Boston Fist Fight Stories | Joe Rogan & Steve Sweeney

In all fairness, what I used to see, and I saw this many times at Nick's, was some poor fuck who had like a couple of TV credits, whose daughter was hot shit, and they would go on and they would headline at Nick's and they would stack the deck and it would be horrendous. It was you and Lenny and fucking Knox and all these savages would go up and Boston-style comedy where there's no breaks, it's just fucking bang bang bang bang bang. There's a style of comedy like, hey I know you worked all day, you don't want to hear anybody bullshitting up here, everybody talks fast and they're fucking funny and Gavin would go up and murder and then these poor bastards would go up after them and just these people with their TV credits, you would see them just be, within five minutes they'd be lost. They'd be very observational. Have you ever gone to an airport and noticed? They just didn't expect that. They would see three world-class headliners do 15 minutes in front of them. I'll tell you a funny story about Nick's. Sam Kennison, right, he had been up for a few days obviously, but anyway, you know what I mean? You know the era. So I said, and Sam was a good friend of mine, he was a nice guy when he was straight. He had a dark side, like we all do. But I said, Sam, this isn't LA. These guys, Joey the Job and Billy the Frog and Falcon, you know what I mean? They're sitting up front and you know how Sam was and I said, Sam, I'm telling you, these are the wrong guys to piss off. They had to fire him because those guys... They'll kill you. They don't have any sense of humor. No. Well, not only that, they don't want to be fucked with. Boston is some of the weirdest people in terms of the way the rest of the world works. They're ready to fight. There's a lot of people that are ready to fight. They're ready to fight you. They're not going to shoot you or stab you. They're going to beat the fuck out of you. They're going to do it right then and there and it'll happen anywhere. It'll happen at a restaurant, it'll happen at a bar. It's one of the last places when we used to tour there. Things are ready to break out. Well, you would see real fist fights. Like all the time, Ari Shafir used to say that. Me and him, we were leaving Faneuil Hall once and there was a fucking brawl breaking out in front of this McDonald's and he's like, you fucking people are savages here. I'm like, I'm telling you, it's a different kind of human. It's cold for too much. The women are assholes. Oh, yeah. The men are assholes. Everybody's ready to fight and everyone's drunk. It's a different kind of place. Well, you know, I grew up in Charleston, right? They did a movie about the town and all that bullshit. It's a bullshit movie. But anyway, I grew up over there and you didn't have to win, but you had a fight. And my record was probably like two wins and 30 losses. And then two, you know, there was a lot of draws because they break it up right away, you know, but there were actual fist fights. Yeah. No. One time I'm in the projects, this kid, Davey Latta, he did the one thing you're not supposed to do. He was like, oh, I'm going to be in the balls. And then everybody jumped and beat the shit out of him. The one thing about kicking people in the balls too, don't ever miss. Yeah. Because then the other guy gets very mad. It doesn't work as good as people think it does. Oh, really? It hurts. Now, were you in street fights? I started fighting to avoid street fights. I know exactly what you mean. I was scared of street fights. I wanted to fight like as an amateur, like in martial arts tournaments because I was scared of street fights. Wow. It seemed to me, it seemed to me to... They are frightening. It's fucking terrifying. You never know what's going to happen. People follow you around. You never know when it's going to... I was scared of fighting. That's why I got into it. I just, I did not like that feeling. Do you remember that day when you're in grammar school, the kid offers you out at 830 in the morning? Are you going to think about it all day? You're going to think about it all day? 830 in the morning till 3 in the afternoon. What's that running down your pants? Did you just shit yourself? Yeah. You were in the school yard and they were all circling around you, you know, and it's this whole thing. But my father used to train fighters, boxers over at the new garden gym. And me and my brother, we would get into terrible fights and my father never taught us how to throw a shot or anything. He'd just give us these big enormous freaking gloves. They'd just let you go to war on each other? Yeah, it was weird. Why didn't he teach you? Probably tired from teaching people all day. Yeah, maybe. Or maybe he wanted us to beat the shit out of each other. You know, I don't know. That's a good question. Maybe you want to just figure it out on your own. Yeah. Well, you know, I remember coming back and this kid, he beat the shit out of me, Bobby Buckley. And my father said, what are you doing at home? You got to go back out there. What? You got to go back out and fight him again? Fucking all right. Yeah. But, you know, there's a lot of different ways to be like in Charlestown growing up. I mean, I grew up with some guys that were like unbelievable. Like, you know, there's a whole moral thing maybe or a social thing about, say, robbing a bank. I mean, would that ever freaking cross your mind? No, but that's a Charlestown thing. That's one thing that is true about that movie, The Town. But what I was in awe of, people that would do it, it's like, where do you get the balls to, you know? And I'll never forget this friend of mine, Joey Rocco, who's no longer with us. So I see him up at government center. You remember government center? Yeah. So I see him up there and he's got like his lunch and I said, Joe, how are you doing? And he's kind of blew me off. Then I see him a week later. He says, hey, Swaines, what's up? I said, what's up? You blew me off a week ago. He said, oh, I'm so sorry. I was waiting to rob Crimson Travel and I had my gun there. I was interrupting his work. So he came into next comedy stop. There's 400 people. I did fantastic. I was like practically a standing ovation, whatever. So Joe's in the audience, right? And so I talked to him afterwards. So there's a number of things he could say, like, geez, I liked his show. I didn't like your show. Good for you getting out of Charlestown. He gave me this look. I was like, wow, there's got to be a lot of money in here. I said, you think I'm here to case the joint for you? It was unbelievable. We used to, part of the thing about Charlestown growing up was you had a shoplift. Did you do that when you were a kid? I got caught shoplifting candy once. Candy, yeah, you were bad. You probably were terrified, right, of getting caught? Terrified. I got brought into a manager's office. I think I was 12. Oh, yeah. I got in trouble. I was terrible too. I was so paranoid. But anyway, there was a department store called Jordan Marsh. And my job was to catch the football. They'd throw me the football. I'd catch it and run down Tremont Street. So we just, you know, stolen a football, right? So that was the gig. So one time I'm up there and this other kid says to me, pick up the end of this canoe. I said, what? He said, grab the end of the canoe. I'm selling a fucking canoe. So we're walking down Washington Street in Boston with a canoe, right? Now, I don't know where you're from, but it's not a big item in Charlestown canoes and the projects, you know what I mean? It's like not something you couldn't fence it. Did you take it to the Charles River? I don't know what we did with it. You do try to, you end up either giving it away or selling it for like three bucks. But that was back then, the river was very, very dirty. I used to swim in that. That was the, what we used to call the oilies because there was so much oil in it. Yeah. It's better now though, right? Didn't they clean it up a little bit? That's what they say. You know, they cleaned up the whole of Boston. I don't recognize Boston anymore. They got this part of Boston called the seaport. It's all these big buildings. It's like fricking Dubai, you know, there's no kids, there's no neighborhoods, there's no characters. It's all just gentrified. Very rich people now, right? Yeah, apparently. Yeah. What is it, like bankers? Who's got all that money? That's what I keep asking myself. Who does have all this money? Yeah, Boston is definitely more. But LA's the same way.