The guest
Joey Diaz: Cuban-American stand-up comedian, actor (The Longest Yard), and podcaster known for wild storytelling. A longtime friend of Joe Rogan and fixture of the old Comedy Store scene.
What this episode covers
Joey arrives fresh off a knee replacement and the two trade notes on recovery, peptides, nootropics, supplements, and the booming world of legal weed and sports gambling. Joey recounts his chaotic late-80s/early-90s years in Boulder, Colorado, dodging drug tests with increasingly insane schemes and shaking down strangers. They reflect on how stand-up comedy gave two self-described societal losers a path to a life they never imagined, and on the karma of helping younger comics. The back half drifts into martial-arts movie nostalgia, UFC fight breakdowns, and a long riff on Cuba's current crisis, mob history, and a potential US-backed takeover.
Recommended on this episode
ProductRecommended
Voltaren Gel
GSK
“it's [ __ ] feels fantastic”
“But it's [ __ ] feels fantastic. You have to rub it though twice a day. Anything that hurts.”— Joey Diaz
ProductRecommended
DMSO
(generic dimethyl sulfoxide)
“it's really good for pain. For pain and injury, take that”
“it's a it's really good for pain. For pain and injury, take that. Keep it. No, I have a bunch of them.”— Joe Rogan
ProductRecommended
Ketone-IQ
Ketone-IQ
“that helps a lot”
“those ketone drinks, like ketone IQ, that helps a lot. Your brain uses ketones for focus.”— Joe Rogan
ProductRecommended
Gorilla Mind
Gorilla Mind (Derek / More Plates More Dates)
“this stuff is the [ __ ]”
“this stuff is the [ __ ] This is my friend Derek's Gorilla Mind. This is a neutropic drink. It's got a bunch of neutropics.”— Joe Rogan
ProductRecommended
Athletic Nicotine
Athletic Nicotine
“I like those. They don't make you jittery”
“That's athletic nicotine. That's threes. I like those. They don't make you jittery.”— Joe Rogan
ProductRecommended
ALP Nicotine Pouches
ALP
“Those are good”
“These are Alps. Those are That's Tucker Carlson's one. Those are good. It's uh six six milligrams.”— Joe Rogan
ProductRecommended
Whoop
Whoop
“I got the whoop. I need it. Makes a difference”
“I got the whoop. I need it. Makes a difference. Six and a half. Don't cut it. I need eight now.”— Joey Diaz
BookRecommended
Havana Nocturne: How the Mob Owned Cuba and Then Lost It to the Revolution
T.J. English
“Excellent book. Excellent”
“How the mob owned how the mob owned Cuba and then lost it to the revolution. Excellent book. Excellent.”— Joe Rogan
Also referenced (named, not recommended)
ProductReferenced
Garmin (watch)
Garmin
“This is a Garmin. It reads my heart rate some. it doesn't read through the tattoos very well.”— Joe Rogan
ProductReferenced
DraftKings
DraftKings
“Everything is on DraftKings. I love DraftKings, but you're coping these kids. DraftKings has so many fun.”— Joey Diaz
ProductReferenced
Bullworker
Bullworker
“I got the bull worker. They sent me a bull worker. it's isometric. I did the deadlifts at the bull worker.”— Joey Diaz
MediaReferenced
Code of Silence
Andrew Davis
“the first like real movie that like got respected. It was a movie that was about like an undercover cop movie.”— Joe Rogan
MediaReferenced
The Godfather
Francis Ford Coppola
“when he tells everybody if my son should hang by a bolt of lightning. Marlon Brando in the hotel scene. That's a beautiful [ __ ] scene.”— Joey Diaz
MediaReferenced
Apocalypse Now
Francis Ford Coppola
“And then Apocalypse Now, he went to a meeting. They gave him all this loot and they told him you got to show up 180.”— Joey Diaz
MediaReferenced
The Longest Yard
Al Ruddy
“he created The Longest Yard. Al Ruddy did the longest yard from scratch. when we shot our longest yard, he was there every Friday.”— Joey Diaz
MediaReferenced
Lost
J.J. Abrams
“It's nuts by the guys who made Lost. One of the dudes that's in Lost is the main star of it.”— Joe Rogan
MediaReferenced
Scarface
Brian De Palma
“I had to watch Scarface though. You had her watch Scarface? Yeah, cuz we watch we do experimentals at the house.”— Joey Diaz
MediaReferenced
Good Guys Wear Black
Chuck Norris
“good men wear black. Chuck Norris had a couple movies where he showed his [ __ ] This was not one of them.”— Joe Rogan
MediaReferenced
The Octagon
Chuck Norris
“Chuck Norris made some good movies early on that were dark. What's the other one? The Octagon.”— Joe Rogan
MediaReferenced
Billy Jack
Tom Laughlin
“I went to see all those [ __ ] movies growing up. Billy Jack. The Indian. I'm going to put this foot on the side of your face.”— Joey Diaz
MediaReferenced
Three the Hard Way
Gordon Parks Jr.
“even with the black exploitation. The movie was called Three the Hard Way. Jim Brown, Jim Kelly.”— Joey Diaz
Big reveals from this episode
- Joey reveals he wiped his whole stand-up act and is starting over from scratch after his hospital stay.
- Joey details his years-long cat-and-mouse war beating drug tests, ending when he poured Drano on his urine sample and blew up the testing machine.
- A Boulder district attorney he randomly befriended, Bill Wise, quietly signed him off probation.
- Joey admits shaking down a shop owner for $200 a week by pretending to be a witness-relocated mafia figure.
- Both admit they never dreamed of wealth or fame and only wanted enough money to survive doing comedy.
- Joe recounts UFC fighter Daniel 'D-Rod' Rodriguez jailed eight months in Mexico over an ounce of weed, becoming a Mexican citizen to get out.
- Joey predicts a US invasion of Cuba within two weeks and Vegas-style casinos returning to the island.
- Joey reveals Frank Mir's father was a Cuban casino dealer who fled to Vegas when Castro shut the casinos down.
Worth remembering
- Human growth hormone was once harvested from cadavers (until 1985) and could transmit Creutzfeldt-Jakob (mad cow) disease.
- Colorado reportedly taxed legal weed around 39% and people happily paid it.
- Joe argues eliminating weight-cutting in MMA would yield roughly 20% better, healthier fighter performances.
- Joe says the brain runs on ketones for focus, explaining the mental clarity people report on carnivore/keto diets.
- Joey now needs a solid eight hours of sleep, tracked via his Whoop, where six and a half no longer cuts it.
- Fruit pectin (Sure-Jell), iodine, vinegar, and Drano are all useless folk remedies for beating a urine drug test.
- Radio-frequency nerve ablation burns pain-signal nerves for 6-12 months of relief, and the nerves later regrow.
- Mushroom expert Paul Stamets reportedly cured a lifelong childhood stutter with a 10-gram psilocybin dose.
- Chuck Norris began in Tang Soo Do before founding his own martial art, inspiring countless people to take up karate.
- Tourists in 1950s mob-run Cuba could fly from the East Coast in roughly 30 minutes for cheap vice and nightlife.
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