Joey Vega – For over 20 years this Nuyorican comedian, writer, actor, TV host and loyal Ross shopper, has been keeping his promise to Marc Anthony to open all his shows! It all started back in 1989 when Marc was starting out and asked Joey if he could be his opening act on his comedy circuit. After hearing “el flaco’s” talent he then offered to be HIS opening act when he made it big and here we are: 21 years on tour with Marc Anthony! Que jodienda! Careful what you promise. But before all that he was also a staff writer on the George Lopez Show, as well as Chris Rock's comedy writer. As a matter of fact, most of today's well known comics, including Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Burr, and Adam Sandler opened up for him on the stand-up circuit! As an actor, he also shared the screen with Hollywood greats like Sally Field and Tom Hanks, Not bad for a Puerto Rican guy from New York who got his start when racist bouncers didn't let him and his friends enter a club. Let this be a lesson why turning away Latinos at the door is not smart for business. (And the only way to bounce back from two costly divorces, is to laugh- a lot!)
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
For over twenty years, UH This New Yorkan comedian, writer, actor,
uh TV host and loyal Ross shopper has been keeping
his promise to SILS singer Mark Anthony to open all
of his shows. So they started back in. When Mark
was starting out his career, he asked my guest if
he could be his opening act on his comedy circuit.
(00:23):
After hearing it Flacco's talent, he then offered his offer
to be his opening act when he made it big.
And here we are twenty one years on tour with
Mark Anthony. Get holy and be careful what you asked for.
This is all My name is with awesome Joey Vega.
(00:43):
Hold On, my name is hold On, my name is
my name? My name is? My name is? My name is?
My name is hold my name is Joey Vega. Joey
and doing Mark Anthony and pet Buena dress from Ross.
(01:08):
So you dressed from all your jokes. Have to do
it Ross Latino the Latino. I love that line. How
are you brother? Good to see you? I'm good. I'm good.
It's good to see you again. I see you during
the concerts. Yes, I remember you from years ago. We
met in Miami A long time ago. I went, I
did your show, Yes, and we met at the gay bar.
We had a couple of drinks. We had a couple
of drinks and will come that out. Don't tell Joey's wife,
(01:31):
don't tell. I'm kidding. I don't remember much after that
because I think you you roofied me. No, don't pull
the bok Bill Cosby thing on me. No, No, honestly,
you know. So, Yes, we we go. We we go
way back. We see each other at all the events
and at all the concerts and on tour with Mark Anthony.
And I've had the great privilege such as yourself, to
tour so many different parts of the world with with
(01:53):
Mark Anthony and seeing his awesome uh talent on stage
and seeing him bringing together in the culture to get
either through our our great music, his great music. But
every single Mark Anthony show opens up with with so much.
It's so much fun people really look forward to. And
if you've never been to a Mark Anthony show number one,
you don't know what you're missing. You Yes, you gotta go.
(02:13):
And one of the things you're missing is the awesome
Joey Vega. And I'm not bullshitting You're funny, You're spontaneous,
you're real, and people really um connect with what with
the things you have to say. And I think it
was well overdue for us to sit down and have
this chat to know more about you. Definitely had you
get started. I got started on a dare back in
I'm not even gonna say, uh and uh. I was
(02:37):
going to go dancing and I was with my friend
and his brother and we couldn't get into a club.
It was a white club and it was on a
Wednesday night, and they wouldn't let us in because you
were Latino, or because you were under twenty one. I
think because we were Latino. Okay, no, I was. I
was twenties six or so. And uh. And my friend's
friends said, let's go to the improv on Street And
(02:58):
I got, what's what's the improv? I didn't know. He goes, oh,
it's a comedy club. Comedy club. He goes, yeah, they
got stand up comedian. Go all right, let's go because
I always like comedy. My father used to watch stand
up comedians on the Larns Walk Show. We grew up
watching stand up comedia. So we went there and we
watched the show. Joe Piscopal was on, Eddie Murphy was
on Paul Riser, Jerry Seinfeld, and my friend turned over
(03:23):
to me and said, you could do that, but no,
no way. I don't know what he you could do that,
but you're always fast and on your feet, and I
was always I'm very shy. I mean I was always
very shy. You still consider yourself shy today? I still do.
I still do. That's why I told the camera people,
the crew to leave. There's nobody here. It's just but no.
(03:45):
And so I never thought I would do it, never
in a million years. And they said, no, we did.
You were did to do it. So I went to
the improv. I picked the number. Back then you had
to pick a number and with whatever number that was,
you'd be you audition. It would be audition night. They'd
have twenty five numbers. I picked the last number. I
(04:07):
chickened out. I checked out. I first of all, I
changed my name. My name was Sergio Gautier. It's just
you picked like a French name because my mother's name
is Gutier, Sergio Gutier. And I chickened out and I
can't do this. So then following month I did it again.
They go Oh you could do it. You could do it.
(04:28):
We dare you to do it. All right, I'm gonna
do it. So I picked up again. So I was
the last one. So it was like two thirty in
the morning. By the time I went up to do
my five minutes, it was like maybe four people in
the audience and the owner of the club, and she
came up to me. She said, I want you to
come back, and I want you to hang out and
(04:49):
do late night, which means after the schedule is over,
we picked the newcomers to go on, and uh, everybody
at the club was like, oh, this guy's the second
coming of Ready Prince, because no one ever passed on
the first try, and I did, luckily, Otherwise I wouldn't
be sitting here and talking about comedy. How much should
you prepare for that material? Actually prepared? I I and
(05:13):
and my jokes are so bad, so so bad. It
was about everything was Puerto Rican. This is Puerto Rican.
That Puerto Rican Airlines. I know was puert Rican Allies
because I saw the pilot holding jump of cables in
his hand. It was They were horrible, but it's pretty funny.
Made me laugh. And the wings had hair under the
(05:34):
it was horrible and uh, that's a French airline, Yeah,
French alline actually uh. But she maybe thought that the
owner of the club Silver was her name. She probably thought, oh,
this is the second you know, Freddie Prince. Because there
were no Latino comedians. There was only one other guy,
Al Romero, who, by the ways, from Miami, lives in Miami.
Uh and and myself everybody good comes from Miami. Okay,
(05:57):
that's another podcast. But that's how I got started, kind
of by mistake, kind of yea. And I hear this
alt from comedians. That's when I say I didn't didn't
do racism is good sometimes because if the guy wouldn't
have been racist, I wouldn't. I wouldn't have done comedy.
I would have gone dancing that that that that you
know actually was it wasn't a Latin night. That's probably
(06:18):
why I didn't let us in. But it's like that
saying goes right, I don't I don't like cliches, but
everything happens for a reason, right, guy does or And
you've got to know how to turn a negative into
a positive. Right and you and you and you did
this that and you seize the moment and my friends,
because if they wouldn't have said you can do it,
you could do it, I wouldn't have done it right.
So kind of like you got you bumped in the comedy,
(06:38):
kind of by mistake, inspired by your friends. So what's
your first big gig? So after the lady says come
back to you, or she tells you to come back
the owner of the club, what happens after that? Well,
what happens was I go on after this very high
energy guy and he's all over the place and I
come on and go so uh, you know, was talking
(07:00):
like that, just very very mellower, and I died. I
mean I didn't get one laugh. And then she didn't
put me back on for about two months about too much.
She would go back and go uh, and I'd be
the only one there and she go all right to
close the show, and I'm sitting there. Yes, she would
(07:22):
look over my head and go, okay, you know what
closed the show. I'd be sitting there like what the
hell was going on? So I went to another comedy club,
the Comic Strip, and I started getting on there. I
started getting on there more frequently, and then what happened
was I had a van back then the eighties, vans
were in and uh us, Jerry Seinfeld and Paul Riser
(07:45):
and all these guys were doing gigs in Jersey and
they needed somebody to drive them. So they would always
go to the book and they'd asked the book of
can you can you get Joey Joey? Joey's very funny,
He's very funny. But I had a van, so I
would drive them and used to drive Jerry Signfel around
(08:05):
and Keenan and Ivory Waynes and Damon Waynes dw different gigs, right,
two different gigs, and then I would e't see the show,
and then little by little then I would be the
the featured act, the opening act, and then I would
be the featured act, and then eventually I became the
headliner of the comedy clubs. So I started headlining the
(08:26):
comedy clubs. How do you then get into acting? Uh?
There was a movie, well, actually it was Mark Mark.
Mark said to me, I'm doing this movie, An East
Side Story, and uh, you should be in it. I'm going, well,
that's great, I should be in it. Yeah, I should.
(08:46):
I should be on Carson too, I should be He goes, No,
what I'm gonna talk to the guy. I'm gonna talk
to the guy. I want you to be in it.
So he wanted me to be the the m C
of the Big Showdown in the movie, and Ralph Micado
did that okay, and so they said, well, he would
be the DJ. So I played the DJ. I had
like one scene. That was it. So that was the
first movie I ever did. Uh. Then I did Punchline
(09:10):
in Night nine I believe it was. I did Punchline
um with Tom Hanks and Sadly Field and that was
great because Tom Hanks was following me around to the
clubs to watch me perform because he played a stand
up comedian, so we became very friendly. But he was
studying you for his role. He was studying me and
other comedians also. But I remember one day going into
(09:33):
the comic strip and they were all excited. Oh, Tom
Hanks just came in and he was asking for you.
I go, yeah, he's always bothering me. Yeah, like no,
I'm glad, That's why I came late. But he's one
of the nicest guys in the world, very nice still
to this day. If he sees me, he'll come up
(09:54):
to me and go, hey, remember we shot that because
we worked for like three weeks together. Now before let's
rewind a little bit when you had you actually had
a TV show, Yes, and that's where Mark was a
guest on your show. Yes, and you guys kind of
made he made a promise to you. Let's talk about that.
So I had this show called The Latin Connection, and
(10:15):
it was great show. It was all about Latino entertainers.
But in there weren't that many Latino entertainers that were
crossing over. There was, you know, no Jennifer Lopez, there
was no Enriqueglesias, you know. So so I had this
show and after the third episode, we ran out of
people's tame to We ran out of baseball player. We well,
(10:37):
we had playing baseball, but it wasn't about baseball. It
was more about music. So, uh, I believe Mark came
in with Sapphire. He had helped to write a song boy,
I've been told with Sapphire and he was there and uh,
they said, well let's interview him too, let's do it.
So we did a quick interview and uh and then
(10:58):
he says, hey, let's he found out I was comedian.
You know, Mark, he loves to laugh. He looks very funny.
He tries to fix my jokes, like, look, I don't
tell you how to hit the notes, don't tell me
how to fix my joke. But yeah, he said, let's
let's go out to eat. So we went out to
eat some place in the on sixteen hundred sixteen, and
(11:18):
we just started talking, talking, and I said, yeah, I'm
gonna be working at the comic strip next week. And goes, oh,
I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go out, all right, friend.
So he would go, like every time I was there,
he would go. He would show up and you go
take my beeper number take. He had a beeper, beepersper.
Can you tell everybody they don't know what a beeper is?
They understand what it is. The beeper is what doctors
used to carry when they needed to be doctors and
(11:39):
drug dealers. Yes, and drum and obviously well it caught
up with the racist but yeah, so you would point in,
put that number, you put your number in, and then
people would call you back from a payphone. That's something
where you put a quarter in people quarters. She put
a quarter in there, and it was a pay phone
and your dalsa and you put that was the rotary thing. Yeah,
(12:01):
you can beat somebody with the rotary phone. Uh, could you?
I don't know, No, no you can, you can't. Yeah,
I don't know. This is like for this is for
a uh, I don't know. We didn't for a different podcast. Yes,
for sure. So Mark starts going to your shows. So
Mark starts going to the shows, and Uh, I'm sitting
there and he said, like, here's that guy again. You know,
I see him coming and go, here's that guy Mark
(12:22):
a year years again. And afterwards we were sitting in
the back and we talk and you know, he did
always say the same thing. You go, I'm gonna be
a singer. He hadn't started singing yet. This was pre uh,
pre his uh career and house music or freestyle uh.
And he said, I'm gonna be a singer. When I
becomes a singer, I'm gonna be opening act. All right.
(12:43):
I go, yeah, yeah, I'm gonna be a singer. Every
single time. I'm gonna be a singer. When I become
a singer, I'm gonna be opening act. I said, yeah, yeaheah.
And I said one day I said to him, and
I'm so glad I said this. I said, when you
become a singer and you become a famous singer, I'll
be your opening act. How about that? And he looked
at me and he went bet just like that, and
here you are. Wow. What a cool story that shows
(13:08):
the integrity that he has and the loyalty. Hold On,
my name is my name, my name is my Name's
my name is hold On, my name is my name,
my name is my name. What was the first show,
the first show opening up for Mark Anthony like, and
how has that changed? How is that involved? The first
(13:31):
show was at the ballroom, uh Amerstein Ballo and everybody
was standing up. There was no seats. It was about
a thousand people. And I came on. Somebody came on
and introduced me and they got booed and I said, oh,
this is not gonna go right. So I go on
(13:52):
and I lasted five minutes because I started telling jokes
and people like boom, boom, we want more, we want Mark.
And I glanced over and there's Mark behind the curtain
and he's laughing. He is laughing and having the best
top of his life. He's just laughing and I go
like this and all right, thank you very much. Mark's
(14:13):
coming out soon poop and I and I woke off
and as I walk off, I'm feeling bad. You don't
feel like oh man, And he's just like they hated you,
they hated you know. He went on had a great
show after that. That same night, we went to the
Comic Strip because I had a late spot, and we
went to the Comic Strip and uh, I did the show,
(14:33):
and then we hung out to like five o'clock in
the morning. The place was closed, and they kept it
open for us and we just drank and you know,
you know, Mark likes to drink a little bit, not
a lot, but we drank and we got yeah we
oh yeah, that's all he At that time it was Heneken.
He was drinking and tipping big. I was like, this
guy's making a lot of money. But but it was fun,
(14:55):
I mean, and and ever since then that was like,
you know, so, so twenty one years touring with Mark,
so many comedy shows you haven't bombed. Maybe you bombed
one or one or two at the beginning, never at
least that first one. I can tell you big a
good story bombing. We went to Puerto Rico after the
worst in the first one, it's worse than the first
(15:16):
time that you are the second comedy club time. Okay,
So we do the first long tour theaters and we're
everywhere Canada, everywhere with Marks, with Mark touring. I'm getting,
I'm getting married me, Joey, I'm getting. I mean, I'm
killing it. Every single city. I'm killing I'm doing fifty
minutes and we get to Puerto Rico. I'm like, this
(15:40):
is great. My parents are living in Puerto Rico. I
get them a car. Don't tell me you bombed. No,
I didn't just bomb. I stuck up the whole island
of Combean. So I go up there. I get my
parents a limo. They come up. We're at the Roberto
Clementis Stadium, which was just opening up the road. Some
of the roads weren't complete completed. So we get there
(16:02):
and it's a state, thirty thousand people. I sit there.
Oh my god, I go, I gotta be on the
big screens right. They go, no, you can't that Budweiser
owns that and they don't want anybody except their name
up there. I went, I gotta, I gotta be on
the screen. It's thirty thousand people. I said, you see
that guy over there. You can't see him, right, Well,
he can't see me either, right, No, So we had
(16:23):
two other opening acts. How was the third opening act?
And then Mark? So my parents are right in front,
front row seats, no pressure, no pressure. First act goes up,
one song gets booed, he gets off. Second act three
beautiful women they're dancing. They're beautiful. You know, Puerto Rico
(16:44):
they love their women. There are two songs they get booed.
I'm like, oh jeez. Then somebody goes, we gotta take
it into mission, and then you'll go on, I want you.
You're killing me, You're killing me. So they take it
fifteen minutes to the mission. People are going crazy. Otherwise
it's giving out free beer to Puerto Ricans in Puerto Rico.
(17:06):
People are going crazy. Right, all of a sudden, helicopter
goes on right over the stadium. Everybody knows it was
It was leaked that Mark was gonna land behind the
stadium in a helicopter, in a helicopter. So they go,
ladies and gentlemen, welcome Joey Vega boo bah. It was horrible,
(17:30):
It was horrible. They started doing the wave by where
by fwhere my parents are right up there sitting there,
so I'm trying. No. No, they went like this, we're
not his parents, boo, Joey's parents. No, no, no, I
don't know what happened was. I go up there and
(17:51):
I started, I try, and I try nothing, nothing, nothing,
boo boo boo. So finally go okay. So I go
to my parents and I go, I might never win
an Oscar or never, but I'm gonna give you my
asked his speech, thank you so much for being the
greatest parents in the world, blah blah, and I'm going,
you know, and the people are quiet, and then I
go and you people, you can go, you know. And
(18:12):
I dropped the mic and I leave. Well that wasn't
the end of it, because when I got back to
the stage, the radio stations like, Joey, what happened? Can
you come on? I go, yeah, I come on, I
don't care, you know. So I came on. I told
my story, and then like months later, I got canceled
from some gigs because they were afraid to have my
name associated with them because of what happened. So, uh,
(18:35):
two months later, my brother says, hey, I just saw
the Spanish people you're in it, Like what do you mean?
I mean it? He says, you're in it. And so
all my our parents, the Spanish people magazine like people
they had so they had a little picture of my parents,
an insert of my mother like this and my father
like this, and then me on stage. So I took
(18:57):
it and it had how damn Mark Anthony bring this
guy here new Eurekan and oh, they were telling me.
So I took and I framed it and I still
have it on my wall. It's it's interesting you mentioned
that because that still goes on today. You were new Yorrecans,
so you didn't belong there? Is that kind of like
they Justine was about, Yeah, I didn't enough to be there.
(19:20):
Plus I I insulted them by saying, you know, because
I made a little speech like you know, I've traveled
with Mark all over Canada, the United States, and everyone
you know, accepted me. Everyone had a great time, and
this is where I wanted to perform because this is
where my parents are from, my roots are here, and
you guys wouldn't let me. So, so that I think
(19:42):
really got them, and they really I mean I went
from Mark's wedding to Dianada was like three months later.
I was gonna say, which one. There's been a lot. Well,
when I went back three months later at the airport,
people go at it's that it isn't super serious. Polo
(20:02):
Puerto Rico. I say, I had to like basically run
to my hotel to get perto Rico for a couple
of months until they got over that. Why that was
the worst bomb ever? Why do Latinos do that? You think?
And it happens a lot with uh, with with all Latinos,
but specifically I've seen it a lot with with Caribbeans,
with Cubans, with with Puerto Ricans. If you're from there,
(20:22):
if you're from here, you know, Patrico, A lot of
Puerto Ricans from the island don't consider if you're you're
you know, if you're born in New York, in New York,
but you're proud of your heritage, Puerto Rican heritage, and
you even try to speak Spanish, No, you're not good enough. Yeah,
they they kind of ridicule you in a way. But
(20:44):
you know, Puerto Ricans are always very demeaning in a
funny sense. I mean, you know, you know, like they
put you down in a funny way, but a lot
of the times it's translated into you know, you're saying
the truth in jest, but you really don't like me,
and you know you don't want me to speak Spanish,
but I'm trying. I'm trying my best, and thankfully I
(21:05):
speak pretty good Spanish, considering I was born and raised
in New York. But I see that a lot. It's
changing only because there's so many uh, New Ureacans that
have moved back to the island. Although now they've all
moved back to the States, but at one point they
were all moving back, a lot of them, so it
changed for a while, but it's still there's still that
(21:27):
slight divide. Got a lot of work to do there.
It's not I always say, it's not about language, it's
about culture, and we should applaud uh you know, second
third generation Latinos that embraced their culture and even if
the language is not spoken perfectly, that's okay. And he's
I'm being it's okay, Noike, you don't have to ridicule them.
(21:49):
What we should be doing is applauding them and getting
them to to feel proud of what they're speaking. It's
it's your culture got But here's the thing is that
if if an Americans speak Spanish with the accident miss
his words, it's okay. There you go, it's okay. But
with our people do it, it's not okay. Instead of saying, god,
I'm but he's proud. This person is proud of their culture.
Let's applaud that. We've got a lot of work to
(22:11):
do there. How difficult is it doing comedy in this
day and age? Is there anything that's off limits? It's
everything is off limits. You could say hello and you
offend it someone. It's horrible. How complicated is it's? Right? Uh,
it's very common, you know for me, it's not because
you know I've been I'm forty one years into it.
I think it was gonna tell your forty one years old,
(22:32):
so you're fully ship. I'm only fifty and I started
at You're like shopping at Ross right now for your
age from that point though, I'm sorry. Yeah, No, it's
difficult because of the climate. Because now even recently, at
one of the market concerts, I am doing my show
(22:54):
blah blah blah, and the trombone play Azzy comes over
and goes, hey, this girl really liked you. She wants
to say hi. So I walk over and she goes,
you're a misogynist, you're this, you're that? What who that's
got out? But I'm like, what did I do? You're
fat shaming. I was fat shaming because I said, and
this is I say it in most of my shows.
(23:15):
I love gold Dias. Where are you Gordas? I love you?
So I'm shouting out Gorditas. I'm the only one that's
giving them props, right, But she was and she wasn't
she felt offended. She wasn't. She wasn't going. She was
sticking up for She was sticking up for the one
the best right. But that's what's happening in society is
that everybody sticks off with somebody else. Now you know,
I had somebody I did an Indian casino. Did you
(23:37):
say Indian? Yeah, I did an Indian casino and people said,
why that's indigenous people, blah blah. I said, okay, So
I asked the people at the casino that are indigenous people, right,
and they said, we're fine with Indian. We didn't change it.
The white man changed. So it's always somebody else getting offended.
(23:58):
For funny we went recently, we were doing a Thanksgiving
party and I wanted to call it the Babo Pool
Party Turkey Pool party, and they said no because we
was taking a place in a casino and there was
a tribe involved and they wanted they didn't want that.
And it turned out that wasn't the tribe at all,
because afterwards they had like the Thanksgiving Eve party at
(24:20):
that later that same night. So sometimes people, you know that,
I know it. They want to stick up for other people,
but they're doing more harm than good exactly. You know,
if you genuinely are offended about something, I think you
should speak up and say hey, I feel this way
and trying to figure out where that person is coming from.
Not everybody has intentions to piss you offered. Well, the
thing is that she said I was a misogynist and
I hated women and I was fat shaming. And I said, well,
(24:42):
do you listen to the pit Bull? Do you listen
to do you listen to rap? You danced to all
of that, right? She does, said, you danced to all
of that? Right? But have you heard the words that
they're saying, how they're demeaning women in those songs? Some
some of them, you know? And she just kept quiet.
She was like and her friends around them they were
like this, you know, like I said, I'm gonna put
(25:04):
rhythmic sounds to my comedy. So this is why I
won't offend anybody this way. You could just dance what
I'm saying. Hold On, my name is my name? Hold
On my name is? My name is? My name is?
Hold On my name is my name? Hold On my
name is Joey. You've written for George Lopez, for Chris Rock.
(25:28):
How difficult is it when you come up with a
good punch line, a good joke, ah to you know,
to give it up a good give up a good joke,
or decide, hey, I want to keep that for myself.
It's it's not easy. The only thing that makes you
give it up it's at paycheck. That's it. When I
was writing for George Lopez, I was on staff for
(25:49):
his TV show, and uh, I would just write. I
would write fifty jokes a day. I mean, it's not easy.
I didn't think I could do it, and the head
writers said, you could do it. You've been writing for
Chris Rock for years. So I would sit in my
computer and look at everything that's going on in the
Internet and just write jokes. And sometimes you get a
joke and you're like, oh, this joke I like, you know,
(26:11):
it's like a little baby because you you created out
of thin air. You know, you think about it, it's
just it was. It didn't exist, all of a sudden exists.
It makes hundreds of people laugh. So but at the
end of the day, you have a job to do.
Your job is to try to get as many good
jokes forward as possible. So and if you want to
keep your job, and you know, when you're in the
(26:31):
writer's gild, it's it's it's it's a good salary. You
gotta keep relevant to Yeah, oh yeah, definitely. So between
writing stand up acting, what do you enjoy about the
most stand up? Stand up without a doubt, is a
therapy for you. What do you feel when you're up there? Oh? Man,
I can't even describe it because I've gone up there
(26:52):
with a hundred and three fever and the adrenaline takes
over and you don't feel a thing. That's great. So
you've gone up and done stand up comedy and spread COVID. Yes,
I am, I am. I'm responsible for all of the
New York COVID that happened last year. I did it
and some of New Jersey. Okay, they got to change
(27:13):
that ugly red ball and put your face the thing. No,
it's just me. Now I've done it. I've done it
with I did it after my parents passed away. A
couple of weeks after I did it when my brother
passed away. And that's really difficult. But once you're on stage,
something takes over that you want. You want people to laugh,
(27:35):
you want people to love you, you you want people to
like you. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's
it's just that. Maybe it's just you want people to
like you and that's the way of getting it. But um,
it's it's it's difficult. It's difficult when when you're sick
or when you're when you're you know, you're feeling down
because when you're up there, it's the greatest feeling in
(27:56):
the world. When you get off, it's like somebody hit
you in the face. It's somebody hit you with an
ant villain or in your head like the road runner.
You know, it's it just knocks you down. I had
a hundred and three fever. I went out there, I
did an hour, I was I had a great time.
I got off and basically collapsed. Wow what once they journal,
(28:18):
it was gone. I was like, boom, what are you
most proud of? What's been your biggest success in your career? Ah?
In my career, I would say just the longevity, Just
a longevity. I know a lot of guys have started
with me and U and you know they had to
stop they weren't successful. I had moderate success, you know. Um,
(28:43):
I think the people that opened for me, if you
want to list, and this is why sometimes my wife goes,
just shut up. You know you've had it. You've had
a great time. Because the people that have opened me
were like Ray Rood, model, Chris Rock opened for me
many many times before he was a h Adam Sandler.
I mean you name any big, big name that's relevant now,
(29:05):
Billy Bill Burr. I mean, all these guys they opened
for me because I've been in this so long. Uh.
And that's a great thing and a bad thing because
I look and I go, well, I'm not at their level,
you know, although we're friends and I could hang out
with them, and I'm not at their level. But I'm
also made a great living for myself. You know, I've
I've you know, I've been able to afford two divorces.
(29:29):
I've get away two houses and a condo, all thanks
to comedy and Mark. Let me tell you something that
I haven't told anyone, and I haven't even told Mark.
When Mark took took me on tour in two thousand,
I was dead broke. I had just gotten a divorce,
I had lost everything that to this day I'm telling
(29:53):
you this. He doesn't know that, to this day, I
was dead broke. Uh. He took me on tour, paid
me very very well, got me back on my feet.
I started to tell him, and he went, it's quite
of fun, I said, Mark, Man, I got very you
know centime, Mark, I wanted at the end of the tour,
It's like, Mark, thank you so much. I just want
to tell you that this has come. He goes, let's
quite some fun. Okay. So to this day I haven't
(30:16):
told that. But he he brought me. I mean he
picked me up from you know, I was down and out.
I had quarters in my pocket. You see him almost daily.
Maybe I haven't had a chance to have this conversation,
but he's watching now. So what would you tell Mark
right now? Mark, what you really think? About what would
I tell Mark that camera right there, this this, uh,
this this, what do you call this? Uh? This tripod
(30:39):
is almost as skinny. I'm actually markus skinnier in this tripod.
Actually Marks hiding behind the trip We just don't see him.
I'm not gonna say that. I still want to open
for him. You got a radio career. I still want to.
I don't think you're fin at all. Mark, I think
you're very well built. Now I would tell Mark listen, Uh,
(31:01):
he doesn't want to hear this serious stuff. He doesn't
want to hear. I mean, I'm forever grateful. First of all,
I know he doesn't need me. He doesn't mean me
on the shows. Mark doesn't mean anybody. But Mark Marcus
is a huge star, you know. So for him to
every single time insist on having me on the show,
(31:21):
that to me speaks volumes that to me is the
greatest thing in the world. And and if if he's watching,
I want to thank you very much. And before I
started crying, what's your next question? Because I'm not gonna
cry out. You're an emotional guy. Does comedy come from
a dark place? A lot of comedians are depressed. Do
you suffer from depression. I don't suffer from depression, but
(31:42):
I can see it. I can see other comedians that
are depressed. I also see a lot of comedians that
are are up. Uh, they're not depressed and depressed people. Uh.
It doesn't come from a dark place. It comes from
an observational place where comedians are able to look things differently.
You know, they see a guy wearing you know, a
(32:04):
suit of wearing jeans, and they see it differently than
the average person. That's why whenever you see whenever there's
a party, there's a big gathering and there's only three
comedians in the whole place, they find each other somehow.
It's like a magnet, they find each other. Uh, it's
it's weird because being a comedian, it's not it's not
about being depressed. A lot of people do work from depression,
(32:28):
and they get their funniest things from depression and uh,
divorce and all that. I don't you know. I worked
in a hospital for many, many years before I did
stand up, and I don't have one hospital joke because
I just didn't like it. I didn't like working this,
so that that would have been my depression and I
would have been talking about but I don't as a
seasoned comedian, what would your advice be to anyone that
(32:50):
wants to start up in comedy or a new and
upcoming comedian. Don't do it. We don't have enough comedian now.
You know what you have to do. This is a
mistake that I made was that I tried to please everyone.
Whenever I did stand up and Seinfeld was in the room,
or or Eddie Murphy, I would try to cater you know,
(33:12):
my my My show. I think they're gonna like this.
I'm thinking you should just do what you're gonna do.
Dice Clay is a perfect example. Dice Clay when he
was doing his Dice Man character, everybody said that's you're
never gonna make it that way, and he said, ah,
this is what I want to do, and they said,
this is hard. People are gonna hate you. He became
the biggest stand up comedian in the eighties and early nineties.
(33:35):
He was the biggest stand up comedian. Unfortunately, he didn't
evolve into something else. He stayed as the dice Man.
So after a while people just go, Okay, you know,
we've had it with you. You know, who's the next guy?
You know, that's Joey. I always have my my guests
leave a question for my next guest without knowing who
(33:55):
that person is going to be. And my guest just
prior to you was J W. Corte. This he leaves
this question. If you could call one person from your past,
who would it be? And why? Ship? Ah see see
(34:18):
it will be my brother. What happened to your brother
pass away suddenly? Why are you doing? What are you over?
Don't do this to me? Uh? Yeah, he passed away suddenly.
And he was the greatest guy I know. Yeah, howl
was he when he passed? Fuck you Cortez? He was
(34:40):
forty six? Yeah, and he was seventeen years younger than
I was, but he was about a hundred years uh
smarter and more. Yeah, he was, he was. He was
the guy I always looked to to this day. Enjoy.
You're the guy that a lot of people that quote
(35:00):
me by surprise. You're the guy that a lot of
people look to when they go to uh to Mark
Anthony's concert. It's just part of It's like a yearly thing,
you can. You know I've had this conversation so many
different times, not just because Mark is our brother and
we do a lot of work with him. It's just
from the heart. You go see a Mark Anthony's show
(35:20):
and there's the energy, the vibe, the it's just it's on.
It's on the authoria that exists between people, and how
people dress up and they look, they anticipate, and how
people um travel from different parts of the world just
to see Mark Anthony on stages nobody. I think it's
one of the best performers of of of our time,
(35:41):
without a doubt. And I've told him that a million times.
And when I tell him, he says, fathy, let's go
have a drink. Um. But part of that culture also
when you go see Mark Anthony on tour is seeing
Joey Vega and I want to thank you, uh for
always making it fun and breaking that ice. And people
dress up and they have go have their drinks and
get ready to dance to Mark Anthony's music. Um, and
(36:05):
they say, by woe, but they're also looking forward to
seeing Joey Vega on that stage. All the best of
your brother, keep it, keep much, thank you for making
me cry for and of course Cord leave your leave
your question for my next guest. Without knowing who that
person is. Gonna be I'm gonna leave the same question.
I want to see them cry the same I know,
(36:26):
I know. I want to make you cry whoever you are. Uh,
oh man, Okay, So my question would be, uh, this
is a silly question. Who would be the who? Who?
(36:50):
I don't know if it's a singer or an actor
or okay, in your profession, who do you think is
the the zenith, the the the apex, the the number
one performer, whether it's a singer or an actor. Who
would be the number one? And how would you be
(37:13):
able to kill them so you could be number one?
You just asked some money to plan someone's murder. I did.
That's the first on my podcast. I'm an access to
you Now. You can follow Joey Vega on Instagram. Uh
comedian Joey Vega. Comedian Joey Vega. He's always on tour,
He's always doing something when he's out on stage with
(37:34):
Mark Anthony. Comedian Joey Vega. Make sure you follow him
on Instagram. Joey, all the best to you. Thank you,
this is a pleasure. Thank you told you for hours.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Hold on my name
is my name? Hold on my name? Is my name,
is my name, is my name
For over twenty years, UH This New Yorkan comedian, writer, actor,
uh TV host and loyal Ross shopper has been keeping
his promise to SILS singer Mark Anthony to open all
of his shows. So they started back in. When Mark
was starting out his career, he asked my guest if
he could be his opening act on his comedy circuit.
(00:23):
After hearing it Flacco's talent, he then offered his offer
to be his opening act when he made it big.
And here we are twenty one years on tour with
Mark Anthony. Get holy and be careful what you asked for.
This is all My name is with awesome Joey Vega.
(00:43):
Hold On, my name is hold On, my name is
my name? My name is? My name is? My name is?
My name is hold my name is Joey Vega. Joey
and doing Mark Anthony and pet Buena dress from Ross.
(01:08):
So you dressed from all your jokes. Have to do
it Ross Latino the Latino. I love that line. How
are you brother? Good to see you? I'm good. I'm good.
It's good to see you again. I see you during
the concerts. Yes, I remember you from years ago. We
met in Miami A long time ago. I went, I
did your show, Yes, and we met at the gay bar.
We had a couple of drinks. We had a couple
of drinks and will come that out. Don't tell Joey's wife,
(01:31):
don't tell. I'm kidding. I don't remember much after that
because I think you you roofied me. No, don't pull
the bok Bill Cosby thing on me. No, No, honestly,
you know. So, Yes, we we go. We we go
way back. We see each other at all the events
and at all the concerts and on tour with Mark Anthony.
And I've had the great privilege such as yourself, to
tour so many different parts of the world with with
(01:53):
Mark Anthony and seeing his awesome uh talent on stage
and seeing him bringing together in the culture to get
either through our our great music, his great music. But
every single Mark Anthony show opens up with with so much.
It's so much fun people really look forward to. And
if you've never been to a Mark Anthony show number one,
you don't know what you're missing. You Yes, you gotta go.
(02:13):
And one of the things you're missing is the awesome
Joey Vega. And I'm not bullshitting You're funny, You're spontaneous,
you're real, and people really um connect with what with
the things you have to say. And I think it
was well overdue for us to sit down and have
this chat to know more about you. Definitely had you
get started. I got started on a dare back in
I'm not even gonna say, uh and uh. I was
(02:37):
going to go dancing and I was with my friend
and his brother and we couldn't get into a club.
It was a white club and it was on a
Wednesday night, and they wouldn't let us in because you
were Latino, or because you were under twenty one. I
think because we were Latino. Okay, no, I was. I
was twenties six or so. And uh. And my friend's
friends said, let's go to the improv on Street And
(02:58):
I got, what's what's the improv? I didn't know. He goes, oh,
it's a comedy club. Comedy club. He goes, yeah, they
got stand up comedian. Go all right, let's go because
I always like comedy. My father used to watch stand
up comedians on the Larns Walk Show. We grew up
watching stand up comedia. So we went there and we
watched the show. Joe Piscopal was on, Eddie Murphy was
on Paul Riser, Jerry Seinfeld, and my friend turned over
(03:23):
to me and said, you could do that, but no,
no way. I don't know what he you could do that,
but you're always fast and on your feet, and I
was always I'm very shy. I mean I was always
very shy. You still consider yourself shy today? I still do.
I still do. That's why I told the camera people,
the crew to leave. There's nobody here. It's just but no.
(03:45):
And so I never thought I would do it, never
in a million years. And they said, no, we did.
You were did to do it. So I went to
the improv. I picked the number. Back then you had
to pick a number and with whatever number that was,
you'd be you audition. It would be audition night. They'd
have twenty five numbers. I picked the last number. I
(04:07):
chickened out. I checked out. I first of all, I
changed my name. My name was Sergio Gautier. It's just
you picked like a French name because my mother's name
is Gutier, Sergio Gutier. And I chickened out and I
can't do this. So then following month I did it again.
They go Oh you could do it. You could do it.
(04:28):
We dare you to do it. All right, I'm gonna
do it. So I picked up again. So I was
the last one. So it was like two thirty in
the morning. By the time I went up to do
my five minutes, it was like maybe four people in
the audience and the owner of the club, and she
came up to me. She said, I want you to
come back, and I want you to hang out and
(04:49):
do late night, which means after the schedule is over,
we picked the newcomers to go on, and uh, everybody
at the club was like, oh, this guy's the second
coming of Ready Prince, because no one ever passed on
the first try, and I did, luckily, Otherwise I wouldn't
be sitting here and talking about comedy. How much should
you prepare for that material? Actually prepared? I I and
(05:13):
and my jokes are so bad, so so bad. It
was about everything was Puerto Rican. This is Puerto Rican.
That Puerto Rican Airlines. I know was puert Rican Allies
because I saw the pilot holding jump of cables in
his hand. It was They were horrible, but it's pretty funny.
Made me laugh. And the wings had hair under the
(05:34):
it was horrible and uh, that's a French airline, Yeah,
French alline actually uh. But she maybe thought that the
owner of the club Silver was her name. She probably thought, oh,
this is the second you know, Freddie Prince. Because there
were no Latino comedians. There was only one other guy,
Al Romero, who, by the ways, from Miami, lives in Miami.
Uh and and myself everybody good comes from Miami. Okay,
(05:57):
that's another podcast. But that's how I got started, kind
of by mistake, kind of yea. And I hear this
alt from comedians. That's when I say I didn't didn't
do racism is good sometimes because if the guy wouldn't
have been racist, I wouldn't. I wouldn't have done comedy.
I would have gone dancing that that that that you
know actually was it wasn't a Latin night. That's probably
(06:18):
why I didn't let us in. But it's like that
saying goes right, I don't I don't like cliches, but
everything happens for a reason, right, guy does or And
you've got to know how to turn a negative into
a positive. Right and you and you and you did
this that and you seize the moment and my friends,
because if they wouldn't have said you can do it,
you could do it, I wouldn't have done it right.
So kind of like you got you bumped in the comedy,
(06:38):
kind of by mistake, inspired by your friends. So what's
your first big gig? So after the lady says come
back to you, or she tells you to come back
the owner of the club, what happens after that? Well,
what happens was I go on after this very high
energy guy and he's all over the place and I
come on and go so uh, you know, was talking
(07:00):
like that, just very very mellower, and I died. I
mean I didn't get one laugh. And then she didn't
put me back on for about two months about too much.
She would go back and go uh, and I'd be
the only one there and she go all right to
close the show, and I'm sitting there. Yes, she would
(07:22):
look over my head and go, okay, you know what
closed the show. I'd be sitting there like what the
hell was going on? So I went to another comedy club,
the Comic Strip, and I started getting on there. I
started getting on there more frequently, and then what happened
was I had a van back then the eighties, vans
were in and uh us, Jerry Seinfeld and Paul Riser
(07:45):
and all these guys were doing gigs in Jersey and
they needed somebody to drive them. So they would always
go to the book and they'd asked the book of
can you can you get Joey Joey? Joey's very funny,
He's very funny. But I had a van, so I
would drive them and used to drive Jerry Signfel around
(08:05):
and Keenan and Ivory Waynes and Damon Waynes dw different gigs, right,
two different gigs, and then I would e't see the show,
and then little by little then I would be the
the featured act, the opening act, and then I would
be the featured act, and then eventually I became the
headliner of the comedy clubs. So I started headlining the
(08:26):
comedy clubs. How do you then get into acting? Uh?
There was a movie, well, actually it was Mark Mark.
Mark said to me, I'm doing this movie, An East
Side Story, and uh, you should be in it. I'm going, well,
that's great, I should be in it. Yeah, I should.
(08:46):
I should be on Carson too, I should be He goes, No,
what I'm gonna talk to the guy. I'm gonna talk
to the guy. I want you to be in it.
So he wanted me to be the the m C
of the Big Showdown in the movie, and Ralph Micado
did that okay, and so they said, well, he would
be the DJ. So I played the DJ. I had
like one scene. That was it. So that was the
first movie I ever did. Uh. Then I did Punchline
(09:10):
in Night nine I believe it was. I did Punchline
um with Tom Hanks and Sadly Field and that was
great because Tom Hanks was following me around to the
clubs to watch me perform because he played a stand
up comedian, so we became very friendly. But he was
studying you for his role. He was studying me and
other comedians also. But I remember one day going into
(09:33):
the comic strip and they were all excited. Oh, Tom
Hanks just came in and he was asking for you.
I go, yeah, he's always bothering me. Yeah, like no,
I'm glad, That's why I came late. But he's one
of the nicest guys in the world, very nice still
to this day. If he sees me, he'll come up
(09:54):
to me and go, hey, remember we shot that because
we worked for like three weeks together. Now before let's
rewind a little bit when you had you actually had
a TV show, Yes, and that's where Mark was a
guest on your show. Yes, and you guys kind of
made he made a promise to you. Let's talk about that.
So I had this show called The Latin Connection, and
(10:15):
it was great show. It was all about Latino entertainers.
But in there weren't that many Latino entertainers that were
crossing over. There was, you know, no Jennifer Lopez, there
was no Enriqueglesias, you know. So so I had this
show and after the third episode, we ran out of
people's tame to We ran out of baseball player. We well,
(10:37):
we had playing baseball, but it wasn't about baseball. It
was more about music. So, uh, I believe Mark came
in with Sapphire. He had helped to write a song boy,
I've been told with Sapphire and he was there and uh,
they said, well let's interview him too, let's do it.
So we did a quick interview and uh and then
(10:58):
he says, hey, let's he found out I was comedian.
You know, Mark, he loves to laugh. He looks very funny.
He tries to fix my jokes, like, look, I don't
tell you how to hit the notes, don't tell me
how to fix my joke. But yeah, he said, let's
let's go out to eat. So we went out to
eat some place in the on sixteen hundred sixteen, and
(11:18):
we just started talking, talking, and I said, yeah, I'm
gonna be working at the comic strip next week. And goes, oh,
I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go out, all right, friend.
So he would go, like every time I was there,
he would go. He would show up and you go
take my beeper number take. He had a beeper, beepersper.
Can you tell everybody they don't know what a beeper is?
They understand what it is. The beeper is what doctors
used to carry when they needed to be doctors and
(11:39):
drug dealers. Yes, and drum and obviously well it caught
up with the racist but yeah, so you would point in,
put that number, you put your number in, and then
people would call you back from a payphone. That's something
where you put a quarter in people quarters. She put
a quarter in there, and it was a pay phone
and your dalsa and you put that was the rotary thing. Yeah,
(12:01):
you can beat somebody with the rotary phone. Uh, could you?
I don't know, No, no you can, you can't. Yeah,
I don't know. This is like for this is for
a uh, I don't know. We didn't for a different podcast. Yes,
for sure. So Mark starts going to your shows. So
Mark starts going to the shows, and Uh, I'm sitting
there and he said, like, here's that guy again. You know,
I see him coming and go, here's that guy Mark
(12:22):
a year years again. And afterwards we were sitting in
the back and we talk and you know, he did
always say the same thing. You go, I'm gonna be
a singer. He hadn't started singing yet. This was pre uh,
pre his uh career and house music or freestyle uh.
And he said, I'm gonna be a singer. When I
becomes a singer, I'm gonna be opening act. All right.
(12:43):
I go, yeah, yeah, I'm gonna be a singer. Every
single time. I'm gonna be a singer. When I become
a singer, I'm gonna be opening act. I said, yeah, yeaheah.
And I said one day I said to him, and
I'm so glad I said this. I said, when you
become a singer and you become a famous singer, I'll
be your opening act. How about that? And he looked
at me and he went bet just like that, and
here you are. Wow. What a cool story that shows
(13:08):
the integrity that he has and the loyalty. Hold On,
my name is my name, my name is my Name's
my name is hold On, my name is my name,
my name is my name. What was the first show,
the first show opening up for Mark Anthony like, and
how has that changed? How is that involved? The first
(13:31):
show was at the ballroom, uh Amerstein Ballo and everybody
was standing up. There was no seats. It was about
a thousand people. And I came on. Somebody came on
and introduced me and they got booed and I said, oh,
this is not gonna go right. So I go on
(13:52):
and I lasted five minutes because I started telling jokes
and people like boom, boom, we want more, we want Mark.
And I glanced over and there's Mark behind the curtain
and he's laughing. He is laughing and having the best
top of his life. He's just laughing and I go
like this and all right, thank you very much. Mark's
(14:13):
coming out soon poop and I and I woke off
and as I walk off, I'm feeling bad. You don't
feel like oh man, And he's just like they hated you,
they hated you know. He went on had a great
show after that. That same night, we went to the
Comic Strip because I had a late spot, and we
went to the Comic Strip and uh, I did the show,
(14:33):
and then we hung out to like five o'clock in
the morning. The place was closed, and they kept it
open for us and we just drank and you know,
you know, Mark likes to drink a little bit, not
a lot, but we drank and we got yeah we
oh yeah, that's all he At that time it was Heneken.
He was drinking and tipping big. I was like, this
guy's making a lot of money. But but it was fun,
(14:55):
I mean, and and ever since then that was like,
you know, so, so twenty one years touring with Mark,
so many comedy shows you haven't bombed. Maybe you bombed
one or one or two at the beginning, never at
least that first one. I can tell you big a
good story bombing. We went to Puerto Rico after the
worst in the first one, it's worse than the first
(15:16):
time that you are the second comedy club time. Okay,
So we do the first long tour theaters and we're
everywhere Canada, everywhere with Marks, with Mark touring. I'm getting,
I'm getting married me, Joey, I'm getting. I mean, I'm
killing it. Every single city. I'm killing I'm doing fifty
minutes and we get to Puerto Rico. I'm like, this
(15:40):
is great. My parents are living in Puerto Rico. I
get them a car. Don't tell me you bombed. No,
I didn't just bomb. I stuck up the whole island
of Combean. So I go up there. I get my
parents a limo. They come up. We're at the Roberto
Clementis Stadium, which was just opening up the road. Some
of the roads weren't complete completed. So we get there
(16:02):
and it's a state, thirty thousand people. I sit there.
Oh my god, I go, I gotta be on the
big screens right. They go, no, you can't that Budweiser
owns that and they don't want anybody except their name
up there. I went, I gotta, I gotta be on
the screen. It's thirty thousand people. I said, you see
that guy over there. You can't see him, right, Well,
he can't see me either, right, No, So we had
(16:23):
two other opening acts. How was the third opening act?
And then Mark? So my parents are right in front,
front row seats, no pressure, no pressure. First act goes up,
one song gets booed, he gets off. Second act three
beautiful women they're dancing. They're beautiful. You know, Puerto Rico
(16:44):
they love their women. There are two songs they get booed.
I'm like, oh jeez. Then somebody goes, we gotta take
it into mission, and then you'll go on, I want you.
You're killing me, You're killing me. So they take it
fifteen minutes to the mission. People are going crazy. Otherwise
it's giving out free beer to Puerto Ricans in Puerto Rico.
(17:06):
People are going crazy. Right, all of a sudden, helicopter
goes on right over the stadium. Everybody knows it was
It was leaked that Mark was gonna land behind the
stadium in a helicopter, in a helicopter. So they go,
ladies and gentlemen, welcome Joey Vega boo bah. It was horrible,
(17:30):
It was horrible. They started doing the wave by where
by fwhere my parents are right up there sitting there,
so I'm trying. No. No, they went like this, we're
not his parents, boo, Joey's parents. No, no, no, I
don't know what happened was. I go up there and
(17:51):
I started, I try, and I try nothing, nothing, nothing,
boo boo boo. So finally go okay. So I go
to my parents and I go, I might never win
an Oscar or never, but I'm gonna give you my
asked his speech, thank you so much for being the
greatest parents in the world, blah blah, and I'm going,
you know, and the people are quiet, and then I
go and you people, you can go, you know. And
(18:12):
I dropped the mic and I leave. Well that wasn't
the end of it, because when I got back to
the stage, the radio stations like, Joey, what happened? Can
you come on? I go, yeah, I come on, I
don't care, you know. So I came on. I told
my story, and then like months later, I got canceled
from some gigs because they were afraid to have my
name associated with them because of what happened. So, uh,
(18:35):
two months later, my brother says, hey, I just saw
the Spanish people you're in it, Like what do you mean?
I mean it? He says, you're in it. And so
all my our parents, the Spanish people magazine like people
they had so they had a little picture of my parents,
an insert of my mother like this and my father
like this, and then me on stage. So I took
(18:57):
it and it had how damn Mark Anthony bring this
guy here new Eurekan and oh, they were telling me.
So I took and I framed it and I still
have it on my wall. It's it's interesting you mentioned
that because that still goes on today. You were new Yorrecans,
so you didn't belong there? Is that kind of like
they Justine was about, Yeah, I didn't enough to be there.
(19:20):
Plus I I insulted them by saying, you know, because
I made a little speech like you know, I've traveled
with Mark all over Canada, the United States, and everyone
you know, accepted me. Everyone had a great time, and
this is where I wanted to perform because this is
where my parents are from, my roots are here, and
you guys wouldn't let me. So, so that I think
(19:42):
really got them, and they really I mean I went
from Mark's wedding to Dianada was like three months later.
I was gonna say, which one. There's been a lot. Well,
when I went back three months later at the airport,
people go at it's that it isn't super serious. Polo
(20:02):
Puerto Rico. I say, I had to like basically run
to my hotel to get perto Rico for a couple
of months until they got over that. Why that was
the worst bomb ever? Why do Latinos do that? You think?
And it happens a lot with uh, with with all Latinos,
but specifically I've seen it a lot with with Caribbeans,
with Cubans, with with Puerto Ricans. If you're from there,
(20:22):
if you're from here, you know, Patrico, A lot of
Puerto Ricans from the island don't consider if you're you're
you know, if you're born in New York, in New York,
but you're proud of your heritage, Puerto Rican heritage, and
you even try to speak Spanish, No, you're not good enough. Yeah,
they they kind of ridicule you in a way. But
(20:44):
you know, Puerto Ricans are always very demeaning in a
funny sense. I mean, you know, you know, like they
put you down in a funny way, but a lot
of the times it's translated into you know, you're saying
the truth in jest, but you really don't like me,
and you know you don't want me to speak Spanish,
but I'm trying. I'm trying my best, and thankfully I
(21:05):
speak pretty good Spanish, considering I was born and raised
in New York. But I see that a lot. It's
changing only because there's so many uh, New Ureacans that
have moved back to the island. Although now they've all
moved back to the States, but at one point they
were all moving back, a lot of them, so it
changed for a while, but it's still there's still that
(21:27):
slight divide. Got a lot of work to do there.
It's not I always say, it's not about language, it's
about culture, and we should applaud uh you know, second
third generation Latinos that embraced their culture and even if
the language is not spoken perfectly, that's okay. And he's
I'm being it's okay, Noike, you don't have to ridicule them.
(21:49):
What we should be doing is applauding them and getting
them to to feel proud of what they're speaking. It's
it's your culture got But here's the thing is that
if if an Americans speak Spanish with the accident miss
his words, it's okay. There you go, it's okay. But
with our people do it, it's not okay. Instead of saying, god,
I'm but he's proud. This person is proud of their culture.
Let's applaud that. We've got a lot of work to
(22:11):
do there. How difficult is it doing comedy in this
day and age? Is there anything that's off limits? It's
everything is off limits. You could say hello and you
offend it someone. It's horrible. How complicated is it's? Right? Uh,
it's very common, you know for me, it's not because
you know I've been I'm forty one years into it.
I think it was gonna tell your forty one years old,
(22:32):
so you're fully ship. I'm only fifty and I started
at You're like shopping at Ross right now for your
age from that point though, I'm sorry. Yeah, No, it's
difficult because of the climate. Because now even recently, at
one of the market concerts, I am doing my show
(22:54):
blah blah blah, and the trombone play Azzy comes over
and goes, hey, this girl really liked you. She wants
to say hi. So I walk over and she goes,
you're a misogynist, you're this, you're that? What who that's
got out? But I'm like, what did I do? You're
fat shaming. I was fat shaming because I said, and
this is I say it in most of my shows.
(23:15):
I love gold Dias. Where are you Gordas? I love you?
So I'm shouting out Gorditas. I'm the only one that's
giving them props, right, But she was and she wasn't
she felt offended. She wasn't. She wasn't going. She was
sticking up for She was sticking up for the one
the best right. But that's what's happening in society is
that everybody sticks off with somebody else. Now you know,
I had somebody I did an Indian casino. Did you
(23:37):
say Indian? Yeah, I did an Indian casino and people said,
why that's indigenous people, blah blah. I said, okay, So
I asked the people at the casino that are indigenous people, right,
and they said, we're fine with Indian. We didn't change it.
The white man changed. So it's always somebody else getting offended.
(23:58):
For funny we went recently, we were doing a Thanksgiving
party and I wanted to call it the Babo Pool
Party Turkey Pool party, and they said no because we
was taking a place in a casino and there was
a tribe involved and they wanted they didn't want that.
And it turned out that wasn't the tribe at all,
because afterwards they had like the Thanksgiving Eve party at
(24:20):
that later that same night. So sometimes people, you know that,
I know it. They want to stick up for other people,
but they're doing more harm than good exactly. You know,
if you genuinely are offended about something, I think you
should speak up and say hey, I feel this way
and trying to figure out where that person is coming from.
Not everybody has intentions to piss you offered. Well, the
thing is that she said I was a misogynist and
I hated women and I was fat shaming. And I said, well,
(24:42):
do you listen to the pit Bull? Do you listen
to do you listen to rap? You danced to all
of that, right? She does, said, you danced to all
of that? Right? But have you heard the words that
they're saying, how they're demeaning women in those songs? Some
some of them, you know? And she just kept quiet.
She was like and her friends around them they were
like this, you know, like I said, I'm gonna put
(25:04):
rhythmic sounds to my comedy. So this is why I
won't offend anybody this way. You could just dance what
I'm saying. Hold On, my name is my name? Hold
On my name is? My name is? My name is?
Hold On my name is my name? Hold On my
name is Joey. You've written for George Lopez, for Chris Rock.
(25:28):
How difficult is it when you come up with a
good punch line, a good joke, ah to you know,
to give it up a good give up a good joke,
or decide, hey, I want to keep that for myself.
It's it's not easy. The only thing that makes you
give it up it's at paycheck. That's it. When I
was writing for George Lopez, I was on staff for
(25:49):
his TV show, and uh, I would just write. I
would write fifty jokes a day. I mean, it's not easy.
I didn't think I could do it, and the head
writers said, you could do it. You've been writing for
Chris Rock for years. So I would sit in my
computer and look at everything that's going on in the
Internet and just write jokes. And sometimes you get a
joke and you're like, oh, this joke I like, you know,
(26:11):
it's like a little baby because you you created out
of thin air. You know, you think about it, it's
just it was. It didn't exist, all of a sudden exists.
It makes hundreds of people laugh. So but at the
end of the day, you have a job to do.
Your job is to try to get as many good
jokes forward as possible. So and if you want to
keep your job, and you know, when you're in the
(26:31):
writer's gild, it's it's it's it's a good salary. You
gotta keep relevant to Yeah, oh yeah, definitely. So between
writing stand up acting, what do you enjoy about the
most stand up? Stand up without a doubt, is a
therapy for you. What do you feel when you're up there? Oh? Man,
I can't even describe it because I've gone up there
(26:52):
with a hundred and three fever and the adrenaline takes
over and you don't feel a thing. That's great. So
you've gone up and done stand up comedy and spread COVID. Yes,
I am, I am. I'm responsible for all of the
New York COVID that happened last year. I did it
and some of New Jersey. Okay, they got to change
(27:13):
that ugly red ball and put your face the thing. No,
it's just me. Now I've done it. I've done it
with I did it after my parents passed away. A
couple of weeks after I did it when my brother
passed away. And that's really difficult. But once you're on stage,
something takes over that you want. You want people to laugh,
(27:35):
you want people to love you, you you want people to
like you. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's
it's just that. Maybe it's just you want people to
like you and that's the way of getting it. But um,
it's it's it's difficult. It's difficult when when you're sick
or when you're when you're you know, you're feeling down
because when you're up there, it's the greatest feeling in
(27:56):
the world. When you get off, it's like somebody hit
you in the face. It's somebody hit you with an
ant villain or in your head like the road runner.
You know, it's it just knocks you down. I had
a hundred and three fever. I went out there, I
did an hour, I was I had a great time.
I got off and basically collapsed. Wow what once they journal,
(28:18):
it was gone. I was like, boom, what are you
most proud of? What's been your biggest success in your career? Ah?
In my career, I would say just the longevity, Just
a longevity. I know a lot of guys have started
with me and U and you know they had to
stop they weren't successful. I had moderate success, you know. Um,
(28:43):
I think the people that opened for me, if you
want to list, and this is why sometimes my wife goes,
just shut up. You know you've had it. You've had
a great time. Because the people that have opened me
were like Ray Rood, model, Chris Rock opened for me
many many times before he was a h Adam Sandler.
I mean you name any big, big name that's relevant now,
(29:05):
Billy Bill Burr. I mean, all these guys they opened
for me because I've been in this so long. Uh.
And that's a great thing and a bad thing because
I look and I go, well, I'm not at their level,
you know, although we're friends and I could hang out
with them, and I'm not at their level. But I'm
also made a great living for myself. You know, I've
I've you know, I've been able to afford two divorces.
(29:29):
I've get away two houses and a condo, all thanks
to comedy and Mark. Let me tell you something that
I haven't told anyone, and I haven't even told Mark.
When Mark took took me on tour in two thousand,
I was dead broke. I had just gotten a divorce,
I had lost everything that to this day I'm telling
(29:53):
you this. He doesn't know that, to this day, I
was dead broke. Uh. He took me on tour, paid
me very very well, got me back on my feet.
I started to tell him, and he went, it's quite
of fun, I said, Mark, Man, I got very you
know centime, Mark, I wanted at the end of the tour,
It's like, Mark, thank you so much. I just want
to tell you that this has come. He goes, let's
quite some fun. Okay. So to this day I haven't
(30:16):
told that. But he he brought me. I mean he
picked me up from you know, I was down and out.
I had quarters in my pocket. You see him almost daily.
Maybe I haven't had a chance to have this conversation,
but he's watching now. So what would you tell Mark
right now? Mark, what you really think? About what would
I tell Mark that camera right there, this this, uh,
this this, what do you call this? Uh? This tripod
(30:39):
is almost as skinny. I'm actually markus skinnier in this tripod.
Actually Marks hiding behind the trip We just don't see him.
I'm not gonna say that. I still want to open
for him. You got a radio career. I still want to.
I don't think you're fin at all. Mark, I think
you're very well built. Now I would tell Mark listen, Uh,
(31:01):
he doesn't want to hear this serious stuff. He doesn't
want to hear. I mean, I'm forever grateful. First of all,
I know he doesn't need me. He doesn't mean me
on the shows. Mark doesn't mean anybody. But Mark Marcus
is a huge star, you know. So for him to
every single time insist on having me on the show,
(31:21):
that to me speaks volumes that to me is the
greatest thing in the world. And and if if he's watching,
I want to thank you very much. And before I
started crying, what's your next question? Because I'm not gonna
cry out. You're an emotional guy. Does comedy come from
a dark place? A lot of comedians are depressed. Do
you suffer from depression. I don't suffer from depression, but
(31:42):
I can see it. I can see other comedians that
are depressed. I also see a lot of comedians that
are are up. Uh, they're not depressed and depressed people. Uh.
It doesn't come from a dark place. It comes from
an observational place where comedians are able to look things differently.
You know, they see a guy wearing you know, a
(32:04):
suit of wearing jeans, and they see it differently than
the average person. That's why whenever you see whenever there's
a party, there's a big gathering and there's only three
comedians in the whole place, they find each other somehow.
It's like a magnet, they find each other. Uh, it's
it's weird because being a comedian, it's not it's not
about being depressed. A lot of people do work from depression,
(32:28):
and they get their funniest things from depression and uh,
divorce and all that. I don't you know. I worked
in a hospital for many, many years before I did
stand up, and I don't have one hospital joke because
I just didn't like it. I didn't like working this,
so that that would have been my depression and I
would have been talking about but I don't as a
seasoned comedian, what would your advice be to anyone that
(32:50):
wants to start up in comedy or a new and
upcoming comedian. Don't do it. We don't have enough comedian now.
You know what you have to do. This is a
mistake that I made was that I tried to please everyone.
Whenever I did stand up and Seinfeld was in the room,
or or Eddie Murphy, I would try to cater you know,
(33:12):
my my My show. I think they're gonna like this.
I'm thinking you should just do what you're gonna do.
Dice Clay is a perfect example. Dice Clay when he
was doing his Dice Man character, everybody said that's you're
never gonna make it that way, and he said, ah,
this is what I want to do, and they said,
this is hard. People are gonna hate you. He became
the biggest stand up comedian in the eighties and early nineties.
(33:35):
He was the biggest stand up comedian. Unfortunately, he didn't
evolve into something else. He stayed as the dice Man.
So after a while people just go, Okay, you know,
we've had it with you. You know, who's the next guy?
You know, that's Joey. I always have my my guests
leave a question for my next guest without knowing who
(33:55):
that person is going to be. And my guest just
prior to you was J W. Corte. This he leaves
this question. If you could call one person from your past,
who would it be? And why? Ship? Ah see see
(34:18):
it will be my brother. What happened to your brother
pass away suddenly? Why are you doing? What are you over?
Don't do this to me? Uh? Yeah, he passed away suddenly.
And he was the greatest guy I know. Yeah, howl
was he when he passed? Fuck you Cortez? He was
(34:40):
forty six? Yeah, and he was seventeen years younger than
I was, but he was about a hundred years uh
smarter and more. Yeah, he was, he was. He was
the guy I always looked to to this day. Enjoy.
You're the guy that a lot of people that quote
(35:00):
me by surprise. You're the guy that a lot of
people look to when they go to uh to Mark
Anthony's concert. It's just part of It's like a yearly thing,
you can. You know I've had this conversation so many
different times, not just because Mark is our brother and
we do a lot of work with him. It's just
from the heart. You go see a Mark Anthony's show
(35:20):
and there's the energy, the vibe, the it's just it's on.
It's on the authoria that exists between people, and how
people dress up and they look, they anticipate, and how
people um travel from different parts of the world just
to see Mark Anthony on stages nobody. I think it's
one of the best performers of of of our time,
(35:41):
without a doubt. And I've told him that a million times.
And when I tell him, he says, fathy, let's go
have a drink. Um. But part of that culture also
when you go see Mark Anthony on tour is seeing
Joey Vega and I want to thank you, uh for
always making it fun and breaking that ice. And people
dress up and they have go have their drinks and
get ready to dance to Mark Anthony's music. Um, and
(36:05):
they say, by woe, but they're also looking forward to
seeing Joey Vega on that stage. All the best of
your brother, keep it, keep much, thank you for making
me cry for and of course Cord leave your leave
your question for my next guest. Without knowing who that
person is. Gonna be I'm gonna leave the same question.
I want to see them cry the same I know,
(36:26):
I know. I want to make you cry whoever you are. Uh,
oh man, Okay, So my question would be, uh, this
is a silly question. Who would be the who? Who?
(36:50):
I don't know if it's a singer or an actor
or okay, in your profession, who do you think is
the the zenith, the the the apex, the the number
one performer, whether it's a singer or an actor. Who
would be the number one? And how would you be
(37:13):
able to kill them so you could be number one?
You just asked some money to plan someone's murder. I did.
That's the first on my podcast. I'm an access to
you Now. You can follow Joey Vega on Instagram. Uh
comedian Joey Vega. Comedian Joey Vega. He's always on tour,
He's always doing something when he's out on stage with
(37:34):
Mark Anthony. Comedian Joey Vega. Make sure you follow him
on Instagram. Joey, all the best to you. Thank you,
this is a pleasure. Thank you told you for hours.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Hold on my name
is my name? Hold on my name? Is my name,
is my name, is my name
Host
Enrique Santos
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