Joey Diaz Talks About Shoplifting Back in the Day

That's how I ended up meeting Mikey Bucheti, who is now Artie Langs. Hey, how's Artie doing? Is he doing alright? I checked his, you know, when I went to... Said he was suffering from anxiety. Anxiety, yeah. When I went to New York, I was scheduled to do his podcast that Wednesday and he canceled. So obviously he's still struggling with it. He's not using. He's not using, no. He did a podcast with me at Legion of Skanks place and it was amazing. He was great. It was great to see him sober and so alert, present, so there, so honest and fucking hilarious. He's like as funny as he's ever been. Fucked up nose, laughing about it. Doesn't give a fuck. Talking about what he did. He snorted glass. Snorted glass. His girl broke up these pills with a fucking salt shaker and cracked it and got glass and he snorted glass and his nose was bleeding. And he also got knocked out by a guy who he owed money to. The guy who he owed money to hired some kid to collect and the guy punched him in the nose and smashed his nose in. So he had a double whammy happen. Two things at the same time. Smoking, snorting glass and then that brute, dude, he was so funny. He was so funny and he was so alert. It was great. It was like the RDI I knew years ago but even better. Like I don't think I've ever known R.D. sober. Do you know the circle of, there's a circle. It's a spiraling out of control. You get involved. When you, when you're going through it, you're not seeing it. Yeah. Once you've done it and you have the balls and you look back, they're all hilarious. I went through it. They're all hilarious. Now you just keep getting in trouble. Isn't it funny though that that's a human pattern? It's a funny pattern that so many humans fall into. He got caught with heroin on Route 86. He got caught in his bait in his garage. The cops came down. It's things that would never ever happen under regular circumstances. But the funk of the drug, it just hits you at one time where, remember that everything, listen, nobody drives to an open mic with a Lamborghini. You know, right? You never see nobody pull up to an open mic with a Lamborghini. Nobody does cocaine on everyone the second time because they had a bad time doing it. You do have a really good time at first. Or it seems like you're having a good time. Your body left an opening somewhere. You know, just how your immune system could let in Corona vid. Sometimes your soul just has a weakness somewhere. And that's when the coke or the heroin comes in. I know in his mind right now, he's like, fucking heroin? Really? Right. How crazy was I caught up in this shit? So then he went down this fucking just hole, you know? And that's what rehabs do. They catch you. They slow you up. They try to identify the problem with him. Was it his father? Was it the firing of, you know, the radio guy? No, he had the problems way before that. He had problems when he was on mad TV. So what set him off, you know? That's what the rehab does, you know? That's what sets you the fuck off. And you got to get yourself away from that. I found out what set me off over the years. You know, there was a time that I could sit here for hours with you. Talk, I'm out on bail. And I'm fucking out on bail, kidnapping. Out on bail for second degree kidnapping, a second degree assault, you know? I got the work thrown at me. And I'm fucking going into Sears every day and clipping. Ten Bruce Springsteen double set CDs, one in the USA. They're going for $80, whatever they were going for. $40. I'm getting 22 apiece. I'm taking two a day. I'm walking with the small 220. I got 100 for Coke, 50 for weed, and 50 for lunch. That was it. I still remember, like, doing this for a month. Like, just, like, my addiction had me on this schedule that I wasn't going to work when I'm out on bail. I'm just going to go to Sears Roadblock every day and rob one by the USA. They even had them right by the door. I didn't even have to do much work. I just had to walk in, walk into Sears, make believe I was looking for a hammer, and then on the way out I'd just take four of them, put them in my shirt and walk us. One day, Joe, we're all going to pick up, like, ten of them. Because instead of four, why am I going to take four? It's like the guy says in Narcos, you're going to move a kilo or you might as well move two. You're going to move two? You might as well move five. You're going to move five? You might as well do ten. What's the difference? So instead of taking four boxes, I started taking, like, tens. Like, I would walk out of that jar, like, a CD fucking thing. And one day I'd walk out of there and here we go, hey, you, stop right there. And I'm like, what are you talking about? He's like, come back with those CDs. They're chasing me in Boulder. In the parking lot of Crossroads Mall, here I am getting chased. One security guard in the car and the other guy on foot. I could beat them both up, by the way. Like, I could beat them, fuck both of them. But I just can't have no problems. So what am I doing? I'm whipping CDs at them as I'm running. And the guy's like, hey, stop that. And I finally click them. What made me think I was going to get away? And then I run up. I had them. I had them. And I run up to the top of the road, and I was about to hit 28th Street, Boulder Police was coming right at me. And I had to stop and give them a fake name and fucking, you know, here I am out on fucking bail. Why am I robbing fucking a seat? Why? Were you addicted to it, to the thrill? I was addicted to snorting coke and getting my dick sucked. But you think there was a little bit of addiction to the thrill of stealing, too? Oh, I loved all that shit. Because you loved all that doing that shit later on with, like, lighters and shit. Oh, I love all that shit. If I'm not in trouble for something, listen, I just smoke three joints with you here. Do I look high to you? No, you look fine. Don't do nothing no more. Well, it gets you to a good place. But the reefer lets me know I'm still, nothing has changed about me. Right. I could be an AA right now and be clean and sober. I don't do enough to warrant being fucking unsober. Mm-hmm. This just lets me know I'm okay. It's like a teddy bear. It's like when people suck their thumb. That's all this is for me, reefer now. It doesn't really get me blasted no more. Aaaaah!