Name: Joe & Louie Laugh About School Bullies; Growing Up in Boston
Uploaded: 2023-01-21T18:14:35.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe & Louie Laugh About School Bullies; Growing Up in Boston' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-01-21. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe & Louie Laugh About School Bullies; Growing Up in Boston' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-01-21. Transcript available.

The Joe Rogan Experience. I remember the first conversation we had. I guess I
was like 20. Ever? Really? Yeah.
How old are you? Because this reminds me of it. How old do you have? Because it
was about Newton South. Oh, okay. Cafeteria.
I'm 55. 55 too. I'm 55 as well. Okay, so we must have both been around 20. When
you started comedy, you were 21? Yeah.
Alright, so I must have been the same age. But we talked about, because I found
out you were a Taekwondo guy or something.
Is that what you fought? Yeah.
And I asked you about fights. I said, do you have skills for fighting in real
life?
And you said, well, there's just some things you know that put you way at
advantage with people that aren't fighters.
Like, you don't wait for the fight to start, you told me.
Like, you told me you were in a cafeteria once in South and some kid came up.
You know, people think they're going to get to do a preamble.
They think that there's going to be a whole, hey, fuck you.
And now they think there's going to be, like...
Yeah.
And as soon as you knew he was there to threaten you, you just punched him in
the sternum and he just went down.
He's like, hey, man, you're...
And then he just...
Anyway, so that was the first time you'd explain that to me.
Yeah.
That could have been avoided.
I thought about that one for a lot afterwards.
Yeah?
Yeah.
Yeah.
You think you'd jump the gun?
Sometimes you'd jump the gun because, like, there with great power comes great
responsibility.
You know, the guy, he had no chance.
He was just bowing up.
Right.
He was just a knucklehead.
Yeah.
I should have probably let him slide.
That's funny.
Yeah, I think that's how you've changed, too.
Because you were really wired then.
You were tightly wired.
Well, we're talking then about, like, me being 15 or 16.
That's right.
Yeah.
And a trained fighter at a young age.
And it was also, like, you got this thing you want to try out.
It's like, you got a fast car, you want to hit the gas.
Yeah, of course.
Let's see what happens.
Of course.
This guy.
Yeah, of course.
Because people, you know, in high school, you're kind of trying out, bowing up
on people.
Right.
You know?
It's a pretty nuanced thing to ask a kid that age to know, like, how to back
off.
I don't need to fight you.
Yeah.
No, it's hard.
It's hard for kids.
I just watched this horrible brawl today that someone had put up on Twitter in
a high school.
It was terrible.
Where, like, all these kids were fighting in the hallway and teachers were
trying to separate it.
And this one kid threw this kid to the ground and punched him unconscious.
And the kid went into a seizure.
And I'm like, oh, God.
And it's awful.
And a lot of it is people that just don't know how to fight.
And they don't know how to defend themselves.
And then they're fucking flailing wildly at each other.
And this one guy knew something.
And he threw this guy to the ground and punched him out.
And it's, ah, fucking, school's so dangerous.
It's so dangerous because kids are just starting to get testosterone.
They're just starting to become, like, strong and, like, almost a man.
And I'm lopsided, too, because there's other kids who didn't, it just didn't
kick in yet.
So they're tiny.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, these kids were all, there was none of that.
They were similar sized.
But it was just awful.
It was just awful.
There's also weird energy in school for kids that age that's, it's intricate.
Like, I remember I saw a lot in my high school fights that were between friends.
Because there's always somebody who wants people to fight.
There's always somebody who doesn't fight but wants a fight to happen.
Everybody wants to see it.
So you take a kid who's trying to get some kind of status with a certain group.
And they go, why are you friends with that guy?
You know, like, that guy's a pussy.
And they actually turn him on.
They want to see if they can make a kid fight a friend of his.
I saw that so many times.
And I saw a lot of kids that were tough but had a head, you know, smart kids
who were,
I remember this one kid, his name was Chris, and his friend Doug was pushed
into, like,
he's, I'm going to kick your ass.
And Chris could have beat Doug, but he just started crying.
It was too much.
Yeah, pressure.
And he didn't want to fight his friend.
And he could hurt his friend real bad.
And he's isolated.
Everybody's around him.
He's, like, now the kid, the fag, you know.
And he just started crying.
And then everybody starts laughing at him because he's crying.
And now he's mad.
And he just beat Doug's face to red.
It's just red.
It's like he painted his face red.
Oh, no.
One of the most humiliating fights I ever got into
was there was never even a punch thrown.
It was me, I was 14, and there's this kid in the locker room.
And I don't remember what words were said,
but we were standing in front of each other.
And this is before I even was really into martial arts.
This is one of the reasons I got into it.
This kid grabbed me in a headlock, threw me on the ground,
and was going to punch me in the face,
but then stopped and decided not to.
So I was just going to let you up.
And I was like...
Oh, no.
I was, like, so humiliated.
I was so humiliated.
It would have been better if he hit you
because then you look a little bit tough for taking the punch.
Well, at least, I mean,
he was so unconcerned that I could do something to him
that he just let me up.
And then I, like, would avoid him, like, in school.
Like, I would, like, look down the hallway,
and, like, I would open up the door to the outside breezeway,
and I saw him on the other side.
I'm like, oh, I've got to go around this way.
I've got to keep away from that guy.
I was terrified of him.
Horrible.
I was terrified of him for, like, a full year.
When I was a senior, I never really got in fights.
I just didn't.
It just didn't happen to me.
I was kind of bigger than a lot of kids my age,
so I guess that, you know, I just didn't,
and I didn't have a lot of conflicts with people.
So I never really got much into fights.
I just sort of slid through, you know.
And then in senior year, I don't remember, junior or whatever,
but I was high a lot, and I was in the library,
and I was laughing.
I was making a lot of racket in the library.
I used to get yelled at all the time for being loud in the library.
And this kid who was a sophomore,
little kid who was like this on me,
kind of skinny and wearing a leather jacket,
he goes, hey, shut the fuck up.
Because he was just annoyed.
And the worst part is he was right.
Like, I knew in my head I'm being annoying.
Yeah.
But I said, fuck you.
Like, and I'm just like, it's status.
I'm a senior, you're a sophomore.
Fuck you.
Shut up.
And he goes, what?
Fuck me?
And I go, yeah, fuck you.
And he comes over and he goes, you want to go right now?
I'll fucking kick the shit out.
He's smaller than me, but he's wiry.
And I'm like, I'm scared.
I was terrified.
Because I don't want to fight this kid.
Even if I win, I'm not going to, like, go unscathed.
I don't want to get hurt.
Yeah.
I don't want to be punched in the face.
I don't want any of this to happen.
And he's standing above me, and he's like, you want to fucking go?
And I was just like, no, I don't, I don't want to, I don't want to fight.
And he's like, then shut the fuck up then.
And I was like, and my friends were so ashamed of me.
And for the rest of the year, I was terrified of this little, this little kid
scare.
I did an episode about it in my show where there's some high school kid
threatens to beat
me up and I back off, I back down and I apologize to him because I don't want
to get, yeah,
I, that kid really, uh, he'd haunted me for a long time.
It can happen.
Yeah.
It can happen.
Yeah.
And he's somewhere now, you know, I got beat up on a bus by a girl when I was
14.
Cause I didn't fight back.
I didn't know what to do.
I wasn't sure if I should hit her back.
Um, when I lived in, uh, Newton, in Newton South, we would go to, I think it
was Round
Meadow, which was the, um, the middle school.
I think that's what it was.
Okay.
And we would walk across the field cause my sister was going to the middle
school and I
was in, uh, ninth grade and she was in eighth grade.
So I would go and take the bus with her because like the bus was earlier or
something.
I forget what it was.
Okay.
So I went over and something happened when I got on the bus and there was this
girl who
like was this tough girl, smoked cigarettes, she had a leather jacket on.
I love those Newton tough girls.
And I don't remember what happened.
I don't remember what the conversation was, but she either decided I was in the
wrong seat
or whatever.
So she just starts wailing on me.
Like it wasn't even like, it wasn't even like, I didn't argue back.
It was just like, she just started punching me.
And then this little guy who was like, wound up being my friend, his name is Muggsy
Malone.
He wound up being, uh, he later went on.
I think he was a politician at one point in time, but he became my friend.
Yeah.
But he was just tiny little guy.
He was like in fifth grade.
Yeah.
And, uh, in like the girl beats me up and, and then, and then he comes over, he
goes,
I ain't fucking afraid of you either.
I'm like, Oh Jesus.
It's like, what the fuck?
Like he jumped on her side against you?
A hundred percent.
Yeah.
It was like one of those things where I was like, my God, I got to learn how to
fight.
It was like really what turned me into a martial artist.
It's like, I was tired of being terrified.
This girl kicked my ass and I didn't even fight back.
I was just like covering my head up and she was just fucking with a leather
jacket on her.
Fucking cigarette.
What is her life that she needed to go right to DEF CON 5?
Well, she wound up being the girlfriend of the guy who's the toughest guy on
the wrestling team,
which I joined the next season.
So thank God I didn't swing back.
Yeah, that would have been, that would have been horrible.
This guy, Mark Collings, who was like the, the neighborhood tough guy.
Who wasn't even a small guy.
Wasn't even a big guy, rather.
He was a small guy, but he was just fucking intense.
And he was a really good wrestler.
Yeah, I lived in Newtonville, which was like right along the highway.
And right next to Nonantum, which was all those Irish and Italian kids.
And so that's who I went to junior high school with and mostly high school.
But there was a lot of really terrifying kids.
There's a lot of scary kids.
Well, blue collar communities, like I was in Upper Falls.
Yeah.
In Newton, Upper Falls.
There was a lot of fucking, a lot of drinking.
Yeah.
Everybody would hang out by Echo Bridge.
Remember Echo Bridge?
Yeah, sure.
That's where my house was.
Okay.
My house was right next to Echo Bridge.
Yeah, Newton had a lot of, like Cabot, I went to Cabot School, elementary
school, and Cabot Park was a hang.
And to cross Cabot Park, sometimes you'd get these guys that would just
converge on you.
And they would play games with you.
And you didn't know what was going on.
Hey, kid, come here, come here.
And then all of a sudden you're in the middle of the park and you're like, fuck.
Yeah.
I remember once this kid, he said, he had a $100 bill for some reason.
And he said, we're going to play this game.
And they're all surrounding me.
And he puts the $100 bill on my hand and he gives me a cigarette.
And he says, if you can burn a hole in his head all the way through, I'll give
you the $100 bill.
And I was like, I don't want to do it.
Oh, Jesus Christ.
No, try it.
Try it.
And I was trying to do it and it hurt like, fuck.
And I don't remember how that ended.
Like, I just remember that terrifying.
And they're all staring at me.
One time some kids had a cup of puke.
It was like a coffee cup with puke.
And he said, can you drink this whole thing?
If you drink this whole thing, we'll give you a beer.
That was that thing.
Oh, God.
Drink the puke and I'll give you a beer.
Yeah.
These guys just scared me.
And then when I grew up, I hung out with those kids.
And smoked cigarettes.
That's where I learned to smoke cigarettes in that park.
And I drank my first beer in that park.
But there was kids.
There was a kid named Mike who was the toughest kid in Newton.
He was just a fucking terrifying person.
And there was one point where this kid named David Russell, he was, his family
lived in Boston.
I don't know if you guys had Metco kids, the kids that were bused from Boston
into our schools.
Black kids from, all black kids from Boston who were bused into our school
system.
It wasn't part of that busing Boston thing.
It was out to the suburbs.
Right.
And these were kids that got up at four o'clock in the morning to go to school.
You know, they were living a particular life and coming out to this suburb.
And some of them were my friends.
One of them was Ronnie DeVoe of Bell Biv DeVoe.
No shit.
Yeah, I went to high school with him.
Wow.
And I knew him since like junior high school through high school.
He was a nice kid.
And when he was in, what, first edition or new edition, they used to come get
him in a limousine.
And people would say, shout racist shit at the Bobby Brown.
All these guys would be in the limousine in high school.
It was so racist.
It was so crazy.
Yes.
So David Russell was a Metco kid and his family's house burnt down in Boston.
And a family in Newton, actually friends of mine, they had a rental unit and
they let the
Russells live there.
So it was like, there's a black family living in Newtonville.
It's a big deal.
And everyone was into, because it was all liberal teachers.
Everybody was into like, we're hosting this family because they lost their home.
So all of a sudden, David Russell's living in Newton.
He's not just going to school there.
And one day, Mike and his group confront David Russell in the park.
And they go, hey, listen, we're really happy you're here.
We want to show you this bench right here.
This is your bench.
And they had literally painted it black.
And they painted one of the swings black.
They said, this is the Russell swing.
This is the Russell bench.
You can use it many times you want.
Whoa.
And I remember I heard that story and I went to the park that day and there was
a black
bench and a black swing.
And they were there.
I mean, I remember I went back when I was in my 20s and it was still a little
black paint.
Yeah.
Wow.
Yeah.
It was in Newton, Massachusetts.
It's crazy.

Joe & Louie Laugh About School Bullies; Growing Up in Boston

The Joe Rogan Experience. I remember the first conversation we had. I guess I
was like 20. Ever? Really? Yeah.
How old are you? Because this reminds me of it. How old do you have? Because it
was about Newton South. Oh, okay. Cafeteria.
I'm 55. 55 too. I'm 55 as well. Okay, so we must have both been around 20. When
you started comedy, you were 21? Yeah.
Alright, so I must have been the same age. But we talked about, because I found
out you were a Taekwondo guy or something.
Is that what you fought? Yeah.
And I asked you about fights. I said, do you have skills for fighting in real
life?
And you said, well, there's just some things you know that put you way at
advantage with people that aren't fighters.
Like, you don't wait for the fight to start, you told me.
Like, you told me you were in a cafeteria once in South and some kid came up.
You know, people think they're going to get to do a preamble.
They think that there's going to be a whole, hey, fuck you.
And now they think there's going to be, like...
Yeah.
And as soon as you knew he was there to threaten you, you just punched him in
the sternum and he just went down.
He's like, hey, man, you're...
And then he just...
Anyway, so that was the first time you'd explain that to me.
Yeah.
That could have been avoided.
I thought about that one for a lot afterwards.
Yeah?
Yeah.
Yeah.
You think you'd jump the gun?
Sometimes you'd jump the gun because, like, there with great power comes great
responsibility.
You know, the guy, he had no chance.
He was just bowing up.
Right.
He was just a knucklehead.
Yeah.
I should have probably let him slide.
That's funny.
Yeah, I think that's how you've changed, too.
Because you were really wired then.
You were tightly wired.
Well, we're talking then about, like, me being 15 or 16.
That's right.
Yeah.
And a trained fighter at a young age.
And it was also, like, you got this thing you want to try out.
It's like, you got a fast car, you want to hit the gas.
Yeah, of course.
Let's see what happens.
Of course.
This guy.
Yeah, of course.
Because people, you know, in high school, you're kind of trying out, bowing up
on people.
Right.
You know?
It's a pretty nuanced thing to ask a kid that age to know, like, how to back
off.
I don't need to fight you.
Yeah.
No, it's hard.
It's hard for kids.
I just watched this horrible brawl today that someone had put up on Twitter in
a high school.
It was terrible.
Where, like, all these kids were fighting in the hallway and teachers were
trying to separate it.
And this one kid threw this kid to the ground and punched him unconscious.
And the kid went into a seizure.
And I'm like, oh, God.
And it's awful.
And a lot of it is people that just don't know how to fight.
And they don't know how to defend themselves.
And then they're fucking flailing wildly at each other.
And this one guy knew something.
And he threw this guy to the ground and punched him out.
And it's, ah, fucking, school's so dangerous.
It's so dangerous because kids are just starting to get testosterone.
They're just starting to become, like, strong and, like, almost a man.
And I'm lopsided, too, because there's other kids who didn't, it just didn't
kick in yet.
So they're tiny.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, these kids were all, there was none of that.
They were similar sized.
But it was just awful.
It was just awful.
There's also weird energy in school for kids that age that's, it's intricate.
Like, I remember I saw a lot in my high school fights that were between friends.
Because there's always somebody who wants people to fight.
There's always somebody who doesn't fight but wants a fight to happen.
Everybody wants to see it.
So you take a kid who's trying to get some kind of status with a certain group.
And they go, why are you friends with that guy?
You know, like, that guy's a pussy.
And they actually turn him on.
They want to see if they can make a kid fight a friend of his.
I saw that so many times.
And I saw a lot of kids that were tough but had a head, you know, smart kids
who were,
I remember this one kid, his name was Chris, and his friend Doug was pushed
into, like,
he's, I'm going to kick your ass.
And Chris could have beat Doug, but he just started crying.
It was too much.
Yeah, pressure.
And he didn't want to fight his friend.
And he could hurt his friend real bad.
And he's isolated.
Everybody's around him.
He's, like, now the kid, the fag, you know.
And he just started crying.
And then everybody starts laughing at him because he's crying.
And now he's mad.
And he just beat Doug's face to red.
It's just red.
It's like he painted his face red.
Oh, no.
One of the most humiliating fights I ever got into
was there was never even a punch thrown.
It was me, I was 14, and there's this kid in the locker room.
And I don't remember what words were said,
but we were standing in front of each other.
And this is before I even was really into martial arts.
This is one of the reasons I got into it.
This kid grabbed me in a headlock, threw me on the ground,
and was going to punch me in the face,
but then stopped and decided not to.
So I was just going to let you up.
And I was like...
Oh, no.
I was, like, so humiliated.
I was so humiliated.
It would have been better if he hit you
because then you look a little bit tough for taking the punch.
Well, at least, I mean,
he was so unconcerned that I could do something to him
that he just let me up.
And then I, like, would avoid him, like, in school.
Like, I would, like, look down the hallway,
and, like, I would open up the door to the outside breezeway,
and I saw him on the other side.
I'm like, oh, I've got to go around this way.
I've got to keep away from that guy.
I was terrified of him.
Horrible.
I was terrified of him for, like, a full year.
When I was a senior, I never really got in fights.
I just didn't.
It just didn't happen to me.
I was kind of bigger than a lot of kids my age,
so I guess that, you know, I just didn't,
and I didn't have a lot of conflicts with people.
So I never really got much into fights.
I just sort of slid through, you know.
And then in senior year, I don't remember, junior or whatever,
but I was high a lot, and I was in the library,
and I was laughing.
I was making a lot of racket in the library.
I used to get yelled at all the time for being loud in the library.
And this kid who was a sophomore,
little kid who was like this on me,
kind of skinny and wearing a leather jacket,
he goes, hey, shut the fuck up.
Because he was just annoyed.
And the worst part is he was right.
Like, I knew in my head I'm being annoying.
Yeah.
But I said, fuck you.
Like, and I'm just like, it's status.
I'm a senior, you're a sophomore.
Fuck you.
Shut up.
And he goes, what?
Fuck me?
And I go, yeah, fuck you.
And he comes over and he goes, you want to go right now?
I'll fucking kick the shit out.
He's smaller than me, but he's wiry.
And I'm like, I'm scared.
I was terrified.
Because I don't want to fight this kid.
Even if I win, I'm not going to, like, go unscathed.
I don't want to get hurt.
Yeah.
I don't want to be punched in the face.
I don't want any of this to happen.
And he's standing above me, and he's like, you want to fucking go?
And I was just like, no, I don't, I don't want to, I don't want to fight.
And he's like, then shut the fuck up then.
And I was like, and my friends were so ashamed of me.
And for the rest of the year, I was terrified of this little, this little kid
scare.
I did an episode about it in my show where there's some high school kid
threatens to beat
me up and I back off, I back down and I apologize to him because I don't want
to get, yeah,
I, that kid really, uh, he'd haunted me for a long time.
It can happen.
Yeah.
It can happen.
Yeah.
And he's somewhere now, you know, I got beat up on a bus by a girl when I was
14.
Cause I didn't fight back.
I didn't know what to do.
I wasn't sure if I should hit her back.
Um, when I lived in, uh, Newton, in Newton South, we would go to, I think it
was Round
Meadow, which was the, um, the middle school.
I think that's what it was.
Okay.
And we would walk across the field cause my sister was going to the middle
school and I
was in, uh, ninth grade and she was in eighth grade.
So I would go and take the bus with her because like the bus was earlier or
something.
I forget what it was.
Okay.
So I went over and something happened when I got on the bus and there was this
girl who
like was this tough girl, smoked cigarettes, she had a leather jacket on.
I love those Newton tough girls.
And I don't remember what happened.
I don't remember what the conversation was, but she either decided I was in the
wrong seat
or whatever.
So she just starts wailing on me.
Like it wasn't even like, it wasn't even like, I didn't argue back.
It was just like, she just started punching me.
And then this little guy who was like, wound up being my friend, his name is Muggsy
Malone.
He wound up being, uh, he later went on.
I think he was a politician at one point in time, but he became my friend.
Yeah.
But he was just tiny little guy.
He was like in fifth grade.
Yeah.
And, uh, in like the girl beats me up and, and then, and then he comes over, he
goes,
I ain't fucking afraid of you either.
I'm like, Oh Jesus.
It's like, what the fuck?
Like he jumped on her side against you?
A hundred percent.
Yeah.
It was like one of those things where I was like, my God, I got to learn how to
fight.
It was like really what turned me into a martial artist.
It's like, I was tired of being terrified.
This girl kicked my ass and I didn't even fight back.
I was just like covering my head up and she was just fucking with a leather
jacket on her.
Fucking cigarette.
What is her life that she needed to go right to DEF CON 5?
Well, she wound up being the girlfriend of the guy who's the toughest guy on
the wrestling team,
which I joined the next season.
So thank God I didn't swing back.
Yeah, that would have been, that would have been horrible.
This guy, Mark Collings, who was like the, the neighborhood tough guy.
Who wasn't even a small guy.
Wasn't even a big guy, rather.
He was a small guy, but he was just fucking intense.
And he was a really good wrestler.
Yeah, I lived in Newtonville, which was like right along the highway.
And right next to Nonantum, which was all those Irish and Italian kids.
And so that's who I went to junior high school with and mostly high school.
But there was a lot of really terrifying kids.
There's a lot of scary kids.
Well, blue collar communities, like I was in Upper Falls.
Yeah.
In Newton, Upper Falls.
There was a lot of fucking, a lot of drinking.
Yeah.
Everybody would hang out by Echo Bridge.
Remember Echo Bridge?
Yeah, sure.
That's where my house was.
Okay.
My house was right next to Echo Bridge.
Yeah, Newton had a lot of, like Cabot, I went to Cabot School, elementary
school, and Cabot Park was a hang.
And to cross Cabot Park, sometimes you'd get these guys that would just
converge on you.
And they would play games with you.
And you didn't know what was going on.
Hey, kid, come here, come here.
And then all of a sudden you're in the middle of the park and you're like, fuck.
Yeah.
I remember once this kid, he said, he had a $100 bill for some reason.
And he said, we're going to play this game.
And they're all surrounding me.
And he puts the $100 bill on my hand and he gives me a cigarette.
And he says, if you can burn a hole in his head all the way through, I'll give
you the $100 bill.
And I was like, I don't want to do it.
Oh, Jesus Christ.
No, try it.
Try it.
And I was trying to do it and it hurt like, fuck.
And I don't remember how that ended.
Like, I just remember that terrifying.
And they're all staring at me.
One time some kids had a cup of puke.
It was like a coffee cup with puke.
And he said, can you drink this whole thing?
If you drink this whole thing, we'll give you a beer.
That was that thing.
Oh, God.
Drink the puke and I'll give you a beer.
Yeah.
These guys just scared me.
And then when I grew up, I hung o