And she'd be in there watching, like, novellas
with a scale, a bag of coke, a gun,
and a motherfucking Chihuahua.
You understand?
Who fucking has a Chihuahua for protection?
[dramatic music]
♪
[cheers and applause]
Thank you.
On this show, here's what happens.
It's just a bunch of comics telling true stories,
and that's all it is.
The man, the myth, the legend,
Mr. Joey Diaz.
[cheers and applause]
You know, when I was a kid, my mom had a bar,
and she was popular, so she had a lot of, like, girlfriends
that hung out with her, like, hot girls.
But there was this one chick that she used to
be kind of tight with, but I couldn't fucking understand
what the friendship--like, they would be on the phone all day.
They would talk five times a day.
If my mother was in the city, she would stop by her house.
And then as I got older, I got the back story,
that they knew each other in Cuba, and then...
This lady's name was Z.
That's what we're gonna call her for this fucking story.
'Cause the names have changed to protect the innocent,
all that shit.
So, uh, they came from Cuba, and Z married some dude
and went to Chicago.
My mom opted-- went to New York.
And like six months into the marriage,
the guy was beating the hell out of Z,
and my mom and my dad drove down there and saved her
in the middle of the night and took her to New York.
And she was indebted to them.
And this is, like, 19-fucking-60.
Then, you know, as long as I can remember,
my mom used to go over there. And I liked going over
to where she lived because she went on
to become a huge drug dealer in New York.
Right? On 113th and Fifth Avenue
in the mouth of Spanish motherfucking Harlem, right?
And it was scary. It was like
You see, like, Puerto Ricans walking around.
People fucking nodding on the sidewalks.
It was just amazing as a little kid to see this.
Fuck the circus and the zoo.
These are real fucking animals.
Like, hanging there.
Laying in their own puke and shit.
It's fucking tremendous.
So, I liked going there, too, 'cause she'd always give me,
like, a 20 or a 50.
As young as I was, she always dropped--
and she always did a blast of coke,
no matter where the fuck she was.
You understand me?
So I would go over there, she'd pick me up, kiss me,
and then go in her bra. [sniffs]
Do a line and ask me how school was, and...
She went to my first communion. She did a bump kneeling down
in the fucking thing. She don't give a fuck!
That's a real crazy lady.
Not one of these ladies with a tattoo and a hat with a feather.
"I'm so crazy." No you're not, all right?
No you're not. You go to yoga at Studio City.
You ain't that fucking crazy, all right?
Fucking crazy.
Go to yoga in Compton, bitch, and then we'll talk.
So going to her house, guys,
she lived on the second floor over a bodega.
This is, like, the mid-'70s.
You know, you knocked on Z's door,
and a black guy opened the door,
and he'd point you to the back.
And I would run to the back,
and she lived, like, in a-- like in--
she had, like, maybe three rooms,
you know, like a living room.
But where she sold coke out of and heroin
was this little room that had, like, beads in the front.
Like, you know, you opened it up and shit.
And she'd be in there watching, like, novellas
with a scale, a bag of coke, a gun,
and a motherfucking Chihuahua.
You understand?
Who fucking has a Chihuahua for protection?
And she was dark Cuban, so she had big tits and an ass.
Like, she was good-looking, but she had blonde hair
that was tight, 30 years before Lil' Kim.
I mean, she was way ahead of her fucking time.
Finally, like, in the eighth or ninth grade, I figured out,
you know, they were just good friends.
They spoke all the time.
But then my dad--my mom died.
And she was the first phone call I made.
And she was the first one there, you know?
She made all the funeral arrangements.
You motherfuckers been to regular viewings with gentiles,
where they sit around and cry, and it's like,
"Oh, he was such a great man."
That's great.
That--that's great.
Then there's Irish fucking wakes,
where people are drinking and cursing and--
But then there's Cuban wakes.
That makes an Irish wake look like a fucking daycare, okay?
They drink 24-- and it's open 24 hours.
24 hours, funeral parlor.
And anything goes. People are doing lines,
people are arguing, people playing dominoes.
People are playing fucking dominoes
at my mother's fucking wake, okay?
And the first night I hear this commotion.
And I go in the hallway.
Z had the funeral director by the throat
because she put the wrong dress on my mother.
That is a fucking friend, motherfuckers, right?
Like...'cause anybody can be your fucking friend
when you're alive, but to fucking be at your funeral
smacking motherfuckers, right?
That's a friend, right?
[applause]
That's a fucking friend, you know?
And she was checking people.
Like, "Hey, fuck you. You didn't like her,
and she didn't fucking like you. Get out."
She was checking people, you know?
And all these people were in there, "Oh, we loved Denore,"
and all this shit.
You didn't hear shit from this lady.
You didn't hear a word.
There was no fakeness out of her.
Right there, I learned what fake was
and what real was.
At that early age, I learned that, I saw it.
Like people come up to me,
"Oh, my God, if you need anything..."
And after my mom died, I'd call 'em,
and they changed their fucking phone number.
But just little things that I saw right then.
I decided, oh, my God, that's what a fake person is.
"I loved your mother. Oh, God, take me."
All that shit.
You know, the whole fucking four days of the wake,
Z didn't say shit.
She would every once in a while just sit in the back
and just take a little bump out of her bra.
[sniffs]
And look at me and go, "Shh."
And she would just watch what was going on.
Even--and she was such a woman.
Like, men would be having conversation.
I'm not talking about regular fucking guys.
I'm talking about Latin, old-school,
machismo motherfuckers.
And she would go tell 'em shit like, "Shut the fuck up."
Like, even they were scared of her.
And I observed all this,
like how she had taken over for my mother.
And then the last night, my mom got buried on a Monday,
and that Sunday I went outside to smoke a joint
or whatever the fuck you go outside of a wake for.
To get air.
And when I came back, she was alone with my mother.
It was the first time they were alone together.
And she was kneeling down, and that's where I got it.
She was...petting her hair.
And she was telling her how beautiful she was,
and how the world wasn't gonna be the same without her,
and how she was gonna miss her, and she was her sister.
And it was just fucking mind-boggling.
And then she said--
and she turned, like she knew I was there,
and she goes, "I'm gonna take care of this motherfucker.
"I'm gonna take care of him, I'm gonna watch over him,
I'm gonna make sure he grows up to be a fucking man."
And I saw the meaning of friendship right there,
when Z was petting her fucking hair and doing bumps.
She did a fucking bump right there, right?
She did a bump looking at the casket.
She's like, "I'd give you one,
but what's the difference at this point?"
But then it was after that she stuck to her fucking word.
Every Sunday, she'd come over from Long Island
and meet me at Weehawken Cemetery,
and she'd bring a bottle of Dewar's, flowers,
and she'd pour the bottle of Dewar's out
and tell my mother how much she loved her and she missed her,
and she'd do some bumps. And by that time,
I was doing coke. And she would, like, do bumps
into the spirit, like, "Here's a couple for you."
And I'd be like, "No! Let me...
Give them fucking things to me!"
[laughter]
You're gonna fucking throw 'em on the grass.
That's $20 of fucking blast there.
$20, $20, $20.
Stop it already! Give it to me!
So...this went on.
She took care of me, guys, from '79 till '83,
till I got out of high school.
Every fucking Sunday, 200 fucking beans.
And she'd bring me weed,
a little $5 nickel bag from the city.
And then in '83 I moved to Colorado,
and, you know, I got into craziness and shit.
But I always called her twice a week.
I would send her pictures, you know?
And then I moved back to Jersey,
and by that time I was a fucking lunatic.
You know, and the cocaine had absorbed me and stuff.
And I kept in touch with her,
and I would go into the city once a week
and take her for a Cuban sandwich.
There was a place on 118th Street, we'd walk.
And I went--
And I went to Miami, and I found some friend of hers,
and I beat 'em for, like, a half a kilo.
And I just felt fucking bad.
You know how it is, dog. One bump leads into another.
Next thing you know, you're having a party.
Next thing you know, you did six ounces of blow.
It's a fucking nightmare, you know what I'm saying?
And there's no rehabs. There's no hugs.
You know?
'Cause they don't give a fuck, you know?
That's it. So I felt embarrassed.
And I came back from Miami and I'd fucked these people over.
And I felt embarrassed, so I didn't call her.
I didn't call her for, like, five months.
And in January of '85, I finally got a little sober
and I called her one day and I go, "Z, what's going on?"
And she's like, "Where the fuck have you been?"
She goes, "You haven't called me in, like, five months."
She goes, "The cops raided me. They took everything."
She goes, "My leg broke, and there was nobody here for me."
And I felt fucking terrible.
I let my mother down, I let myself down,
I let Z down. And I was at a pay phone.
I just dropped the fucking pay phone.
It was like a kick in my stomach,
like she had just said, you know,
"Where the fuck were you for me?
"For all those years, I was there for you,
and you just disappeared on me."
And I was--I just felt terrible, and I--
I walked away from the pay phone.
I didn't call her for about a week or two,
and then I finally called and her phone was disconnected.
And I went over to the bodega a few times,
and they told me that she got busted
and they closed the apartment, and I never talked to her again.
And I felt like shit. And I live with that today.
And that 1985, you know?
And I thought about it, and I digested it,
and I swore to God that if I ever had a chance
to be a friend to somebody--
'Cause you don't need 20 friends.
You just need three motherfuckers,
and you can take over a country.
Okay, that's where we're confused as Americans.
We think we need all these motherfuckers.
You give me three bad motherfuckers
and you're finished.
You understand me?
You're fucking finished... [cheers and applause]
because we got each other.
And, you know, listen, man, like Ari.
Ari's my fucking goombah till the end.
He might be a Jew or whatever,
and I'm Cuban, but that's my fucking goombah.
And he knows that's what I'm here.
Not because whatever, but, you know,
I promised that I would be a friend to people,
and I would live and die for them.
And, you know, when I look at people now,
I always look at people sometimes and I go,
"How's that motherfucker gonna feel when I die?"
Is he gonna be talking shit at my funeral
or is he gonna squeeze my daughter
and come see her every week and give her a toy?
You know, and that's how I have to look at people.
That's how I was raised, you know?
And I always lived with that guilt
of not doing something for my friend.
And then in 2007 I got off the blow.
I quit doing cocaine. Don't ask.
You know? Don't clap.
Nobody's supposed to do it anyway, you know?
People are like, "I'm off drugs."
You're an asshole. You're not supposed to do drugs
anyway, okay? Don't fucking break your arm
tapping yourself on the back, asshole.
So...
Right or wrong?
These motherfuckers walk around with their water,
"I'm sober now."
Who gives a fuck? You know?
You know, two months ago you were sucking dick for rock
at The Roxy.
Now I gotta fucking shake your hand.
Fuck you.
You motherfuckers don't know, you know what I'm saying?
So I got off coke.
I had been off coke, like, four days.
[laughter]
And that was tough for me.
I used to go, like, 18 hours,
and I'm like, "Ooh!"
That's a long fucking time, you know?
I was clean for four days, and a dear friend of mine dies.
It was a comedian. She died of cancer.
And there was this one producer
that used to mess with us all the time here in L.A.
He would have these festivals and tell us
that he was gonna book us, and then decide,
"Oh, no, no, I'm not hiring dirty comics this year.
Why would you have to work so dirty?"
He'd make us feel bad about being dirty comics,
when we were just expressing who the fuck we were.
You know what I'm saying? So...
I saw him then.
He had messed with me and Marilyn a couple times,
and I saw him at the church.
Right? I saw him at the church,
but it was 10:00.
I was a little on the stoned side.
I said I might as well not say nothing.
You know, sometimes you do a bong hit before church
just to calm your nerves.
You know, sometimes just 1 1/2 just to, you know,
just to loosen you up before church.
And, uh...
'Cause church sucks without a bong hit.
Trust me, that's why it sucked as a kid.
Once you start doing bong hits, church ain't that bad.
It's a fucking hour, people shake hands,
they give you a cookie, you know, everybody--
"Peace be with you," you know what I'm saying?
[laughs]
Right or wrong?
"Peace be with you, brother. Peace be with you.
Peace be with you."
So that night they had a memorial at a comedy club.
When I walk into the memorial,
well, they had free food at the memorial.
Like, this-- Like, they had--
They buried her that day,
but they had, like, a microphone.
They had a picture where you're gonna go up and say words.
Then they had free food. When I walk in,
guess who's eating the fucking free motherfucking food?
That motherfucking producer.
Now, by that time, I'm bre-- it's after 8:00.
The cocaine addiction is growing.
I'm getting madder by the minute.
I'm Cuban. It's fucking just...
it's just developing, right?
And they come over to me, they go, "Listen,
when we do the memorial, can you go up on stage first?"
And I'm like, "Absolutely." And I'll get my words over,
and I'll get the fuck out of here
so I can go home and go to sleep
before I choke this motherfucker, too, right?
So they say, "Coming to the stage, Joey Diaz."
I go on stage. People, you know me.
I talk for like a minute, and I can't--
this motherfucker's over there with that smile on his face.
You know when somebody's got, like, that smile
on their fucking face?
And in the middle of my memorial, I just stopped.
And I go, "I don't know what the fuck you're smiling about,
motherfucker," you know? "But I tell you what,
"I'm gonna go get a drink, and when I get back,
"you, your wife, and that fucking attorney
"better get the fuck out here
'cause I'm gonna fuck you motherfuckers up."
And I was serious, Jack.
I was fucking serious. Like, I was done.
Like, seven days without a line of coke.
This motherfucker-- this is my out.
I'll beat him up, and then fuck it,
they'll throw me in county jail for 30 days.
By the time I get out, I'll be clean and sober.
I mean, that was my fucking...
That's how you gotta think when you're fucking addicted,
how I was, you know?
But I was really pissed about what this motherfucker had done
to me and to Marilyn, and how he had the balls
to show up at this fucking wake
with that smile on his fucking face.
And as I went to the drink, and I came back in,
and him and his fucking family were gone.
When I walked to my car, I thought about one thing.
That I'm through. I-I-I did what I had to do.
Without even knowing,
I stuck up for one of my friends who had died.
And that night I became that much better
as a human fucking being.
I made my peace with Z,
I made my peace with my mother,
and most importantly I made my peace with myself.
And that's my story about friendship.
[cheers and applause]