $3.20
and I would keep pocket that $40.
I would work from $4
to $8 and I would
walk out of there with like $500.
They couldn't figure it out.
Then the three guys are there watching
me.
I'm taking it, running to the city,
copping reefer and coming back in the house like nothing happened.
Oh, God.
I worked at that place from maybe the last week of January
to like the second week of March.
And then one day I came in and they were like,
listen, we figured out what you're doing.
Whenever you don't work, we make money.
Whenever you work, we get zero profit.
We couldn't figure it out.
We finally figured it out.
You're fucking fired.
How'd they figure it out?
Because that's the time they figured it out.
There was a huge gap.
Every time I worked, they were always $400 lighter than the night I worked.
And they couldn't figure out.
It behooved them how I was doing it.
I was doing it to the register, you stupid fuck.
Right in front of them, I was doing it.
And they'd be looking at me, and I'd behooved them.
And then later on, I'd paint.
I'd do the math in my head.
I had the math count of how many 20s I was taking.
And I'd go, I got 180 coming to me.
I just take 180.
And then another guy would come in.
Let me get two bottles of this kind of whiskey, $300 order.
I charge 30.
So if it was 330, I would do the math in my head.
If it was $330, I'd charge him 30.
And I'd take 300 right off the fucking top.
And they figured it out.
Now, I'm on suspension this whole time from a bartending job in New York.
Of course.
Okay?
I'm on suspension.
What is suspension?
And I'm collecting.
Like, I'm a fucking wild man.
I'm collecting, and I don't give a fuck.
Okay?
Like, you're supposed to collect if you're unemployed.
I'm collecting, and I'm working, and I'm stealing with two hands.
Like, that was all part of the fucking deal like i'm collecting and that's those are the days
when you went down there they gave you 450 cash whatever the fuck they gave you they give you cash
most days you gotta go to a window it was right down the corner from kentucky fried chicken
and uh it was called geno's it's kent Kentucky Fried Chicken and Burger King or something put together. It was a chain in the 70s.
Okay, so Geno's was Kentucky Fried Chicken and something.
My father worked at Geno's.
It was Geno Marchetti's restaurant.
Something crazy.
Defensive end number 89 for the Baltimore Colts.
It was a Kentucky Fried Chicken.
It was like burgers and chicken.
Yeah, it was absolutely.
I think more of the burgers, though, but whatever.
Geno's was his.
I don't know.
They went up to Jersey?
Well, this chain wasn't Jersey.
They were a fast food chain.
And so I was doing all this shit.
And I'm still on suspension from New York.
And one day, T says something to me.
T goes, listen, my wife knows you're getting high.
And that wasn't the deal.
You got about a week.
You know, he didn't say it in a bad way.
Like, he loved me to death.
I just needed to go.
So I picked up a little studio apartment in Tenafly, New Jersey.
All right?
I quit my, I got fired from that fucking job.
I don't know what I did.
I was just banging around the city all day.
I had a little money put away, a couple grand, maybe a grand,
and I would just walk around the city, go get a bag of dope,
maybe apply for a job.
I didn't really know what the fuck to do.
So I went back to what I usually do, stealing.
So I'm living in town to fly, and I'm living in a house.
What's the shit you got today, Airbnb?
Yeah, Airbnb.
This is like an Airbnb.
A woman lived in the house.
She lived downstairs.
Her sons had moved out, and she had three spare bedrooms upstairs.
So she rented it to two guys and a chick.
You never saw the chick.
The other dude was a Cuban dude.
So we would talk from time to time, me and the Cuban dude, whatever.
And one day I'm leaving and the son comes home.
The son comes in and he's like, oh, you're living with my mother.
I'm like, yeah, how you doing?
My name is Nick.
I don't know what his name is, okay?
We start talking
and right off the bat the guy's like,
I'm making the
squat today. You want to come with me?
This is the only shit that happens to me.
You had never seen this guy?
Never seen it, but he thought I was cool because I lived
in his mother's house.
Yeah, right, right.
The rule was
you weren't allowed to use the kitchen
or watch TV. That was part of the thing. As soon as that bitch left, remember like you weren't allowed like the rule was you weren't allowed to use the kitchen or
watch tv when she was you know that was part of the thing as soon as that bitch left i was on the
phone calling long distance i'm watching cable i'm making sandwiches i had no respect for nothing
right like there was nothing i had respect for like Like, nothing. So me and her son, like, this is after I'm there, like, three, four weeks.
It puts you out, like, maybe March.
Me and her son go out, and he tells me about this car he's going to go look at.
It belongs to a bookie, some shit.
And we bust into the fucking car, and there's maybe 200 bucks, but there's jewelry.
We split the yardstick, and we split the jewelry, okay?
I go my way, he goes his way.
I got a guy in the fucking city that I go in there, no ID, he melts it.
It's worth 80, he gives you 65 with no ID.
What do you want to do?
You want to take the $80 with an ID?
I'll give you $65 and I don't know nothing.
I turn the camera off.
What do you want to do with it?
Give me $65, turn the camera off.
Is it gold?
Is that what it was?
Yeah, it was gold.
It was like a gold watch or something.
Well, fuck all, takes it to a real porn shop.
They do a police report on it.
And three days later, I'm in my little house, eating a bologna sandwich,
scratching my nuts on the ladies' bed.
In his mom's house.
Watching TV.
Not your house.
Yes.
You're in his mom's house.
I'm on her phone, sniffing her bras, you know, fucking.
And all of a sudden I hear,
and it's Jose here.
Yeah, I'm Jose.
Can you please come out?
You're under arrest for possession of stolen.
He got pinched, and he ratted me out.
So now they're like, what did you do with the jewelry?
I go, what jewelry?
I knew my jewelry wasn't going to be found.
I knew that jewelry was melted.
That was on some Greek guy's hand already.
That was done.
They made a ring and gave it to some Swami.
You know those rings, those immigrants in New York with the ruby, the hypnotizing shit.
So I get back to the apartment.
Okay, I get arrested, but let me tell you what's more interesting about this arrest
I did the thing with
this kid
and I used to be a walker
like I always go
a walker like why would I take a bus
I see
it's a beautiful day so I was in Tenafly
and I think I don't know where I walked
and I started walking
that same fucking day.
As I'm walking, I look over, and I see a kid raking a backyard.
And I know this kid.
He's not, I mean, we're both, he's from a town called Cliffside,
and I'm from North Bergen.
We met in summer school, my freshman summer.
Okay.
Okay, And I
stayed friends with him, but very distantly.
Now we were old, I would
bump into him in clubs in the city.
I see him raking there.
And I go, George. And he turns around
and he goes, what the fuck are you doing up here?
And I go, you know me, I'm casing stuff.
And he starts laughing.
Researching.
And he said, how you doing? Nothing. How you been? So he started talking. Researching. And he's like, how you doing?
Nothing.
How you been?
So he starts talking.
One thing leads to another.
He's telling me he's a gardener and he works for his mother part-time.
So we get to talking and he writes down his number.
And he goes, call me, man.
I go, fuck, I'll call you.
I'm looking for a friend.
Thank God.
So I go
do something,
go get weed, and when I
come back home, that's when they knock
on the door, the cops.
So here's the funny
thing. Whatever I went
to do, whatever mile I walked
was to get something to
eat, and then the store was to get something to eat.
And then the store was closed or something.
I can't remember from my memory.
And I walked back and I was still
hungry. And that's when they arrested me.
And they took me
to
wherever I had.
They arrested me, but I had a
warrant
from a different, from my first pinch,
for possession of stolen property.
Okay.
So here I'm getting arrested for possession of stolen property.
But you're getting arrested only on this dude's word that you did this with him.
It was an Uzi case.
Okay.
They asked me where the jewelry was.
I said, I don't know what you're talking about.
What jewelry?
They go, we're going to New York.
All we got to do is make one call, and we'll find the paperwork.
I'm like, no, you're not.
There's no paperwork.
I know these guys.
I spent the $15.
I spent the $15.
You're not going to find it.
So they took me to the Tanafly Police Department,
and they realized they didn't have enough evidence.
So they said, that's fine.
You got a warrant anyway.
So we're going to take you to Hackensack.
Now it's 6 o'clock.
It's 7 o'clock at night.
I'm in fucking Tenafly
or some shit, Tenafly, whatever,
wherever they take you. And now
they got a transfer from me. I got to wait for a
fucking, so the cop goes, there's no
more transfers tonight.
You might have to spend the night here. And I'm like, ain't this a fucking bitch? And all of a sudden the cop goes, there's no more transfers tonight. You might have to spend the night here.
And I'm like, ain't this a fucking bitch?
And all of a sudden the cop goes, I'm not doing nothing.
I'll transfer.
So I get in the car with him.
He has to take me to Hackensack Police Department to go in front of a judge.
It's like 9 o'clock court.
We're driving there, and I'm talking to the cop.
We're talking. I tell him
who I am. North Bergen.
He's telling me he's from Fairview.
We're talking. We're talking.
Finally I go, I gotta ask you something.
He goes, what?
I go, bro, I haven't eaten
in like 10 fucking hours.
He goes, they didn't feed you dinner all day?
I go, no.
He goes, I don't know what to tell you. I go, listen, can you do me a favor?
I go, you got my paperwork there.
You know who I am.
You got my fingerprints.
I got handcuffs on.
Where am I going?
Can we stop at Chan's?
Dragon Inn.
This is my favorite Chinese restaurant.
You don't even ask for fast food.
You got balls.
I go, we're going to drive right through it.
The cop looks at me and goes, you going to Chan's?
That place is fucking filthy. He goes, you go to Chance? That place is fucking
filthy. He goes, I had to do a stakeout there one
night. There was supposedly going to be
a guy who was robbing safes.
So we pinned it down to where
he was, whatever he was going to go.
So we all did a stakeout there one night.
When they turned out the lights, we thought
there were people in there. We turned the lights on.
There were rats. That's how big they were.
He goes, I'm not going in there.
I go, I don't give a fuck if they got rats.
You gotta go over there
and get me some pork fried rice.
And then I go, and the guy actually
stopped. We walked in there
with my handcuffs on. Yes, I did.
I had him behind my back.
He switched into my front.
I ordered it and he let me eat it in the back of the car
and then throw it away.
Then he put the handcuffs
on my back and we went.
I owed him a solid.
I had a get out of jail card in my wallet.
I knew a lot of cops. I was
dropping names and shit. The guy's like,
okay, you're legit.
We get to the fucking thing.
That was completely crazy.
Nine o'clock court. Night court was a great show back in the day, but that was completely crazy you know nine o'clock i've never i mean night court
was a great show back in the day but that was a real thing that's a real thing new york i didn't
know that used to be till like two in new york really 2 a.m 2 a.m i had no idea at 1 a.m you
know fucking tremendous so you're going up in front are you actually in a courtroom or are you
in like an office okay they take me into a cell first.
And then they go, Diaz, upstairs.
And when I go upstairs, I'm sitting there handcuffed.
And they go, hold on one second.
You're next.
But they got to bring this guy in because they got to take him to the hospital.
I'll never, ever forget that.
They propped this motherfucker in.
Like they propped him in.
He walked in like Jesus.
Like there was a trail of blood
behind his leg.
You think I'm fucking kidding you?
They propped him up and it's like, guilty,
murder, whatever the fuck.
30 days, whatever. I don't know what he got.
I don't know what he did. I know that there was a line
of blood following
him. They had thrown a
tremendous beating on him. They shot him.
But he was answering, you alright?
Answer the fucking judge, you fucking...
The guy's like...
They like hit him right there again with the stick.
And I'm like, damn!
So, I got nobody to call.
They go,
uh, Mr. Diaz,
because I made bail.
What I didn't do was complete the program or some shit.
And that's why you got the warrant?
That's why I had the warrant.
I had a cousin that had some unofficial.
Listen, just go to the two days of this thing.
You're going to go here.
We're going to go.
There's no bail.
You're remanded.
It's fucking 11 o'clock.
Where am I going to go?
I just got thrown out of my house.
You know, the cop said the lady was going to put the bag out with my stuff.
I'm like, God damn it.
I got to go all the way to Tenafly, get my bag of clothes, my bag of clothes.
Not even a suitcase.
So I went in my pocket, and I found George's number.
And I go, George.
He picks up the first ring.
201-943-2629.
Wow.
1985, baby.
That's the memory on Uncle George.
Ask me what I have for lunch.
You'll throw me off.
It's like Jeopardy.
It's like being the dumbest guy on Jeopardy.
But ask me what somebody's number was in high school.
I still remember it.
That number's about to get called like a motherfucker. It's done. It's done. was in high school. I still remember it.
That number is about to get called like a motherfucker. It's done.
It's done.
Oh, they can't.
Yeah, they can't.
They fucking, he answered, and I go, George, I need a big favor.
You got to take me to the front and pick up my clothes
and drive me off on a hotel on Route 4.
I was in and out of those hotels.
I knew them 44 a night.
I was a lifeguard at one of those hotels in Baltimore.
You're going to hit fucking next to you.
There's no lifeguards at these hotels.
You go out there, you just drown.
You shoot heroin, they put you into the pool,
nobody knows nothing, you know what I'm saying?
People go outside, actually look at you for a second.
They'll call their kids, come here.
Look what happens to heroin people.
See?
Take a picture.
You like it being from London.
So George takes me to get my clothes.
And I go, all right, let's just go to the roof.
And he goes, no, no.
You're going to come and stay with me.
Because I talked to my mother.
You can stay with me in my room.
You can sleep on the floor.
I'm like, are you fucking serious?
So he took me home.
He introduced me to his mom, his grandma.
Only this could happen to me.
And I moved in with him like in mid-March.
And he came on my podcast.
He did.
About a month ago.
He did a Zoom.
and he came on my podcast.
He did.
About a month ago.
He did a Zoom.
And he goes, I knew you were the first deal, the first two weeks.
He goes, the first two weeks, you broke into my roommate's house,
you stole his fucking speakers, and I stole his unemployment check,
and I cashed it.
That's not like a cash anything.
I had a guy in the bank.
He didn't give a fuck.
That's his introduction to you. Whatever you want to do, like whatever you need.
What kind of check you got?
It's in the plumber's union.
Who does it belong to?
Ivan Volsky.
Give it to me.
He'll sign Ivan, and we would cash a check.
I mean, it was in the throat.
The guy was a loan shark.
He worked for a loan shark.
So if you borrowed from the loan shark,
he would cut you a check to the bank,
and you would go see my friend.
So I move in with George.
And they spoke Spanish.
They were from Panama.
And we just talked.
And at night, I'd stay in with his grandma.
I was clean.
I wasn't doing any coke.
I was smoking reefer, but I wasn't drinking, nothing like that. I didn't doing any coke I was smoking reefer But I wasn't drinking
Nothing like that
I didn't have a girlfriend
I didn't get laid from like that August
Like I had been without a woman
I had turned so much into coke
That I really wasn't even into women anymore
Like I wasn't into men either
I was just trying to take care of myself
I was 20 fucking. I was just trying to take care of myself. I was 20 fucking
one. I was
22. It was 1985.
I was worth
zero. I was clean
though. And this is
a connection coming back from your past
childhood with a guy from summer
school or whatever. 79.
Right before the summer before my mother died.
All because you were up there casing that place
and he was breaking a yoke.
Whatever.
I stay with him. I get a job right off the
bat for a bricklayer
and I'm laying brick with the
guy, Italians.
Good guys. I did that
for about
seven weeks and then
the bar called me back.
A friend of mine
called a friend of mine and said they want
to meet with you.
This is very like official bar shit here, right?
It was the Sheraton Center.
Oh, okay.
And I was under
investigation for that.
You know, there was just so room charges.
I mean, there
was 8,000 ways to rob that hotel.
Yeah.
And all those guys did it.
Everybody who worked at the hotel was robbing people.
I mean, it was horrific.
And I didn't invent it.
I don't want anybody to think I invented it.
I walked into this, and these guys were like, you want to make money?
Do this.
I worked at a hotel at the front desk.
They would call their own room service.
We had hustles. Send it to you. Then you would deny it. money do this you know they worked at a hotel they would call their own room service we had
hustles send it to you then you would deny it we would i don't even remember tell the people to
clean it real quick if they paid cash say ah they don't like this side they want this side to view
and boom they would clean it real quick and we would keep that 500 cash it's the craziest thing
in the world people hotel employees are beefy motherfuckers that's why i don't put my safe
inside nothing in that safe man your business take it with you because there's people like me so
i'm moving with him wait i gotta say something this is the truth too because of you and sitting
down and talking to you when you're like i'll break into your fucking sliding glass door or
whatever my daughter and i will go down to the pool. And I mean down our stairs to the pool.
And I shut and locked my god damn door.
Everything. Listen, I give a fuck.
She's like, it's hot in here. And we come back. Well, I don't
give a shit. It's all still here, though, ain't it?
Every time I think, Joey D has
to climb right on this balcony and get up in here.
When I wanted something, I was going to take it.
I hear you. I do it every
time when I think of you. And we are
50 feet away.
So I went into the city, and they told me that they weren't going to hire me back,
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
They gave me some type of severance.
They said not to call that for a reference, that they would give a bad reference.
Can't imagine you had any real good references.
They gave me like, I don't know, I don't even know what they gave me,
like $800, something crazy.
How long did you work there?
I worked there legitimately, like, bullshitly a year and a half,
but legitimately maybe eight months with no problems.
Okay.
Stealing, but no problems.
Right, not calling.
Then I would just not call in, not show up.
You know, it was just being 22, being a kid.
I was a fucking dumb, I was a 21-year-old.
I thought I wanted to bartend and this whole thing.
But I'm living with George.
Before I moved in with George, I was living in a hotel.
And one night I was really broke. And I went across the George, I was living in a hotel. And one night
I was really broke. And I went across the street. There's a string of gas stations.
Right? So I'm living with, before I moved in with George, I think it was before I got
the apartment with that lady when I was looking for the apartment. I stayed in Fort Lee for
a while because it's closer to the city.
Fort Lee? Fort Lee, New Jersey is right across from Manhattan on the apartment. I stayed in Fort Lee for a while because it's closer to the city. Fort Lee?
Fort Lee, New Jersey is right across from Manhattan on the bridge.
They have all these hotels.
It's where a comedy club called Bananas is.
They ever ask you to play Bananas?
It's right there on Route 4 next to the Bada Bing.
That's why people go to Bananas because they go to the Bada Bing.
So I don't think it's still open.
It doesn't matter.
But one night I was staying at that hotel and I was hungry one afternoon and I crossed
the street to the gas station because that's how much money I had.
And I saw a for help sign.
And I asked the guy, what were you looking for?
And he goes, I need the money to pump gas from 4 to 12.
I go, okay.
When can I start?
He goes, tonight.
He goes, what's your name?
I'm like, Ryan Sickler.
He's like, Ryan Sickler.
Okay.
I see you at 4 o'clock.
So I come back, and I realize I'm by myself.
So he trained me for the first hour.
In Jersey and in Oregon, they pump gas.
Yep.
Still, right?
Isn't it illegal to pump your own gas in Jersey?
That's crazy to me.
You got to pump gas.
That's Oregon still too?
Yeah.
I don't know.
But it is still Jersey in 2020.
I think in Oregon, they're just lighting people on fire right now.
Yeah, you're right.
They got a bigger problem.
They got a bigger problem.
Don't worry about the guy pumping gas.
You're right about that.
That guy's pumping gas with a hook right now.
Man.
Pumping gas on a crowd, lighting a whole fire. It's with a hook right now. Man. Pumping gas on the crowd like the whole fire.
He's crazy up there right now.
So I went across the street, and I'm pumping all this gas.
And he told me, he goes, it's nighttime, so drop every time you got $500 in your pocket.
Put an envelope.
Put what time.
Sign this paperwork and put a drop in there.
I didn't see the reason to.
So every hour, like he told me, I'd take like a dollar bill and drop it.
A dollar bill and drop it.
Because for some reason it was like computerized.
He goes, I'll find that in my house if you don't drop.
So about fucking 2 o'clock, I realized I got about $1,200.
Plus what's ever in the register.
Plus the food.
Plus he's got a box of change under the fucking register.
So I took everything.
I took everything at 3 o'clock.
Hershey bars, the whole fucking thing.
And I just walked across Route 4, jumped over the fucking banister in the side of it.
Cars were whizzing by me
doing 90, and I went home.
The next morning, I look up. I look out my
hotel window. Cops are there.
The whole thing. People have been
pumping gas for free for four hours.
Because I just left.
I just left.
I just left.
I just left, right?
I forgot about the free gas. I said,. I just left. Right? I forgot about the freaking.
So I said, fuck.
He calls that motherfucker.
He was pissed.
He came back.
His name was Ryan Seacliff.
So I figured this out.
But here's the problem you got.
You got a row of gas stations going that way.
And you got a row of gas stations going this way.
For me, that's a fucking hit.
So I wait like three days.
Sure enough, I go to the gas station.
Two doors down from that guy.
That moron
needs help 12 to 8.
But here's the story. The real story was
my buddy worked at Hess.
Hess. I used to get the trucks.
Hess Gas Station. He was the manager.
I still talk to this guy.
He's still one of my best friends in the world.
Oh, yeah.
So I told him to give me a list of anybody who ever got fired for stealing.
And he sent me a list of names.
So I would apply under those names.
Yeah, yeah.
So now I was smart the second time.
The second time I went in there, what's your name?
Tony Ramirez.
Where have you pumped gas?
Hess.
Where?
Weehawken?
Yeah. When can you start? What do, where? Weehawken, yeah.
When can you start?
What do you got?
12 to 8.
I'm in.
I'd get there at 12, and again, once I get 1,000, that's it.
That's it.
I put a dollar in the MLO.
Pew!
I just walk off.
Even if I was working with a guy.
And you're leaving the gas. You're always working with some guy in a jacket on.
I'd say, listen, I'm going to go to the bathroom.
I did this every two gas stations.
Then I went across the street and worked myself back 1,200, 1,800.
It was always something.
And that's that old school gas shit where you pulled the lever out of the way.
There was none of that bullshit.
And then you also used to hang gas.
Hang gas means Brian Sickler's a broke fuck.
He comes in, he gets $4 worth of gas.
When Lee comes in for gas, guess who's swallowing that four?
Lee is.
That four is going right into Lee's.
I'm going to put that thing in without popping the thing back.
I remember because you had to pop it all the way back.
Yeah, you did.
But if you didn't pop it all the way back and just put it
in there, the car would move up
and then that make-believe, it's already on
four. By the time I'm putting it in,
I'm making the first four dollars.
This was hysterical.
It was caught.
Hanging pumps. That's what me and my
friends called it. Hanging pumps.
So I would hang pumps. Not only
would I hang pumps, I wasn't even going to pay the gas man anyway.
So I did that all around that gas station, all the way back.
And then I took my show on the road, and I took it down to South Jersey.
And I started hitting them all over South Jersey.
Every day I'd take a bus.
And it was hilarious.
I would take a bus to a new area
Get out, see a gas station
Walk the three of them and get hired by one
I'd go somewhere, eat
And stand there like an asshole for six hours
Until I had to go back at four
To train, because they'd tell you
Can you start today at four?
Fuck yeah, I'll start today at four
And I'd get back there at four o'clock
I'd pump gas till ten
I'd be working with some guy.
Can I go to the bathroom?
Yes, but hurry up.
We're not running a chowder here.
All right, yeah, good.
And I'd just go.
Sometimes I'd call George.
I would call George.
I'd go, George, meet me there at 10 after 9.
Why 10 after 9?
Just be there at 10 after 9.
And George would be there thinking he was just picking me up,
coming off the bus.
I'd get in the car and go
hit it. Why? Just hit it
because I just robbed the guy. What are you talking about?
You robbed the guy. He was just flying.
I give him two bills. Here's 200.
Don't worry about nothing. So tell me
what happened. So one time
I did this all over New Jersey.
This was hysterical.
This is fucking hysterical.
So now I'm not going to tell you the name of the place.
This is a huge gas station.
Like, to pull this one off, it was like Ocean's Eleven.
You know what I'm saying?
Because they had like 18 gas guys.
This place is huge.
Like a truck stop?
Like a truck stop.
Yeah.
Like a flying J?
Let's just, you know.
Yeah, sure enough, fucking boom.
The fucking, they need me from 4 to 12.
And it's nonstop.
It's about to rain.
So I'm going from one car to the other.
Everybody, 20s, 20s, 10s, 15s.
The fucking thing is getting thicker.
Stacked.
My hands are filthy from all the dollars I'm having.
They had to have four guys on one island just pumping doubles.
You're doing big rigs and shit like that too.
Yeah, I'm doing everything.
I'm doing everything.
I'm pumping gas.
No, I wasn't doing diesel.
I was just doing cars.
So I'm doing cars.
And all of a sudden, the fucking, the sky is
starting to turn gray, I'm doing cars, I'm doing cars, the sky is starting to turn gray, I'm like,
fuck, and I call George, and I asked the guy, I go, hold on, can I go make a call, and I called
George at his mom's shop, and he goes, I can't get to you, we got a special order, man, I'm sorry,
called george at his mom's shop and he goes i can't get to you we got a special order man i'm sorry i don't know what to tell you oh fuck so i got like 2 000 in my pocket i'm working and it's
about to rain but it was also park and drive is that what they call them park and ride where
people you meet and get in one car yes park and ride we used to have those all over maryland
there's buses that go into new york from there so sure enough park around looking at these buses and they're lining up
and you get on any of them because they're all going to new york i see all these people
so i got like two g 2100 i go up to a little fucking indian dude like listen i gotta go take
a shit i got diarrhea how heady up with're busy mom can't you see this I go yeah
and I dodge to the bathroom
but I just come out the side door
there's a ton of people
and I just mix into the New York line
and I get on the bus
and I'm watching this fucking guy
and this guy is pumping
gas and he's looking at the door to see
if he sees me he's pumping
gas he's looking at the door to see if he sees me. He's pumping gas. He's looking at the door.
And after about five minutes, I'm getting itchy.
My bus is, I'm waiting for the bus to fill.
Okay, you're all early.
Okay, the guy's not going to get off until the bus fills.
I'm like, God damn it, I got on the wrong bus.
I'm on the second bus, and there's still a bus in front of me.
And now I see the guy go, you know, like, hold on one second.
And he goes in there looking for me.
Now I see the guy run out.
And, like, he's, like, looking around for me.
And he runs back to his little fucking friends.
And he's like, you know, and I'm watching all this go down.
And all of a sudden he runs into the office and he gets on a fucking phone.
And they're fucking calling somebody.
And then they're all looking around.
And another guy goes in there looking for me. And I'm telling the bus driver, let's go.
Let's go.
It's going to fucking rain.
And I mean, the fucking sky, the skies are fucking turning gray and shit.
And they're looking around.
And finally, when my bus takes off, as my bus takes off, they're all looking around
like, where the hell did this guy go?
One of them figured out. He's on one of those buses so i'm like oh no so as i'm pulling out of there i see
cops pulling in oh shit i'm dead so bus pulls out i figure they're gonna arrest us when we get in
the port authority i get the port authority there's not a cop inside. I walked out the
Broadway. They didn't stop
you when you were leaving? Nothing.
Oh, no shit. Nothing. We didn't stop
them. We got on Route 3
right to New York.
I went. I picked up George.
We took a shower. We got dressed
and we went to this club in the city
with another friend of mine, Devo.
And we went to the club and the Eurythmics were there hanging out,
just hanging out.
Like, you couldn't even talk to them, I said.
I thought I was a fucking big shot and shit.
But I stayed with, and at that time, I was just doing creepy shit.
How much would you say, average, you probably hit in the gas stations?
1,500 to 2 grand a pop?
A pop, yeah.
And about what, a dozen? Yeah pop yeah and about what the biggest yeah like wow
what's the biggest maybe like it was like 2400 and i had like 15 of them but i had a thousand
scams going i just didn't want to stick to one scam i wanted to throw enough spaghetti i would
do something for two weeks then lay off it because i know now they were hot for it. Like, I'd put a suit on.
At that time, I was good friends with these dudes that were running a credit card thing.
These were legit dudes.
They also had counterfeit money.
You could buy money by the pound from them.
You could buy money by the pound.
This was crazy.
I had been involved with these dudes.
I didn't really know them, and I met them later on in the game through drugs.
But then later, later.
That's some real shit right there.
In 84 is when I found out what these guys were about.
And when Ryan Sickler orders a credit card,
they had it so wired that the guy who makes the credit cards
would make two credit cards, one for you in your name
and one for them in your name.
I mean, it was crazy.
It was this corrupt.
These guys had tapped into so much corruption.
Yeah, it is.
They were into traveler's checks.
They were into credit cards.
Anything forged.
IDs, passports.
$500 got you a birth certificate, driver's license,
social security card, and an insurance card for your car.
For your car, a fake insurance card.
That would work.
Like, they would call, get a fucking name on it.
I mean, it's crazy.
It was all done out of, like, Brooklyn, the baker.
I forget what the guy's name was.
But I just got involved with these guys that were high level.
So I started buying credit cards from them and I started buying suits.
And what I would do is go into big time office buildings and just look for people to make a mistake.
You have no idea how many times I've opened up a door and seen the bank deposit for the day sitting on your table.
And I just put it under under my jacket walk out of the
building yeah take the cash and throw away the checks and everything okay so during this time
you're 25 you say no i'm a baby i'm 22 okay 22 are you looking to outside of that bartending gig
are you looking to really work anywhere or are you just hustling and surviving? I'm looking to get the fuck out of Jersey.
I'm looking to get a payday. But do you know
where you want to go? I'm going back to
Colorado. You're going to go back.
This time I'm doing it right. I'm going to go to
Colorado Springs
and work myself up to Aspen
by November.
That was the plan.
And all of a sudden I'm doing all this
illegal shit. And it's the beginning of sudden, I'm doing all this illegal shit.
And it's the beginning of June.
And I got a call from a friend of mine.
And he says, they're looking for you.
Did you do some phony insurance scam?
And I go, yeah.
He goes, the lawyer's got a check for you.
And I go, come on.
What?
And they're like, they got a check for you.
Call the lawyer.
So I went on the yellow pages, got the lawyer's name.
I called him up.
I go, this is Jose Diaz.
He goes, yeah, I got a check for you.
Come to my office and get it on Friday at 1.
It was probably June 29th.
It was a Friday.
And I went to his office. He told me to be at his office like two hours there, 10 to 2.
I went in.
I did the paperwork.
When I looked at the check, it said 18 grand.
Damn.
And that's for what?
Some phony insurance shit.
Some guy got me involved in that.
I took the check to my friend's dad.
He cashed it.
I owed him a little bit of money for gambling shit, probably.
He cashed it.
I told him to hold on until 10 for the weekend.
I still wasn't doing coke.
I was pretty good.
So what I did was I went and bought a card with a huge limit.
And I took my friend Lubz
and this girl who had taken care
of me. And
George couldn't go.
This girl
worked for
Ann Taylor,
whatever that company was. I think that's right.
I mean, it sounds familiar. The shoe division.
She was a general manager of the shoe
division. So she had access to credit cards and stuff.
So whenever I went to that mall, I would give her a credit card.
And that's the old school.
Yeah.
These credit cards.
Yeah, but she would call in and see how much limit I would have.
Okay.
Because she would do it for women all the time.
Women would go, I want to buy those $800 shoes.
But I don't know what I got left on the card.
So she would call and they'd tell her, you know, 20 grand.
So I took her and my friend Lubes and I took them fucking shopping in that mall.
I go, whatever the fuck you want.
Whatever you want on a Saturday.
And we've got, I got the white Miami Vice suit.
I had everything.
I just bought a whole new fucking wardrobe.
Gold chains.
Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba.
I took my friends out to dinner, like four of us.
I took them out to a good fucking place called Piccolissimo.
They had a dish called lobster fried diablo.
And I knew people were looking for me.
I knew I was on the hit list.
I knew that anybody could find me at any time.
My godfather, the dudes I beat in West New York.
Oh, I had them everywhere.
So I took them to eat off the beaten path.
And then that night, I had already made in my mind
I was taking the one o'clock flight
from Newark Jet Blue
it was called People's Express
now here I got
18 grand
and Jet People's Express
you paid for it on the plane with a credit card
you had to go stand on line
and then if they picked you
that sounds scary
oh my god
they had a flight
every two hours.
They only flew from
Newark to Denver,
Newark LA, and Newark
to London. Darren, what's that
bus that everyone used to roll
like New York to Boston
or whatever, the Chinese bus.
It always break down on the side of the road. People tell me
about it all the time.
That's what it sounds like.
The airline version of that shit.
People's Express.
They went to LA? They came here?
They came here. They went to LA
because I took them one time. I was taking them so much
on stolen credit cards.
I would just get on there with stolen credit cards.
So you would get on and then you sit down and then they run you?
It was $49 one way.
But that's if you just want a chair.
Oh, you want cushions?
That's another $10.
Oh, you want a salad?
That's another $10.
You want a beer?
$22.
So I'd get on there and buy everybody drinks.
Give them all drinks.
Give them the whole world drinks.
Give everybody drinks.
Give them all drinks on me.
Because I'd be giving them Joe Swing's
fucking credit card.
Thank you, Mr. Jennings.
They'd take it up there, ching-ching it.
I'd sign it, and they'd rip it.
They wouldn't know nothing.
Nicest guy on People's Express.
People's Express via video.
That's right.
You could smoke on it back then.
It was a pisser.
And what happened was I was beating them for so long and one time i was out here the time i got into the beef with my uncle
i got into beef and i got on one of those and i was going to beat them you know i was going to
get on the plane when they came to me where's your, where's your credit card? I go, I left it on my luggage. And they go, okay, we'll see you afterward. I thought they were going to
forget. I'm like, this is how crazy I am. I'm like, they're going to forget. Fuck you.
They had two ramp agents down there. And they went with me to my luggage. We took it to
a secure place. I looked around. I sat in the cabin. They go, okay, you have an option.
This is theft.
You call the cops, or you call somebody to pay it right now and come get you.
I had to call a friend of mine
who was pissed at me.
He's like, you're fucking crazy. I got to pay
$69 now.
Jesus fucking Christ, I'll be right down there.
He had to come to Newark.
He had to come down and pay.
It was horrible.
It was fucking horrible.
They didn't do it over the phone back then.
There was no phone.
There was nothing.
He had to drive.
Yeah.
Like there was 1-800-WESTERN-UNION or something.
So now I'm leaving Sunday morning, and it's Saturday night,
and I'm with my buddies, and I'm having a good time,
and I'm not doing blow.
I got a couple drinks.
I mean, I go to this bar called The Spot in Union City.
My friend's uncle worked there, and he would give you Cuban crackers.
He was Irish.
What's that?
He would give you Cuban crackers with mortadella cheese on it.
A real Cuban.
With mortadella ham and a little cheese and give you tidbits.
So I'm there eating and I'm having
a good time with my friends. There's a couple
chicks I'm looking at. I'm not
snorting. And all of a sudden
one of the hottest friends I have
comes walking in the door.
Her name is Regina. God
breast her soul. She's dead now.
I hadn't seen her in about eight months.
And she sees me.
She lights up.
She gives me a fucking hug.
And she goes, I got to talk to you about something.
And there's a cop in the bar.
And he's my cousin.
His name is Julio.
I grew up with him.
We're not blood cousins, but I've known him since I grew up with his brother.
Me and his brother were huge fucking friends. We used to run numbers together when we were kids, all three of us. Even him as a cop,
when he was a kid, when he was 12, we all ran numbers for the same bookie on Sundays.
We were family. I'm watching him and he's just staring at me. I'm like, fuck, something's not
right. And this girl pulls me aside and she goes, listen listen i just want you to know that those people
they know it was you i'm trying to play it off but it's like you coming up to me going
they know and i'm like sick come on you know me better than that she's like knock it off
they got a description they saw you going in you went down went down there in a blue car. They watched the whole thing go down.
They're looking for you.
They have knocked all the cops.
They are physically looking for you.
I'm like, fuck.
She just took the energy out of me.
And I went up to the bar, and I paid the tab.
I go, let me go talk to my cousin, give him a hug.
And I go up to him, and I go, I'll see you next time.
And he goes, I think you should leave. And I go, I'll see you next time. And he goes, I think you should leave.
And I go, what are you talking about?
And he goes, I think you should leave.
There's a lot of people that you pissed off.
You should really fucking leave.
And I was like, okay.
And I got in the car and I was like, that's it.
This ain't just a fucking, I got to go.
So I went back to George's that night.
Went to bed at like 12.
My flight was like at 1.
George couldn't take me to the airport.
He had to do something that day.
So I had to take a bus to Jersey City,
and my friend was going to take me to the airport.
Wake up the next day.
I put some money in George's grandmother for bingo.
When I lived there, I would take care of her bingo bill.
That was one of my responsibilities.
Give her a 20 for bingo.
I gave her like 100 for like a couple nights of bingo.
I gave the mother the rent.
The mother would charge me like 50 bucks a week.
I gave the mother like 100 bucks.
bucks a week. I gave them all like a hundred bucks.
And I
get a
I think I take a cab to White
Castle on 88th Street.
Because that's where the bus came from.
Jersey City. I got my
military bag. I got
my shorts on. And I'm free
man. I'm ready to go
to fucking Colorado. Holy
shit. This has been
18 months of pure
fucking hell.
I'm going.
And all of a sudden, my bus
pulls up. Number one
Nungessers. That Nungessers
is what they call that bowling alley.
That's what they call it. That's the number one bus
that takes you from North Bergen
to Jersey City.
But the bus driver gets out.
He has to take a piss.
He goes into White Castle to take a piss.
He goes, shh.
The door whips open.
I'm sitting out there with my bag, and I hear a motorcycle.
Vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom.
I don't think nothing of it.
Just a fucking motorcycle. It's like I don't know what to do with me.
I don't think nothing of it.
Just the fucking motorcycle.
It had nothing to do with me.
I look over at the white cast.
I keep hearing the motorcycle.
And the motorcycle goes.
And he goes around the fucking bus.
And he makes a U-turn around the bus.
And rides up on the sidewalk.
And comes right towards me.
What?
And he's like, what the fuck? Dirt bike?
Yeah.
And then I had a, there was a side pocket.
I had a little 32.
Is that what they're called?
A little 32.
And I just, my bag was, it looked like a punching bag.
It would look like.
A 38?
Yeah, it was a.38.
A.38 Special, that little one.
No, the little one.
Yeah.
It wasn't a.22.
I think it was a.38.
Who the fuck knows?
.38 Special, I think.
It was a tiny one that a friend of mine, that I stole.
That's the one I pulled on my uncle in California.
That's the one.
I still had that gun.
I'd never fired it.
I'd never oiled it.
It was in that fucking thing.
And guess what?
I was going to Colorado with it.
I was just going to take it out and put it in my luggage, okay?
So I hear, mm-mm-mm, and the bike is coming towards me.
I reach, and it's like a flap, and I just happen to grab the gun.
The guy doesn't know I have the gun, but'm left i'm righty it's in my left hand
ain't gonna do me no fucking good and he pulls up where you are and he flips this thing and it's my
godfather who's been hunting me down and he goes hey remember when he chased me in the bed yeah
right i remember motorcycle okay he's 50 something on a fucking motorcycle. Okay. He's 50-something. On a fucking motorcycle.
I'm like, really?
On one of those Chinese ones, what do they call them?
Rice zippers or whatever the fuck they are.
They call them fucking rice rockets and shit.
I don't know what the fuck they call them.
He comes up on one of those.
In Spanish, he goes, you never came by and gave me that money, did you?
And I go, Gabby, I'm sorry.
He goes, the next time I see you,
he goes, I'm going to put a bullet in you.
Damn.
And he closed this thing and he took off.
I'm like, fuck, I don't even know if I should get on this bus.
I said, fuck it, let me get on the bus.
I got on the bus,
took me down to Jersey City.
My friend took me to the airport.
I got on lines of People's Express.
I got on the plane with a Fugazi credit card.
I get on this plane.
I'm headed to Colorado Springs.
Colorado Springs is where the Air Force Academy is.
It was the number one growing city at the time in 1985.
It was booming.
So I figured, like I said, I'd go down there, make some money.
I got $18,000 to play with.
I had about $17,000 to play with.
And I'll fucking go to Colorado.
I'll go to Aspen in November.
My buddy's up there.
He's house-sitting.
I'll get a job up there.
I could stay in the garage for a few days.
He don't know that yet.
But that's the ride I'm going to take.
On the plane, it's a party i'm drinking i'm fucking
smoking weed it was like a party on this point that's that people so i mean this is this is
this is crazy i start talking to this african-american dude real good guy we just start
talking the whole way and he's like and this is exactly what he told me. He goes, man, how old is you?
I go, I'm 23.
He goes, you ain't going no Colorado Springs with them fucking soldiers.
He goes, you're going to Boulder to get some pussy.
Now, I haven't gotten a piece of ass from August of 84.
It is now July of 85.
I'm 22 years old.
That's like 10 years. it is now July of 85 I'm 22 years old I have not even I have not even touched a woman
and it's coming up in a year
well guess what
on the fucking plane
I start talking to this daughter
she's from Jersey
we should start talking
now people's express was a fucking party
you're in the middle aisle
you're talking to four people.
Come here, waitress, come here.
Give them a drink.
Waitress?
Yeah.
Give them a drink.
Give that table over there a drink.
It was like you were in Goodfellas.
Yeah.
It was a fucking party.
Like, you fly today, it's horrible.
It's a horrible experience.
June of 85, you're giving all this.
You're buying people a drink.
Give them all a drink
give them all
a double
take a tip
you have to do
the fucking
store this is
we're drinking
we're here
so I got this
free drinking
on the plane
we go downstairs
we get our luggage
do you know what
the store just says
she goes what hotel
are you staying at
tonight
I go I have no idea
I don't even know
where I'm going.
Because the plan was to land in Denver.
I think we landed like at 10.
I was just going to take a hotel and then take a bus to Boulder the next day
and look for an apartment and keep my clothes at the hotel in Denver,
rent it for like a week, and go to Boulder.
Because he told me to go to Boulder.
He told, bro, I hated Boulder.
I fucking hated Boulder.
I hate it.
I went there when I lived in Aspen.
It was just a little bit too hippie-ish for me.
I wasn't ready for it.
It was like the village.
I wasn't ready for it.
Bro, I get off the fucking plane.
And this little cute stewardess is like, what hotel are you staying at?
I go, I don't know.
Where are you guys staying at?
And she goes, we're all supposed to stay over there.
I go, looks like I'm staying over there.
She goes, okay.
So we took, they went on the shuttle.
I went on the shuttle with them.
All the pilots were on there.
I'm there like in street clothes.
And we went back to this hotel.
And she goes, I'm in room 218.
I don't know what room I was in.
We went to our rooms.
We all went down to the front bar.
We were drinking.
And then later on, she came up to my room and threw me a little oven,
just like that.
People's Express.
Just like that.
I get up the next morning, just as planned.
She leaves.
I take a shower.
I didn't think I drank coffee.
I got out of the bus, went to Boulder.
I started walking around Boulder.
I saw a free paper.
I'm walking down the street.
I bump into this fucking girl
that's a 10.
Nice big tits. And she's like,
are you looking for an apartment?
I go, yeah. She goes, me too.
We could do it together.
I see her just like that.
I'm like, oh my God. I haven't talked to a girl
in a year.
I'm here two days. I haven't talked to a girl in a year. I'm here two days.
I've already talked to two women.
Back to back days.
So we both put, she went and looked at her apartment.
I walked her.
And then she walked me.
And I got my, I put my deposit in for my apartment.
Mine was 1012 14th Street.
And she was like three doors down.
And she was moving in with her college roommate.
So we spoke.
We wished each other luck.
I don't think we went and got in.
There was no coffee then, and I went back to Denver.
Got like a steak, went back to the hotel room.
The lady called the hotel.
I got the apartment.
I took my clothes.
I went to Boulder the next day, and I moved in. Two days later, I'm going called the hotel. I got the apartment. I took my clothes. I went to Boulder the next day.
And I moved in. Two days later,
I'm going to the gym. I see the chick with the big tits.
We start talking. She invites me over
for dinner. This was the craziest
time of my life.
And I,
third night, we start swapping spit.
But she's got a crazy
roommate. She's got a guy or girl? A girl. But she's got a crazy roommate.
She's got a roommate. Guy or girl?
A girl.
Okay.
That just won't quit.
Always cock blocking and just as good looking as this one.
Oh, yeah.
She would cock block, like come out topless with a thong on, like,
oh, I didn't know you were here.
I'm like, really?
So me and this girl, this is going on.
I'm lifting weights.
I joined the gym.
It was downstairs.
There was a store called Rose's.
I would get the rotisserie chicken.
That's all I lived on.
Rotisserie chicken, that.
Then I had a Japanese roommate.
He didn't speak English too good.
He's like, I ain't broke.
I go, you're broke.
Don't worry about it.
Let's go down to Alfalfa.
You got a new job. Your name is Kato.
And you're going to be my international chef.
So I called him Kato
and I made him my chef.
He's funny to you.
You know the cook?
Szechuan beef. He's like, Szechuan beef?
Yes, Szechuan beef.
You're cooking Szechuan beef every day.
Every day I get up, this motherfucker be cooking onions.
He could cook though.
So I had him.
I had a white dude for a roommate that played the air guitar.
He was in the finals of the air guitar.
Come on.
Oh, you got to hear this shit.
Three retards, okay?
And I had a Mexican dude that just came from Mexico.
And he was really like, you know, si, senor.
He was perfectly cast out of a fucking movie.
Speedy Gonzalez.
So I'm only going there at night basically to take showers.
So I start sleeping with the big titty girl.
So I'm pretty much hanging out with her all the time.
I'm lifting weights.
And even though I opened up a bank account, I put the 10 G's in the bank,
and I kept the other eight just to run with.
You know, I pop Kato off at 20 every day.
Go down to Alfalfa's, get some beef, get some scallions,
get some nice jasmine rice.
You know jasmine rice?
I love jasmine rice.
I know jasmine rice.
I know Jasmine Rice.
Kato, that was his name.
Now, so they would have
parties at night. Those three morons
would like say, hey, where you going?
We're going to have an air guitar final.
I'm like, what are you kidding me?
I'm going next door to get my dick sucked.
What's the matter with you guys?
And I would come back and they'd all be staring at me like
they didn't like me.
You're not part of this house.
You're no good.
And then the girl tells me about, I go, I don't know where they get any reefer around here.
And she goes, well, the people next door from you seem to smoke pot.
So one day I just knocked on the next door.
I don't matter.
I smelled some reefer.
I'm like, come on in.
I saw a reefer. She was in I saw reefer she was like 50
he was like 20
she was maybe 48
the ugliest woman you ever seen
she could stop bird shit in mid air
when she looks up the bird shit will stop
she wore little Yoko Ono
glasses she was almost as
ugly as Yoko Ono I'm no more good
but this woman was bird
dog ugly.
And her boyfriend was like 20 years younger.
That was her boyfriend, not her son.
No, he was a trust fund baby with a ponytail,
with little glasses, used to roll his own cigarettes.
Nerdy, couldn't hurt a fly.
They were the sweetest, dirtiest couple you ever met.
And she just sat there all day drinking,
and he would run errands for her,
and she would sell me weed.
So I'm getting weed from them.
I'm hooking up with this chick.
I'm doing all this stuff, right?
But I'm bored.
So I call my buddies and I go, listen, this is my address, 1012.
Send out some credit cards.
I'm bored.
So they start sending me out credit cards.
There's a little mall in Boulder.
I mean, I'm bored after 10 days, right?
10 days.
July 10th, I'm already bored.
They send me credit cards.
I start using credit cards all around the mall.
Chains.
You should have seen my room.
You ever see Coming to America?
Yeah.
When he redid his room?
Yeah, yeah.
I lived with four, yeah. I lived
in four retards.
I had a TV, VCR,
I had every movie I ever made.
Yeah, they moved downstairs.
I had everything. They're like, where you getting all this
stuff from? I'm like, I make money
you fucking Kato.
Make breakfast. I had Kato on
breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
So,
hysterical.
Bruce Lee's Chinese, too.
That's so.
Oh, yeah.
And he didn't speak no English, and his parents cut him off because they wanted him to be a doctor.
He wanted to be an astronaut.
So they cut him off.
So now I got the kid fucking.
I'm duking him 20s every time I see him.
I got to duke him 20s to get rid of them too
because I'd bring a girl over right away who wants to come over and translate
with sign language.
He thought he was Garcetti's fat little fucking sign language chick,
so I would have to give him a Douglas and you got to go.
Go where?
Go cook.
What do I pay you for?
I don't pay you to stand.
I pay you to cook.
I don't pay you for, I don't pay you to stand, I pay you to cook.
So come a Sunday, the gym where I'm going to has this big annual barbecue.
It's still July.
I'm already, I haven't even been there a month.
I'm sleeping with this girl.
She's got a crazy roommate.
I'm copping weed and I'm already using the credit card.
All right?
We go to this barbecue.
I'm having a good time with this girl I'm dating, but we bring her roommate,
the hot one that would come out with the thong and the fucking,
you could hear the dildos in there and shit.
Three weeks of this shit.
I'm looking at this girl.
I'm like, she's a piece of ass.
So we're at this barbecue.
So help me God.
And I'm sitting there.
And the girl I'm with is actually flirting with another dude right in front of me.
Now, I'm not her boyfriend.
But at least don't flirt in front of me.
Take his number.
Cop it for the side.
And when I'm not around, you can suck his dick.
That's got nothing to do with me.
I'm not that type of guy.
So she's talking to the thing.
So the roommate's got three drinks in him, and she's talking a lot of shit.
That her pussy's so good, I'm missing out on it, that I'm fucking the wrong chick.
You want to stab him?
She goes, where?
I go, I'll fuck you right over there by that wall.
You think I'm kidding you? We went over that wall.
Everybody could see us.
It was only like a three-foot brick wall.
It was maybe a three-foot brick wall.
Everybody could see us.
We jumped over the wall.
She took her panties off, and I did it doggy style.
They're playing like tennis.
In the middle.
They're cooking hamburgers, and I'm doggy style.
And all you can see is from my rib cage up.
And I'm working this ass, right?
This is hysterical.
Now I got to get in the car with both of them.
And the one girl is yelling, fuck you.
You stole my boyfriend.
He wasn't my boyfriend.
Fuck you.
They get into a fight.
It was horrible.
So now I lose them both.
Both of them are pissed at me.
I lost my piece of ass.
The whole thing goes down the drain.
I'm sitting in my room one night, and I go, you know what?
This is bullshit.
I could have done this dumb shit in Jersey.
I got to get my life together.
Let me go get a job.
So I start putting applications in.
It's a college town.
It doesn't pick up till September
I go everywhere
everywhere, well guess what my mistake was
without even thinking I go back to this mall
and I go in the mall
and I start passing on applications
and one place where I heard it was great
to work was Foot Locker
so I go to Foot Locker
give them an application, the guy's from New York
right away we start talking, he goes I only got part time, you can start tomorrow Foot Locker. So I go to Foot Locker. Give him an application. The guy's from New York.
Right away we start talking.
He goes, I only got part-time.
You can start tomorrow.
I go, boom.
I'll start tomorrow.
It had to be the end of July.
I start.
First day I'm selling sneakers.
You know, after three or four days, I know how to run the joint.
So I'll never forget this.
And I got to say this story. I'm very ashamed of this story.
This is what started
it all. What do you
mean by it? This is what started
the whole rotation of Downward
for me. So I'm doing
great at this fucking place.
I'm making strides.
We're going out for beers afterward.
Like I was part of the crew.
I'm there about two weeks.
I don't know what time I had to go to work.
You had the ref jersey and all that, huh?
Yeah, the whole thing with black pants.
We were just about to do paperwork.
No, let's not speed it up.
I'm doing great there.
Everything's going great.
And one day I have to go in in the afternoon
and my room is dirty
where the fuck is the vacuum
I go out
Kato where's the vacuum
I don't know I don't know where the vacuum is
okay the fucking white dude
he don't know because there's supposed to be
a vacuum for the building
so as I go
out of my apartment,
you're not going to believe this story.
As I go out of my apartment to look for the vacuum,
there's a girl in my hallway,
and we both look at each other and we go,
is that you?
Two years earlier, I was in Tempe, Arizona,
and I met a girl at the airport.
Talking.
We were both delayed.
And she goes, I love your accent.
No shit.
Where are you from?
She goes, Boulder.
I go, I'm from New Jersey.
She goes, my sister lives in Jersey.
Her husband has an accent like yours. We started talking. She goes, where are you headed? I go, I'm from New Jersey. She goes, my sister lives in Jersey. Her husband has an accent like yours.
We started talking.
She goes, where are you headed?
I go, back to Jersey.
She goes, you know what?
I'm going to go to Jersey soon.
Why don't you exchange numbers and I'll call you.
She called.
I would give her like my friend's number.
I didn't have a phone.
One day my friend looks for me and he goes, hey, some girl, Kathy, called you.
And she's staying at such and such on Wednesday. So I got
a hold of her at the hotel and I went over
and met her. I had just met her in
Arizona. So
we basically went to like Joe's
Pizza, one of those pizza places in New
York, and walked around for two
hours. God made my witness.
I didn't even try to do anything.
I was in such a slump that a pussy doesn't even go for it
because I knew the answer was going to be no.
So I walked her back to the hotel like a gentleman.
I go, I'll see you some other time.
And she gave me her Colorado number.
But in all my fucking drug. This is March of 84 when I bump into her
and she gives me all this stuff.
I have a girlfriend kind of sort of.
It wasn't worth it.
I didn't have a girlfriend, so it had to be later than that.
It had to be when I was going through my shit
that she called and I met her in the city.
I didn't try nothing.
I just, I was a mess.
This was like a breather for me.
For me to hang out with her was a breather because I was usually hanging around
and running animals.
So I see this girl.
And she's like, is that you?
And I'm like, is that you?
What is the fucking coincidence? and we start talking and she goes what are you doing tonight nothing she goes i live
right under you no i go under you fucking you for the last month you and some girl listen to
fucking prince tall hours of the night they would just just listen to Prince. I'm like, what the fuck is wrong with you girls?
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and we went on a date and boom She was my girlfriend the next morning.
We stayed out all night.
Ended up wrestling with her.
Who fucking wrestles on a date?
She told me she had three brothers.
She used to wrestle them. She wanted to wrestle.
So we started wrestling in front of the fucking lawn.
She ripped my shirt.
I ripped her shirt. It was tremendous.
And we just started dating.
And I didn't tell her what I did, you know.
And I was doing great at Foot Locker.
I was doing great at Foot Locker.
In fact, they just had offered me paperwork for full-time position.
Me and her were dating like three weeks.
She did not know about the credit card scams.
I'm bringing her jewelry every other day and flowers,
all bought on a Fugazi credit card.
I'm taking her for lunches, all like fake fucking credit cards.
So now one day I'm at the fucking Foot Locker.
It's August of 85.
I'm in a footlocker.
And what the fuck do you think happens?
A Chinese family comes in.
And they had like one of those celebrations,
like one of those yin-yang celebrations
where they put all the money in envelopes
and put them in one big envelope.
So I'm fitting all the kids for sneakers,
but am I balling the envelope?
I got fucking 10 G's in the bank.
You know, this is the shit
that, this is what I said to you. The sickness.
I had everything going on,
but that envelope was sticking out
and it would not fucking... It was whistling
at you. I fucking
clipped the envelope, I put it in my pocket,
I go into the back,
I rip the envelope open, there's
I don't know, five grand cash.
I fold it.
I put in a sneaker, like a size 14 orange sneaker, which nobody's going to touch.
And I take the paper and I flush it.
I don't know.
I just had a weird feeling.
I go back out there.
I'm talking to the family.
Everything's great.
We go to pay.
And all of a sudden, they're like, oh, yeah, ma.
Oh, yeah, ma. What happened? No.
And they're talking about money. When they came
into Fort Lauderdale, the money was there.
That it had to be somebody who worked
there, took it. So I'm like,
there were some kids. And they're like, yeah,
those kids took it. So they
called the cops. They made a
big deal about it. They called
the cops. And that's when the about it. They called the cops.
And that's when the jewelry chick came over.
And she goes, you know what? A couple weeks ago, some guy came in and used a bunch of credit card to get jewelry.
He looks like him.
And then they fucking came like three days later.
It's like August 20th now, 25th.
And they came in to me. came like three days later. It's like August 20th now, 25th.
And they came into me.
Detective Sipa was his name.
Okay.
He wasn't even a detective.
He was a patrolman.
This is going to come back to haunt you.
His name was Sipa, something like that.
He comes in and he goes,
Jose, can I talk to you?
He goes, listen, I know it was you who robbed those Chinese girls.
We're just waiting for the tape to come back from the store.
He goes, also, we've passed your picture around.
You, three or four people recognize you as the guy that ran a credit card scam here.
He goes, it was quite amount, and you ran up.
I mean, I was just buying jeans every day.
We're waiting on the footage from the gas station.
Bro, they couldn't get me.
They were doing all this shit, so they came to see me on a Saturday.
Then they came back on Sunday, and they're like,
listen, Monday we're going to have all the evidence to come and arrest you.
If you do this now, it'll be a lot easier on you.
And I'm like, guys, I don't know what you're talking about.
That night I go home.
They fucking knock on my door that night about 9 o'clock.
And they go, listen, we're waiting for the pant sizes to come back.
And once we get the pant sizes, we're going to make a,
what waist are you? And I'm like, I don't know.
You know, I don't know what
my waist is. But once they left,
I went downstairs and
knocked on their door and took her outside.
I go, look, this whole
fucking Joey Diaz shit, this is
bullshit. My name is Coco
and I'm a fucking thief.
Yeah, I work at Foot Locker, but I told her the truth.
I gotta leave.
I don't want to.
You're a sweetheart. You're the first
person I've ever had in my life
that I don't want to lie to.
I don't want to. I'm sick of doing this shit.
I'm 20-something years old.
You're a nice girl. This bitch looked at me
and she goes, I'm coming with you.
nice girl. This bitch looked at me.
She goes, I'm coming with you.
Next morning,
we got up. I said,
pick a spot. She goes, San Francisco.
San Francisco it is.
Got to San Francisco.
Now, guess what I did?
I left a 10G.
It wasn't like now. You had an ATM card and you had 10.
No, I left at 10G in Boulder.
I had like six Gs.
I said, we'd go to San Francisco, get the party started with six Gs.
We went to the Alexandria Hotel.
It's probably still there.
It's a dump.
It's in that fucking part of town that's horrible.
I forget what they call it in San Francisco.
Like the Haight-Ashbury
back in the day? Downmore.
Downmore. There's a name for it.
It's horrible. We lived
there. We were across the street from a
restaurant called the Hotel California
that had breakfast and diners
and shit. We stayed at the Alexandria
for about a week
but it was too expensive so we ended up
going to the Virginian Hotel
I don't know what street that was on
but this was one of those rooms
where you take a shower in the hallway
and you live in the room but you have to share
a shower with your side of the building
you go in that locket
you can put your towel down and your clothes
and you walk back to your room
real cool, older people live there
I blew through that six grand like in two weeks.
Like in dinners, breakfasts.
So I had to go on the grind.
You know, I'm buying.
So here's what really happened.
So it's 1985.
I haven't dealt with anybody Cuban.
I haven't spoken any Spanish.
And I go to San Francisco. We check in the Virginian Hotel. I haven't spoken any Spanish. And I go to San Francisco.
We check in the Virginian Hotel.
I tell the estate, I'm going to go get a bag of weed.
And I walk down the Tenderloin.
That's what the area is called.
I walk down there, and as I'm walking,
I see these black guys, African-American.
And I'm like, I'll go ask them if they have weed.
And as I walk up to them, they're speaking Spanish.
And they're not just speaking any Spanish.
They're speaking Cuban Spanish.
And I asked them, do I go out on there?
Like, we all Cuban.
There was like 60 of them on that corner.
And they're just shaking down people, selling coke, selling IDs.
So I introduced myself. down people, selling coke, selling IDs.
So I introduced myself.
I met one of the guys, and I started buying weed from him.
And that's like three or four days.
They're like, you speak English?
I'm like, yeah.
They're like, you could be a little helpful with the whole operation here.
Oh, they didn't speak English at all?
No.
No?
Ah. So they had a bunch of shit to do that they could do, but they didn't speak English at all? No. So they had a bunch of shit to do
that they could do,
but they didn't know, you know, how to
do it. But just standing on
that corner, all the action came to
you. So I'd be on that
corner, and you'd come up to me and go, hey, man,
I got 600 in
traveler's checks. I'll give
you 200
for 600 in traveler's checks. Because I give you 200 or 600 traveler's checks.
Because I know I could take that
to Japantown by
Van Ness with a suit on
and I could charge. I could
take a $100
traveler's check, buy a dollar
postcard, they'll give me 99 cash.
So I come ahead.
They're insured.
So I became
Mr. Traveler's Check
anybody who had Traveler's Checks they brought them to me
anybody who stole Traveler's Checks
they brought them to me there was one guy on the block
that you had to pay him his tribute
every day all I had to do
was give him a bottle of scotch he liked
a certain expensive scotch
so I gave him a scotch and that let me operate
on the block.
I had to pay a little vig to help out a couple guys,
but it was okay, because every time I'd go down,
I had to make money.
I'd go down there with a suit.
First thing I did was go to a liquor store,
give the old man his tribute at Boodle.
That was his name, at Boodle.
And he just dropped history on you,
and shit Cuban history.
I used to talk to him all the time. I'll never forget one day this Mexican dude came up to me.
He's like, I need money.
And then Budo's like, talk to me in Spanish, you motherfucker.
You're fucking Mexican.
Spock, Spock.
He goes, you know how many fucking white people kicked your fucking family's ass and threw them out?
He goes, California used to belong to Mexico.
And white people took your Mexico.
Now you want to speak Spanish?
Go fuck yourself. Speak English, whatever Mexico. Now you want to speak Spanish?
Go fuck yourself.
Speak English, whatever the fuck.
You want to speak English?
Go fuck yourself.
When you talk to me, speak Spanish.
I was just an old fountain of, but it was just a collaboration of fucking characters.
And, bro, I was doing everything.
One day I'd be doing traveler's checks.
One day I'd be passing out counterfeit loot.
It was endless, endless.
My girlfriend at the time wasn't doing dick.
I was bringing home the money.
We would go to Tad's Steakhouse, Chinese.
We were living day to day, like after a while, hand to mouth.
So I started pawning jewelry.
You start pawning jewelry with the credit cards.
You buy jewelry.
You pawn it.
Whatever.
There was a place called Coffee Runs.
It was a topless coffee shop.
Topless coffee shop? In 1985.
No shit.
My girlfriend at the time.
They would serve you topless?
Yeah.
Yeah?
You could either be topless behind the bar,
or you could have a shirt on.
Okay. Whatever you want. you could have a shirt on whatever you want my girlfriend
kept her shirt on so she
would work at whatever
and then I walked into a
you know like I was always trying to
go legit I don't want
people to think I was always a criminal like I was
always trying to go legit but on those
days when I couldn't get a job
I had to go back to what I did best you know
and I remember one day I went get a job, I had to go back to what I did best, you know?
And I remember one day I went for a job at a Mexican restaurant,
and I wrote the application, I gave it to the guy.
The guy goes, where are you from?
And I go, North Bergen, New Jersey.
And he goes, what did your parents do for a living?
Like, they owned a bar.
And he goes, well, guess what?
My name is Jose Diaz, and I'm from Union City, New Jersey.
We're like third cousins.
Come on.
My human well's nephew.
I go, no, I'm Manny's son.
And he goes, my cousin is your father's uncle.
So he goes, listen, bro, it's great to meet you.
That is nuts.
He goes, I can't give you a job, but I'll get you a job at another bar.
Let me call my friend.
We'll wait right here.
And he got me a job.
So how long are you in San Francisco at this point?
A couple months?
I'm in San Francisco maybe three weeks.
Jesus Christ.
And he gets me a job at a place called Rockin' Robbins.
There's a bartender slash doorman.
And I go, okay, so fuck it.
I'll be a bartender out of here.
So when I left him, when I went to the Sheraton,
I was part of the American Bartender Institute.
The Sheraton sent you to American Bartender School,
and you get certified to be a bartender.
Big fucking deal.
You might as well drive an Uber, right?
So if you go to bartending school, you're a fucking loser, okay?
There's nothing better than going to bartending school because you find out the true alcoholics on Thursday,
they would have, like, mixed night,
like, drink all the mistakes you
want for 50 cents. You just
see how many people go in there.
Oh, they show up and drink when you're practicing.
You're making Singapore slings
with the wrong shit.
50 cents, people don't give a fuck.
They're just drinking up the mistakes. They would make
like a pseudo bar.
But part of the National
American Comedy, whatever it was, part of the National American Comedy,
whatever it was,
part of it was that
they had to hire you.
It was nationwide,
whatever,
for the rest of your life.
Oh, okay.
So I could walk into an American Bar Academy,
tell them my number,
they could go on the computer,
and they had to send me on job auditions.
I don't even know if they still exist.
So I'm just walking down the street after this interview,
and I look up, and I go, American Bartender School.
I walk upstairs, and I go, hey, my name is Joey Diaz.
I went to the school in New York.
They go, hold on.
Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep.
How you doing?
John, this is whatever.
I have Joey Diaz here. Do you have him on file? Hold on. In those days, there was no peep, peep. How you doing? John, this is whatever. I have Joey Diaz here.
Do you have my file?
Hold on.
In those days, there was no computer.
Somebody had to go to a file.
I said, yeah, he graduated in February of 84.
Okay, thank you, but we'll get you a job.
In fact, we got a job that's perfect for you.
Are you Italian?
I go, no, I'm Cuban.
He goes, don't say nothing to him.
Just tell him you're Italian.
I'll never forget, I'm Cuban. He goes, don't say nothing to him. Just tell him you're Italian. I'll never forget.
This is horrible.
He gives me this piece of paper, and he goes, go down there.
They want to talk to you at 945.
Now, if you know anything about me, I'm going to get there at fucking 9.
That's how I was raised.
So I get there at 5 after 9.
I get there with my suit.
My girlfriend goes with me.
So I get there at 5 after 9.
I get there with my suit.
My girlfriend goes with me.
We are down to the money we took on the bus to get there.
That's what we have.
We don't have a dime of money.
Every dollar we have, we just spent on the bus right there.
She's waiting outside.
I go inside.
Only this could happen to me. Now, I didn't have the Rockin' Robbins
job yet. Like, I was going for an interview that night later. This was my first interview
of the day. And this is for a lunchtime bartender. So I go in there and I'm like, the paper says I'm looking for Art. Art. Art, hello.
I'm here at 9 o'clock, 945.
You know, the coffee's on.
No, Art.
I walk a little deeper.
Art.
Art.
I keep walking.
And there you go.
There's an office wide open.
I was waiting for it.
No, no, no.
go there's an office wide open with the bank deposit and the safe wide open with stacks of money i'm like oh art's about to get ripped apart three two one and i go in there And I just start taking that stack of cash
I'm putting the cash down my pockets
Because I've done some bad
I'm putting it down my pockets
I'm putting it in my jackets
I take everything
But I'm a fucking gavone
I go for the quarters
The stacks of $10 quarters
And I put them all in this pocket here
Because this pocket was filled with cash.
So when I walk out of the office, I walk in, and my jacket is twisted.
This side's all heavy.
It's all twisted.
I walk out, and the guy's like, hey, what are you doing here?
I'm like, I'm looking for Steve.
He's like, Steve?
We got no Steve here.
I'm Art.
I thought you were my 945.
I go, no, no, no, I'm not looking for a job. My friend told me to meet him here. He goes Steve here. I'm Art. I thought you were my 945. I go, no, no, no.
I'm not looking for a job.
My friend told me to meet him here.
He goes, oh, I'm sorry.
What restaurant?
I go, I think it's Amelia's.
He goes, I think that's down the corner.
And I walked out of there.
And that's when I heard him go, come back.
And by that time, I grabbed my girlfriend,
and we just took off.
20s were flying out of my jacket.
We're running up the fucking hills of San Francisco.
We finally see a bus and we get on the fucking bus and we jump on it.
We get in the back.
We're like, was that close?
She goes, what the fuck just happened?
I go, let me tell you what just happened.
I start giving her like $100 and quarters.
And I'm taking 20s out of every fucking
suitcase I got
every package
and all of a sudden we counted up
I don't know, a thousand bucks
we put it in our pocket, she had $100 and quarters
as I'm getting off the bus
a little old lady goes
whose $20 bill is this?
I know it's mine
but fuck it, you take it for good luck.
She goes, God bless you.
So I made this call.
But this is the killer from Manila.
When I was a kid, and no offense to the LGBT community,
when I was a kid and I wore a scarf,
like every once in a while I would wear a scarf
and my mom would go, come here.
What are you, Rock Hudson?
Get the fucking scarf off.
Now, my mother died in 79.
I love that your mom knew because my grandmother
denied the shit out of like, he
fucking, he said it. My mother
79. My mother
died. Rock didn't come out until
85.
If I call me, when you're Cuban,
you're supposed to call me here on the left side.
If you call me on the right side, they'll call you over.
Come here.
What are you, Rock Hudson?
You're like, what the fuck are you talking about?
So my mother over the years would call me different names whenever I acted a certain way.
Instead of calling me gay, she'd say something
what are you going to grow up to be a Bouguaron?
Now a Bouguaron is a guy
in jail that
commands respect because
he takes you and he makes you
gay. You suck his dick
and he fucks you in the ass.
But you don't fuck him in the ass.
And he don't suck your dick.
He's basically your husband.
And in the Cuban traditions, he could smack you, beat you up,
and you got to take it.
There's no one, 9-1-1.
There's no fucking hell is for children.
There's nothing.
You take the beat, and that's how it is.
Now, I ain't heard this.
I ain't heard about this.
Did I ever see it?
No.
Well, guess what?
It's the summer of San Francisco in
85. I saw it.
One day I'm on the corner and they're
like, shit, don't say nothing, bro.
This is the big time coke guy.
And he came like with the cape over
him. Like, you know,
flamboyant as hell. Yeah, I just
came back from Miami. I got the good shit
if you guys want it
I'm in room 131 at this hotel
down the corner I'm like 131
where Rob the guy and they're like
dog he's connected all the way to Miami
he'll get shot in the head
but he had two guys dressed up
as women
that would hang out with him
like with a day hole beard
women that would stuff their bras and they hang out with him, like with a day-old beard, women that would stuff their bras,
and they would walk with him.
And what he would do is he'd stand on the opposite of us,
and they'd hold the coke.
And you'd go up to him, and he'd go sell him a gram,
and she'd collect it.
But when one would fuck up, he'd, like, smack them, right, in public.
And they would fall down.
The weight would fall down. You couldn't
write this shit. Like even
today I'm looking at this and I'm like
Jesus Christ.
What is my, I'm 22
and I'm seeing a
straight man beat up on
a poor gay guy that doesn't even know he's
gay. Like he's caught up in a cult.
It was, and I
saw him punch him. Like, one
day they made a mistake, got him the wrong cigarettes.
He threw a beat on one of those fags.
He was just beating him like
it was just crazy.
The guy was on the floor. He threw
the wig on top of him. He kept kicking him
in the stomach. Don't you ever get me the wrong
cigarettes. That's a sign of no
disrespect. The guy's bleeding from his
mouth. It was just hilarious. After's a sign of no disrespect. The guy's bleeding from his mouth. It was just hilarious.
After about a week,
the guy watches me and he knows I can
handle myself.
He asked me if I had a gun.
I told him, yeah. He goes, listen,
I need somebody to watch my back on that
corner. It's a deadly corner.
So he gains my trust.
I'm
working for like the small hundred a day,
and no cocaine.
I wasn't doing cocaine.
I wouldn't even touch it.
Wouldn't even touch it.
But he keeps talking about this room 131.
So one day he goes to eat lunch, and he goes,
I'll be back in an hour.
We're going to the other side of town I go I'm going to 131
I go to 131
kick the fucking door down
this is the genius your uncle Joey is
I go to 131
kick the door down
in the middle of the room
is a fucking bag
I unzipipped the bag.
There's no Coke.
I don't know if there was no Coke,
but let's just say there's no Coke.
What there is is about maybe 20 grand in American cash.
Damn.
And when I zip it back,
when I zip the other zipper,
there's stacks of Colombian money.
Stacks.
Then he had another bag that had stacks of Colombian money.
Stacks.
I mean, I don't even know how much it was.
So what do you think the guy in front of you did? I took all the Colombian money
because there was so much of it in this bag
that rivaled the American cash.
I go, let him keep the cash.
We'll make this look like one of the gay guys did it.
So I'll take the Colombian money.
So I take the Colombian money.
I take it to my hotel room.
I go back to the corner like nothing happened.
He comes back an hour later.
I've been robbed.
They took the Colombian money.
Blah, blah, blah.
I'm going to find out who it is and put a bullet.
I'm like, I'll do it for you.
I've been here the whole day watching.
You should have sent me over there to watch.
This would have happened if you would have sent me with you.
I'm one of those guys.
I'll put you together.
That's why I shut my fucking door.
So I run home.
I get on the phone with my goombas and jerseys.
I'm like, dog, listen.
Rent out the garden.
And they're like, what?
I go, see what it is to rent out the garden.
I got to have at least three, four million Colombians.
That's got to be at least a million dollars.
I'm going to pick it up tomorrow tomorrow and I'm going to come home.
I went down to the corner and I've got
the biggest, blackest dude that hung out
with the Cubans. He had to be
6'6", 2'80".
Big black guy.
He goes, what's up, Cuba? I go, tomorrow
you got to walk me to the
fucking international
bank. It was right across the street
where people do fucking Tai Chi.
San Francisco, there's a hundred people out there
doing Tai Chi.
You gotta see me at nine o'clock.
I got one of my best suits on.
I got Sinatron.
I lost you.
I lost you to the summer wind.
I got my cuffs.
I told my girlfriend, I go, when I come back here
we're gonna be millionaires.
She's like, what are you talking about?
I go, what do you think is in the bag?
I go downstairs, big Lou's down
there waiting for me. He's got a weapon
on him. I got a weapon on me. I go, Lou,
listen, we're going to go over there.
I got about four million here.
Hopefully, they'll give me a million American.
And I'll cut you
and I'll give you like 10 grand
and then you have to drive me
we gotta figure out how to get to the airport
I'm going back to Jersey
I called all my friends in Jersey
I got a million dollars
I got a million dollars
the bank opens at 9
I'm there at 10 to 9
I'm saluting the flag
what a great country oh my god The bank opens at 9. I'm there at 10 to 9. I'm saluting the flag.
What a great country.
Oh, my God.
She opens up the door.
And I'm like, it's your lucky day.
And she goes, what's going on? How much do you have to transfer?
I go, I don't know.
And I start taking it out in badges and putting it out.
She's like hitting that calculator.
I'm hearing all these numbers and I'm like
oh. And I'm looking at the black
guy. I'm like bro
we're fucking. We're living
lives. We're getting barbecued.
We ain't fucking around
and shit.
This bitch hit numbers for like an hour.
I'm thinking. I'm playing
with her. I'm like you think you got enough cash back there to pay me?
And she's like looking at me like.
All of a sudden she goes.
And she rips the thing around and she goes, this is what you got coming to you.
It was like $390.
I gave the guy $100.
I wanted to cry.
I walked back to the fucking thing.
Now I got to go down to the corner.
I got to face the fags with the Cuban guy.
They're all pissed off.
So this was part of the thing.
But there was a guy in the building that I kept robbing every week.
At the Virginian Hotel.
There was nobody safe.
First of all, I became the best hotel thief because I would sit in the lobby
and wait for you to check in.
I had great Spider-Man hearing.
And whenever you would check in, they'd go, go to room 311.
I'd see you go up to 311.
In San Francisco, people go up to their rooms, get their cameras, and they run right out.
I would go up to the room, take the door down, take the traveler's checks.
And then I'd follow.
In my building, I just followed the maid around.
And one day, she would open the door with the key and leave the key in the thing.
I creeped up behind her, took the key, took it off,
not even took it off the ring, went downstairs.
There was a bodega slash fucking lumberyard downstairs, right downstairs.
They made me a spare, and I put it back before she even knew it was missing.
That's how good it was.
And I had that key, and there was one old man that was retired,
and he'd always sit in the lobby downstairs.
I'm a bookie, if you want to.
And he would do those ticket slips.
So I would go into his house every Friday
and take like his poor little $150 from the slips,
and I'd leave the gambling slips.
I was just torturing them.
Every week.
Everybody gets it.
Around me those days, you got it.
So I'm banging them out like three weeks
in a row.
But I'm also doing rule number one.
I'm shitting where I sleep.
I'm starting to fucking hit
the people in the building.
And I was friends with the fucking guy
who ran the hotel and I was friends
with his wife.
And we're going out
to dinner and drinks and they're telling us
we think it's a guy in room
14 that's robbing people. And I'm like,
yeah, it's probably him.
The whole time it was me.
There was a little gay guy.
We had a...
We had...
If you opened up your window,
there was no view.
There was no bridge. It was another window
there, another window there,
another window where you are.
And it was maybe eight feet.
There was a guy in that window
that would put that music on by Stevie Wonder.
You and me, part-time lovers.
He would put a thong on and leave the window open.
He was gay.
And he would just dance the part-time lover.
He would put it on over and over and over.
It's like, oh, part-time.
Give it a part time!
And he'd go, fuck you man!
I'm getting ready for my performance tonight!
So I'm doing this shit
I'm torturing the guy
I'm robbing the bookie
and I'm fucking
bartending, I think Monday
I worked the door
and I had a Thursday bartending shift.
And that's what I'm doing.
And I'm not doing, guys, and I'm with the Cubans in the daytime,
I'm not doing bad, but I got greedy.
Again, one day I'm downstairs,
and these fucking guys come in, they're talking German.
And I don't know, Wunderbar, I don't know, I heard money.
That sounds like money, huh? They leave, and I go right know, I don't know, I heard money. That sounds like money, huh?
They leave, and I go right to that room.
I open it up, I close it,
I go to their luggage,
I go to nothing.
Guess what?
They're at the door trying to open the door.
Oh, fuck!
So I lock the top lock.
They can't get in.
Who's in there? who's in there?
And I actually go out the window to see if I can walk the ledge.
Thank God I'm on the second floor, but I don't have the balls.
I gotta go to the ledge and I don't have the balls.
So I go, what am I gonna do?
They keep knocking.
And I say, hotel security, who's in there?
It was my friend.
And I open the door and he goes, what the fuck you doing?
And I go, Bart, before you say anything. I go, I'm sorry. who was in there was my friend and i opened the door and he goes what the fuck you doing i go
bart before you say anything i go i'm sorry i go the door was open and i thought the maid was in
here i came in here to get two towels and there was no towels and the germans were like we're
calling the police and i go call the police i didn't take nothing i didn't touch nothing you
guys knocked on the door and I got scared. I was just
going to take some towels. I go, how long
do I live here? I've been here like two months
with no problems. They're like,
ooh, somebody's been doing shit around
here. And the cops came
and I talked the cops out of it. I'm like,
I've been here for two months. I work
at Rockin' Robbins. I go, why would I
rob somebody? I go,
I went to get towels and
they're like well it's true the maid and the two cops let me go but the Germans
were like they called their embassy did they they did they're like this is
bullshit if we were white you would arrest him so they started pushing for
it so the restaurant the guy that owned the hotel, the guy that I was friends with, called my room and he goes, hey, the cops are on their way to arrest you.
You might as well get out of here.
So me and my girlfriend packed up.
There was a back set of stairs and we could see them walking up the stairs.
We were going down.
We ran maybe two blocks and those were buses to Reno.
we ran maybe two blocks and those were buses to Reno
for like the night
you go to Reno five hour drive
and I remember getting on the bus
and fucking there was an
Arab guy on there and he was smoking
and I go what do you smoke
and he goes I get weed and I mix it with
cigar and I put hash in it
and I go let me get a hit of that
I thought I was going to fucking
die so that's it you're out of San Francisco And I put hash in it. And I go, let me get a hit of that. I thought I was going to fucking die.
So that's it.
You're out of San Francisco now.
I puked all the way to Reno.
We basically went to Reno, got off the bus, walked,
and then came back to San Francisco.
And then we just went to the airport.
And I had enough money to put her on a flight.
And then we just went to the airport.
And I had enough money to put her on a flight.
So the plan was for her to go to Boulder, go to her bank account, go to my bank account, and get me a plane ticket for me to fly back to Boulder.
It had gotten too hot and whatever for me.
So I lived in the San Francisco airport for two days.
You did?
Yeah.
That's when nobody knew nothing.
Right, yeah, back then.
Nobody had an idea.
There was no charging phones, everything.
And I remember even then that every time you went to a bathroom,
a guy would walk in and he'd go up next to you and piss next to you
to try to look at your dick.
And I remember sitting there all day going,
what is this guy doing?
All these flights have taken off, and he's still here.
But he goes to the bathroom, and I go,
let me see if this guy's a closet gay guy.
Sure enough, I go to the bathroom, and I'm pissing.
He comes in with me.
He's like two things away, and he comes in next to me.
He looks at my dick.
I'm like, you freaky motherfucker i'll beat that because
i was raw back then and uh what a great idea though god you could have lived in an airport
back i was living in the airport you could have just moved terminal terminal they're not gonna
follow you or figure that out in those days they flew all night right 3 a.m flights yeah you know
there were flights to fucking so they didn't't know. There was no international terminal.
You could fly next to a flight that was going to Hong Kong,
and they were boarding.
Wow.
Bars closed at like 2 then, but there were lockers at airports,
and you could put your fucking things out.
That's right.
So we went back to San Francisco.
We went back to Boulder Boulder and we basically stayed in
Boulder for a week.
And
when I called my buddy
to tell him if I should come up,
he goes, I have news
to tell you.
You know that girl that came out here
from North Bergen to be with me?
I go, yeah. He goes, she's knocked up.
We're moving back to Jersey.
You could take the job.
Whoa.
It was a house-sitting job.
It was 16 hours of work a week, free rent in Snowmass Village, Colorado.
You have no idea.
Most people would suck a cock for that job.
Like you could get somebody to suck your cock
wait a second I get to live in a
fucking two million dollar house
for free
the guy worked
he was on the board of directors of Fridays
TGIF
so he only
it was one of his 18 houses
so he only came
once a year.
And he had a Jeep.
And he wanted you to use the Jeep.
So when he came to town, everything was running.
He didn't want you in his house.
He built a house for you over the garage.
That was great.
It was great.
Fuck you.
I was living in his master bedroom the second night.
You know what I'm saying?
Jacuzzi, skiing, ski out.
I had the fucking, I had the thing going.
I asked my buddy.
My buddy had the job for like three years.
I go, does he ever come?
He goes, he'll call you a week before.
The guy's cool.
He knows what we're doing here.
He'll call you a week before.
Paint, 16 hours of work is basically mowing the lawn in the summer
and shoveling snow in the winter.
I moved in there like November of 85.
And I was good.
I got a job at the Crestwood at night as security at a hotel from 4 to 12.
I would pick people up at the airport and check them in.
And then I got a job at a video place called Commander Video in Snowmass Village.
Just my love for movies.
I met Michael Douglas there. I met Robin Williams there.
I met Sidney Poitier there.
It was great.
First month, I think it took me a month to start
snorting. That's when you finally
got back in. New Year's.
Oh, New Year's. By the year.
By the year. I stayed clean for
a year and I think it was like
either that New Year's
or two days after New Year
I snorted a little bit
and I was like okay I have respect for it now
so I would snort
once a week
once a week
on Saturdays me and the girlfriend would get a package
fucking sniff each other's
assholes fucking suck
and you know
that was it that was what you did when you were that age.
You know, get coked up and they'll
give you those half hour blowjobs
and you eat their ass for an hour
and you tie them up.
I wasn't even into tying people up back then.
I was just a square.
But that's all it was. It was very innocent.
Then, a guy that I'm still
friends with
calls me one day out of the blue,
and he goes, hey, I'm in Denver.
You mind if I show up?
There's something I got to show you.
And he comes up.
His name is Danny B.
He's called into my podcast a thousand times.
He shows up to Aspen, and he shows me this Coke.
He tells me how he buys Coke, and he re-rocks it.
And he could sell it to you for $800.
So I asked around.
They wanted $1,800
for an ounce.
He would give it to me for $8.
Even if I sold it
for $16.
I made an $800 profit.
God forbid I cut it.
God forbid I cut it. God forbid I cut it.
So I started borrowing money,
like I would go to you and go,
give me $3,000, $4,500 for two days.
What are you talking about?
Because I already had the Coke sold.
The Coke was so good, it was sold.
It was already gone.
When I'd borrow money from you i had already
had the coke sold so all i had to do is bring the coke back get the money and give it to you
that's what i was doing i would take a flight back to jersey every wednesday
and come back with a quarter keat nine ounces i was beating up the local drug dealers. They couldn't even
compete with me. I would sell
like seven ounces for
$1,500
and I would still make $700 per
ounce plus I'd cut it and
then I was selling grams for $80.
And I'd sell them for
$40 and I'd put a little rock in the package
and a little bit of chunk and I'd still cut
it. And I had a dude, Carl Hall, selling for me.
He would go out at night because I didn't go out at night.
He would go out and come back.
He would sell two ounces a night in fucking bindles.
It was just crazy.
But I was snorting fucking everything.
Then I figured out, I'm flying back there with coke
and I'm flying back there with Coke.
And I'm flying back there with nothing.
And I'm bringing back Coke.
And I go, why don't we fucking build this business up?
So I started bringing back pounds of mushrooms.
Oh, all right.
And they went nuts.
Because in my hometown, it was all microdiet acid.
You'd get top dollar for mushrooms.
But then a friend of mine asked me something that was crazy.
He goes, can you get guns?
And I go, let me check.
And I went down to the gun store, and I go, I want to buy a gun.
They're like, give us your ID.
Pick one.
That was it then, huh?
So I picked one. I was it then, huh? So I picked one.
I was buying guns from this guy.
And then I got it where I'd go to you.
And I knew the guns were 400 new.
I could get six and a quarter. But I got the same holster that Don Johnson used.
Remember that?
With the one ear
and the two clips here. It was called the spider
or something.
You're not going to believe this.
I would land. I would take
the 7 a.m. flight
out of Aspen, which
got you to Denver at 8 a.m.,
which got you
on a 940 flight from
Denver to Newark.
I arrived in Newark like I wanted to.
I would walk off the plane with a suitcase filled with guns, two bags of mushrooms, underwear,
socks, and a toothbrush, just in case you looked in there.
I'd lock the suitcase and nobody could go in there.
All the guns were in boxes. They were
brand new. I would
get to my friend Danny B's house
and he'd have like eight guys
and say, hey, how you doing?
And I would get ready. I'd put the whole straw
with the gun and I'd come out
like dancing and they'd go
crazy. 800! We'll give them
9! 950!
How do you model modeling this fucking shit?
It's fucking hysterical.
Why would you?
I'd sell it and pull the gun out of him and tell him to lay down.
Lay the fuck down.
Lay the fuck down.
I'm sorry.
I'm fucking with you.
And they would go, oh, you scared us.
And then one time, I brought a pound of fucking mushrooms.
Okay?
I put a pound of mushrooms.
Danny was crazy at the time.
Danny B was crazy.
I mean, our whole worlds were crazy.
I'll never forget walking to Danny B's house with the guns
and him going, listen, I'm going to be busy for an hour.
Is there something you could do?
I'm like, me and your cousin are going to get a sandwich.
And I remember coming back home, and he's on the phone talking to a drug dealer.
He's got his safe.
It's a huge safe.
It's like a three-foot, four-foot safe.
It's wide open.
And there was money on the top shelf,
and the rest was little bottles of decadarabalin steroids.
Okay. Because he also sold steroids. It was justadarabalin steroids. Okay.
Because he also sold steroids.
It was just rows and rows of steroids.
And on top of the safe was a mirror with a little mountain of coke on it
and three lines cut out.
And he's talking.
I'm watching this from the couch.
And he's talking to whoever he's talking to.
He's like, yeah, I know, man, I know.
He's like, hold on.
Ma, get the shot ready.
And he's like, I know.
I know how it is, man.
Yeah, blah, blah, blah.
And he would talk to his mama.
Ma, get the shot ready.
I didn't know what was going on.
And he'd go, listen, I got to call you back.
My mom's going to shoot me.
All right.
He would go into the room.
And he would go, Ma, you ready?
And she would go, yeah.
And he would bend over, do a line of coke, and then
she would shoot him with the steroid.
Come on.
You can't write this shit.
And I can have this motherfucker.
He's sleeping now.
His mom's in trouble with steroids.
With steroids.
But here's what gets better.
And we'll tell you.
He had a younger brother, not the sharpest guy,
a little retarded, never had a chance at life.
God just never gave him a full brain.
I forget what his name was.
Lee, what was the guy's name that went to jail?
What was his name?
We tried to get him a job.
This guy's
career started as a 14-year-old.
He would put fishing lines
down night depository
boxes. People make
deposits at night. And one
night he fished a bank deposit
bag with 14 grand.
He took a cab to
Kennedy Airport and he tipped
the cab driver $100 bill. And he took a flight to Hawaii Kennedy Airport and he tipped the cab driver a hundred dollar bill
and he took a flight to Hawaii and they caught him in Hawaii
so they put him back in jail
hilarious
they recognize him by him
giving a hundred dollar tip
to the cab driver
Gary
Gary
so Gary was about
maybe 13 one day.
It was like a year before he thinks about the fish line thing.
I'd get there, and I'd get there, and they'd go,
what'd you bring us?
And I'd put weed on the table.
They'd go, ah!
You know, let me see the guns.
Ah!
And then I I put mushrooms.
There was a bag of mushrooms.
At this time, that would be an ounce or two.
And they were dry.
And I put them on top of the table.
And we were in the bedroom.
It was me, Danny, and his partner.
Danny.
No, Tommy.
And I don't know who was in the kitchen,
but I'm hearing,
like somebody's eating.
I go, Danny, who the fuck?
He goes, what the fuck is that?
We go out there, it's the 13-year-old brother
eating the mushrooms like they're fucking snacks.
I mean, he's like.
Yeah.
Then he's like, Gary, what the fuck are you doing?
Those are cyber-sailing mushrooms.
And he's like, what's a mushroom?
He goes, obviously, you're going to fucking see.
How many of those things did G.E. eat?
He goes, I don't know.
He ate like fucking a quarter of a bag.
He's 13 years old.
Me, Danny, we all go out drinking.
We go snort coke.
We walk in at 4 o'clock.
We pull up to the house.
And Danny goes, fuck, my house is dark.
I wonder what's going on in there.
He goes, whip out your guns.
Something's not right.
We fucking go for the guns. We all carry
guns. We open up the door.
We walk up the stairs. We turn
the light on and there's this
13-year-old brother in the living room
sitting there by himself with his
wires wide open. He's rubbing
his legs and he goes, what?
I'm not tripping?
That was it.
That was it.
We fucking died.
We're like, ah!
So believe it or not,
Ryan Sickler, I was
fucking making money.
I was making money
hand over fist
because
I was selling so much coke so fast that I wasn't snorting it.
So even if I fucked up, I'd make money.
Right.
And at one point, I was up like 60 grand.
That's the only time I've ever been a winner in my life.
By September of 86, I was up like 60 grand under my bed.
And then something happened.
It just snapped.
I could not have any success.
And I started just flying over there to get the Coke and snort it with my friends.
Me, this dude Mike, and my girlfriend at the time.
By that time I had another Kato.
He wasn't Chinese though.
It was Keith Korn. They just called him Kato.
I had Carl.
I had this whole army and we were just
selling bare minimums.
And then the
people who I was dealing against
this is one of the
wildest stories I'll ever tell you.
This is like one of the wildest things.
But this is just to let you know where I was as a 23-year-old man.
There was a couple other drug dealers.
They blew up a drug dealer in Aspen.
His name was Dan Grabo.
They blew him up.
He got arrested.
He had like $8 million on him in cash. Damn.
They didn't find no drugs that were
going to arrest him for
tax evasion.
And 12 days before,
you can look this stuff up if you want.
December 12th,
1986,
as he got in his car,
he went to start the Jeep and a pipe bomb.
Oh, they really blew him up.
Yeah, they weren't playing games.
So that network was scrambling.
That network was scrambling.
And here I am behind their back pulling $1,500 ounces, cutting that.
And then I'm taking their street action from
them because I had a couple dealers
that, I don't like going out
and selling on my belly.
It's called selling drugs on your belly. I didn't
like it, going to a bar and having
a package. You can't go, it's like being in a
stolen car. So they
did it. I gave them like, I said, listen,
just give me the principle.
You can make all the profit, but I need this shit out of my house because I'll snort it. I gave them like, I said, listen, just give me the principle. You can make all the profit, but I need
this shit out of my house
because I'll snort it.
I remember I had a bomb.
At that time, the big thing was bazookas.
You take a cup like this,
you put three fingers of water in there,
you throw a gram of Coke
and three tenths of baking soda
and you put it in the microwave oven
for 26 seconds. Once you get addicted to the b soda, and you put it in the microwave oven for 26 seconds.
Once you get addicted to the bing, once you hear bing,
you take it out, and there'll be little white pebbles in there.
You take the white pebbles out, you let them dry,
and you put them, you cut them up with a razor blade,
you take a joint with regular paper, roll up the joint,
and then take that cocaine and sprinkle it into the joint,
that pure cocaine, you roll it.
Then you get a lighter, you melt the fucking coke into the reefer,
you spark it up, that's a bazooka.
They call that Cocoa Puffs in Baltimore.
In Colombia, they would take the nicotine out
and put coke and smoke it with nicotine.
We went on a roll with that shit.
Once that took over, our neighbor, we went on a roll.
And then we were just getting the weed.
We ran out of rolling papers one night,
and I had one of those not glass bongs,
but the other type of that other material, like plexiglass.
Yeah.
We smoked so many bazookas that the bong collapsed like tower number two.
It just kept going down and down. We woke up. It was like the bong collapsed like tower number two.
It just kept going down and down.
We woke up.
It was like a bong for a midget.
It just collapsed.
That's how much heat we put through it with the fucking blowtorch. Oh, God, dude.
So I wanted a complete and total disrespectful tear.
Like, I really.
At the end of 86.
Really at the end of 86.
And then what really kicked it open was I was supposed to go to my girlfriend's brother's
wedding.
She left on a Wednesday.
And all my cocaine foundings, I had found this coke that they called, like, I forget what they called it, like white powder mock coke or something.
Sea of Pearl.
They had a name for it.
I happened to get two ounces of it.
It was pink.
It was going for 2,000 an ounce.
The guy owed me a favor, gave it to me for like 14.
I took two ounces.
I was going to save him for the wedding. So I had this friend who was an electrician.
I brought the two ounces to his house. He didn't get high. And I go, put these in your safe. I do not want to touch them. For a month, I didn't touch him. The wedding was Saturday. I was scheduled to leave on Friday night at 6 o'clock.
I went to pick up the Coke at 1.
I went home.
I got dressed.
I packed the bag.
I did one line of Coke, and I missed the wedding.
Oh, shit.
I sat in there for three fucking days with my dog.
I was so paranoid.
I wouldn't let the dog out to pee.
He would just sit there like, when can I pee?
And I'm like, you're in no danger, so you better hold on to it
because you ain't peeing and you ain't shitting.
That's how bad I was.
Man.
From Friday at 1 to like Monday, I didn't stop snorting.
I called the cops on myself like four times that weekend.
This burglar was on my property.
Just paranoid about you.
It was terrible.
I was in a horrible place.
She came back like Tuesday or Wednesday.
She was three-quarters heartbroken,
and she was like, listen, I don't know how long I can keep doing this.
I mean, this isn't really a life.
This is just we're living like animals, you know, with snorting coke. I'm like, keep doing this. I mean, this isn't really a life. This is just, we're living like animals, you know, with snorting coke.
I'm like, okay.
She goes, I want to go back to school.
There's things I want to do.
I'm like, school?
I want a piece of snorting coke.
I'm eating your ass every day.
What do you need school for?
Yeah, there's school.
The fuck are you going to learn at school?
I want a piece of skiing, snorting, fucking, sucking, you know.
I could feel.
I was just wearing on it.
And then it wasn't until Thanksgiving that everything fell apart.
I went to City Market and I ordered a turkey.
And I thought it was Tony Montana.
I invited like 10 people over for Thanksgiving.
She got a bunch of shit to cook like 10 people over for Thanksgiving.
She got a bunch of shit to cook and invite people over.
And that Wednesday before Thanksgiving,
those were the days where I would just come to you and go,
Sickler, can I talk to you for a second?
What are you doing tonight?
You're like, nothing.
I'm staying home.
I go, do me a favor.
I'll give you $200.
Go stay at that hotel.
Let me get you out for the night.
Don't come back.
And I would sit in your house because I thought the cops wouldn't be watching me there.
And I would just watch your TV, watch HBO, and jerk off and do coke by myself.
And I got a batch of coke that I went to Kato's house. And I stayed there from that night.
And I missed Thanksgiving. Holy night. And I missed Thanksgiving.
Holy shit.
But I came.
I walked in on Friday.
And she was back.
She was done.
And she goes, I have to go.
This is not a way to live.
And I go, you're right.
I'll go with you.
But I got to borrow money.
I didn't have any money left.
I went through all this 60 and over.
So this kid owned Mama Maria's Pizza,
and he was dying to be a gangster.
I had like two of those guys I never borrowed from
because I was just setting them up.
Like every week I'd tell them, you know,
fucking Ryan Sickle made 20 grand with me.
Fuck.
When can I get a piece of that?
Don't worry about it.
Once Ryan falls out,
let's get rid of Ryan.
I had these guys.
I went right to that idiot,
Mama Maria's Pizza. I took him for like 5 G's.
Damn.
He goes, when do I get it back?
In fact, I'm going to give you a bonus.
I'm going to give you $12.50 on Sunday.
So I had that $5.00.
I went to some other kid,
borrowed $2.00 for $27.00 and I had that five. I went to some other kid borrowed two for
27 and I had a coke
dealer chick.
Today the chick lives here in
LA. We haven't connected
but people told me she's here
and she's probably forgotten
about what I did for her. But I did the
perfect scam on her. I bought
this weed that was Fugazi weed.
The weed looked like it was weed from today.
But it was 1980 or whatever.
That shit wasn't around back then.
It looked good, but it didn't get your eye.
So I sprayed water on it to make it weigh a pound.
Between you and I.
Man, everybody listening.
Oh, my God.
Between you and I, Man, everybody listening. Oh, my God. Between you and I, I owe this lady.
I forget what her name is.
It comes to me from time to time.
I think her last name was Vermont or something like that.
I went to her, and she's like, you better have my fucking 20 grand.
At that time, I owed her 20.
I owed this other dealer 40.
Damn, that's a lot to owe somebody.
Holy shit.
Oh, I owed this other dealer 45.
Grand?
Yes.
Holy shit.
And I owed her his partner that was a female, dirty large.
Yep, that's 100 in.
But I had a crush on her.
And I knew how to soften her up. She was hotter than fuck
And I'm but she was on a date. She broke up with a boyfriend a boyfriend was a psycho. I
Still remember her name. She wanted a date
She went to get in her car and a boyfriend was hiding under the car
He grabbed her by the ankle broke her fucking and damn got out beat the fuck out of the guy he's date
So we well known not to even ask her on a date.
So we had become friends.
Everybody was scared of her.
I owed her like 30 large.
The cops were watching me.
I had the DEA watching me, which is official.
The cops were watching me because a guy was snorting coke in Aspen
and his wife was the accountant for the town of Aspen.
She was skimming money off the top.
So her and her husband could snort coke,
and she got caught, and part of a pledge agreement
was to go after other drug, to turn in people.
So somebody turned me out to him,
and he would come over and go, every time, can we do business outside?
I'm like, why?
These guys are cops.
So I played him.
I played him for like a month.
I kept my house clean.
I found the tap on my phone.
In those days, you broke into your phone box, and there would be a little wire,
and it would say who was tapping
it. And then one day... Really?
Yeah. One day I had a friend of mine come over
and it was a two-car garage.
I had him pull into my garage
and then I left.
I went into the car dressed as
him with his car. Yeah.
And I took off and I took the long route
and went behind the house
and you could see the guys in the telescope.
And I beeped at them.
They froze.
There was nothing they could do.
But my house was clean.
I had no coke in the house.
I had nothing.
So that Friday after Thanksgiving, we got all our shit together.
That was worth it.
We had a little Mazda 2 door. We got all our shit together. That was worth it. We had a little Mazda
two-door. We packed it.
I went to
that lady's
house and I gave her
I said, listen, I know
I owe you $20,000
but you know my
friend Ryan said, right, yeah.
He's getting married
and he needs
an ounce of coke. I know
you're not going to give it to me on the arm. Did I ask you?
Did I fucking ask you?
What I brought you is collateral.
It's a pound of the sweetest weed you've ever seen.
She looks at me and she's like,
oh my god.
You think you'll trade me for it?
I go, no. Let me go give him the
fucking half ounce of coke. When I come back, what would you be willing trade me for it? I go, no. Let me go give him the fucking half ounce of Coke.
And when I come back, what would you be willing to give for that?
And she goes, tell him I'll give him another half ounce.
I go, fine.
Let me go get the, I wasn't coming back.
Never.
I got in that fucking car with that half ounce of Coke,
and we just left.
And all night long, there was a car following us.
The car followed us for about two hours.
You know how many hotels
we checked into that night?
Three. It was a four
hour drive to Denver. We checked into
three hotels because
we'd go into a hotel, do a line of coke,
we'd get so paranoid we'd have
to leave. It was terrible.
It was a horrible,
horrible, horrible Time for me
And this is the end of 86 now
86 ends with us in Boulder
We're clean
She went back to live with her mother
I moved in with four
Fucking dirt bags
And
I got a job
I ended the year
Working at a car wash, drawing
cars. That's where we're
going to stop. Good.
It's another fucking great episode.
One more story. One more.
When I'm living with those
three idiots
on 10-12-14 street.
10-12-14
makes me laugh.
I'm dating.
I'm dating the girl downstairs
now fuck the girl next door
with the big tits
fuck a fucking roommate
I'm dating the girl next door
I love the girl next door
she's beautiful she's blonde
she's got pretty eyes
those two little fucking desert tramps.
They were just desert tramps.
One fucking the other one's roommate cock blocking me with a tits out.
It was a disgusting situation for a guy like me.
So he comes to me one day and he goes, hey, can I talk to you in Spanish?
He goes, listen, man, she made moves on me.
I go, well, go do your thing.
He goes, but I'm scared.
I never did it before.
I go, how old are you?
He goes, like 21.
I go, you never got your fucking pinguita sucked before, right?
So something happens.
He went over there and started, like, dating her.
And, like, a week later, he copped out of two with me.
Like, I heard what you did over there.
You did not supposed to do that.
I'm like, who the fuck does this guy think he is?
So one day, I'm running out of ideas.
Because I'm torturing the Cato.
I'm torturing the fucking white dude.
And I look in this Mexican's room
that our doors shared, but there was no lock.
So I could just open it.
And I look through his room.
It's like a picture. This is the piece of shit I was.
There was a picture of his mother
and his grandmother. It was like Coco.
You know, it was pictures of all his family
members.
And there was a towel in the closet
with like a little jar of Vaseline.
I go, the fuck? And I pick up
the towel and this $100 bill.
I took those to go.
That night,
he knocks on my door and he's like,
can I talk to you?
He goes, somebody stole
$200 from my room. And I'm dying inside. I'm like, really? you he goes somebody stole $200 from my room
and I'm dying inside I'm like
really and he goes
you see my hands
I work in the plantation
all day for that $200
so if you know who did it
please give it back to me I'm like
okay
you ain't never see him that
you fucking Ayanara.
I was just nuts, man.
I was just fucking nuts.
Oh, man.
Well, as always.
That was 86, and I'm sure we left out.
I mean, yeah.
It's two hours of 86.
If I didn't get back in time, if my flight was delayed in Newark,
and I didn't get back in time,
I would have to spend the night at the Denver airport
and catch the next first flight to Aston Airways.
That must have happened three times.
Do you know all three times I hooked up with either a chick or a guy at the airport
and we snorted coke all night?
I would put the coke in a locker and take out like eight balls at a time.
I would spend like $80 in quarters because I had quarters in a combination.
There's no one like you, dude.
I met a guy from a record label once.
He was like fucking everybody's record manager.
I'm feeding them with coke.
He's like, call me if you're in LA.
We became friends.
I mean, it was just.
Oh, man.
It was such a, I was buying the guns.
Like the shit I was doing.
I had a cop on my payroll that came over to my house one day.
I was talking to him about guns.
And something came up.
He's like, you want to do coke?
I'm like, yeah, you want some?
And I was giving him the pure shit.
You know how many nights he knocked on my door on his shift?
On his shift.
All fucked up.
Like, I mean, his eyes were.
He's like, you think I can borrow some more from you?
Fuck yeah. He wouldn like, you think I can borrow some more from you? Fuck yeah.
He wouldn't pull nobody over.
He was a Picking County Sheriff, and they drove Saabs.
And I remember him pulling up to my house.
There are Saabs.
That's right, Colorado.
He would come up to me, and his eyes were bulging out of his head.
And he would go, I need another rock, man.
So he started giving me all the guns
he would confiscate.
Jesus Christ.
Alright, this is what we're going to do. We're going to end here.
We're going to pick up
on January 1987
when we continue next time.
So, now!
I'll talk about the Patreon
because I'm not really getting...
I don't know what's going on with the book deal.
Social media is getting very evil.
I wanted to do something different.
Little videos.
I want a little bit more interpersonality.
Plus, I want a commitment.
The guy up at the Rochester Club said,
Do you ever notice when you do a show, people don't pay for tickets?
They're a rowdy or fucking audience.
That's right.
The podcast is still free.
I'm not that.
I'm not an Indian giver.
The podcast is still free.
This is different content I want to create,
and there's two people in particular that I want to help out.
There's a director dude and a graphic designer dude.
Lee and me do the podcast.
That's cool there.
This is something for me and two other dudes.
I used to shoot all those Joey Karate videos and regular videos.
I want to come up with a new character, like an Uncle Joey type character
that gives advice to the youth every week.
Something funny.
I don't give a fuck.
It's something outside the box.
That's why I charge you $1.
Four quarters.
$1.
I just need $1.
If I wanted to rape you guys, I could rape you.
I'm looking for $1 of your commitment.
Because I know you're not going to fucking send back negative shit at me
and call me a fat fuck and tell me that.
Yeah, they're the diehards, the loyal fans.
Yeah, you guys are loyal fans.
But the other thing I love that you're doing,
I want to say this too,
because what I've learned about Patreon
is it's a dollar,
but you can give more if you want to give more.
If you feel like I do $5,
you can give more if you want to give more.
But I do $5.
You get video, you get audio.
It's a new episode.
It's not like, here's the rest of this
or here's that you know it's a
full new thing with a podcast good for you the podcast always been for free you know what i might
do i see that when you take a like a mean you do a podcast somebody will take an eight minute bit
out of this they'll get eight million hits why aren't we doing that right so we'll call them
podcast bits where i just interview somebody for 11
minutes and put it on Patreon.
It's great.
There's so many different things to do on page.
Well,
look,
standups gone right now.
We have to figure out how to make some.
That's right.
And let's,
and I'm not in business to rip.
I know what you're paying for.
Patreons or whatever.
I'm not in business to rip.
Nobody's hard.
I just want a community that you don't open up the page and it's like, you know,
Nick Cannon is trending.
Yeah.
Everything that's not, this has nothing to do with us.
This has to do with us.
That's right.
So patreon.com slash joeydears, a dollar or give whatever the fuck you want to give.
Next week I got the chance to shoot videos.
So I'll start experimenting with videos.
That's it.
That's it.
Well, thank you.
There's no dates.
Everything's fake.
For coming on, we'll start with January 87.
Thank you to Jimmy Seafood.
Thank you, Jen, for the masks.
And as always, RyanSickler.com, Ryan Sickler on all social media.
I'll talk to y'all next week.