A Quote by Joey Diaz
I was just coming out of prison, I was married, and I had a kid, and I didn't know what to do, so I tried stand-up.
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I was not one of those people who wanted to be a comedian when I was growing up. I liked comedy, but didn't know it was something you could do for a living. I actually wanted to be an attorney. I did do things on the side like improv and sketch comedy, but law was my focus. I was a very bookish, academic kid. When I got out of college, I was really unhappy. I had a great job that I should have loved, yet I was miserable. I slowly realized that was because I wasn't performing. So I just tried stand-up and fell in love with it after one performance.
Growing up, I was the weird, theatrical kid who always tried to make people be in my plays. I've always loved comedy, but when it came time to figure out what I was going to go to school for, my parents were like, "Acting?! I don't think so. No." It took me a while to get the courage to pursue it. I had to do it in secret for a little bit, and then when I got married and was out on my own, I went for it.
I was always seen as defiant. And I did know that as a kid. It just wasn't something that was stamped out of me. I often had problems in school where I would stand up to teachers or I would believe that something they were saying was wrong.
People fall out of love, or get married for the wrong reasons. People change. The older generation - they got married and had a kid when they were 20. How do you know who you are when you're 20?
Coming from the Midwest, I didn't know about stand-up as an art. I just thought stand-up comedians were old men in suits talking about their wives.
I had one kid with the birth control pill, I had one with the diaphram and I had one with the I.U.D. I don't even know what happened with my I.U.D. It never came out. But I have my suspicions because that kid picks up HBO.
I did try and do some spooky stand up once, and some of my stand-up had - I tried to do some horror stand-up, but it didn't really work very well.
I mean, I didn't know that my dad was married before he met my mum. He was married for a year and he had a son. Even when I was grown up, that secret was still not let out.
My dad is from Queens. I remember visiting as a kid. My grandparents grew up here. All the actors I respected were coming out of here. All the hip-hop I was listening to - Beastie Boys, A Tribe Called Quest, Biggie, Wu Tang - was coming out of New York. I'm just into it.
So often, we blame other people when, really, the problem is right down in here. I'm not happy. I don't know what's wrong. If I just had another job, I could be happy. If I just get married, I would be happy. Well if I just wasn't married, I would be happy. Well, if I just had some kids, I'll be happy. I'll be happy when these kids finally grow up and get out of here. If I had a bigger house, I would be happy. Well, I got a big house. Now if I just had a maid to clean, I'd be happy. Well, now if I just had a maid I could get along with better, I'd be happy.
Michael and I both know that had we tried to have a child and get married in the previous time we were together, it probably would not have ended pretty. We both had a lot of growing up to do.
When I was in prison, rap was all I had at that point because I was kicked out of school, all that education just gone and I couldn't come out of prison to play football - that was all over with.
I think it's kind of awkward when everyone knows you're gay but you don't say it. I had been thinking about coming out for almost a year before I did. I thought about it seriously on the plane ride home from the World Cup, while I was casually talking to my friend Lori Lindsey. She said, "Dude, you should just come out." She was right. Everyone in my life already knew. If you want to stand up and fight for equal rights but then won't even stand up for yourself and say "I'm gay" - that just started to feel weird.
This is the woman who stopped the Stanford Prison Study. When I said it got out of control, I was the prison superintendent. I didn't know it was out of control. I was totally indifferent. She came down, saw that madhouse and said, "You know what, it's terrible what you're doing to those boys. They're not prisoners, they're not guards, they're boys, and you are responsible." And I ended the study the next day. The good news is I married her the next year.
Absolutely, I'm living my dream. Yeah. My wife always jokes, says I'm a big kid, you know, playing in the studio and coming up with melodies and sounds. And, you know, I wouldn't know any other way because I just have music in my head all the time, and I just love it.
[But] they can't kill music. God knows, they've tried. But music always wins. As long as there's kids coming up that have a passion. All the bean counters in the world can't kill that. You know? You just can't. They can try, of course, to feed you the most puerile, benign horse manure, but some kid's going to come along and demand something more than that.
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