The Church of What's Happening Now: The New Testament - From Cuba to Union City and beyond

Episode Date: December 3, 2024

Joey Diaz is joined by childhood friend, and Union City Commissioner, Lucio Fernandez. Lucio grew up with Joey, and like Joey, was also born in Cuba, his parents owned a bar in New Jersey, and he went on to tour the world entertaining people. Joey and Lucio also talk about La Comida China, their classmate who had to dropout in the seventh grade when he got his girlfriend pregnant, and the guy who made his living getting hit by cars.  Support the show and get 10% off your Freeze Pipe order with code DIAZ at https://www.thefreezepipe.com This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try and get on your way to being your best self at https://www.betterhelp.com/diaz Support the show and get $35 off Aura's Carver Mat frames. Use code JOEY at https://www.auraframes.com   

What's happened, you bad motherfuckers? It's Tuesday, December the 3rd. This is the church, the New Testament. Today, I got a friend coming on here. I've known him forever. His name is Lucio Fernandez. We're going to cover a couple of little situations here. Lees here, his feet are dangling off the little fucking chair,

like a little kid in the back seat. I got to get my French ride from Wendy's, and that's it. We're here. Let's get this party started. Greetings from Podcastville. The church New Testament is brought to you by freeze pipe. You don't need to wait for snow to smoke out of an ice cold bomb. Freeze pipe has your covered.

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Run for your lives. It's over. They didn't put you on this planet just to give up. If Uncle Joey could do it, I can rule the world. That's what you've got to be thinking. Welcome back to

What's up, you bad motherfuckers? Uncle Joey back here with my buddy Lucio, Lee Syatt. What's up, Lucio? What's up, Joey? Thanks for having me, man. Oh, anytime. Lucio, how far back do we go? Oh, my God.

Since you came to McKinley School, sixth grade or something, you came in fifth, sixth grade. Sixth grade? Sixth grade. That's how far back. Now, you were in the class with me? Lovito? No, man, it's so funny about that. I actually, no, I wasn't in six school.

No, I wasn't Ms. Grabowski. Ms. Ms. Grabowski, okay. And then Ms. Grabowski got me to skip seventh grade. No shit. And they put you in the eighth grade? I skipped seventh grade. I remember towards the spring, I had to take a couple of classes

with the seventh grade so I could skip seventh, but I went right to eighth grade. So I've known you a long time, except you're like 300 years older than me. I'm much younger than you. I don't know, you're younger than I am. I still remember you at my house, lifting weights. Do you remember that?

Do you remember that? Do you remember that? Do you remember that? started by lifting weights with you? We were training. We were training. There was some karate guy that hung out with you. I forgot his name. Some crazy karate guy. Always wear white tank tops.

You know, like the guinea tis. Always wear a white tank top. And we would work out of your house. And you were supposed to be spotting me. He was supposed to be spotting. I don't know where he went, but those weights fell right on my head. And I look, and I'm in pain.

And he's over there in the corner cracking up with the karate guy was lost. He was like, what is going on here? Who the fuck was the karate guy? I can't remember his name with the white t-shirt. Always wear a white tanked up. Always. Always. I hung up with so many crazy karate guys. I was going to say you would tell

stories about like he had basically had a karate fight club for a little bit, didn't you? But that was in North Bergen with a kid named Mario Diaz. There was a Chinese Cuban kid. His name was Mario Diaz. His father was a doctor. And I think Mario Diaz went to Fujia Pi Kung Fu.

I went to Ishen Roo in Union City on New York Avenue. On 35th Street? No. No? Before, when we were kids, there was Fujabai Kung Fu, and then there was Ushun Roo karate, Kevin Norlander, Wayne Norlander. He was on 16th Street in New York Avenue.

I remember that. The guy used to check your report cards. If you fucking got a B or C, he would make you do jumping jacks and then put you on the side and you had to do homework where everybody was flying through the air. It was tremendous. I remember.

It was tremendous. But we had, you know, we're talking about North Perican, right? We went to North Bergen first. When did you leave McKinley? I graduated from McKinley in 77. Okay. And I didn't want to go. I wanted to stay in North Bergen.

I had it all set up to go to North Bergen high school. I was going to be playing baseball over there. I was going to be playing basketball. I was going to be running track. And all of a sudden my mom and dad said, no, we're moving to Union City. I couldn't believe it. My whole life fell apart. So in 77, that summer, that summer,

of 77, we packed out bags and moved to Union City. Big change, big change. And which school did you go to Union City? I went to, I went to Union Hill. Union Hill High School. It was, it was, it was different. Union Hill, it was different. It was different. It was all, mostly Hispanic, you know, but it was a whole different ballgame. In McKinley School, the teachers really cared. They cared. They wanted you to learn. They were, you know, you talked up, when you had Mr. Barone here, your last episode, Mr. Barone. You talked about Mr. Agresta. You talked about, you know, Mr. Miss. Mr. Miss.

These people cared. I have a great story about Mr. Miss. Mr. Miss was the best. Mr. Miss was in the class with us one day because one of our teachers got sick or something. And Mr. Miss was a good-looking blonde dude. The girls loved him. He looked just like Robert Redford with a mustache.

He was yoked. And he was okay. And one day he was the teacher. They put both eighth grades together. And they said, we need to talk to you about something. We have an organization that wants to talk to you kids about helping them out. Okay.

Mr. Miss comes in with the white dude. The white dude opens up his briefcase. I'll never forget this. He opens up his briefcase, and he starts taking notes out, and he goes, how are you doing, boys and girls? I'm here to talk to you about a disease that's hitting kids. They can't walk. You start walking, something fucked up, but then he goes,

and they could only move three steps per every 30 minutes. And the guy goes, do we have any ideas on how we could take care of this? And Richie Colombo or somebody raised their hand, he goes, give him roller skates. And the guy looked down,

closed the suitcase, I'll never forget that. And he goes, they told me not to talk to this class. That was one of the last, Now, I don't know when was the last time I saw Mr. Miss. What's your Mr. Miss? Missed Miss was, he was the hollet.

Like you say, he was a good-looking guy, strong, and, you know, he became the basketball coach. And, man, we were great in basketball, street basketball. We played at the court on 28th Street coming out. We played there all the time. David Ruiz, you know, myself, you know, a bunch of us. Lefty. Yeah, lefty. Chuck, he used to come up once in a while.

Chuckie would come up there. He was really, really small. He was really tiny. Remember Chuckie how tiny he was? He's still 20. But he was fast, man, he was fast. He was good. Very good.

Anyway, so Mr. Ms. comes in to coach us. We were great at street basketball. But when we got in a court, man, we stunk. I remember one game, they called the three second penalty. I mean, like, ten times. We didn't know how to play in the court. We never practiced.

I remember they used to say, let's go practice at Kennedy School down on 10th Street. And we used to walk down there in the rain, the snow. They didn't matter. No coach, nothing. We'd suffer. If anything, one time a week. So we were playing against all these other schools. And we stunk.

But Mr. Miss said, listen, oh, no, no, wait, no, we would start winning

every game we were winning by halftime, and then we would lose every single game. We lost every game, but Mr. Miss said,

you guys dress up. Dress up. We'll get all the girls. You guys will get all the girls. Just dress up, doesn't matter how bad you play, you guys will look good. And that's what we did,

with our little polyester shirts on and whatnot, the bell bottoms and stuff, and we'll go there and pick up the girls. That's what we did. Who was on your team, that? Oh, man,

David Ruiz, I don't even Martin Cito played. You mean Martin? Chucky, sure. I still talk to Martin. I don't know if Martin played. I know Chucky played. Peter Jimenez, maybe.

I don't remember. Peter. We had some crazy motherfuckers in that school. Now, it's funny that, listen, basically we're both from Union City. I grew up in North Bergen, I went to high school and grammar school for a few years, but I've been going to Union City

since I was in fucking diapers, you know? And I went to El Cortitito. This is how this whole shit started with you. I went to a quartarito one day. And I'm there with my daughter. You know, you're sitting outside. It's 80 degrees. I'm looking around.

I see this building. Like, I know that fucking building. I keep looking at it and looking at it. That's where my father died. North Hudson Hospital. Across the street from the Derry Queen. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I went on arrival with my daughter.

I'm like, oh, I know a lot about Union City. Like I was here when 48th Street was just cigars going down the street It was just cigar shops Fucking cigar shops If you went from Bergenline Down to like Palisade Or New York Avenue

Whatever the fuck it was You know, I mean You had the colony theater on 48th Street Remember the Column? The Colant Theater on 48th Street We had that other theater You know, I just, I didn't even know this You know that fucking

What's the comedian, the old guy with the cigar? George Burns At the Hudson Theater He met Gracie Burns in Union City at the Hudson Theater Your grandmother, his grandmother grew up in Union City. She's telling me a story once that she used to talk to Fidel while she was waiting on the bus.

Fidel would come up to her and talk to it. She goes, I didn't know what this fucking guy was, but he was a gentleman. She goes, I figured out years later he was Fidel. Like Fidel started his revolution in Union City. He has some meeting on 26 years. 20-somethings you had a meeting with some people down there? Yeah. And he got arrested.

He got arrested in Union City. You're talking about Fidel Castro? Yes. What was he? doing in Union City? That's where the revolution started, Union City, whatever part of Florida, what

Tampa was, or some shit like that, and Miami, when they were going to do the Bay of Pigs and all that, oh, before the Bay of Pigs. He was going to take over. Batista's fucking job. But that all went down. Are you Cuban as well? Yes. It's not my fault. I was born there. I know. Oh, you were born

there too. I was born there, yeah. Because it was driving back from Jersey the other day and you had told me, Joey, that like you moved, like your mom moved here, partially because of like the, like the sewing industry? Yes. And they had a sign right at the Lincoln Tunnel,

like New Jersey, the home of, embroidery. It's like 1837. Of the fucking country. That was true. From the 1800s. You know why? Why?

The German machines, the Schifley machines, they had to stand in solid rock. And the only area that had this solid rock, Bluestone, Union City is based on Blue Stones. So that's the only place like they can anchor, these whatever, two-ton machines.

So the embroidery industry grew in Union City and West New York. It was huge. They did all the patches worldwide, everything came from Union City, West New York. Union City was the embroidery capital of the world. Also the burlesque capital of the world. The burlesque capital of the world. Yeah.

Do they need to reinforce it for that? They don't have no burlesque clubs no more. No, no. You know how many, there was a lot of theaters in Union City. You had the cinema. You remember the cinema? The hippodrome, the Lincoln Theater. the Twin State, which was on 40th,

which CVS is on 48th in Bergenstein. The Colony Theater, theaters all over Union City, and there was a lot, a lot of people that started in Union City. You know, Frank Sinatra, when he was with whatever four, the group before he went solo,

they sang at the Lincoln Theater on 32nd Street. With Davis, you remember Davis, Davis Toy Store on Bergenland Avenue and 32nd Street? It was right there. That's right there. Around the corner,

where Mi Vandera was, that used to be a theater, the Lincoln Theater. Okay, before it became years and years. Not the Park Theater, a Lincoln Theater. And there you had all these big stars that performed there. Now, the Park Theater is by the four-star diver. Right. The best BLT for fucking years.

My mother would stop that three in the morning and get me a BLT and shit. Tremendous. How do you have the best BLT? Just really good bacon? There's really good tomatoes. Okay. Thick bacon, like, back in the, you know,

now it's probably like everybody else. It's fucking hog and it's like... Turkey Club, oh my God. Turkey Club there? What that? The Turkey Club? The Turkey Club is still good? No, the turkey club sandwich there?

No, they just closed. The dinah closed about a year ago. Really? Yeah. And my florist across the street closed. I had a florist. I'd go in there and bring flowers to my mother. I went in there.

We're in Colombia. We're never coming back. That's how it works out. But it's so funny how like I was driving that day at my daughter And I started telling her, you know. Like, I don't remember nothing about Union City until my father died. And then I remember being, we lived across the street from the grammar school on 29th and Central.

Robert Waters. I lived on that street. We had a garage and the whole thing. And then after that, I don't know what happened. And then we ended up in New York City. But my mother always had that bar in Union City. So wherever she went, I went. There was no fucking daycare.

You know who lived? run the corner from you, you're going to die. Tony Orlando. In Marlboro? No, near, no. Oh, yeah. Union City. Originally, yeah. Tony Orlando is from Union City, New Jersey. I mean, it's just fucking insane, you know.

And then I would just go visit and I would walk because you had, my mother had 29th Street, so it covered from 29 to 48. Right. She would go, don't go past 48th Street. And you walked back and forth. The 48th Street when we were growing up,

we had our own little world there. I mean, Union City was probably one of the most unique little towns. Like, I could tell you a thousand Saturdays that we went to the cinema. Like, the cinema is where I saw the longest yard. Right. It's where I saw Rocky. It's where I saw Tommy. I saw Bruce Lee.

Fuck! They always had the midnight show. And then you walked down Bergen line and you had Ponte Corvo fruit next to the toy store. That's right. With a lot of boxes. Oh, that's what I'm talking. talking about Davis Davis soy store. We would beat the fuck out of boxes.

They'd be all over Bergerline. And then we'd run away because I thought the cops are going to chase. There was no fucking cops. Fucking crazy. And there was a go-go bar there. Right on 32nd Street. Now, when I first remember being at my mother's bar,

there was an Italian deli across the street. This is 66, 67, 68, that I would go over and they'd pick me up. And I'd stick my hand, and he'd always give me a nap. or fruit or an orange or some shit. I don't want no fucking orange. I wanted the candy.

He had things of candy. Then he left and the New Moon Chinese restaurant moved in there. Oh, wow. Like, there was just so many things. But the thing that sticks in my head of the most about Union City was, when I was about seven, two kids got kidnapped. You remember that? Yeah, I remember that.

When I was about seven, two kids got abducted by the towers, some tower in Union, Troy Towers or something like that, somewhere down Edison, I don't even know if Edison schools still exist. No, that still exists. Does it? Yeah, I think it was on seventh, right off of- Right down there.

Yeah, yeah, right off of Summit Avenue. And then they found the kids dead. Yeah. And I'll never forget that just because I went to my mother's bar and I did all these things in Union City, I felt like I had to go. I told my mom I'm going to their wake and she's like, what are you fucking crazy?

I gotta go. And I went down to that had to be 2,000 people. And I'll never forget to it. I was like, this is Union City. This is real. These people fucking are out. And they're going to find this motherfucker and kill them when they do, you know? And then I remember that fire on 28th in Bergen line.

There was a Olega up the block from Hernandez, which we'll talk about later. School these motherfuckers on the art of human sandwiches. Yeah, these motherfuckers don't know nothing. And that burnt down overnight during the holidays. And I still remember going to my mother's bar and the front was just filled with clothes and people were giving money.

And I don't, you know, I don't know how old I was, but he had two boys in my age. 1993, I moved with George. I come back here and I go to a gym in North Bergen. They own the gym. I paid for the membership, and they were like, you're the Norris son.

Yeah, they go, here's your money. You remember when you took care of us? Wow. You remember, huh? They fucking remember. They go, you work out here for free. and we'll fucking train you. Wow.

And that was all from fucking Union City. You know, like Union City, it's a small but a powerful little goddamn place. Union City is a great city. It's a great little city. It's a great, and you know, for the longest time, we were the most densely populated city in the whole country.

Into just a couple of years ago, that Guttnberg became the most densely populated city in the whole United States. But Union City forever was the most lessly populated city in the country. Now, does Guttemberg still have the record for the most bars per capita? idea. I'm just blown

away because you guys kind of like look alike. But like you guys have almost like the same beginning and then like you come and you have the little thing in the suit jacket.

You guys started almost exactly the same. And then like I can't. It's so crazy you guys came from the same place. It's going to get better. Cocksuck. So you graduated. Union Hill, where'd you go? I went from, when I graduated Union Hill, I went to Rutgers.

And I was going to go to New Brunswick, and then all the sudden, I was already working in New York. So I said, let me stay in Newark, so I can work in New York. So I was working in New York. Now, what were you doing in New York? I was acting. I was an actor. Holy shit.

I never thought in a million years, when I was growing up, I wanted to be a baseball player. And then all of a sudden, I'm going to date myself. When I, in freshman year, freshman year in high school, I won a dance competition. Disco was big. So I won a disco championship in New Jersey and New York. So that got me onto So Factory Disc. Remember So Factory?

Sure. So that got me on the TV. I just drove past. So they got me on that TV show. And I used to, it's so funny, because I used to go to Soul Factory Discco. I was underage. And I remember my cousin, we used to wait for me outside by the side door and who's, you know, give me his ID. So I can go around and come in using his ID.

And I was young. I was like, whatever, 14th. Anyway, I got into the TV show. And every week, I was on Soul Factory Disco. I had sometimes I was featured sometimes I was just a crowd but I was on the show and when I this is freshman year in high school in Union Hill nobody saw me nobody I didn't see it no no nobody nobody like guided me to show business or anything nobody nobody I kind of sort of tripped into it is it can you just explain what soul fact it sounds like it was like what was that love train

or what was that soul train is it was like soul train American bandstand or something like that and it was just disco music you were just dancing the whole time and then you saw you saw a Karen Young, you remember Karen Young will come on and the Commodores and all these people come and perform, you know, lip sync, but they will perform in this little state so they had and we were just dancing and sometimes they had, I got featured because I wanted the state, you know?

And there I met this couple, Jeff and Donna, Shelley, they were a dance team, and I started taking dance classes with them, and that was the beginning. And then I got, somehow I got into, oh, then when I went to Rutgers, this kid that went to Union Hill with me said, listen, I was going to be an engineer.

He goes, I want to take you somewhere. I said, where? took me to Rutgers, the Black Box Theater, and Rutgers Newark. I saw the Block Box Theater, I said, man, that's what I want to do. I want to act. Within a year's time, I was signed in New York,

I was trying to do soaps, I couldn't act to save my life, I couldn't dance, I couldn't sing, I had no ability, but I had the desire. I wish you could fucking dance. Yeah.

So I got into all these shows, and I got into the soaps, I did a bunch of films, I did a bunch of soaps, I did a bunch of musicals and plays and the whole bit, and that took me all over the world. That's what I did for.

for a long time, for a very long time. That's insane. Sounds like you were pretty good at it. Yeah. I was all right. I was, you know, I was willing to stand on my head. The director said, do this, and I would just do it. I had, you know, and plus I was athletic.

So, you know, you're athletic in the musical theater world, and so you're dancing masculine. They won people who dance masculine. So I was, you know, I did West Side Story for five and a half years of my life every day, every major production. I did Chorus Line. I did Jesus Christ Superstar. I did guys and dolls.

Were you on Broadway or were? I did the Broadway National Tours. Oh, so like the one that would travel around to the cities? So I did, for West Side Story, I did the European company, the national company, the World Tour, the European Tour, the Paris Company, the Japan Company. We were supposed to come to Broadway and then...

You did West Side Story in Japan? I did West Side Story five and a half years of my life every single day, eight shows a week. Could you still do it right now? I have. Eight shows... I can't imagine doing eight shows a week. Man, it felt when you got off the tour,

it felt like you would have been to war. Everything hurt. Everything. My knees, my back, my, my, my, from, I play Chino in West Side Story, so I was shooting the gun. So I had a tendinitis on my elbow from shooting the gun every night. Fucking doing, please. It was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun.

It's a lot of work. It was a lot of work. And a lot of commitment. People don't realize it. People have no idea what goes into theater. Like, I've gotten auditions here for theater. I'm like, they better not call me. They better not fucking call me because they wanted me to do whatever.

Guys and Dolls two years ago. Oh, you'll be great. You'll be great in Guys and Dons. But the one guy, the crazy guy, and I was like, I don't know. And the guy called me up, listen, we really want you to do it, but we rehearsed twice a day to fucking St. Smigian's Day. And I was like, I think Guys and Dolls were Lorna Loft. You remember Lorna Loft?

I remember the name. Liza Minnelli's sister. Okay, Lorna Loft. I did it with, you remember Steve, the guy who plays Steve in Marriwood Children? Yeah. He was in the company I did. You remember, oh, Fish. You remember Fish?

What's his name? Abe Bogota. He came in and had to let him go. He couldn't do the role. No, he's too old. This is by this years ago. I know he can't dance. No, no. He was 100 when he did the Godfather. He was 100 when he did the Godfather. Yeah, yeah. I'd just seen it at a restaurant. They always play Italian movies. And there was a part when he asked, what's his know, who gives a fuck?

But he was old then. He was old then. So when I went to Rutgers, I was doing, I was doing all the stuff in New York. and ICM signed me for a commercial. So I would do all these commercials and stuff. So I was making a living at it. And that's all I did for a long time. And until I ended up back in Union City somehow. So you have your SAG card and everything?

Yeah, got SAG after and equity. Wow. For ever. Equity, too. I don't even have a fucking equity. After it's done, they're like mixed with SAG now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It sucks.

It's not the same. So, I mean, you've done, so I guess, have you ever done plays, Joey? Have you done a play? All the time. You saw me doing the fucking the king and I

when I was flying. What one was your favorite, Lucio, between all of them, between plays? The most I had, I mean, probably West Side story.

Oh no, but that's, between plays, like commercials, TV. Ah, plays, plays.

Yeah, that was a lot. When I was, when I was at Rutgers, that's what I studied, you know, theater. I wanted to be,

be a theater actor. I never thought in a million years I was going to become a film producer and stuff like that. That was not my thing. My thing was going to be, I was a serious actor. In fact, I worked at, I know you guys ever heard of Spanish Repertory Theater in New York. I worked there for three and a half years. It's the premier Hispanic speaking theater in New York.

And I worked there as a lead actor for three and a half years and I did everything. It was a, it's a repertory company. So on any given weekend, one weekend three days, Friday, Sunday Sunday, did five different place. What? So you're, you're, it's a true repertory company. So you're learning all place at once. You can be doing a classical play, a lorca play, and then you do a contemporary play,

all in Spanish. It's insane. When I got off a tour, I had just met my wife. I just met my wife, and I turned down all these tours, and I started working a Spanish rep. The first script I got in Spanish, I was like, what? And my wife is, you know, American. And she had to teach me, help me learn this script phonetically. I couldn't, I didn't know what I was reading. I never read in Spanish, you know? So I became, I was there for three and a half years and I helped me out to for later on what I, you know, becoming a commissioner and stuff. They helped me because then I was bilingual, you know, that helped a lot. I could speak Spanish.

I could read Spanish. I could write a little Spanish, but Spanish auditions, I just tap out. I'm not interested. I can't because, listen, there was a show on in the early, in the late 90s on Tullimundo. It was a Cuban family, not not. Not what happened to USA. No, this was one that. came later. And when I got a call from my agent, he goes, go in there and read. They want you to read for the Cuban door guy.

Well, I go down there, and there's all these Cuban people, and they're very nice, but they ain't Cubans like us. Okay. So I'll never forget, like, I read the role, booked it, went on the next day, and during rehearsal, I set a line, and they all were like, like, they were fucking upty-duty Cubans, right? And then we started doing the scene, scene, scene, and they all had problems, like they were too fucking emotional and he's not doing it right. La Paloara et died.

And I went to lunch and they called me a lunch and said, you got fired, but they got to pay for your after car. I said, fine, fuck it. A thousand bucks they took out of my future. But, and then about 25 years later, 20 years later, during COVID, I'm walking at that park. Okay. They did all the rallies by it.

house and during COVID, the guy that played the cousin on the George Lopez show, he was on the show then as an actor. And he came over and he goes, hey man, I just want you to know, I haven't seen you since that day, but it wasn't me who got you fired. It was those other fucking Cubans had to stick up their asses. And I was like, okay, good to know. I don't give a fuck. I'll never read again. But that's why, because my Spanish is completely different than their Spanish. And when I say a weird Union City word, they fucking lose it. Because we grew up speaking Spanglish. We spoke Spanish.

But I spoke that shit that they came with you from the Revolution. Those people spoke differently. They cooked differently. They acted differently. It's a different fucking world. And it's still indebted. Like, it's still in my fucking soul

how those guys walked around and how they come down. And I don't know. It just, I can't. I've tried even, they always make me read the fucking Mexicans and Colombians. I get one Cuban.

and, you know, it's not going to work. It just doesn't work. I don't know what the fuck it is. I remember when Scarface came out. Okay. And I said, where are the Cubans? I know Stephen Bowers in it. It's the only Cuban, but where are the Cubans?

There's a ton of Cubans everywhere. The Cuban nuances were not there. You know? I mean, Pacino tried, you know, his best, and it's a cult classic. But where are the Cuban nuances, that machismo, or the way the Cubans talked, the way my stepdad talked, your dad talked,

and the Cubans growing up in Union City were different. They were tough, but it wasn't just the way they looked. You know what I mean? It was a whole different kind of Cuban, and that wasn't represented in the film. Well, when they was getting ready for that film,

it was Little Angel Salazar, God rest of soul, that kind of prepped Pacino for a lot of stuff. But it got so bad that they didn't have no Cubans that when they're working in the fucking bait in the country, coffee shop and he quits. Remember that? Yeah, yeah, I remember that. Right before that scene, there's a guy who comes up and says,

Oya said it, pole Mahamong, Mahamong. You don't remember that? Yeah, remember that scene perfectly, yeah. That's Angel Salazar, off camera, doing a voice. Oh, really? Yeah, they had no Cubans. And in their defense, you had Angel and the other guy. What a lot of people don't know was that movie was cast in Miami,

but really shot in LA. That's what I didn't know, that nobody knew. Over the years in LA, I kept meeting people from Scarface, and I would ask them questions. In fact, I shot a movie with Pepe Serena, the guy that they cut his arm long. And he told me he stole the extra arm, and he sold it for $75,000.

The whole fucking thing. But he was telling me what happened. They were down there in Miami, and the Cuban shut them out. So they had a shutdown. I remember. Pay everybody for six months. I remember that. And go to California and start all over again.

Like Tent City. I thought that was Miami. That's under the 405. The mother of the house, when he goes to the mother's house, that's a little house by the airport in L.A.X. Like where they put fucking migrants or whatever the fuck. I don't know what they do. But all that stuff was L.A.

And then the two guys that shoot Tony in the disco, the one guy was my buddy. And he told me the whole story. He was an extra. He was doing extra work for the holidays to pick up money. And fucking, he was at the table. getting coffee. And the director came up to him, or Brian De Palma, came up to him and said, hey, what are you in this? And he goes, I'm away to him. He goes, fuck that. You're a hitman now.

And it made him an actor. He was always an extra. That was his first acting role. Wow. So he was telling me how they just had a lot of problems with that movie. They finished that but that last scene, the shooting scene. Did you ever know about that? No, no, no. That's Steven Spielberg. Oh, really? They were in Miami for a fucking director's conference. If you see who was shooting, they had like 10 cameras. So Brian said every director come down here and get

on the fucking camera and shoot. All those motherfuckers are in there. Really? I have no idea. Because there was a director's convention for like a week in Florida, something like that. But that's what the defense was on that. But listen, if you go to Hollywood, people get pissed

all the time. Look at fucking Major League. They put Serrano. We ended up being the president of the United States, huh? fucking show. What? There's no other Cuban, you know? But casting is fucking a different world. But the movie became a cult classic.

A ton of money. A ton of money. And it came out on December 25th. Did you know that? Scarface got released on Christmas fucking day. So people going to the movies thinking it was a family fucking movie.

Did you see the premiere gone YouTube? The premiere the funniest was the lady from dynasty when they said to her, are you leaving? And she goes, I've heard enough fox for a lifetime. There was a lot of iconic things. When Michelle Fyfer comes down in the elevator, the one

shot is beautiful. The one scene in the, when, you know, when he's completely stoned out of his mind and he's talking to her, you know, look at you. You know, have a whatever as a wife, you know. You're a fucking junkie in all this shit. That scene was just unbelievable. So many great scenes.

It's a fucking great movie. Yeah, it's a great film. It's a great film. You know, and I don't know, I remember when that movie came out, I would change this area. You know, Union City, listen man, when you look at the statistics and shit, like the Cubans took it over, like you were talking about the Germans and the Dutch and there was Indians there. And then the Cubans started coming in like in 50, before the revolution, you know. And they just built this beautiful little fucking community. You know, they really worked hard.

When the Cubans came, Bergenland Avenue, there was nothing. All the stores were closed. You had a bunch of Italians selling fruit from the fruit carts. My dad told me, my dad came in 65. He goes, Bergenland Avenue, all the shops were pretty much closed. The Cubans built it up. As the Italians moved out, we still had some Italians growing up in Oregon. Italians and Irish and Germans, some Greeks, you know.

But Bergenland Avenue was the Cubans built it up, all of Union City. All the embroidery that stayed for a long time. time because of the Cubans. Do you remember Babbeiro Anghelito? Yeah, what was that? He was across the street from the cinema. So if you were lucky, your mom would give you 10 bucks and you go see Angelito first.

You'd sit in his chair. From the minute you sat down, Angelito made a fucking spectacle. His haircuts weren't good. But when you left there, when you left there, you thought you were fucking carry Grant. Okay? Because he'd do the fucking thing.

And then he'd do like dust and shit. And then he'd be cutting your hair and he'd go, Mira, that's how linda. And he'd start with that. Oh, yeah, by there's a dita. And he'd just be cutting your hair. No, no, no, no, mu'i's ta. Comboisun American, muvita.

And then he would fucking keep combing it. And then at the end, even though a lump was long on the other, he put some spit on it, and he put purple lights on. Yeah, yeah. Oh, remember the lights? Oh, my God.

This stuff about the fuck to sowed you on the optical illusion. It gives you shines. And then he put a disco music on, and he'd move with you. And you're like, oh, that looked good. And you get home, your head's all fucked up. You're like, fuck it. I ain't going back up there. All he was is, like, one of those floodlights with color in it.

And he goes, give you special shine. Why would you go back? If you look that bad, after like the second or third time. Because you bought it, you drank the, you drank the, it was the scene, man. It wasn't the hairdo. You were paying for the scene. And then there'd be Cuban dudes there talking about.

and said, where we'll get it silent. You were like eight, and they'd be talking about women. Me, I'd fucking do this. And you're like, oh, my God. These guys are fucking savages. Savages. Pastore music. Pastore music.

They're closer a couple of years ago. Fuck, and when I was a kid, it was three floors. And then every time I came back, it would go to two floors, one floor, and then there was a strip club, not a strip club, it should have been a strip club. There was a club there in the 90s, the players club. Yeah, where was that? Right next to Pastor.

Yeah, yeah, that's right. They did comedy there. Then became a karate school, yeah, I remember. And I went up there one day, and there was 20 hookers. I got like 20 bucks to do the show. There had to be 20 hookers up there. And one of them was a North Bergen girl. I remember, I was like, dog, I know your sister. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

So, like, can you guys explain? Because I have no idea, but, like, you both came, both born in Cuba. Like what is it like, it's crazy. Like you both like Scarface, all these, what does it mean to you to be from Cuba like that? How does that change your life or how does it play in your life now? It seems like you guys have a lot of similar stories.

Can't lose you. Growing up in Cuba, I mean, you're born in Cuba, but you're raised in, you're raised in an area where you have, this mix of all kinds of people. Like I said, just before, we had the Italians, we had Germans, we had the Irish, and everybody called each other names, but everybody got along great. You got a fistfight with this guy because you called you a spick one day and you called him a guinea, and the next day you were hanging out. It was a different kind of thing. There was no one

waiting for you in the corner to stab you. Everybody took care of each other. It was a different kind of thing. You know, everybody got along. I remember I drive down Kennedy Boulevard with my son on 27th Street. I tell my son. This is why I used to hang on. This street corner right here. I used to play stickball, manhunt, tag, high, high and seek. We played everything. We played football. And you remember Nabisco? Fuck yeah. We played football in Nabisco or Center for it. We used to play football there. In the snow, oh, bloody, the elbow is bloody. And so we grew up in an area.

Grew up in an area. There's a mixture of people. And everybody got along. It was a great place to grow up in. You know what I mean? So it was different than being born in Q's. growing up in Cuba, coming here with this culture. No, no, you've created this culture of a mixture of people. So would you like, obviously you're Cuban, but like, would you say like you're more like this area of New Jersey? Like that's more of your personality? I probably have more in common with you than with a Cuban coming from Cuba now.

Okay. We grew, you know, you grew up in this area. You understand the dichotomy of it. You understand the food. You understand the people. You understand the language, the attitude is different. some Cubans come now you can't really read them you know

you can't say where where's he coming from where someone from Union City you know where they're coming from you understand you know someone from Northburg you know where they're coming from you know you know you know you know when you know you know when you know you know and it's different it's different so when people ask me like even my son my son says to me

well sometimes you tell people you're Cuban sometimes you're American I'm American I grew up here I'm an American citizen I give up my citizenship years ago I'm American through and through I love this country I do anything for this country. This country gave me and my family everything. It's a beautiful country, man.

There's nothing like the United States of America. Nothing. And that's with these fucking salamookies. Don't understand. And then they want to fucking walk around and just fucking talk shit. You know, coming from a Cuban house, bro, whatever the fuck you think

and whatever the fuck they thought my mother was pro-American. And if my mother would have lived, I would have been in the army. Because they felt, these fucking Cubans felt that they saved their life. So now we have to fight for them. I mean, they're really pro-Americans, man. And they got fucked over and the whole thing.

And some people forgave Kennedy. You go to some Cubans' houses. They got a picture of Kennedy with a bullet hole in the fucking thing still. You know, that's some Cubans. That's the way it is. But when I was young, I didn't really know what it meant to be Cuban. I didn't really know. We came from such a...

One day we're eating at an Ascleese house. One day you're eating at Johnny Black's house. One day... You know, you don't really know until you become a man and you become older and you see what you've made up. And there was a lot of times when I walked into auditions or comedy clubs with my balls on the line and I go, you know what?

My mother didn't come here for me to be a fucking punk. You know? Right. My mother didn't fucking leave her family to come here for me to be a fucking punk. That's number one. Number two, it just, I don't know. I don't know. But I've always started feeling Cuban after I did time.

When I went to prison and got locked up, that's where my Cuban asshole came out. It just came out in prison. I'll tell you, if you fucking touched me, I'll kill one of your motherfuckers. You know, and it was just a state of mind. It's just a state of mind. Being from North Bergen is a state of mind. Those days will never happen again. Absolutely.

When I look at those North Bergen football teams, nobody was bigger than six feet, and they fucking won a state championship. The number one in the East Coast, that's little Italians that came from Hoboken. Because nobody knows the story about Hoboken how the Irish wouldn't let the Italians pass 9th Street. When you do that to something,

somebody, those motherfuckers get hot. So they came up here to smack Irish people. I don't know what it did. Half of the people we grew up with at the end of the day are all bloodline Hoboken people. Barone, Vinayascalis. I mean, there's a thousand of them that are from, thousands of them. And I want to know what happened in Hoboken that made the kids I grew up with, the kids you grew grew up with, animals.

We were fucking animals. You know, we talk about the Peter Jim and that. That dude was jumping out in front of a car and get hit by a car to sue people. And finally, one day, he jumped in front of a car and killed him. You know what I'm saying? Like, no. Wasn't Peter, like, 17 in sixth grade or seventh grade? Yeah, he got the pilot program.

I swear to God, he was 17. Bro, he had hairy legs and hairy armpits. Yeah. And he's playing basketball. That's the truth. Fuck his arms. What are you talking about? His way to make money was to get hit by a car?

And sue. And sue him on Kennedy Boulevard. It was crazy. And about 20 years ago, he jumped out in front of a car. You remember this guy, Merck? You remember Merck? Danny Merck? They used to climb buildings.

He used to climb buildings like a Spider-Man. It's crazy. He used to climb any brick building. I think he died. Didn't he die? Did he fall off of a building? He's another guy who looked like his combed his hair with a chemistry set. His hair was fucked up and had these little bottle glasses.

But that motherfucker was a solid dude. He fucking stabbed three Puerto Ricans for he was. That dude was crazy. Now, let me ask you a question. So he could really. get this party started. Tell me that you lived on 26th Street with all those animals. I lived on 27th and Kennedy, right off the, right off Kennedy Boulevard. So you did, but you hung out with those savages down there. Yeah, I used to what? Liberty Avenue,

we used to say going down to Liberty. But you didn't go to 26th Street for the projects down there. You go to 26th where the Puerto Ricans are? We used to. I used to hang with the Puerto Ricans on Central. Yeah, Central Avenue. If you go over down that 26th Street. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's where Alex Carboha Howl is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, no, oh, no, down 26. That was great, Martin Cito, he lived there. Alex Carbara, a great guy.

Maria and I worked in Tom O'Canns together, and she had a hot rod. I think it was her brothers. And she let me drive it one time. I said, I put my foot down to her. I spin the wheels. What are you doing to my car, man? You spend all the gas.

You're burning out the tires. Great girl, Maria Carmelham. I still hit Maria and go, it's never too late. We could still do this. And when she comes to my show, I was in telling her, Maria, let's go. She's great, great girl.

Let's go to Cuba. Big, like her brother's. Oh, really? Oh, she's big. You know, she's always taller than all of us. Nice girl, nice girl. Yeah, I used to hang out down there. You remember they had,

you remember they moved all those people out? Remember on one point? On 26th Street? No. Louis Arias, you remember Louis Arias? Yeah. He used to hang out with Louis Arias, Martin Cito, David.

You know, you know, Charneco? You remember Jim Chernke? No. He used to live on 20 years. I remember like Alfred Ozley. Yeah, yeah, all these guys. Dean La Prix. Oh, Dean the Priosino brothers, yeah.

And the Perkissino brothers, the one that just died. That was down there, that was... Like, North Bergen had all these neighborhoods. 26, and they all kept up to themselves. But that neighborhood down there was off the chain. Because they would always battle Union City on Halloween and go up there with fucking socks with flour and eggs and shit. A mischief night?

Oh, man. It was armed down there. That was mischief neighborhood. But the thing I remember the most was, the light bulb company Duotest Dura test They used to throw their light bulbs out

And all their bulbs Like if they were defected Yeah yeah And Juan Ali, the Ali brothers Yeah yeah I remember The other brother I remember the other brother I remember the other brother

Juan and Carlos They used to go to hookahouses When they went to sixth grade Oh my God There you go! Yeah I gotta go to piss But when I come out

We're gonna finish the story There you go They were in the sixth grade And their dad would take them to the city And they would come back on Monday Like people were like I went to the cinema I went to roller skate and he's like, man,

we got our dick sucked by some black girl for $10. And you're like, what the fuck? And we'll take a break, but how does this relate to light bulbs? Because... They live by a... Beulip next door to the light bulb place. Okay. And we would jump the garbage can,

take the light bulbs out, and beat each other up. Everybody had home white, because it had white powder in it from the fluorescent. Everybody had fucking white powder on them every night. Juan Ali, he was the one. The first guy that talked to me about girls, the nitty gritty, but you gotta do. He was fucking hookers in high school.

Oh man. We had a kid, McKinley, Juan Soto. I don't remember. Good looking Cuban kid. He got a girl pregnant. He quit school in the seventh grade. I gotta go. I gotta go.

I didn't even kiss anybody in the seventh grade. Take a break. What's happened, beautiful people? I don't know if you know this, but this episode is brought to you by better help. December's all about getting comfortable. Therapy is a great way to bring yourself some comfort that never goes away.

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So what happened with the Ali brothers? No, Juan Ali. He's the first guy that talked to me about girls. But the nitty-gritty, what to do, how to do it? So I was like, how does this kid know? What grade were you in, do you think? I was in grammar school. Grammar school.

I was in grammar school. And that's like up to fifth grade? Six. I know I met him in the sixth grade. And every weekend, him and his brother, and he was on the level. His brother was not all there. He got in the head with a rock or something

because he wasn't all there. And one day we were outside at his house. A bunch of us, Martin, Julie, Martin's cousin of the guy. Got rest of his soul. and we were throwing light bulbs. And they were throwing shit at me, and I was on the roof. So I took a rock, and I threw it up in the air.

I just threw it up in the air. And all of a sudden I hit, oh, and I go down there. And it hit the younger one who wasn't all there. And he had a big lump on his head with a blood thing. And he just got up. Like, no, I'll take a soda. You want a soda? I'll take a soda.

Oh, God. No, 26th was a great place to hang out. That was a great place. We had so much fun there. It was unbelievable. Mischief Night. Nothing exists like Mischief Night now with the eggs and the flour. You know what I did one year?

I'm Cuban. I didn't know about the white flour. I put the real like, not the kernels, but the yellow flour. It doesn't give powder. And you hit someone over the head, I hit them over the head with a rock. Yeah. So that's what I put in it. I had no clue.

I had no clue. I don't know if you were there that night. We were all stuck on. had to be 76, 75. We were all stuck on buying glue and then writing your initials on a tree and lighting them on fire and then blowing it out.

Everybody was doing it. You go up and down in 26... Because that's funny, you said West New York's got no trees when you walk up and down, fucking North Bergen. They got all these trees on 26th Street, and they planted new ones in the middle. And one night we're coming home from somewhere

And Martin's going, I'm going to put my, so me and Julie and maybe you, somebody out, there was a couple of us. We're sitting there watching him on the steps, like a lookout. And he's putting M.P. And all of a sudden, he looks at us, he goes, yeah, and he lights the fucking initials, but the thing goes, and there's like a tree, right? There's like a tree. And the limb is catching up fire. And he's, Martin's hitting it with his hands and going, I go, Martin, it's over. And before Martin could put this thing out,

a little fucking fire truck came, like a little inspector and threw him on the floor. We ran. Is he still in jail? Who had a Martin or who? Martin's in North Carolina. Good kid. Really good kid.

But at some point, at some point in the 70s, just before I moved to Union City, they had everybody move out of 26th Street because they wanted to renovate all those buildings. Oh, that's right. And everybody had to move out. And they killed. It killed the vibe.

Then it was dead. There were no kids around anymore. Then they started doing Section 8 and all that kind of stuff. And there were no kids around anymore. So everybody, that's when Martin Cito moved out. Louis Ariaga moved out. The brothers moved out. Everybody moved out.

Everybody left. And there were no kids there. For years, the place was vacant. They were fixing up all their apartments. I remember I was devastated. I was devastated when that happened. I kind of remember them cleaning that out. Even like when I drive by Center Ford,

Tom's. Oh, Sanofo was great. Tom's diner? Tom's Diner. Oh, I just told my son, I had the, oh my God, Tom's Diner. Fuck. It's this little place, right in the corner of 27, between 27th and 28th Street. I have my first cheeseburger there.

Do you know how much it cost? 64 cents for a deluxe. And it came with fries and a drink with a second drink. 64 cents. And it was an expensive burger then. I couldn't believe it. 64 cents. How did they get the four cents?

I don't know, 64 cents. That would piss me off. My dad, we lived in that building there with where Tom Steiner was. Okay, that's where you lived. And my dad, and my dad was the super. When he came from Cuba, he was the super there, and he was the dishwasher at Tom's. And then eventually he bought Siglo 38, whatever,

it's called Siglo, whatever. And then he started by him, he got the bars and the buildings and stuff like that. You lived across the street from Lourdes Ramos. Yes. And I'll never forget. I was talking to them about this one I'm telling you, about being Cuban, like some people could take it,

Some people can't. I went over to Lord is his house, like on a Saturday night, and everybody was okay. We were going on some dance or something. And the mother was there, and her mother was dressed up. And she wasn't the best-looking woman you ever seen, but... But she was nice people. But she was nice people, and your mom always said,

Clara, Clara. And I said, oh, yeah, Clara, T'a enganche. Oh, yeah, laura, ta enganche. And two days later, Lorde's like, you're not allowed in my house no more. What does that mean? I don't know, what is engancha means? Like you're ready. You're hot, you're ready to hook up. You're looking for a fucking victim.

That enganche means I got the hookup. You know what I'm saying? She made, Lotus and her sister, Iris. They're in social media. I follow Iris a lot. Really? Yeah, she's a great girl. They both are great people.

And her mom, I loved her mom to death. Loved her mom. Her mom made the best espresso in North Bergen, by far. And she made this white rice with a little sachicha. What do you call? Yeah, Rokon Tzacicha. Yeah, the yellow rice? Yeah, oh my gosh.

Oh my God. She made the best. That's fucking, that's poverty food for Cubans. But it's worked. But it was great. Yellow with little hot dogs in it, those little links and shit. You put little sauce in that motherfucker and you make believe it's a lobster tail. You're like...

I want to go back where Lourdes, we used to hang out. You remember in McKinley School when you came down the ramp coming down from the bridge? Okay, there's a little ramp, there's a little wall there before the gym. They're right next to where the gym is. Yeah. We used to sit there and used to hang out with us there. And he turned me on to Richard Pryor. It was always imitating Richard Pryor.

And the honeymooners. The honeymoon. I had no idea what the honeymooners were and Richard Pryor. You were always doing Ralph Crandom. Fuck you. Always, always, always. And Richard Pryor. He had us in stitches crying and Lourdes was there.

David was there, Matinsito, myself and a bunch of other people. You know, I remember that clear as there as though it was yesterday. Do you remember any of the, because he, on the podcast for years, would talk about loving Richard Pryor. And I love that he just parted. The thing with Richard Pryor is as a vampire, the whole skit is a vampire. He's due to a T. That's right. That's right. Oh, my God.

That's all. There was no one as funny. There was no one as funny. I can tell you that 100%. Now because I'm here with him, there was no one funnier than Coco. And you're saying that even after you dropped the weights on your head. Even then? No, after the weights, I laughed. I told the story with, when we reconnected years ago, when we reconnected, I've been with my wife almost 27 years. that story a hundred times about the weights.

And I looked at his fucking guy was just laughing. Just laughing. The karate guy with Guinea tea, he was just looking at us like, what just happened? The whole weight fell on my head. He's just laughing. He's supposed to be spotting me. I wasn't strong, you know?

It was crazy. We had no gym class in McKinley to make me strong. We were talking about Hernandez. And I want to talk you motherfuckers about Hernandez. Hernandez was on 28th in Bergen-Line. Right? Right by the in the corner. Anandis is open till about three. Look, when my hands get itchy, just thinking

about how fucking Hernandez. And Anders is open to about three or four. I don't even know when it closed down. I don't know. Maybe the mid-80s. I thought he had two sons that took it over. He had those two big boys. Like, everybody always tells me how good Cuban sandwiches are now, go to this place,

go to this place, this one's got pepperoni. Listen. The way that wasn't me, don't look at me. I didn't tell you about a pepperoni place. There's no pepperon and Cuban sandwiches. Fucking. Hernandez, you went in there and the ham and the Swiss were already on the bread. And it was packed and it was a big one and there was walls of just sandwich bread with the Swiss and the thing. And you come in, right there, he had a glass in front of him.

And you go ahead and I'm a guano. And he fucking cut a piece of pork off right in front of you. None of this for you motherfuckers that want to sell a Cuban camp sandwich or a pulled pork, I'll fucking kill you. I'll fucking kill you, okay? That's not, there's no pork. None of that fucking bullshit. So, right or wrong?

He's fucking jerk calling. You had the Cuban. I wouldn't eat your fucking Cuban. You're fucking from Ireland. Why would I make, you know, they were, oh, pulled pork. This guy would slice white meat pork. And then he had hamon.

Hamon, the fucking hamda. To give it even more flavor. And he'd take a, a fucking paintbrush, brush that motherfucker with butter and put it in there. And then you tell them to make you a wad apple, that sugar cane juice with fucking tons of ice. Are you fucking kidding me? That was the real deal. Lusie, do you know a place?

Joey's been teasing me for years. I'm still fat, but I used to be a lot fatter. He's been teasing me with a preparata sandwich, the Cuban sandwich with the little croquettes on the bottom. That's my wife's favorite. Oh, where do you get that? You can get in Las Bresas. You can get croquita prepared. That's what I get all the time.

Brocretta by Hernandez. This is when Swiss cheese tasted like Swiss cheese. Not like now it tastes like paper. Swiss cheese tasted like Swiss cheese. It was the real deal. When he's talking about ham, it was ham. It was the real deal with mustard and the butter. It was, oh my God, Hernandez's restaurant was the best Cuban joint in all the area.

And all they had was the sandwiches? No, no, no, no, no. I don't know what they had on the ice. They had, this, I'd love to brag about it. had the best empanada, you know, meat empanada. And my dad, he got a bar. He worked in a bar. So he closed down the bar. He would get an empanadas and show up at the house and say, wake up. I said this mirror behind my door with this some sun thing that's made a metal. And he would open the door like 3 o'clock at 3.30 in the morning. So I jump up. I have impanadas. Get up. You got to eat this with

the water apple. You know, I would get up and sit in the bed and I eat two wiffed down two empanadas. I was fart all night, you know. Dos emperadas. You wake you up at three in the morning. I know, I was just thinking about it. They don't give a fuck, okay? If they come in and if, let's say my mom comes over and you got, oh, we were sitting on the couch,

and we eating potato chips, two in the morning. You think that lady cooked from Goodfellas, Tommy's mother? Shit. And I'm talking my mother would pop up a paella late night and wake me up a fucking boliche. Yeah. Go on Rejol.

That's the shit they cooked at three in the morning. When you went to school, you're like, what the fuck? Why does my house smell like fucking? My mom, my mom would have the pressure cooker to make the beans. And she used to go to work. I leave the pressure cooker cooking, the beans. She used to prepare them the night before. You know, I forgot.

Marinate them and shit, you know. And then she would leave the pressure cooker cooking. She would go to work and come back from work and finish up the beans. And then we had this fresh beans every single night, you know, with everything. My mom cooked everything, ox tail, you know, rabbit. If she had even moved, she cooked everything. But everything was delicious. And to me, everything was chicken.

She said, it's chicken. But what is his mom? The little chicken. But she gave me everything. Just so you wouldn't complain about it? Everything. We had everything. We lived in New York.

We used to get can'tina. Yeah, can'tina. That was waiting. What's that? They dropped the food off in front of your house in like little bowls stacked on each other with a thing. And it's had like white rice. meat he had a white rice

like meal prep before meal prep no no no this was your food was cooked ain't no meal prep you're no fucking meal prep you have little containers one on top of the other with a metal thing at the top of the other with a metal thing at the top some of them even gave you fucking Cuban coffee

yeah add a flon for the dessert you have rice you have beans you have the meat then you have like plantains or omaduros or whatever you know and you had the whole meal for the family you know what we're talking about food He's talked for years about Cuban Chinese food. Do you have any like...

Oh, Chino Latino. That was the best. Yeah, what do you think about that? Oh, that was great. What's it? La Campana China. Oh, my God. That was the best.

La Campana China. There's nothing like Chino Latino. The Chinese fucking bell. Nothing like Chino Latino. Oh, my God. And what would you get? Like, what's your Chinese Cuban food order? Like, what would you get?

God, we got everything. You can get everything. You can get... I would get always the chicken fried rice back then. I don't get, I now get vegetable fried rice. You know, I'm more modern. It's chicken fried rice, but you can get it with plantains,

sweet plantains. Yeah. And then you can get a, uh, bithet, uh, bitem panisal. What's that? Breaded steak. Breaded steak. Like a skirt steak, but breaded. I used to get the pork chop with the pork fried rice, an egg wall, and some totones.

Oh, tostones. I feel like you got that only a year ago when he went. Dang. Wow. Wow. You're making me hungry. Oh, no. Chino Latino was...

Gino Latino was fucking the real deal. And then we had the other... Then we had the other side of the coin. We had this place, the Polynesian place on Kennedy Boulevard. My guy. Tremendous. The food killed you.

They finally closed it down. They found cats. They caught them cooking cats. No. Don't tell me that. Don't tell me that. They were hanging in the freezer and shit. And they always gave you a lot of grass with the food

because there's a cemetery in the back. They would just go back there. What does he want? Yeah. I thought it. And he'd just take a hand full. full of the grass, whether the cat pissed on it or whatever.

Fucking cats? They were feeding cats. You can't tell me that. He's been saying, I just moved to New York, and like, I'm a little scared to get Chinese food. I don't want to eat cats. You can smell it. You can smell it. You see the kids? What does it smell like? It smells like a kid's tears.

But I swear to God, they caught him cooking cats several times. Several times? They finally closed them down. Who would go after the first time? They couldn't help. They had an all you could eat. You just went in there,

close your eyes and pray for the best, okay? They gave you spare ribs. And they cut them in half, and you could pick up the thing. I remember one day we were picking up the thing, and the guy's like, no, no. Yeah, I don't think you were supposed to pick up the tray of him and take them to go. We had so much.

Now I remember where there was a fucking go-go bar. Yeah, it was on 32nd Street, right off from the newsstand. That's in the late 70s. There was like a burles bar, and I would go up there to get my mother. My mother would drink up there in the afternoon.

I'm like, Ma, what the fuck? Union City has so many... Union City had the transfer station, downtown. Yep. The old trolleys used to turn around and come back uptown. The whole area was full of clubs, nightclubs, cabarets and everything. Burr Lancaster worked down there as a dishwasher.

What's your name? Deborah Harry worked down there as a waitress at one point. Now, Deborah Harry and Pat Benatar shot a movie in Union City. Yeah, Union City. Called Union City. Holy shit. Right on Summit Avenue, there's a building

in the corner of Summit and 18th Street. That's where they shot it. Wow. And that apartment building. Crazy. And speaking of Union City, were you ever,

like, do you remember Joey's mother's bar? Were you around for that? I was around. I was around. I didn't frequent. My dad owned bars as well. Right.

You owned the 50. Cafetta and La Uta Tita. And La Uttima. Yeah. The Capel Atita. So all the Cuban proprietors knew each other. They were all like, they were all like gangsters. I was going to say, was there like a war? Did you guys hate each other? No, no, no, no.

He was at my house. My mother was there that day when he got hit with the barbell. Okay. Yeah, that was no, we all worked together. Everybody was friends. There was a guy on 33rd street. His name was Boyotrite. And he had a bar. I mean sad pussy. That's way before a big pussy. That was 77. Everybody called him boyotrite. And then that whole area there was fucking tremendous. And I was telling Lucy on the phone the night where my mother had the first restaurant was across from Union Hill. 38th. And there's a little refrigeration. Yeah, yeah, I know the place. And on the corner now it's some medical supply. But in that, that was, that was fucking the hottest corner because you had Carvel on the corner. Next to it was the bottom

of the barrel. Yeah. Okay, the bottom of the barrel is the real fucking deal. That was beautiful that place. If you read Henry Hill's book, he talks about the bottom of the barrel. He was at the bottom of the barrel. We used to stop at Union City. You got a drink at the bottom of the barrel. And on top of that was Foojaupai Kung Fu. Yeah, yeah. Which is probably still there.

But then when you, I remember that, and if you walk towards Kennedy, there was like a pharmacy. Because one day they were loading a truck and we robbed it. Like in the sixth grade, we robbed one of the little boxes. It was a box of condoms. And we didn't know. Bro, we were like 10, and we all had condoms. Yeah, yeah.

Purple condoms and shit. What are we gonna do with con? We tried to sell them. Get out of here with those things. Everybody had condom in their wallet. They have no one even a condom in their wallet. Nobody used to condom. Nobody used, you know.

No, it was just to talk. Bame de luteu matte. To say a hava. Babeteleu matte. A matte was when you make out with a chicken shit. Oh my God. What did you think of Joey's mom? I don't think I've met anybody else who knew Joe's mom.

Oh, she was very nice. Very, you know, typical Cuban mom. Really cool. Yeah? Yeah. Yeah. The way I remember her, like, really, really nice. I walked in.

Very friendly. The bar was great, man. Well, even just in general, just like, I mean, I guess George, maybe you knew his mom, didn't know? No, I think you're the first person I met. You got to understand, Cuban parents, like my dad, my dad, my stepdad with my stepdad. He was a tough guy. We're a suit, you know, always carried the whole bid.

He'll pistol whip anybody in a second. No, he would come home a lot of times. My mom cleaning him up or throwing out the suit, you know, pistol whipping this and that because you have to be really tough. You know, there's no kidding. But at the same time, he would show up in the middle of the night. Not only went empanats. Remember one night specifically.

I'm asleep. I'm in school. I'm in high school. He brought a cat from the street, a black cat. He threw it on top of me in the bed. You're sleeping. You're a teenager. Something throws a cat on you?

That's the kind of stuff he would do. One day, we're having like a Christmas party. My aunt is coming, this and that. We had a little apartment. And everybody's having a good time. He shows up with a homeless guy. Napoleon. It was his name.

I never forget. He brought him over to have Christmas with us. A homeless guy. That's the type of guy he was. You know? So they were this tough out of people, but sweethearts. So when you asked me about Joey's mom, when she has to be at the bar,

she's probably tough as nails. But at home, she was a mom. She was a mom. And she loved these guys. Anybody who came over, she always fed on. But everybody got along. There was no macaroni and cheese. My mom would give you a brand new steak.

The fucking box, you didn't eat, you didn't eat like, you know, a peanut bun and jelly sandwich in those days, you know? Did she like other Cuban kids, like, not more, but was it like special when a Cuban kid came over? Yes and no. I like everybody to come over.

No, I know you would, but... And those times you went over people's houses and they feed you and drive you to places. Yeah, everything. Fucking crazy. We, we, I remember, man, I live in 27th Street in the corner. I played baseball up on 64th Street in North Bergen. My mom will give me whatever,

a quarter, 30 cents, Take the bus. Number one. Yeah, number one. And that was me with, you know, my borrowed cleats and my glove, taking the bus by myself, crossing the bullet by myself. This is, you know, 9, 10 years old. Driving, you know, riding the bus all the way up by myself,

crossing the street again, playing baseball coming home. There was no, like, bottle water, like kids, you know, you go play. My son goes to play soccer now. He has a gatorade on one side and a bottle water on the other side with two different pairs of shoes in his bag. And a fucking bag to carry. Nothing. We have nothing.

We had nothing. Nothing? Nothing? No. If there was a host, that was golden. All this bullshit about dehydration? We would have died 50 fucking years ago. It's all bullshit. Lead pain, dehydration.

Dehydration, rusty water. I don't know what these fucking bad. I feel dehydrated. How do you feel fucking dehydrated? It's 90 degree. You think your grandfather stopped doubles for some faggy kid? Nobody was dying back then, right?

No, no. Every year now, somebody died. Oh, it was too hot. Nobody was fucking dying. They were running fucking 76th Street Hills, okay? So get your shit together. Feed your kid what you're supposed to, and he won't, you know. But if you came over to one of our houses to eat,

you wouldn't get like a peanut bun and jelly sandwich. No. You get a plate of rice and beans, a steak, you know, a chicken steak, whatever. I would have to go. Yeah, and take something to go. Yeah. Holy shit. And then, I didn't realize how, like,

you guys were in the same spot. And I'm not trying to get you to incriminate anyone in your family, but Joey's talked for years about like the numbers and like doing that. Everybody did the numbers. Everybody got that.

Everybody. They did the numbers racket and then the bars they did, I think, called Charada. It's a gambling game. The gambling game. Where everything, everything, every number is associated with a saint or with something.

With a Chinese. A Chinese thing. La Charada. La Charada. I have the list. Zero 99. And every bar, every bar, they played it.

and everybody turned their heads. And all these owners, everybody carried, you know, everybody carried, everybody took care of each other. There was only, I remember, one guy in the three towns that my dad said, that's a chivato. A what? A chivato. A rat.

Oh, okay. A chiva. That's the one nobody wanted to deal with. And he was Cuban? He was Cuban, yeah. He goes, oh, I don't like that guy. That's a chivato. He'll ride you out.

And one guy. But everybody, everybody got along. Everybody did the numbers rack. Everybody did Chattada. Did you ever win the numbers? Huh? Did you ever win the numbers? Who me?

Yeah. No, I played it. Twice. My dad won a bunch of times. One time I went to Washington, Union Hill, to play indirectly, and I was on a purple team, and they gave me the thing, and they had number 57. And I walked in the house, and my mom's like, what's that number? What's that number from?

I got it from you know, 57. Put a number in front of it. They go, five. She called $10,000. $10, I won $5. She gave me $2,500. And then on my birthday, I hit my birthday. in 1979.

I had 219. Wow. I went to Jersey City to watch a movie, and when I came back, they told me. And all those cats, there was a bookmaker in Union City that was the best. His name was Anado do Campo.

Yeah. He sat at my mother's bar. He was about 5'9, 220, but his stomach was all the way out. And he was just sitting like one of those chairs. And at 3 o'clock he left, because that's when the bank closed. Three o'clock is when you can't take numbers no more.

The number comes out like a four. So he would stay there from eight in the morning to three, drinking and fucking making comments. And he was the guy right now that if he was alive, he'd be in jail because he'd talk to me and my friends like we were doug. Like if we were 10, we walked in,

oh, you come in. You get your dicks up, you get them out of my bingo. They're like, dog, I just want to play dominoes. I came over to play Monopoly with this fucking dude. Every time you saw him, he said something sexual to you. He wasn't a pedophile, not at all. Well, he was fucked up, but he would always ask you,

did you get your dick suck yet? Are you pissing sweet? Yeah, Maldolucent. He would always. But the best was I saw him at 30th, and what's the street? All right, so this is Bergen-Line, 30th Street, Chappies Flores.

Yeah, Patterson Blank Road, the road. If I go down, the next corner, there used to be a bar there with Bingchetto thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, New York County. That's New York County. Okay. That used to be a bar owned by Teddy Martuniac. He played for the Chicago Bulls out of Union City. He died from drinking.

That dude could drink for fucking days. But I forgot what I was going to tell you. What were we talking about? The guy talking sexual to you? Oh, yeah, yeah. We went in there to play a number one day, and I went in there with a kid named Darren Regal got arrested soap. We're about 18 at the time now.

And Regal liked him. There was two incidents of Rego. One incident, he was so. sitting at the bar in the corner, and he had two young girls with him. Like, that's now, 25 Cuban girls talking to him. And Regal goes, ask him if he wants to smoke pot. So this motherfucker's, yeah, I'll smoke. Yofumo, I never saw him smoke pot.

He said, you know, Fummo, you know, for a year, been cool. I used to smoke pot in Cuba, one of those guys. Yeah. He's, you know, Cubans, like, I remember going to see Bruce Lee movies, and going back to my mother's bar, and the guys would sit there, and they go, where'd you come from? I went to see a Bruce Lee movie.

That guy's a punk. I beat him up in Cuba like three years ago and I lose my mind. What are you fucking talking about? Nobody beats up Bruce Lee. He's a fucking pussy. I smacked them right on the corner

on 58th Street one time and you would fucking die like these. They're just lying to you. They're just breaking your balls and that's what they do. That's a sense of humor. So the one time we're in there,

Keta Fu Maula, he goes, you don't fool my foe la. He didn't want to smoke outside. He wanted to smoke in the bar. And it was like a chocolate tie on a big bamboo. And we kept giving He was trying to impress the young girls.

He was like, yeah. And they didn't know what he was saying. He didn't know what they were saying. He's smoking. And finally, the girls didn't want to smoke no more. And the joint kept going to him. And he's sucking on it. And he's trying to give it away.

And he was like, nah, no. And he kept smoking it, dog. And he passed out. And then I wanted to know, like a month later. And he goes, oh, yeah. Get to al-a-a-sat-a-wako. What was in that weed? He goes, I couldn't feel my legs for four days.

And then that day, he told his dad. I'll never forget this, Lucio. He told us that he went home that night, and he jerked off, and it was so fucking good. And I go, what are you talking about? My wife was in the shower, Carrico, and he had a chair. When they say, Carrico, you know they're fucking crazy. And he goes, ah, ah, ah.

And he was in the chair at a bar, telling me and a bunch of North Bergen kids how he jerked off the night before. And he's like, making noises. Ah, Carrico, ah. And when he came, he goes, bah, he can go, bah, bah, bah. But his check had gone back in the bar.

He's like, bah, pa, pa, pa. So me care, oh, me it just went right to sleep. And we're like, it's hysterical. What the fuck is this? And that's the sense of humor. Yeah. I think that Cuban sense of humor helped me later on in life. That little, that little quick thinking, like those fucking Cubans,

just, you know, I remember that this should be a, The fat lady that lived across the street from my house in North Bergen, later on, before my mother died, she was a flat, black Cuban lady. Right, right. And whenever my mother would cook, she would come over. And my mother would be watching the Yankee game, and the black chick will go in the kitchen, and my mother would go, oh, yeah, Lord da. Hey, fat fuck. Oh, my God. Get your fingers out of the pot.

I could feel them from here. Like, they just have a weird sense of fucking humor, man. That little twist on things. things, they don't, they have no filter. No filter, that's me, no filter, they don't give a fuck. And when they say something, they say it loud. My son, the other, we're having dinner. He says to, he says to me, turns around, how come, every time he talk to a Cuban, you talk so loud. I say, I don't talk like, yeah, every time, I know when you're talking to someone Cuban, because you, your decibel level is like a thousand times higher. I don't know why. I don't

know why we do that. It's the house. So when you quit acting, when you said that's it, what did you decide to do? No, what happened was it was a segue. You know, I had gone, I had gone off my tour. I did the 40th anniversary revival of West Side Story. Okay. Supposed to come to Broadway. We went to L.A.

Chita Rivera came out. All the old West Side Story people came to see us, and we were supposed to come to Broadway after L.A. They decided to close down the company because they said, well, we made our money back after the first month. We sold out everywhere. made a lot of money. So we were out on tour for two years.

So they were making profit. We were using this old set from a previous production, you know. So they said, well, we have all these, you know, equity guys here making all this money, you know, making residuous on the commercials. Let's just close down the tour and take it out non-union, which they did. So now we will make an X amount of dollars. And they get a small percentage of that. they can give them our old costumes because if you are an equity member

you have to get all new costumes or custom made, custom made shoes, custom made everything but the nine union guys don't get any of them. Get dick. They get nothing. They travel by bus. You know, no days off. You know, well, we had to have one, you know,

golden day to rest and all that kind of stuff, you know. You do commercials. So we were making not only two grand a week back then and I'm talking about that early 90s, two grand a week plus per diem, plus you're making the residuals on the commercial. so you're doing okay for a young guy, single, whatever.

So I get off the tour. They closed down the tour because they want to go to Nine Union so they can make more money. So I get off the tour and I go do something at Westbury Music Fair and the Palace Theater. And I met my wife. I got off the tour two days later.

I met my wife. And I said, man, this girl is beautiful. American girl, blue eyes, blonde, gorgeous. I was like, oh my God, you're stacked. So I'm always, I'm always, there, my agent calls me up, they want you to go back out on tour of West Side for another year. And Chorusline wants you to go out on tour of courseline. Mitzin Hamilton was the choreographer. I said, I'm done. I can't go out on tour. I'm done. I'm staying home. So I stay home.

And that's when I started working at Spanish rap, and I was still signed with internet ICM for commercials and stuff. So I was doing the commercials, trying to do the soaps, and I started working in Spanish rep, and I stayed with my wife. So what happened was I met, I started writing, I had a newspaper, and I had a local TV show with a friend of mine that worked at ABC. because I remember I worked on, I was working on all my children as an orderly, and this guy was a stage manager on ABC and an assistant director on the news program back then. So he had a local TV show, so I got involved with him, and we talked about politics. I knew nothing about politics.

I just had a know. I was very opinionated, and I had a newspaper. I started a newspaper. I was writing all kinds of opinions. I mean Brian Stack, and we hit it off, hit it off. And I started helping him out doing events and stuff like that because I was good at coordinating events. And then he asked me if I wanted to come in.

At first, I was like, no, you know, I'm an actor. I'm not a government guy. And he goes, no, I really wanted to come in, who became friends. And he brought me in. I was the first director he brought in. And the rest is history. I've been there for, what, 24 years.

And you're the entertainment director? I'm a commissioner. I came in as a director over a department, public affairs, which ran six departments. I came in as that. And then three years later, he asked me to be a commissioner, to run the commission. It's a commission for more government.

We have five commissioners. Right, right, right. Everybody votes for the commissioners. And then between us, we choose who the mayor is going to be. But we always know who the mayor is, you know, Brian, you know. And he asked me to be a commissioner. Because everybody likes you, you get along with everybody, whatever. And so I came in as a commissioner.

I was bilingual. You know, I knew the town. I grew up in town. I loved the town, all that kind of stuff, you know. And I became a commissioner. Slowly, I started giving up. acting and producing more, documentaries, short films,

and stuff like that. And then that's how eventually I just gave up acting. My wife said to me, I'm still a segment, I pay my dues. Yeah, you pay your dues. I pay my dues today. I paid them late. I paid them late. I was supposed to pay me in the spring. I paid the spring and the fall now. So she's just complained to me. He goes, you have to pay whatever, $30 something, you know, fee for being late or whatever,

for $60. I say, no, I just pay for just in case one day I want to do something, you know? Because you never know. You never know. No, they call you all the So I segue into what I do now, which I love, you know, I love what I do. It's a great town. I love the town. I love working with Brian. I love my fellow commissioners of great, great people.

The town looks fucking good. You know, no matter what you say about Union City, if you go back and people can say, oh, Unite City was this, was that, and it was great. Growing up in Unicity was great. We had a mix of people. I love the people. I love that I came from there. But, man, the things that Brian's done with all the new schools, the new roads,

the new parks, no matter what you say, it's there. You can see it. You can see it. That beautiful high school with the stadium on top, you see the progress. So no matter what you say, if you go back, none of that existed. I went to that Obama school. You sent me that day? To the kick my shot.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You sent me down to Obama's on 16th Street? No, that was Colin Powell. Colin Powell. Fucking beautiful. Yeah, it's beautiful school. And that area down. I mean, listen, I'm sad that St. Michael's is gone.

Yeah. Holy Rosary's gone. I mean, we grew up on that shit. For the girls in Holy Rosary. The most beautiful girls in town were from Holy Rosary. Oh, my God. A couple of them from North Bergen. I still talked to one of them now at Holy Rosary.

The most beautiful girls came from Holy Rosary. A bunch of, I used to date an Irish red-headed girl in Union City. I was in love, Jack. I was in love. And we used to hold hands and go get pizza on New York Avenue at that pizza place. Oh, my God. But I still remember going to fucking Judah. class on Stavvin Street.

I used to remember Sina Toney. Sine Tone was the best. That's why I went to see all the karate films. Yeah. The old guy... The Bruce Lee films? It was English films with Spanish subtitles or the other way around. They did everything there. They did everything and the owner had a wig. That's what I remember as a kid.

Is he still alive? Tell me he's still alive. He's still alive. He's a super nice guy. And does he have the movie theater still? No. No. He owns a Les Specialito and he's the chairman of Safe Line America. But I just saw him the other day I was in a party with him. He's a super nice guy.

He still dresses to the tea and he's got the hair, the white hair and stuff. Oh, my God. A couple of years ago, he got a little ill, but now he's doing good. He's doing good. He's doing good. He's doing good.

You know how he started? He had a furniture store in my hand, then he opened up a furniture store in Jersey, and then he bought Cineatoni, and Cinetoni was huge. Eventually he sold him when the movies died out in Union City, and then he went into Les Pescialito.

No, first he got into, what's the newspaper? Oe or whatever it used to be? No, no, no, no. It used to be the biggest Hispanic... Did he already? No, that's not around.

No, no, that's not... But OI, what... I think it was OI was the biggest Hispanic newspaper in the country. And he owned that, and he sold it for a lot of money. And then he started a special... The specialeot. Made a ton of money.

So he's a really cool guy, a character. He's a real character. Well, that's what... Even like, beside the Cubans, fucking watch his name. At his office there. The guy from the mob

from the Genovese's crime family. Oh, my God. The mob had an office? Yeah, on Summit. Why did he have an office? Because it's a great place to have an office. The Teamsters. The Teamsters building. Oh, okay.

The Teamsters building. So it wasn't like he just had an office to do mob shit, and he was a Teamster. No, he was a Teamster. Oh, okay. But they used to be an Italian bakery on 22nd and Central. Holy shit. Yeah, that was great. That was great.

I don't know if that's still around. I don't know if that's still around. And I stayed in 26. When I got back to North Bergen, I think like six months. Maybe, yeah, like three months in. the sixth grade. I didn't like living in my house. I didn't like that my mom come home late.

I heard fucking spirits, we were talking about all the ghosts in North Bergen and the Indians and shit. And one day I said, I'm not doing this no more. And I moved up with my friends on 26th and Central. And I would wake up, I'd go to 22nd for the breakfast from the bakery. I'd get a bag of Zeppelis.

And then a fucking big thing of Italian bread with hotel bar butter. And I'd kill that. And then as I got old, I would just meet Dean LaPrie and we go to Tom's diner. And I always got the to toasted corn muffin. God damn! It was fucking on the grill with extra butter and shit.

You know, Tom McCann, that's Santa Ford. I remember when they used to do punt pass and kick there. Oh my God, Center 4. We played down on Kenny Boulevard. Punt, pass and fucking kick. It was great. And it would be packed. Packed with bunch of fucking North Bergen Savage's Union City.

I remember, elbows all ripped up, knees ripped up. I mean, I was always ripped up. It was crazy. I mean, it's all bloodied in the whole bit, and we never, never, remember the, with David and stuff, tell the ass, David. We used to play two-hand touch,

it became full tackle on the, on the black top with snow. Oh my God, you were all ripped up. I would get home home. It wasn't different. These kids, no. No. No, I'm not accepting it.

No. And you remember, you remember the swamps? Fuck yeah. We used to go to swamps and steal fucking those things to light, so the mosquitoes would go away. Remember that? Punk.

whatever the fuck that is. Where is the swamp? It's gone. Now it's all, the swamps all build up. There's hotels and shit. God damn it. Where is the fucking swamp?

Where was it? It's down, okay, you remember it used to be a motel. Down 39th Street. Once you pass Tunneli Avenue with that new buildings that we were talking about,

you pass Tunnelia Avenue, you keep on going down before you get to the whole new development. It was in my neighborhood. Yeah, I remember that. Half a mile down. And that's the swamps right there. That used to be all swamps

where Walmart is and all those, all those box stores now? But the swamp meant like... It went from... High Tully Avenue, it went from down there all the way to the Riftfield Cirth. Absolutely. Because I used to ride my motorcycle

all the way to Ritfield... Oh, I got a story where you... Then you had a mini bike. Yeah, the Derry Queen. I almost kill myself in the mini bike. Was it his mini bike? We were hanging out. I'm in Kielney School. I think it was John Bender, David, you and me. We were hanging out and you had your little mini bike. And I never got on one.

And he said, get on it. And I go on. So I got on the mini bike and I went down. a blue stone wall coming down the, you remember that ramp, coming down the ramp, blue stone wall right there. I almost like totaled that wall. I made the curve, I almost killed myself. Never, that was the last time I got on a bike.

The last time I got on a motorbike. I don't blame you. I thought I was gonna die. I had no control, I can't believe, I turned the wheel and I- I love my motorcycle. I had like eight of them, and then I fell and my mother sold it

before I got back from the hospital. Cuban mom don't even play She took a loss on it I took like a $300 loss on it I didn't even get to $300 She just said no ma That's it quickly no no No meet family meeting

And yeah there's none of that shit Kids have a nice They have warm they had nice lunches breakfast They have breakfast in school lunches we had You remember McKinley school The little counter It was eight inches It wasn't even a full foot

It was eight inches in the basement Gray it was painted gray It was painted gray with that cement paint. Yeah, you remember my passion gray? All the way across the basement, you know, and we ran track there. That's what we ran track. Back and forth.

Back and forth. And we got a milk, we got a small juice, we got a soggy tuna. And sometimes on Apple, if you were lucky. Mr. Sabatino. Yeah.

Anthony's mother was the cookie lady. She used to always give me an extra. Man, that tuna, man. Nowadays, I think about what the things that affecting you are. kid. The kind of tuna that I, the way I want the tuna to taste nowadays is the way we used to have. At McKinley. Yeah, me too. It's crazy. Me too. I love it.

I fucking loved it. You know, like Jim, you talked about Barone at that gym. I had a class right here. Forget what class that was. I forget what I was facing the window. I don't know if it was a restless class, whatever in the first in the basement. We saw that, you remember when they built the holiday in? Yes. Okay. So they started building the gym.

Like a year before the holiday in. They finished the The holiday end, two years before they finished out gym. Two years? Money gets lost. The construction money was just getting lost. It took like three years to build a gym. It was a box.

In the meantime, they took away a block top in the back. You remember what you were back? Yeah, yeah, they took the black top on the back. It's crazy. Fucking crazy. Do you still remember Carmine? Yeah, I remember. Frankie hit me up there.

I got to give him a call. He hit me up at Thanksgiving. I just sent them a text back. Special. One of the Special brothers died. Yeah. Oh, so you remember Dominic and all those guys? Yeah, man. You were there. Dominic was in school. I've been trying to think like when the last time I saw you was. Like, and I, McKinley, because after McKinley, a lot of kids disappeared.

A lot of kids, just Martin. And then I bumped into Martin Perez 30 years later, to Miami Impro. He came to see me. Because you remember me? I go, I never forgot you. I hung out with his uncle. Yeah, he was a nice guy, Ma'am. Oh, Martin was a great guy. We're friends on Facebook, whatever. somehow we reconnected. David, David, I haven't seen him forever. He called me at one point in my office, and I never called him back. I got to call him. He's a good guy. He called me. He's back in town this week. David's a good guy. All those guys are still fucking very decent, man. Special, all those, all those guys were really cool. We were lucky, man. We were very, and I, you know, listen, when you tell these stories to people, they look at you and they go, he comes from a land that didn't exist. And I, listen, I just moved back. I went to North Bergen a couple times. I looked around. It's my hometown. It's where I grew up. But that thing we had there is lost.

And that's when I said to him, it wasn't North Bergen. It was a state of time. It was a state of mind. It was a state of mind for, you know, all those teams were great that. Union Hill had a great football team and fucking basketball team. And, you know, Memorial always had something going on. There was always a, what do you call those things, a rivalry. I mean, we didn't beat each other up like college football this week.

But there was always a rivalry, you know. and it was just different. Now, these kids, some of these systems don't even have programs, don't know. But kids don't play in the street anymore. In the corner 27th where I grew up, that little corner, but where Lou Disson, Ramos lived.

Oh my God, that was pop. That was you, Arias. Yeah. Yeah, Mario, Mario, Mario. Pancho. Pancho. Pancho. What a great guy, Pancho.

A bunch of us were there. I would, you know, I grew up on 38. But if there's a party on 26, that's where I'm going, Jack. Even before parties, we were in great guys. We weren't drinking or nothing then. We were just being fucking crazy kids, man. But we played everything in that corner. Everything.

Football. Whiffle ball. Poppy. Everything. Fucking. They hit you with shit. Handball. We used to throw a ball against the wall. I remember we used to call him play baseball.

If you land a little high, it was a, you know, this, it was a hit. Then it was a double, a triple, a home run. You know, we hit against the wall where the liquor store was. Hit it on that wall. And then David's window was right here. And sometimes we stood his window, his mom. My mom used to open. And Bida, Bida, Bida, was his mom's name.

Bida. And Benny, his dad. You know, his sister, Mimi, I've spoken to her a couple of times, Mimi. Where's Mimi lived? In Florida, I think. Florida, they all went to Florida. Yeah, they're great people. It's crazy a lot of kids we grew up with, just tapped out and went to Florida.

Yeah. And it's crazy. Whenever I go to perform in Miami or fall out of there, I always see somebody that I haven't seen. Like, they'll come up and go, you remember me from Union City? I'm like, fuck no, but holy shit. You have a great memory. You have a great memory. No.

I do, but... You remember everything. I can't remember. But there's some people, listen, faces. When you come to me and say, hey, do you know Joey Chipote? I know their name, but I got to see the face. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I haven't seen the face in so fucking long that, you know, I've forgotten a lot of people.

You remember Ralph Kerry? Fuck yeah, Elvis. Yeah, he just, he just performed in Union City for us. Did he? Yeah, he performed in North Bergen, too. He's a good guy. Good guy. He's crazy.

Yeah. Crazy is catch. His girlfriend was the one that turned him on to doing that. Yeah. But I think he was always an Elvis fan. Yeah, I think so, right? In fact, I'm going to have Lovito on here in a couple weeks. You're going to have him on?

Mr. Lovito. He's still around. He lives in Atlantic Islands. Oh, okay. So I was thinking of putting them on here because what happened was this year, everybody in North Bergen started hitting me up on Facebook to see if I remember where they put that fucking tube. Do you remember in 1976, we put some fucking tube together? Yeah, there's.

Yeah, someone's following. Man, a time capsule? A time capsule? A time capsule. Yeah, someone contacted me on that, too. Yeah, and I called. I said, let's get this over with. Let me call LeVito. I call Lvita. I go,

there's a fucking tube. Because it's right in front of the grammar school. Before you have to walk up those stairs. Oh, really? They put it in the one that, the stairs go like this. So instead of going that way, tell them how much, how high those stairs. Oh, my God. You're going to McKinley. Walk up those stairs.

And we had to shovel those fucking stairs. Before we finish, the one story I want to get your opinion, or your memory on it, Lucio is the cab company. The cab where the guy got like he was delivering stuff like delivering drugs and they killed him. No, we're talking about

Rapido Taxi. Oh, Rapido Taxi. Oh yeah, man. They killed that guy. Something happened. He would rated somebody out and he was working with the cops. He was taking, he was helping the cops take bribes or whatever. There was something going on. There's something going on there.

And they just killed him? Because there was so much stuff involved. There was There was bribes involved. There was drugs involved. There was all kinds of... I don't know. Is the same guy that we're talking about that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. When I was a kid? Yeah.

Okay, he was an undercover cop. He was an undercover cop, but he made a mistake. He went after the Cubans. He went after the Cubans. He tried to shake him down without authorization. Right. And he started busting his balls and he started getting a little crazy and I guess he went to collect the

Rapid O Toxie one night and they just fucking drilled them but the guy that was in the passenger seat he's still locked oh really? And he tells the story that he couldn't get out of his seat the bullets missed him wow the bullets missed him but I still remember going to McKinley

and then acting weird and then me getting home from McKinley and running up to my mother's bar and I walked in and there's dirty fucking Cuban saloo! The motherfucker's gone And I'm like, oh, fuck. No, that's what I'm saying about that Chibato. You know, people stuck together.

To kill an undercover cop. And Hudson Avenue, they used to be a bar in almost every corner. Yes, yes, yes. Almost every corner. And everybody knew each other. And briny, gaffer laita, fucking the one on the corner, on the other side of the corner. In fact, I saw something on YouTube the other day about that area, 57th and Hudson with, I don't know if you remember Niko.

Yeah. Jose Tormil. They were talking about him and the whole fucking deal. But Union City just has a fucking tremendous rich history that nobody knows. You know who's Brian Stack remembers everything, every one. One day he should write. When he retires from being a mayor, whatever, if he ever does, I don't think he'll ever retire.

He should write a whole book on this. Or he should do a film about the stuff that really happens or happened. In Union City. In Union City. So he has all the history down. He remembers. He's an encyclopedia. Because he's been involved with politics since Musto. So he's seen everything and everyone.

He's seen everything go down. And he remembers everything. He's super smart. One of the smartest people I've ever met, Brian. If you ever spoken to him, he knows about everything. He talks about football. He knows about football. Talks about basketball.

Politics, politics. Law, law. He's incredible, incredible. How smart he is. And he remembers everything, everything about the whole Hudson County. Everything about Hudson County. The thing that corporation, everybody should read that book.

Pretty much. I mean, Saline Valdevi is a commissioner with me. He says there's a couple of things that were not accurate. Because Saline's family also on bars and stuff. They're Valdivia. There's like 10,000 of them, you know, in Union City. Yeah, it's one of the first, Devaldia is one of the first Cubans that came to Union City. And they, you know, it's like a ton of them. And he remembers everything.

But the corporation, read the court. I almost had the English. TJ, yeah, he's going to come in a couple weeks because now we got a situation going on where my eighth grade teacher, Wally Lindsay, he was the mayor of Weakken. Oh, wow. And then he got with the, why is the mayor of Wehawken teaching

in the North Bergen school? Did you ever think about that? But everybody, everybody. So at the time, now that you think about the hindsight, it had something to do with that waterfront. If you really think about it. And something happened, over the years and he got plugged down.

So when he saw the T.J. English podcast, he contacted me. And he goes, battle opened up the door. That's why they all got arrested. Not that battle was a rat. He contacted his CIA people or whatever, some fucking story. And it goes all the way that would happen with Menendez last year.

Something crazy. So they're gonna come on and talk about it. Who the fuck knows what it is? He's gonna bring his case. on here the whole fucking thing and his attorney. So, and I'm gonna bring TJ to. And we're just gonna fucking hammer this. I have no, I have no dog in the fight.

I don't know what the fuck the arguments about, but they just wanna talk about it. I don't fucking know. I don't get into those conversations, political conversation. No, I just, I don't know nothing about Union City. I know my mom had a bar there. I know some people got shot there.

You know Castro was there. I know Castro was there. I know Castro was there. I saw Cher and Greg Orman, Fred Astaire, Fred Astaire, Dance, There. You know, I had some good fucking BLTs at the five-star diner. I paid, I played for St. Michael C-Y-O, which I, till this day, I think seriously. I picked St. Michael's. I could have gone to St. Fatima and all that shit, but I was like, I like St. Michael.

There was something about St. Michael's, plus Tommy Hineson went there. And that was my boy at the time. So I said, I got to play for St. Michael's. In fact, we're getting together with the coach from my C-Y-O coach. and fucking going to do a dinner at LaFourdes. Oh, that's great. Steve Rubinaccio. I don't know.

He was my coach there. But he had been there forever. He was a good guy. You know, he was part of the community. Steve Rubinacho, and there was another guy. Steve O'Charty or something like that. They were like part of the community. They were Irish.

They spoke Spanish. Yeah. When you fucking Italian, you speak Spanish. I still remember sitting with him on my block. And the fucking, and he worked for, Rubinacho worked for A.B. for Good Morning America.

So I would always call him up. Talk, when are you going to get me a job over there? He was a guy. What do you know? You don't even go to acting class. Acting class? I didn't know you had to go to an acting class. And that's the last time I talked to him in 85.

Wow. And I went to eat dinner one night, and he was sitting at the table right across from me. The coach from my St. Michael's coach, we started talking and gave me his number. And he goes, call me. Let's get together. So we're all going to go to dinner with Chuckie

and a bunch of the coaches. They could talk their problems out of it. Eddie Ford and all those fucking reps and shit. Michael's, man. I went, I did Catechism there. Where? In St. Michael. Oh, you did?

How come we went to the other place? I went to St. Michael's. And I don't know why my mom sent me to St. Michael's. Because we all got thrown out of St. Rockos. No, I went to St. Michael. What's the one on 30th Street? Right by the diet. On 30th Street, that's the Holy Family.

That's Holy Family. You went there for Catechism. Yeah, because either you went to the Ecology Club. remember you got out of school at one you either pick the ecology club or catechism I wasn't going to fucking pick up no trees so I said fucker let me go hang out with some fucking priests

and we lasted about a month and he threw us out like like I say Michaels I never finished because you had the real the real nuns there couldn't take it I said my mom I'm not going back on a side was a Saturdays or Sundays

whatever day we had to go I said I'm done I'm not going back there Lucio one more question I know you're part of like a music troupe, but I haven't seen no videos. No, no, I was managing after I stopped acting and all that kind of stuff and doing films,

I started to manage this band called Maximaleira, which is the number one reggaeton band from Cuba. So the guy, the owner came, the father of the owner of the band, the director of the band, used to be my sound guy for the events in the city for 20 years. So before he died, dad of cancer, he said, you know, take care of my son.

You know, so I helped on his son. We regrouped the group here. and cut out a bunch of records. And then, and just before COVID hit, we had a situation where someone had appropriated some of our music. And we were going to, we were taking them to court. We won. Anyway, so my friend, you know,

and then my friend won the case, and he won, you know, all the awards, platinum, double platinum, gold album, you know, Premier Lo Nuestro, everything. He won all the awards. They gave him the awards. They gave him the rights of the music. so he's waiting for his payday now

because they gave him all the rights that he rightfully owned. So what happened was we started using the original members from Cuba. We started recording songs here and there and coming out and editing their videos in Cuba, which is a penny per dollar, you know. So we started doing all the production work over there and then released the songs with him. So I stopped performing because I was getting older.

I didn't want to be jumping around like a monkey, you know, doing that kind of music. You know, I'm a Broadway guy. I'm not a regga tone guy. You know what I mean? But I was the MC. I was good at emceeing. So I was emceeing and get the crowd going in Spanish and English and all that kind of stuff.

So we were a real crossover. But then we started recording with the original guys in Cuba and just getting more into that whole reggatone thing. And then the guys now they left Cuba's, two of them left. And then the one, yeah, two of them left. And then they almost still here. It's still my buddy. You know what I mean? But now, not cutting any albums or videos or anything anymore.

You know, that ship has sailed right from me. What are you the commissioner of? I'm a commissioner of public affairs. So I run municipal court, veterans, seniors, cultural affairs, and the history department. So all the events that come out of Unicity, it's pretty much my department. Do you see lefty at the school?

No, lefty. Cortina? No. He teaches at Washington. No, I never see him. Go to Washington. He's there. I got to look for him.

Washington on 30th or something? 38th. That's Washington. That's Washington. Oh, wow. Oh, look at that. Look at that. Lucio, it was really good to fuck

It's great seeing you, man It's great being here What are you going to say, I'm sorry No, that's it, that's it It was great seeing you, it's great being here You sure? Absolutely No, no, I'm not saying anything

They'd leave you know, smack me inside my head Great to meet you, Lucio You have any questions for Lucio? I'm still getting over A lot of shit Mainly the guy who jumped in front of cars for a living And then

He jumped in front of the wrong car That's fucked up We had a guy What was the guy that We were robbing trains and he jumped off the train and he got caught in his arm and he lost an arm. Yeah, who was that? I remember that. Yeah, and he used to be a cab driver in the city.

So if you ever get in a cab on a one-arm dude, he's from North Bergen, though. You had no idea the stuff that we do. You have no idea. It was fucking insane at that. When I first moved to North Bergen, it was scary. It was fucking scary. These guys went down and robbed trains every day. These guys were 12.

12! And they're robbing fucking trains. How do you think I got that motorcycle? The motorcycles were come in a box, not built. You throw the boxes off, and then you had your brother come down and drive you later, and you could fucking... Then you had to pull the box out of the weeds. That's a thousand mosquito bites, and then fucking, you know...

That's how crazy. He reminded me of the swamps just now. That's a big call them. The swamps was the best place to hang out. The only beating I got from my mom was because I took my bike where a bunch of our friends and we rode down to the swamps which is all the way

I mean you're 10, 11 years old that's a long way then we took it all the way up all the way up town you know to whatever West End Avenue ends or whatever and then came back down my bike kept them losing this chain

and I made it home like a 10 o'clock a night my mom was livid live it I got the beating of my life and my dad's gonna kill him you're gonna kill him your dad was saying that holy shit the one I got one beating man, I'll never forget it. I'll never forget it.

Lucia was a real pleasure. I'm happy you came on. Same here, man. To give the Union City some love because, like I said, I'm from North Bergen, but man, I got a lot of. My dad died in Union City. We had the bar for 20 years. You know, they never signed my dad's death certificate. When we talk about that, those motherfuckers, I never collected my insurance from Prudential.

It's probably worth that million now. Probably. But they wanted me to go back to Cuba and dig them up and scrap his bones. I'm not doing that shit. That motherfucker's nothing. He's dust now. For 10 million? Well, he's been, yeah.

It was a half million dollar policy in 1966. Do the fucking man. Let's go. I'll do whatever you need me to do. Well, you want to go to Cuba and dig him up? Dig a month. People don't understand how Cuba is. People in this country

don't understand how Cuba is living over there. When we left Cuba, we didn't leave only because of political reasons. There was nothing to eat. Times of talk. My mom comes from 16 brothers and sisters. Damn. What are you going to eat? So you're leaving because there's nothing to eat.

You're leaving because, you know, you're oppressed. And they humiliate you on the way out because you have to go work in agriculture, you know, work camps and stuff like that. And we go to Spain, spend a year in Spain, sucking wind before you come here. Oh, man. People don't know the struggle.

The struggle is real. The struggle is real, people don't know. The struggle is not only real for Jewish people, but only for people. So for Cuban. I had no idea. Love you, Lucile. I'm happy you got the time to come over and talk to me. It's good to see you.

You're a big fucking thing in my childhood. I can't believe we're still here. You know what we all went through as kids and people fucking disappeared. But we're here slinging dick. Absolutely, man. Union City forever, cock suckers. Don't forget, we're adding some shows.

I got the 11th of December at the Stress Factory and I added to 17th open mic at Uncle Vinny's on a Tuesday night just to keep working on material and doing stupid shit. Anything you want to talk about, Luciette's it, man. You said enough stupid stuff. No, I got nothing. At least I had. I got nothing.

Next week, the 11th to the 14th I'm with Josh Wolf and Tara Kahnis all over New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. There you go. If you live in Delaware, I know you got nothing to do. You know, Biden's dead and I don't feel so good myself.

And, you know, it's wintertime. so go catch my brother Lee Syatt. I love you, Lucio. Thank you for everybody being here today, and we'll see you next week. That's it, two weeks, three weeks, till Christmas. I hope you had a great Thanksgiving. And that's it, take a hike.

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