The HoneyDew with Ryan Sickler - Joey Diaz - Halfway House

Episode Date: December 14, 2020

My HoneyDew this week is Joey Diaz! We pick up where we left off - February, 1989. Joey is out of prison and goes to the BCTC halfway house for the first time. I’m sure it’s no surprise, he gives them hell! SUBSCRIBE to my YouTube and watch full episodes of The HoneyDew every toozdee! https://www.youtube.com/rsickler SUBSCRIBE to my Patreon show, The HoneyDew with Y’all, where I highlight the lowlights with y’all! What’s your story? https://www.patreon.com/TheHoneyDew SPONSORS: HONEY It’s simple: if you have a computer, Honey should be on it. It’s free and works with whatever browser you use. You can get Honey for free today at JoinHoney.com/HONEYDEW UPSTART Hurry to http://upstart.com/honeydew to find out HOW LOW your Upstart rate can be! HELIX Helix is offering up to $200 off all mattress orders AND two free pillows for my listeners at HelixSleep.com/honeydew EXPRESS VPN If you’re like me and believe your online activity is your business, secure yourself by visiting ExpressVPN.com/HONEYDEW TODAY! Use my exclusive link and get an extra three months FREE!

This episode of The Honeydew is brought to you by Helix, Upstart, Honey, and ExpressVPN. More on that later, let's get into the do. The Honeydew with Ryan Sickler. Welcome back to The Honeydew, y'all. We're over here doing it in Studio Nightpantz. I'm Ryan Sickler, ryansickler.com, ryansickler on all social media. Just a huge thank you for all your support. We just finished 100 episodes.

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And this guy is no stranger to the do. Ladies and gentlemen, excited to have him back. The saga continues. Joey Diaz, welcome back to the Honeydew, Joey. Great to have you here. What's happening there, Ryan? I'm saying you look so good. Great to be here.

Jersey looks good on you. I'm trying, brother. You look like an old suave gangster out of Vegas right now and in his twilight years coming into his own. You look good, dude. You do. It's tremendous. It's a different life.

I got the stink of L.A. off me. My daughter's in school. She's happy. And for the followers of the show yesterday was the 33rd anniversary of the kidnapping of kent vella november 18th 1987 really so yesterday was the anniversary how many years 87 33 yeah i called him Tuesday night. You called the guy you kidnapped on the anniversary of the kidnapping.

Oh, every year. He's unemployed now, so he wants to hear from me. You talk about full circle, man. Dog, you know, I apologized to him. I did a bad thing. I apologized to him. He accepted it, and we became friends again. That's great.

So I called him Tuesday night, left him a message. I was thinking about him. I go, 33 years ago tonight, I was planning on what to do with you so i can't even whether we were gonna feed you to the lions or fucking put you in the trunk of a car we didn't know yet all right let me say this for uh for those of you listening because a lot of people have missed that the last episode of that i i actually was honored to host uh guest host the church and that's the episode where we cover the kidnapping so there's a lot of you like hey there seems to be a a chapter missing that's where you find that chapter okay go to the church what's happening now check out the episode i guess hosted and that's where joey tells that whole story this time exactly where we

left off was february of 1989 uh it was you were just leaving prison and what you said is it was the first time in the halfway house. So please. When I... Feel free. When I think of my stint at BCTC... And what does that stand for, Joey? BCTC. Was that Boulder?

Boulder Community Treatment Center. Boulder County. The same people who owned BCTc on the lttc which was in longmont colorado about uh 20 minutes away okay you didn't want to get you know they put you to where you were from but they threatened to put me in longmont at first and i didn't mind because there was a little Mexican place out there called Delicioso. And they made

the best fucking breakfast burritos you've ever had in your life. I'd put away like eight of them. Damn. Eight, nine of them. They were that good. So I didn't care about going to Long Mount, but I really wanted to go to Boulder.

So I found out I went in. You know? So I found out. I went in. You got a three-day orientation. You can't leave. You can call your loved ones and they can bring stuff in. The clothing you need. Whatever you need for your job.

And then after three days, they let you go out just to find a job. so let me let me ask you some questions because we had this halfway house right next to my middle school and one of my um high school wrestling coaches worked there later in the years he'd take us home in the van he dropped but we couldn't get in you know you can't get out he has to get out of the van and let you out we're like oh yeah this is a correctional van you can't get out. He has to get out of the van and let you out. We're like, oh, yeah, this is a correctional van. You can't get out of this motherfucker.

But so you're now you're out of prison, but you're at this place where how many people would you say are also living under this roof? About 90. Oh, wow. OK, it's way bigger than I thought it was. OK, so you got 90 all men had three. That's way bigger than I thought it was. Okay. So you got 90 all men? You had three? No.

The bottom floor was women, and then the two top floors were men. Okay. And it was seven-man rooms, and then when you moved up the system, you got put into a three-man room. So you're allowed out. So my first experience. Go ahead. After three days, you're allowed out my first experience go ahead after three days you're allowed out for about a week

to find a job from like nine to five you have to call them and let them know where you're going so I gotta call them and go I'm going to Ryan Sickler's to interview at Goodyear and then from there you have to Ryan Sickler's to interview at Goodyear. And then from there, you have

to have a list for them. So I would just make up a phony fucking list of where I was going. And then those three days were kind of shaky. But then once you got, I got a job right away.

Doing what? And then I think the first job I got was like a detailer at a car lot. And, but those first three days when, you know, they, they hold you for three. And then that first day when you, they let you out to go get a job, I wouldn't pick up. I got to get back on. I got to get, get back on the board an ounce of blow. I gotta get back on the

board here. You know what I'm saying? I'm down by 10. Something's gotta be done here. I'm getting a job at $8. At $8 an hour. I'm not getting no job for $8 an hour. So I started slinging.

I got an ounce of coke right off the fucking bat. The fourth day out. The fourth day out. That's why all that shit you talk in prison is bullshit. I'm going to go out. I'm going to read the Bible. The fourth day out, the first place I went to was my buddy's to get an ounce on the arm to go to work. Let me ask you, what did it feel like, though, to be just out?

You know, you're now, including to have, you're on your own. I know you have a curfew, but what does it feel like, that first feeling of after all the shit you've been through, you're actually breathing the outdoors right now. There's not someone watching you when you're walking or driving or taking the bus to your friend's house. I knew that at that moment I was never going back into prison. I did know that.

I did know that I was a criminal. I came to that conclusion and i figured out that whatever i did from now on i had to have a cover to it and i had to keep it low you know it would be small moves selling coke was the alternative i mean i could sell coke all day long. So just to get on the board, I started slinging Coke, like the third, the fourth day, just to put some money in my pocket, generate some income, you know, move around. And then I got like a job. I really don't know, Ryan. I would be lying to you if I told you what my first job was. I can't remember.

But I got a job right away. And I still remember bringing the Coke into the halfway house with me. I was going to ask you like that takes. Okay. And I still remember weighing it in the bedroom on the top bunk. And I still remember one day that, uh, like in my first two weeks, the chick that ran the place did a surprise attack on me while I was

weighing the Coke. And I had it in like a big, I had it in a big bindle. When I put it in, the Coke flew all out of the bindle, but it was still, it was a little chunks. So she walks into the room.

I got the scale hidden, fucking Richard Gere in Office of the Gentleman. I had it up in the ceiling. I had everything hidden in the ceiling. But she comes in and there's still all these little coke rocks on the carpet. And she goes, you guys need to do some carpeting. And we got to get the maintenance guy to come in here and vacuum the dust off this stuff. She thought it was fucking dust from the ceiling.

She didn't know that there was an ounce of coke on the fucking floor in little chunks. This is what I walked into. You create this life for yourself. That was it off the bat.

Then I got a job, but I kept slinging coke. And then eventually I started snorting coke. And I walked into BCTC maybe in February. And by April, I already gave my first hot UA. So the first one is free. The first one is you get locked up for 14 days. You're only allowed to go to work. No leisure, no gym, no nothing.

So I figured out a different idea. Instead of getting a job, I went to my buddy's garage. He had a garage where he fixed cars and I would hustle details there, but I got a pager. So they didn't know where I was. They could also drop into your job. I made it that I was driving cars back and forth. So don't come in here because I'm never going to be there. Ryan, it was just a different level. Yeah. They weren't even ready for me.

Like they weren't even ready for the game I was imposing on them. They could shake you down any time and you couldn't have more than $40 on you. Oh, really? Okay. Yeah. You had to pay. and you couldn't have more than $40 on you. Oh, really? Okay, yeah. You had to pay, it was, at that time, it was 75 a week rent. And you also got a box of food,

like frozen swans and dinners, you know, cheese slices, shitty food, you know, for the week. I used to get food delivered. I'd get Chinese food delivered and they'd lose their fucking mind. Like I showed up just completely different. Like I was running my own game in there.

Then I gave them the hot urinalysis and then they were really on me. And that was just coke? Once you give them a hot, you wear just coke. I wasn't smoking dope or anything. Once I gave them the first hot, I came to the conclusion that I can't smoke coke, and I was fine with that, but I still needed to sell coke to make some money. The job was fine with that. But I still needed to sell coke to make some money. The job was just to cover.

The other thing I devised was you had to pay rent on Thursday. But everybody got paid on Friday. So if you didn't pay rent on Thursday, you wouldn't get your leisure time on the weekend. That opened up another avenue for me. Loan sharking. So I would lend out 7575 for $102. So I would give you $75 on Thursday. You give me $102 on Friday.

I was a one-man fucker for wrecking. You got a $27 profit on that shit. Yeah, and I had 10 of those motherfuckers every week so i became i became a loan shark i was slinging coke and i was hustling whatever the job i was doing now wait are you also selling coke to people in the halfway house or are you just hiding it there i'm hiding it there but i'm also selling it to people at the halfway house. So they're all doing it. So any of them could give a hot test then, all coming from the Coke.

Oh, yeah. They were all. I had a couple guys I was selling it to. Once I got the first hot UA, I had a garage I rented about eight blocks away on 16th Street. garage I rented about eight blocks away on 16th Street. I paid $35 a month and I had a heavy bag in there and a

bar way before I got arrested. I kept that little gym. So I started stashing my coke in there. It was only a walk away. So I would stash it in there, have the scale in there. So I'm loan sharking in there

I'm slinging coke I'm fucking around and then guess what happens I give him another hot UA even though I wasn't doing coke just touching it ah ok I wondered yeah handling it

cause the guy would give me like 6 ounces at a time and it would be like 4 ounces at a time. And it would be like four chunks and a half ounce of powder. This motherfucking Mexican was a nut. So I would have to pick up these chunks of coke. It was like fucking

his coke was real. It was fucking tremendous. So from weighing it, it went through my skin. And then I gave him another fucking hot UA. So now they were going to put me back in prison. So I had to hire my attorney

to go in there and fight for me. They had me on lockdown. I couldn't leave the building. Then they came to a conclusion that I go to a rehab. And I just mentioned the name of this rehab. Yeah.

I forget the name of it. It was from six to nine at night, five nights a week. And you had to sit there and guess what? I went to this rehab for, I think it was six weeks, three hours a night, five nights a week. And I started

selling more coke at the rehab than I ever did. It was fucking crazy. It's so fucking... It's so fucking... It's so embarrassing. That'd be like 12 people in the group. And, you know, like nine of them were still getting high. So we're still getting high in there.

But then something happened. I got a fucking call one day that I knocked up my girlfriend. Okay. And this is what year are we at now? 90? Are we in 90? Is it 89? We're in 89.

Okay. We're in like May of 89. I'm already in the fucking rehab. And now this poor girl tells me she's pregnant. Had to be about June. So now I had to fucking strap the belt on a little bit harder

and I stayed clean and I went and sold the hot car at the time was the Eclipse by Mitsubishi. Ah, yeah. So a friend of mine said that he needed help at his place selling Mitsubishis. So I went over there,

and I started making eight, nine grand a month selling Mitsubishis. I would just sell Eclipses. I wouldn't even look at the fucking... Because the Eclipses is hard to get, and you made like $800 a car because you sold them above sticker price. So now I'm fucking selling cars, selling Coke,

loan sharking. I'm a one man wrecking crew. I'm getting watches sent out from New Jersey, Rolex watches, presidentials. The guy would give them to me for like seven grand. I would sell them for 10. It was the prime of a joke. I was doing more hustling in those months than I ever did before.

It was the top of my hustle game i was uh 27 years old 28 and i was making probably 15 grand a month damn between the selling cars the selling coke I wasn't snorting, so it was all profit. This is 15 grand a month in 89. Oh, yeah. I'm fucking slinging with both hands. Yeah.

And then they moved me into, I started making progress in the system. I started becoming a model prisoner. That term right there, a model prisoner. Oh, my God. I turned it. I fucking. I just.

I turned it around. I fucking really turned it around. It was just amazing. They were blown away. No more hot UAs. I was doing everything I was supposed to do. I was on my best behavior. I had the best summer of my life you there?

I'm here brother I thought you froze up for a second I had the best summer of my life selling cars I didn't do coke the whole summer but I was just a fucking renegade in there I was just a fucking renegade

in there and then was just a fucking renegade in there. And then I got them to I got them to so high that they gave me a furlough like a four day furlough to get married and to go on

a honeymoon. But I had them at that time, and I did my program, and they let me out. They said, you're done here. Really? We're going to put you on regular community corrections. Yeah, so once you get married and come back,

get your stuff and get out. And then you still got to go to meetings and circle jerks and all that shit. So by August of 89, I was a free fucking man. Because you're married. Because I'm married. I get married. I move into my place. Sorry, what month do you get married?

September of 89. But you officially are, because you're getting married, you actually get out before the wedding? I get out. They said like a week before I got married, they go, you know, by the way, your time is done. Your time is done.

You could do your last six months from the house. So that's what I want to ask. So I had like six months left. But you could do it from the comfort of your own home as long as you're married because you have a family. No, no, no, no, no. I had nothing to do with being married. Oh. I was just, my time was was just my time okay okay gotcha

i had done my time in there i've been there from february it was now september and it was seven months and they were like you came in here with like a 16 month sentence left something weird so the last eight months you could do on house probation. Hell yeah. So I was still on community corrections. I still had to pee in a bottle. I still had to do all that stuff. I get married.

I'm clean. Everything's fine. But my buddies come out for the wedding. And they give me a package at the wedding. So I do a couple of bumps at the wedding and you're not stopping me. Oh, I know. I got on the plane. I'm fucked up.

You know, I'm drinking on the plane. I get to San Francisco. She falls asleep. And I go out to see a friend of mine because I lived in San Francisco in 85. So I went looking for a friend of mine. He gave me an eight ball. I stayed up all night in the garage doing it with a fucking eight pack of beer, a six pack of beer. I walked upstairs at seven.

I got in bed and she woke up. We went on a honeymoon. We went to an Oakland A's game with Canseco and all those guys. Yeah, Bash Brothers. Then Monday night, we went to Monday Night Football opening game the Giants at the Niners.

Oh, that's great. Yeah. But I came back on Tuesday and I had the bug in me, dog. I was back on the powder. So, I started doing powder. I worked against the clock. I would snort on Friday nights

because I could possibly clean by Monday. You know, I could possibly be clean by Monday. Were your tests random at this point or did you know when they were coming? They tested me Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays.

Damn. So you had to call a number at one o'clock and the number would tell you what color was up. And there was some Mondays where they wouldn't test me, so I played against the clock. I would get high on Fridays,

because if you didn't test me on Monday, chances were you were going to test me on fucking Wednesday. But if they tested you on a Friday, that means you were going to get tested again on Monday. Okay. So you always had to play the clock. And I did it. Great. Then they started nailing me on

Monday, and that's when I went to work. I would like, if I called that one and my color was up, I would go to Albertsons and buy a bottle of vinegar. A white vinegar, distilled vinegar. 32 ounces and a bottle of Gatorade.

And I would get a package of Serto. Serto is what you use to make like a Jell-O. Okay, yeah. And I would drink the whole bottle of white vinegar. No, dude. With Gatorade. You would mix 32. That's fucking four cups of vinegar and Gatorade mixed.

What does that taste like? I would drink. You know, when you're a fucking junkie, this is what happens when you're a junkie. Doesn't that burn your throat and shit? So I got. Oh, it just destroys your insides. I got away with it like maybe twice. So wait, I'm sorry to interrupt you again,

but this is supposedly a concoction that's going to neutralize this test or give you a negative test? This is the word on the street. Got it. That you had to drink vinegar, but at the end of the day, Got it. That you had to drink vinegar. But at the end of the day, nothing works. They always get you. It's some type of metabolites or something.

So I got away with the test like maybe two times. And then maybe like mid-October, they fucking nailed me. They nailed me again. they fucking nailed me. They nailed me again. And instead of rehab, they said, you're going back into the halfway house. You're going to do an extra fucking group meeting.

And like, you know, I was, I went from being the model guy to the fucking schlub. So I would wake up every morning and walk to my apartment. I walked about, I lived about two miles from the halfway house. I would walk to the apartment and see my wife get changed and go to fucking work. And that, that really made me become a little better.

Like I did, you know, just the realization of what I had done and stuff. I'm like, God damn it. I can't get my fucking life together. And I started working. I still sold coke, you know. I wasn't doing it. I said, let me just do this steady. I stuck to the program.

I went to the fucking AA meetings. I did everything I had to do. The holidays came. I was great. And then I got myself up to level four, which was unheard of. That was unheard of. Like a lot of people didn't make it to that top tier. That top tier let you stay out till midnight.

And it gave you two furloughs a month. So you go home on Friday and come back on Sunday night. Okay. Twice a month. I was that good. And I got my driving privileges. Oh, wait. You weren't allowed to drive before that?

No, but I was driving. I didn't give a French fuck. I remember being on a light one day. I remember being at a light one day and one of the counselors pulled up next to me at the light. And I'm like, fuck. But it was funny. Those months when I was a junkie,

I tormented their fucking world, Ryan. Because I couldn't figure out how to beat the drug test so i started fucking getting like chlorine for a pool and i would grind it down into a powder and i would pull the skin back on my dick and sprinkle the chlorine on my helmet jesus christ and then pull the skin back and then put like a fucking rubber band on my dick and i would pull this so i started fucking around with that test they couldn't figure out what the fuck was going on you're putting chlorine in the test oh man but doesn't that burn the fuck out of your dick it's dick skin so sensitive fucking pool pool cleaner

pool clean yeah i know i was a lifeguard i know what you're talking about i feel like that would burn your dick skin i was i was grinding down It was tremendous. It was really tremendous. I was grinding it down into a fucking powder and putting it on my dick. And I was fucking with them. And then one week I used Drano. Come on. It was tremendous.

It was tremendous. I was driving these two. It was a team. It was a. I was driving these two. It was a team. It was a man and woman team that would test you. And then they also, when you're level four, they also have the right to come to your house whenever they want, knock on the door and check your house, your refrigerator, smell around to see if there's weed.

They knocked on my door 10 times. You know how many times I opened that door? Zero. I don't open the door for strangers. Zero. Listen to me. I would turn the TV off. They would come back with a sheriff's car

and sit outside my door for two, three hours. I would outweigh the sheriffs. I'm not going anywhere. Zero. My attorney would call me. He's like, you got to open the door for them. No, I don't. They don't have a warrant.

Well, they have this from the court. Fuck that shit. I got to see a warrant. I know my rights. I'm like Jay-Z. I know my rights. You got to show me the fucking warrant. Let's take a quick break and tell you about our first sponsor, Honey.

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And then something weird happened. I went to my Coke dealer's house, who was a dear friend also. And he asked me if I had ever seen this comedian. And I go, what are you fucking talking about? And he goes, this comedian, Andrew dice clay and i go no and i saw that that had to be november of 89 and i saw that special and my head blew up yeah like i kept watching it and watching it and watching it and then for for New Year's Eve, I was in the halfway house. So I talked them into renting the conference room

and having a party for New Year's Eve, non-alcoholic, showing the Andrew Dice Clay special on VHS. And I got like fucking pizza brought in from Abo's. And they let me do it. And I watched Andrew Dice Clay. And 1990, they let me out of the halfway house. February 2nd of 1990, on a Friday, my then wife picked me up,

pregnant as can be, ready to bust. She picked me up. We went to a restaurant called Lucille's. It's still in Boulder. Fucking tremendous. It's Cajun. Oh, I love Cajun. I got the three eggs with the redfish

and the bayonets with these fucking potatoes. It was February 2nd. It had to be 60 degrees out, brother. We got back to the apartment about 4 o'clock. I think I watched the news and I must have passed out about 7. And I woke up February...

They just let me out of the halfway house. I wake up February 3rd to a woman yelling. Okay. And it was my ex-wife that her water had broken. Okay. And she was like, you know, we got to get out of here. We're about to have this baby. I fucking jump in the shower.

I'm getting ready. I go outside and a foot and a half of snowfall. I've been sleeping. I didn't even see the snow. So I go, hold on one second. I got to unshovel the fucking car. So I get the car. I shovel it.

I shovel the spot as best as I could. I, you know, I had the car running. I back up the fucking car and I pull it out just to get her to come in. And the fucking guy who lived upstairs came with his car and pulled into my spot after I had just shoveled it. I just got out of the halfway house. I go, this isn't happening. So I go up to the guy. I go, dog, what are you doing?

My wife is pregnant inside. I got to pull her out. And he said some snide remark. And I go, you're not fucking getting off this easy. Move your fucking car. And he goes, I'm not moving my car. And he spit on my car. Whoa.

So I just fucked him. I punched him right in the fucking face. And here my wife is inside and I'm fist fighting some dude. In the driveway. Between you and me Ryan Sickle, this guy had me.

He clocked me like three times straight and he kind of had me. But he slipped on the ice. he clocked me like three times straight and he kind of had me and I, and, but he slipped on the ice and I jumped on him and started beating the fuck out of him. I'm pounding him in the head. And next thing you know, I look up and there's three cop cars coming at me.

I'm like, I'm never going to make it. I'm never going to make it out of this fucking system. Like I'm, I'm a dead man. So the cop pull up next to me. I run up to the cops. I know one of them.

And I'm telling the cop what happened. They go, we got a report of a woman yelling. We got a report of a fucking woman like, a woman getting domestic violence. What the fuck is going on here? And I go, there's no... My wife is inside yelling because her water broke. I'm out here. I've shoveled the fucking thing.

Look where my car is. And this guy just sneaks his way in. So I'm like, I'm dead. I'm going to go to prison for the rest of my life they have a talk and the cops decide they go listen it was just a misunderstanding why don't you guys

just apologize to each other your neighbors you're going to have to fucking live with each other I'll never forget the cop going pull your hands out and shake hands the guy goes I'm not shaking his hand and the cop looks, pull your hands out and shake hands. The guy goes, I'm not shaking his hand. And the cop looks at him and goes, you know what?

We can just get back in the car. You weren't doing too good when we got here. So you better shake his fucking hand. Look at your face. The cop with the do is all banged up. And he wouldn't shake my hand. And the cop told him, you weren't doing too good when we got here you know what I'm saying

so you better shake his fucking hand so the cops actually gave me a they gave me an escort to the hospital that's nice so I got my wife in the car drove her to the hospital had the baby

she's in the hospital I go home I get an eight ball to celebrate. You know me, though. Old habits never change. Now, even though I'm free, I still owe them, like, eight more months of piss test. And that's when my world began. I just started fucking blowing up their machines. Every time I go in there for a piss test,

I would throw something else on my dick to fuck their machine up. BromoSalsa, AlkaSalsa, fucking pool cleaner. I put AlkaSalsa. You must have like a leather dick, I tell you, man. I don't think I could handle any of that shit. Oh, that's so good. Fucking Alka-Seltzer. That's how deep my whatever ran. I had a little girl.

You know, man, this is why I tell people, nothing's going to change you unless you change yourself. Amen. I've sat with men thousands of times, you know, doing fucking an ounce of coke, telling me, I love my kids. This is the last time I'm going to get high. You'll never see me again after tonight, you know, doing fucking an ounce of coke, telling me, I love my kids. This is the last time I'm going to get high. You'll never see me again after tonight, you know. Kids can't stop you from getting high.

Probation can't stop you from getting high. Nothing can stop you from getting high. When you're going to get high, you're going to get high. People don't realize that. I know the other side of it. I think back to my times, that time period of my life, it didn't matter. And you know what made it worse, Ryan? That they gave me a rule I couldn't get high. I don't do well by rule. You know, we're comedians. That's why we became comedians, because we cannot follow society's rules.

No. I wake up every morning at 5 in the morning, 6, 7, 8. I'm an early riser. I'm on social media at 7, 3 in the morning. If I had a job, I wouldn't wake up at 8 in the morning. When I have to do something, I'm not going to do it. There's no way. You know, I've been on my own basically since I was 10.

My mother gave me. When I got out of Catholic school, my mother made me an offer I couldn't refuse. I'm going to let you do it your way. The first time you fuck up, you go back to my way. the first time you fuck up, you go back to my way. So looking back at it now, I couldn't handle rules. When they dropped that whole program, I stopped getting high as much. I noticed that because I had a fucking rule.

And I can't follow rules. I do what I do. Why I do it, I don't know. And I'm going to keep doing it. That's just the way I am. You know, that's my malfunction that I can't obey rules. I couldn't live on the society standards. That's my malfunction. But at that time, I was already thinking about stand-up. I just didn't know how to start. And how old are you now? I just had no idea. How old are you now?

I'm 27 years old. Okay. So this is just starting to think about stand-up at 27. Just starting to think about it. Still working. You know, at this time, I probably had three jobs. I was working at a car dealership. I was, you know, selling cars from the paper.

Like, if you had a car for sale for $5,000, I would offer you $42,000 cash, fix the car up a little bit, and sell it for $6,000 you know I was fucking hustling my ass off at this point at the age of 30 I was a fucking and then my family asked me

if I wanted to go work for them they were moving their roofing operation from New Jersey to Colorado and they were looking for laborers so I said yeah I might as well go work with family you know I didn't want to sell cars anymore and I caught on really quick to roofing it was flat roofing it was uh rubber roofing it's called ballasted roofing it's flat

roofs with rocks on it you put rubber down, and then you ballast it with rocks. And you frame the stuff with the metal, whatever you call it. I don't know. So I got into that. And my whole thing was to get on stage. I was such a fucking pussy, Ryan. I mean, you know, because I knew that I just, I roofed, I had sold stuff. I had worked in restaurants as a bartender.

I did fucking everything and there was nothing I really liked, you know? And when I got into the roofing and then i got promoted to an estimator so i took like a good year seminar i had to take a carlisle seminar anybody who makes rubber they would invite me to their seminars my company would pay for me to go to their seminars and then i actually took a uh a class on how to estimate, you know, construction costs and all that stuff. So I became an estimator. And I really enjoyed it. But something was missing.

I bought a condo. I had a truck. I had a car. I was married. I had been truck, I had a car, I was married, I had been in prison, I had defied the odds, I got out of that fucking program. You know how I got out of that program?

How? I was working at a car wash as a host. And right before I got into roofing, I used to talk to a guy once a week. He would come in and just talk to me. How you doing? What's going on? I would talk to him.

And one day after like six months, I go, what do you do? And he goes, I'm the district attorney. And I go, you're Bill Wise? And he goes, yeah. The real district attorney was Alex Hunter. But underneath him was Bill Wise. The reason why I mentioned these names to you are they were involved in the John Bonet Ramsey stuff. Oh, years later. OK. What's his name was the mayor and Bill Wise was the D.A.

And he was forced to resign over the John Bonet thing. But I got to tell you, he was a good man. over the JonBenet thing. But I got to tell you, he was a good man. I talked to him every day for a long, you know, I talked to him once a week. We would have conversations while I was out there. And when I told him what I had done, I go, I got in trouble with the whole Bella thing. And he goes, that was you?

And we started talking and giggling. And he goes, just have your attorney put the motion on my desk. I'll sign it. Behind the other DA's back. The DA that prosecuted me. He said, fuck him. He goes, fuck him. I'll sign it.

And he signed it. And I was let off, I think, November of 90. Okay. I was done with my sentence. Everything was done. Everything. Now you're done. You can snort all the coke you want.

Do whatever the fuck I want. But something wasn't right. Something wasn't right in me. Something just didn't feel right. I was making money. I had everything that America society tells you you need to move forward. I had everything in the palm of my hand, but something wasn't right, Brian Sickler. So this is it. Right, Brian Sickler. So this is it.

This is fucking it. I work five days a week. On Saturday, I watch the kid because you got to work. And then on Sunday, we go to your parents' house to eat. And I start all over on Monday. And then one day when I'm 65, you give me a gold watch. And you tell me my years of service were great. That was it.

Something wasn't right. Just something didn't seem right. So I searched. My answer was religion. So I started going back to church. I got confirmed. Remember when I got thrown out of Catholic school right before my confirmation. So I said, I said, what I need is the Holy Spirit to be complete.

So I went, I got confirmed that the classes at night, I made my confirmation. I was still fucking miserable. So I went to Naropa Institute. My friend was at a restaurant at Naropa Institute. It's a college in Boulder for Buddhists. It's accredited. You go there and get a degree in philosophy. You're going to end up a fucking waiter

with dirty feet. But, you know, I did a couple classes and I really enjoyed Buddhism. I liked it. I liked the principles. I took a couple classes and I really enjoyed Buddhism I liked it, I liked the principles I took a Monday night class on walking meditation

the whole thing I was looking for something something was fucking missing something wasn't right and that March of 91 it snowed and I went to one of the job sites

we were working at. And the guys were like, bro, our fucking labor didn't show up today. And we have nobody to go get us food. Can you go get us food? And I was like, fuck yeah. You know, there was a diner around the corner and they had green chili. I was hungry anyway.

I go, let me go over there and get the green chili. And when I was, they had like boots and they had like a bar. It was an old school diner. And when I sat at the bar, there was a Denver Post, a Rocky Mountain newspaper. You know how sometimes you just take a newspaper and open it? Yeah. I remember doing that back in the day, yeah.

Like just opening it, not the first page. Yep, just fold it open. But like the middle, to go right to the sports kind of thing. I did that. I opened up the paper, and in the paper, the front page I opened was an ad. Roseanne had just blown up. So the Denver comedy scene was blowing up. And there was an ad about the Denver, it wasn't an ad.

It was a write-up about the Denver comedy scene. And what had happened since Roseanne blew up, how many more comedians were going to, how come the club became more popular, the Denver comedy works. And then at the bottom, it said, are you thinking of becoming a comedian? And it told you the options to do.

And they had an ad for a standup comedy class at the university of Colorado in Boulder. It was right up the corner from my house. It was three Sundays. It was 38 bucks, and it was taught by a guy named Jeff Harms. I'll never forget that guy. He was a stand-up comic, and

he was part of an improv troupe. Uh-oh. Somebody got stabbed in Los Angeles. He was part of an introp if it's not a fire department it's a fucking helicopter so

he got uh what the fuck oh he was part of an improv troupe it was three Sundays from one to four he just broke down stand-up comedy and blah blah and then the last week you had to go up in front of everybody and the last week i went

up i don't know if i got any laughs or not it didn't matter i just wanted to go up, you know. And when I got off before class ended, as I was walking out, he came over to me. He goes, what's your name? And I go, Joey. And he goes, I usually don't tell this to the students, but you have a career in stand up if you want to. And I was like, what are you talking about? And he goes, you could do this. I could see it. You could do this. And I was like, I'm a roofer, you know.

I'm married. I'm dead. I just took the course just to see, you know. And he goes, if I was you, I'd look into it. And he goes, here's my phone number. Stay in touch. And about two days later, he called me and he said that a new club was opening up and they were looking. They were looking for doormen.

He gave me a job as a doorman. That club's name was Wits End Comedy Club in Westminster, Colorado. It's no longer there. It was like a C room, you know. And I started a job as a doorman there. And I remember that like that April, you know, in Colorado, even though it's not winter, sometimes you get snow.

Like it'll just snow a foot and a half in April. And I'll never forget that that April it snowed. And I didn't have to work that day. So I went and rented the movie with Tom Hanks about stand-up comedy. Yeah, Sally Field and Tom Hanks. Yeah, Sally Field. I watched that and I just went over the fucking top.

I'm like, I got to do this shit. I wasn't happy at all. I had everything I wanted that you I just went over the fucking top. Like, I'm like, I got to do this shit. I wasn't happy at all. Something, I had everything I wanted that you're supposed to have. As an American that's 28 years old, I was a felon, but I wasn't letting that stop me. That wasn't going to get in my way, you know. And I worked the door for a few months. I asked comics questions. You know, nobody was around today.

I just asked stupid questions, and I kept asking questions and asking questions, and I kept calling the comedy works to get on their open mic, and every two weeks they would call me back and go, Mr. Diaz, you got a three-minute on tuesday and then on tuesday i would call and cancel why you scared every time they get petrified yeah i went through a couple months of that shit i'm just canceling and you know canceling cancel I'm going to write my fucking story. I would never write. I got to get it down.

And then one Tuesday or one week in July, my ex-wife heard me call up the Comedy Works. Or she heard them call me and say, you have a spot next Tuesday. So without telling me, she got a babysitter.

So she forced my hand. So it was July 16th, 1991. It took me 16 months to get the courage to go on fucking stage. And I remember just driving down to Comedy Works. I have no idea what I said, but I remember going up on stage. At that time, I had done everything. I had done heroin.

I had done coke. I had, you know, when I walked off stage, I can't describe the high I had. Yeah. Like, I wasn't stoned. I wasn't on coke. I wasn't. That whole day, I didn't do anything. This was my moment to see if I could do this or not.

Like, for me, July 16, 1991, was my turning point. When I got off stage, the owner of the Comedy Works at the time, it was Wendy, but it was also a guy named Ed Nichols came up to me. Ed Nichols came up to me and he goes, you got a really good stage presence. You should really stick this out. And a guy, PJ Moore came up to me and said, what are you doing tomorrow night? I got a gig. Can you do five minutes? And I was like, yeah, I can do five minutes. And I got the fucking gig. Let's take

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Upstart.com slash Honeydew. Now, let's get back to the do. I'll never forget on the drive home, like what was going through my mind. Like, this is it. This is what I want to do. But I'm dead. I can't do it.

It's very hard to tell your wife that you want to get into stand-up comedy. And work for free when you just had a baby. When you just have a child. I was dead i was dead yeah so whatever dreams i had were dead they were really dead it was like uh then i was really fucking broken in half you know i'm like what do i what am i gonna do now i'm stuck being a fucking roofer an estimator nothing wrong wrong with it. It's a decent job. It's better than being in jail. But I really wanted to do the stand-up.

And I got on stage maybe three times that July, maybe three times that August. And then something just wasn't right still. That feeling came back. So my wife at the time told me, you have money saved up. Maybe you need to find yourself. Go home.

I hadn't been in New York for six years at that point. I hadn't seen my friends in six years. So I came home for a week, snorted Coke, was out. I remember they gave me a police car at the Hertz rental. They gave me like an old. They rented me a car, but it was a detective car. And I still remember going to the Bronx and people like, nah. We ain't going to deal with you.

Yeah. That Crown Vic car. Yeah, it was a Crown Vic car. Yeah, it was a Crown Vic. So I remember going back home and just feeling empty, like I'm never going to be able to do this fucking dream. You know? Yeah, I get on stage here and there, but all these guys talk about the road. And, you know, you hear Bob Seger talking about the road.

Yeah, yeah. And Bon Jovi talking about the road. And, you know, something just wasn't right. So I kept living my life. I kept estimating. I kept selling cars. And then there was this Nissan truck that opened up. Somebody told me they had a Nissan truck for sale.

But I already had like two cars tied up. I already had like eight grand tied up in two cars. And I had like four grand laying around upstairs. But I was still three grand light. So I ran a scam when I was at the University of Colorado with Pell Grants and fucking scholarships and shit. I knew, you know, I got every fucking Latino scholarship that was ever made. Anchovia. Everybody sent me 500.

Everybody sent me 500. That went right to the Coke dealer. You know what I'm saying? So I said, how can I come up? It was like a fucking scam. So I went to the Boulder. I went to the University of Colorado. I went downstairs. And they had like a fucking scam. So I went to the Boulder. I went to the University of Colorado. I went downstairs.

And they had like a loan office. And I went in there and I said, listen, I got some credits I owe you. I want to go back. And they go, well, it's too late to get a Pell Grant. It was right there in September. Right there when you sign up for fall semester. So I said, let me just get a loan. And they said, fine.

And they gave me a loan. I signed up for the classes. Once I got the loan, I bought the car. They gave me a loan for $26.25, the standard loan. I bought the car and I sold it the next day for a two thousand dollar profit so i just went back and paid off the loan okay they were like what what the fuck is this you know like and i did it again and then i owed him and i never paid it back and my my wife now made me pay it back she did for real

yeah i took another loan out how much so let's work on 26 25 you paid it all back though oh i had no choice they just fucking they'll never put a certain amount of money in your bank those motherfuckers come back at you they just take a judgment on i didn't want a judgment so i just paid it off but so i took this loan and i paid it off three days later and i withdrew from the school okay i paid my bills and i never thought nothing of it this is the beginning of september okay i never thought nothing of it. This is the beginning of September. I never thought anything of it again. I'm struggling.

I'm struggling as a human being, like, with this comedy and, you know, being a dad and being a roofer. I'm struggling with all this. And one day I get home at five o'clock and my ex-wife is in the kitchen. And when I turn around, she goes, do you have a minute? It was October 15th of 1991.

And she holds up the loan and she goes, what is this? She goes, I just got this in the mail today. It's a receipt. You took a loan out without letting me know. And I'm like, at that point in my life, I was doing a thousand things that nobody knew. You know what I'm saying? I didn't know I had to ask permission for my business. I didn't know. So she's like,

I feel like that's lying. And I want to get separated. And it was like, just a rush came over me. Like, somebody just did me the biggest favor of my fucking life. I thought about my daughter, who at the time was 18 months old. You know? She told me she was in a movement with her mom. months old.

She told me she was in a movement with her mom just to see how she felt and that we'd revisit in a few months. Ryan, I almost fainted. Really? I almost fainted

because it was like somebody had done something for me that i wanted to do i really wanted to give this comedy shit a try like i was dead serious about it and i'll never forget that she packed up and left that day because of that loan and that night yeah but it was it wasn't the loan. Yeah, I'm sure. It was a long time coming. The loan was the straw that broke the camel's back. God.

I talked about it on my podcast this week that two months or three months before we broke up, we were eating dinner one night. We broke up. We were eating dinner one night. And she said to me, she goes, I don't understand if you understand what you did. She goes, you took a man, handcuffed him and put him in the back of a fucking trunk. Do you know what type of person does that? And she was right. I mean, Ryan,yan let's you know yes i was out of control i was totally out of control you know i didn't see it at that time i was chucking and jiving but

i think it took her like three years for her to sink in what i had really done you know and who she had married you know and she had made a mistake, you know. I actually took a guy. I had no problems with that at all, you know. That was just another day in her life for Joey Diaz, you know. But that's the truth. At that time in my life, I had been on an eight-year roll, and if you think putting somebody in the back of a trunk of a car was bad,

you missed my Aspen day. You missed all that other shit. But I think that she thought about her kid. She looked at her kid and said, what type of man is going to raise my child? I was a different person then. That's why it's like the different lives of Joey Diaz, you know. And she left.

But it was so weird that night. I went in the paper and I saw that the broker, the broker was a bar in Boulder. They were four bars. They had four. They had restaurants. The Broker was a bar in Boulder. They were four bars. They had four... They had restaurants. The Broker was a restaurant. But in Boulder, it was more of a pickup bar. On Wednesday nights, they had like a

professionals night. And people went there. But Tuesday nights, they actually did comedy night. It was a steak night. Fifteen bucks. You got a steak, a salad, and you got to see a fucking comedian. And they were

running the Beck's Broker Joker. Beck's has a beer, you know, Beck's Beer. You know, in the 90s, what a lot of people don't understand was there was no Netflix. There was nothing like that. The exposure you got was from doing contests.

There were certain contests you did. Johnny Walker had a contest. There were more national contests. HBO had a contest. Everybody had contests. NBC had a contest. I remember going to an NBC contest, signing up and waiting. I had never been on stage before.

And like two people before me, I just left. I just fucking left. Because some guy in front of me had like a comedy club jacket on. I'm like, these guys are pros. I've never been on stage before. I'm just like up there and bummed.

I still remember going into an audition for Charlie Hill. Charlie Hill was at the University of Boulder and they were looking for local comics to come in and I had to walk into a room with like three students in there and do my fucking stupid jokes.

The three guys looked at me like, what are you, you're the worst comedian we've ever seen in the world. But it was so weird. I went down to the broker and I became part of this contest that started in like September,

but they were having like prelim rounds October, November with the finals being December 8th, 18th, 1991. The winner got 500 bucks. And I just invited my friends from Boulder. And I went to the contest.

And I kept winning every week, the rounds. I kept coming in first place. It was like every other week I had to go down there. And then I could hang out and watch the rounds. I kept coming in first place. It was like every other week I had to go down there. And then I could hang out and watch the comics. I was going to the comedy works at the time and doing three minutes down there.

And I was doing the broker. And that was it. There was not a lot of comedy rooms at the time. But that's where your comedy career was born in Denver. Yes, it started in Denver. And then December 18, 1991, what I was doing was I was selling Valiums at the time. All right, just straight up.

So all these coke guys would tell me, hey, we want to buy Valiums. And I would go, oh, if you want Valiums, you got to come to the broker. I'll be at the broker. Like, what the fuck are you doing at the broker? I go, I'm doing comedy.

And they're like, we didn't even know you did comedy. I'm like, yeah, you know, but how many Valiums do you need? And they're like, 20. I go, you did comedy. I'm like, yeah, but how many volumes do you need? And they're like, 20. I go, all right, meet me at the broker. In those days, what I was doing was stalking the audience with my friends. They didn't know they were going to have to pay and sit. They would get there and go, we're here to see Joey.

And the guy would go, you got to sit down and pay. So I would have like 20 people there. But they weren't there to see me. They were there to buy drugs. I would just tell them, meet me at the fucking broker's that sell you drugs. So I was stalking every time I did a contest. Let's say you call me on Sunday and you wanted Valiums of the Week.

I would hold you off until Tuesday and then make you come to my show so I would have 30 people in there. The night of the contest, there was maybe 118 people in there and I had 90 people in there. I couldn't lose. I couldn't lose even if I wanted to, because they, they,

they based it off of the applause. Okay. So I won, I won the Broken Joker. I won the 500. But the house emcee was a magician that was always drunk. He was the worst magician in the world. So I talked the owner of the general manager of the restaurant to let me host on Tuesday nights to get rid of the magician. I go, look how many people I bring.

Get rid of the magician. There's a fucking comedy room. He was an old magician. You know, he hosted all of the events that they did. Like they did like movie night on Sunday nights. He just came with the place. He came withay night he just came with just an old white he came with the place yeah he was he was an old white guy he was out of it so i actually went up to this guy and asked him i said can i host here look at the amount of people i bring every week

every time i perform i got 90 coke fiends in here fucking drinking drinking 18 cocktails i was selling tickets even before i was known nobody fucking knew who i was i was packing the place because i would tell them come down i'll have your drugs for you down there so they made me the fucking house mc january the first week of january of 1992 i already had a job as a comic. I was getting $50 a show. Yeah. So that's $200 a month. And, bitch, in my world, that's a fucking start.

Yeah. $200 a month plus all you could eat, all you could drink. And that's how I started fucking comedy right there. That's how I got into it. A lot of people don't know that fucking story. I didn't know that. I didn't know that. didn't know that i won the broken joker i don't know why i felt like your early days were seattle no seattle came in 95 so after this is still 90 this is the this is 91 going into 92 okay going into 92. Okay.

92 was fantastic. I was an open mic-er. I had my own night on Tuesday nights at the broker. I was single. I had every credit card imaginable. I had never used a credit card in my life. I didn't believe in them, but now I was single. I could do whatever the fuck I wanted to.

And I was just doing comedy using credit cards. That's it. January 1992. Got a girlfriend. Caused a lot of problems. And that's when the problems started with my ex. Because me and my ex were cool. From November to like January, we were cool. Everything was great. And then she told me she moved in with a guy, with my kid. So I'm like, you told me not to date nobody because we're Catholics.

The divorce is finalized. And here you want to move the guy in with you. In three months? So I started getting, yeah, what the fuck? But this is all planned. This is all planned. So this is what happens when you're a loser and you can't provide as a man.

I wasn't a family guy at all. I wanted to do comedy, but that's the transition into my comedy career. That's how I transitioned. It took me 16 months. I was fucking petrified. I didn't think I was good enough to do it. And I knew that if I failed, that was it.

There was nothing else for me. Was I going to be a puppeteer? What was I going to do with my life? There was nothing else. I had already been a salesman. I worked in. Yeah, I had done everything. This was it. When I got into comedy, I got into comedy knowing that this was it. There was no other options.

I was too old for the army. I was too, you know, I had been, I was a felon. All my possibilities were cut in half. So at that point, i didn't know what i was really involved in i was just getting on stage every week i was reading the judy carter book and in those days they used to be a comedy newspaper that came out of san francisco they just interviewed different comics and it told you about what was going on and i just remember reading that every week i would go and get it from like when i would go to the comedy works or something i'd pick up a copy of it you know i had all those newspapers saved and i would say in the back i had a club thing of all the clubs in the country and the one-nighters and i would fucking

circle all those things and just cry and say one night i'm gonna play the punch line and see in san francisco yeah one you know once i'm gonna be up in seattle you know at the underground i like their logo it was kind of weird that i like seattle comedy underground logo so i kept thinking to myself i'm gonna be in Seattle Comedy Underground logo. So I kept thinking to myself, I'm going to be in fucking Seattle someday, you know? But I had no idea what I was doing. I was just getting on stage at the broker.

And I kept doing that until I got fired. I got fired December of 93. By that time, I had lost everything. You know, I was just... You know, when you become a comic, you don't want a fucking day job. I was hustling.

I was selling neon. I was selling some Valiums. I was dabbing in some coke. But it was just basically to stay alive. You know, pay child support and do fucking comedy. But at that age, you know, I read the book by Lenny Bruce, ladies and gentlemen. Lenny Bruce, you know, and it was just about doing drugs and going out every night.

And that's exactly what I did. I just that's what I wanted to do. It was about getting high, getting on stage. And in those days, there wasn't a lot of comedy in Denver. I was doing poetry readings. What? You had to sneak in as a poet. So I would put on a little hat with an apple on top

and I'd walk into a coffee shop and shit. I wish there was a video of that shit somewhere. Oh, my God. The famous coffee shop was called Penny Lane in Boulder. It was Penny Lane. And I would go to Penny Lane. It was open 24 hours. Coffee shop, couches, you know, books, that type of stuff.

A bunch of intellectuals, you know. And I would go in there for the 8 o'clock poetry reading, and they would throw me out every week. Stop, stop. You can't talk like that in here. I'd be talking about Godzilla and fucking killing Chinese people and shit on stage. And they were like, you can't.

You can't do that. This is poetry. She does. But there was one manager who worked a midnight shift to 8 in the morning. And her boyfriend was in the halfway house with me so she saw me there one night and she's like you know we do a poetry reading at midnight from midnight to about three every morning and i go are you fucking serious

and she goes come night come down you're always welcome so i would have to wait till midnight to do the poetry readings and again they would you know i'd have to follow a guy like that was up there i ran i ran and i ran into the wilderness and then i'd go up there throwing fucking heat talking about hitler and shit. Oh, God. That's the kind of... I'll tell you, the one thing I do miss as a comic right now about live shows

is sitting in the back and watching everybody else go up and do their thing. I miss it. It's one of my favorite things to just sit back in the cut and watch people get up there and rip it up and just their thing you know i miss it these it's one of my favorite things just sit back in the cut and watch people get up there rip it up and just die laughing try new shit all of it man that's great that's so funny you know i was i was yeah i was i was. I was heartbroken over my kid.

I was kind of heartbroken over the divorce. But the fucking comedy just filled the gap. I couldn't explain it to people. 20-something years later, like, it made me get over everything. Like, just the fact that I was doing comedy that i was part of it you know uh and like i said the first year i pretty much stayed out of the comedy works because the boulder opened my the boulder show was the same nights as the comedy works open mic so i was off the radar. There was one kid, there was a kid named Jimmy Abeda. And there was a guy named, I always give this guy props because John Payton, something Payton, Andy Payton. Andy Payton was his name. He really, Andy Payton was a comic with the mind of, of, of, of Gates. He's a mayor of a town now in Colorado, but Andy got sick and tired of not getting booked by clubs.

There was three clubs in Denver at the time and they wouldn't book, you know, a lot of crazy people then. So Andy would book his own seven nights a week, he had a room. And he created a comedy newspaper. And he would sell ads to the to those rooms that he would do the comedy at. It was a brilliant concept. So I learned comedy from hustlers at the time. These guys, Jimmy abate and Andy Payton were just fucking hustlers. They would walk into any bar

and go, what do you do here on Tuesday nights? Nothing. What kind of budget do you have to work with? 150? Fuck it, we'll do a comedy show. I had a line that gets 100. Everybody else gets to go on stage and he takes home 50 bucks

and everybody's happy. So I came from that mentality. There was no comedy clubs. It was McKelvey's, Witch's End, and the Comedy Works. And they weren't giving me no guest sets or nothing. I was just fighting for my fucking life. But I was doing a lot of drugs. I was fucking out every night.

You know, I had a girlfriend after a while. Then she moved away and I was single again. And I just went off the deep end. And then in December that because I pretty much that that that broker I did comedy at. I just took it over. They had a hotel there. I would get free rooms. I would go in there and eat lunch for free every day. You know, I just took it.

They made the best Rice Krispie treats you ever had in your life. And they had them for lunch. That does sound good. On the fucking buffet. So I would go in there every day and eat i was just causing pandemonium in that place and finally one night on a tuesday night in december a manager said something to me and i looked him straight in the face i'm like do me a favor

go fuck yourself and he's like what did you say and it was like before you got into the bar there was a lounge that had a lot of books that you could sit there and get a brandy and just read a book if you want to who the fuck goes to a bar to read a book you know how people are these fucking gentiles so I looked

at him and I pushed him and he fucking knocked over a thing of books and I got fired from my open mic gig. But I gave him 14 good months. It was my first comedy job. So I was making money from day one in fucking comedy. Yeah. I pushed him.

I was barely making ends meet at that time. You know, I was living in my friend's house in a room. I was paying child support. And my attorney fees were just starting to go through the fucking roof. And then I did Christmas. I did New Year's. I totaled my car. I didn't total my car

I fucked up the rim but it was one of those cars where each rim was $1,200 so I actually had to go to the lot I'm not going to say the lot because then people will know I had to go to the lot in the middle of the winter in the dead of January I had to go to the lot

jack up a car, steal the tire off it to replace my fucking rim. You know, I was just living like a nomad then. I remember going home one Saturday night and I bought that new car. I didn't buy a new car. I bought

a slightly used car. Like, you know, after you get divorced, you give away your truck and the family car and you buy a hot rod i bought an acura integra okay beautiful with a tremendous sound system and i financed it through this bank and i had a bank account at this bank you know the whole fucking deal and one night i go home and i'm dead broke I got no dough and I got to do a line of Coke. And I found that, you know, this, any credit card, when you get a credit card, they send you those blank checks.

Yeah. And discover, I had like three discover checks. And that bank had a 24 hour drive through. And I just wrote a check for a thousand bucks to cash. The discover card was closed, for Christ's sake. The Discover card had been taken from me already. I gave the lady a check, and she

cashed it. No. They gave me $1,000 fucking Monday morning. Monday morning, 9-0-1, they called me. And they said, if we don't have our money by 5 o'clock, we're going to press charges on you. I didn't have the fucking money.

I had spent the money on an hour. So I went down to the bank and cut a deal with them to add it on to the car principle. And then I didn't make the car payment for three fucking months. And that was great. When a tow truck is following you and you see them following you, so you've got to hide your car like Rambo with camouflage and fucking trees and shit.

You've got to shake them and shit. When you look back, you think of all this shit, you're like, what the fuck was I thinking? Why would I even stick it out with something that there's no money in? Like there was no money in comedy back then. No, I was just doing comedy. I was just loving it. And I was getting on stage every night. comedy. I was just loving it. And I was getting on stage every night. And I finally had a call my brother, whose wife just recently died about two months ago after I got here. I called him.

I told him what my situation was. I told him I couldn't make rent, that I was losing the war with my wife, with the kid, you know. And he sent me a plane ticket back to jersey he goes come back so i came back whatever that date was for the super bowl i was back in jersey but before i left i went to the valium guy and i fronted like 10 000 valiums i told him i'd be back in an hour i told him i'd be back in an hour when I brought the value back here with me to start my comedy career up here as finance. So that's what we'll leave off. January of 93.

I'm writing it down. Hold on. January 1993 is where we pick up. I love you, brother. Thank you for doing this. Thank you for having me, brother. Always a pleasure to see you. I miss you with all my heart. I miss you, brother. Thank you for doing this. Thank you for having me, brother. Always a pleasure to see you. I miss you with all my heart.

I miss you, too. You know, I'm not mad at Los Angeles. I told my wife that I went to lunch. And I go, I'm not mad. A lot of great things happened to me in L.A. And I got to meet a lot of great people, and you're one of them. Thank you, brother. Thank you.

And I'm happy we continue the saga. We'll keep it going whenever you're available, my friend. So I couldn't really go off. Yeah, we'll wrap it up. Next time we do this, I'll cover the fucking holes in this story. There's more excitement in this story. But I got the FBI upstairs. I love you, brother.

As always. November 25th. November 25th. Ozzy's Boneyard. All right. 12 o'clock Eastern, 9 a.m. Pacific. And then every day after that until the 30th,

the Boneyard plays. Hopefully they'll keep me and they'll let me do one show a week and I can do my heavy metal stuff. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I know it, brother. That's great. Good for you.

Well, I love you. That's what we're trying to do. We'll pick it up soon. Thank you for having me. Of course. Thank you for having me on the honeydew. A shout out to all you Patreon motherfuckers. I love you, brother. Thank you for having me. Of course. Thank you for having me on the honeydew. A shout out to all you Patreon motherfuckers. I love you. And that's it.

Alright, as always, RyanSickler.com. Ryan Sickler on all social media. We'll talk to you all next week. I'm out.