Name: Everything You NEED To Know About Uncle Joey Diaz
Uploaded: 2025-02-09T15:00:54.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Everything You NEED To Know About Uncle Joey Diaz' from Are You Garbage Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-02-09. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Everything You NEED To Know About Uncle Joey Diaz' from Are You Garbage Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-02-09. Transcript available.

Everything You NEED To Know About Uncle Joey Diaz

Joey, give us the back story, just a little bit, a little childhood.
Give us the scoop here.
Union City, right?
It's just Union City, and then my father died,
and my mom wanted to get out of the house because it was creepy,
so she sold it and moved to 88th Street.
Oh, Upper West Side or Upper East?
Yeah, this morning, Upper West Side.
I'm a West Side guy.
West Side till I die, I'm a West Side guy, too.
Oh, I love the West Side.
The East Side fucking sucks, dude.
Yeah, the East Side is kind of like boring.
Yeah, there ain't nothing there.
Nah, West Side, you come out of your house, somebody's bleeding.
There's a fucking, you know, it's always a story.
Not anymore.
88th Street has like a fucking Whole Foods on the corner.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's real nice up there.
Yeah, I see people sitting outside.
Ha, ha, ha, ha.
When I was a kid, the corner there was a photography store,
and the family from, this is fucking crazy.
You guys are too young, you'll remember it.
Dark Shadows was a show on ABC in the afternoons.
Okay.
A guy named Barnabas Collins would come.
He was like a fucking badass vampire with a big dick,
and he'd come bite you in the neck.
I don't remember that one.
But that family, if you look it up, it's hysterical.
Their family owned that thing, and the kid that played like the Eddie Munster.
Okay.
Always worked there.
Oh, good shit.
No, who gives a fuck.
That was a long time ago.
Stayed up there till about the third grade.
Okay.
No, stayed up there till the fifth grade.
I moved to Jersey in 73.
Okay.
But my mom always had a bar in Jersey, so my roots were kind of always in
Jersey.
Always there.
Still hanging out there.
Yeah, so I lived on 88th Street, went to PS166, but my godmother lived on 148th
and Broadway.
I live up there.
And that was the fucking neighborhood when you were a kid.
Yeah, the Heights, baby.
Oh, my God.
That was a great name.
We'd walk to 125, get chased by gangs.
You know, it was fucking, it was a different world for a child, you know?
And then moved to Jersey.
Mom sold the bar in 78.
We got locked down.
What was the name of the bar, if you don't mind me asking?
El Relo.
It's a Cuban bar called, it means the watch in Spanish, the clock.
They serve food or just booze?
At the time?
Yeah.
Well, my mom had a Cuban joint that did Cuban sandwiches and shit on like 32nd
Street and
I think it's New York, Palisade Avenue.
And then when she closed that in like 56, she opened the bar.
Then they went back to Cuba, had me and my sister.
Damn, went back.
Holy shit.
Because my mom had gotten out of Cuba.
That's why there's no record of my mom coming here.
Because my mom was at a school dance with her sister when she was 14.
I think my mom was a year older than her, whatever.
And she was missing.
So my mom went out looking for her and the guy was raping my aunt, Rosita, who's
still alive.
So my mom got a rum bottle and broke it and stabbed the guy in the back.
So they had to get her out of fucking Cuba overnight.
They shipped it here because we had family here.
Oh, damn, so this happened in Cuba.
Yeah, but then she came here as like a 16-year-old, whatever the fuck she was.
Her and her cousin, and they lived up in the Bronx and they started running
numbers.
So she's a hustler.
Yeah.
She's an earner.
So that's how the whole numbers racket came about.
And then five or six years later, she hooked up with a Puerto Rican chick and
they opened
up their own bank and then it became dangerous.
It was like a woman's little fucking little candy store running numbers and
they did it.
And then they went back to Cuba, came back.
My sister got stuck in Cuba.
My sister wanted to finish out the school year.
Okay.
They went back after the revolution or before the revolution?
They went back after the revolution.
Okay.
To try to bring my grandmother back and all those fucking people, but those
fucking commies
didn't want to go anywhere.
They were just settled in Cuba.
They didn't know what was on the horizon.
They had no idea.
So my parents came back.
My dad died a week, maybe a month after he got here.
I was like three.
Damn.
So that was like shocking.
And then, you know, it just flipped up the house.
And I think 79 was when my mother died.
Then I had to live with somebody and some friends from the neighborhood took me
in.
And then I got into drugs and crime and, you know, all the other shit.
Sure, sure.
Ended up getting locked up and then came out.
By that time, I had a hint about comedy.
But where I was from, eh.
They didn't talk about that.
It's like being in Philly.
Same shit.
I spoke to you about fucking going to the theater.
Dude, I saw that.
Nobody.
You know what I'm saying?
Like if I fucking ever, I'm dying to fucking look up where my guidance
counselor's buried.
So I go piss on his fucking grave.
Because they never told you what was available to you.
Uh-huh.
You know, in Philadelphia, I had the same thing.
You know.
Even now, dude.
I got uncles like, what do you do?
Yeah, they don't get it.
They don't fucking know.
They're all like bricklayers and shit.
Yeah, but no.
It was like, tell us that this is available.
It's a possibility.
I'm a fucking, I could swim here from North Bergen.
Uh-huh.
I would have came in and done acting classes.
I didn't know I was in the comedy acting mecca of the fucking world.
Sure.
So I never even thought about it, like arts.
I think freshman year I joined some arts, intro to performing arts.
Okay.
And we had a fucking, I had to do a song.
So I sang, I lip synced Shattered by the Stones.
By the Stones.
And the lady pulled me aside.
She's like, you're on to something.
I'm like, what am I on to?
I'm lip syncing.
What the fuck am I on to?
I'm not, you know.
You lip synced.
It's crazy.
Kids are doing Shakespeare monologues.
You're doing KC and the Sunshine Band.
Yeah, I was always angry about that.
Because I wanted to know.
Can you imagine if we would have gotten into this like a Mason at 18?
Sure.
Sure.
If we would have all gotten into comedy or there was no podcasting, but
anything.
Something.
We got into this.
We fell into this by.
Backwards.
You know, backwards.
We saw Eddie Murphy raw.
We saw Delirious.
We saw something that inspired.
Well, I could do what he does.
I didn't start until I was 32.
I had already lived up here for like eight years telling people I was an actor.
I was just doing coke and working at a bar.
Ain't nothing wrong with that, though.
No.
But we all do that.
Yeah.
I didn't start until I was 32.
Yeah.
31, maybe.
No, I was 30.
Yeah.
But I was thinking about it since I was 27.
So you did a lot better than I did.
These guys were all 10 years younger than me.
Yeah.
It's crazy how you, and I'm angry about a lot of things.
Like, how can you not want to do something that you know is going to change
your life?
Yeah.
Like, this is how junkied up I was.
Like, I always knew, listen, I don't know what I got to offer, but I'm better
than that
fucking guy on NBC.
Sure, sure.
Okay?
I'm better than that one motherfucker.
Yeah, I got him.
I can out-joke that motherfucker to death, okay?
You get that anger.
You get one guy, and you're like, I'm funnier than that fucking guy.
Sure.
You know, and you just, and then you get into it.
That took me to go into an open mic.
Yeah.
I just went to watch for the first time, and I was like, oh, these people
fucking suck.
Like, I'm like, I can do it just as bad as that.
That's it.
I think I was on stage with him.
It was.
He was the one I saw.
I go, this fat idiot, I can do this.
I was wearing a blazer and sweatpants.
It's so weird how you, like, I got, right before I got locked up, there was a
guy that
didn't kind of like me.
We didn't like each other.
He wasn't a bad guy.
You know, like when you-
Sure.
You act a weird way one day, and now it ruined it.
And I tried to apologize to the guy, but he was just a hard-ass guy.
And he came up to me once, and he goes, listen, I know you don't like me.
I know you don't like me.
I had to be maybe 28 at the time.
And he goes, but do you know what I did before I had this job?
He goes, I worked in entertainment for 25 years in Las Vegas.
He goes, you got to get into comedy.
Really?
And I'm like, look at this fucking umpty-dunk motherfucker trying to tell me
what-
But like, a week later, I got arrested.
Like, right after he told me that.
Sure, that'll resonate with you.
Not even a week later, I got arrested.
And that always, you know, and I'm like, what the fuck's he doing?
And then I got out, and I fucking went, tried to get into school and shit.
And then I got sentenced.
And when I got sentenced was when I was, wait a second, with a felony?
What am I going to do when I get out?
I can't even be a fucking acupuncturist.
Imagine Joey being an acupuncturist.
Did you want to do that?
Anything.
I mean, I can't cut hair.
You can't get a license.
You can't get a fucking-
You can't get a fucking-
Did you want to cut hair?
No, but when you're fucking retired, and you're 30, and the fucking roads are
closing to on you, you know, every road is closed when you're 30.
You know, if you think your life's over when you're fucking 20, wait till you're
30, and you've already like-
And you got a felony on you.
Yeah, you got a felony, you got some chick pregnant, she's hunting you down,
the grandmother wants to suck your dick, you know.
And now you're like, really, now you're pressured to get into something.
Like, you're going to be fucking- I'm going to be 30.
Yeah.
I fucked around, I ate quaaludes, I got hepatitis, I got, you know, I got to
settle down.
That was where I was at.
Sure.
That's a scary-
Listen, when you're 20, and you have an idea, like, I'm going to go to college
to be an underwater biologist.
And then you get there, and you're like, I don't like fucking being underwater.
Yeah, sorry.
But I'll become a biologist.
Sure.
You're on the right path.
You're at least in that world.
Guys like you and I, we didn't have that.
We could have gone to work with Uncle Vinny at the shop.
Yeah, sure.
We could have gone to the fruit stand, or we could have worked at the warehouse.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know, you don't have that.
And it kind of stays with you for a while.
Like, oh, I want to be an actor.
Fuck, I can't even work at a fruit stand.
Yeah.
Like, I don't even know the tangerine is.
Like, you know what I'm saying?
Like, so now you-
So we tend to get jobs that are money.
You know, like when you're 20, you're like, I got a good job.
Yeah.
I work at an elevator union.
I make $38 now.
I was waiting tables.
Yeah, and then when you're 30 one day, you're like, I got to do something that
I like.
This ain't going to work.
It's bad enough I got to get up and go to work.
It's bad enough.
I don't want to do it.
I'd much rather soak.
I'd much rather cut through the shake and soak.
Now you're speaking my language.
Mug somebody once a month.
You know, I'll make ends meet.
But that always, it's not going to work for you.
Sure.
It's not going to fucking work for you.
Did you stay all through high school?
Did you do all high school?
No.
No?
Any vacations growing up?
You guys go anywhere?
You do anything?
Yeah, my mom was big on going to Puerto Rico.
Okay.
Even though we're Cuban.
Yeah.
Okay.
I just went for the first time.
Beautiful.
A lot of Florida.
A lot of Florida.
Miami?
Miami.
And how are you getting down there?
Are you driving down there?
You're flying.
Fuck no.
Eastern Airlines.
The wings of man, bitch.
Puerto Rico I flew.
And then my mom put me on a plane when I was 10 to LA to go see my uncle.
Okay.
So, you know, when you were 10 then, like...
By yourself?
Fuck yeah.
My mom didn't have time to dick around and go to Disneyland.
The Mets are playing, bitch.
The Mets are home next weekend.
She's got money on the game.
I got a barter.
I got money on the fucking game.
I got no time for fucking Disneyland with bullshit.
See some fucking Disneyland.
I don't want to see no Mickey Mouse.
Let's go to the Mets game.
Let's throw some fucking chicken wings at Rusty Stop and left field.
And let's 