Joe Rogan Experience #1095 — T.J. English & Joey Diaz Transcript

Transcript

0:00 Okay. It's fantastic. took over it from three different cities. How it was going down Yeah, Joey reached out to me, you know, It's one of those little enclaves. You know, what are you willing to do for me? In the case of Hell's Kitchen and the Westies, It wasn't spoken about a lot, And how long, when you're writing a book like The Corporation, which is your new book, or Westies, any of your books,

4:09 It's almost like a condensed version of the book. end of the century. And it was led by this mobster named Jose Miguel Battle, who was kind of a the mob going back to the 1920s. Everyone bets the number, little old ladies bet the number, priests, when the mob joey was talking about havana nocturne that's what that book was about the era Before the turnover. been a vice cop in Havana during those years and he knew all those high-ranking mobsters and in

7:31 over this thing and organize it you will get a piece of you will get your piece of everything And when he told, when I read the thesis for this book, I just knew. So I grew up in it. I grew up in a house where the bookie would call my mother by three o'clock and go, If I have a dream about an eagle You work a plain Jane dream, you're a blue-collar person, and on the way home every day by 3.30, you put the number in.

10:30 It was tied into dreams and belief. they're the dream makers. Your job is to sit at you get $3,000 from battle. dollar investment could make you five hundred thousand dollars chinese weren't seeing that Italians, they want to put a bet in with Italians. Right. Puerto Ricans, they want to put a bet in with Italians. like it's got a lot of red tape and official and there's no wiggle room.

13:17 And it turned very violent in the United States. It was a license to print money. He'd been a hero in the Bay of Pigs invasion. He saved some guys' lives. When I first heard He, in an act of incredible heroism, he saved the life of a number of his platoon members. but he also had this Joey and I were talking about this Cubans have this He was in the hospital. They shot him in his hospital he was in

16:40 And somewhere along the line, he broke bad, so to speak. Right. So I was just trying to read all those books just so when I went in, I had an idea of what these characters and who they were. There was four battalions, I think there's 250. They got slaughtered. And they felt they'd been betrayed by Kennedy yeah you know that there was supposed to be air

18:55 It lasted three days. And also the idea that he wanted to disband the CIA. Notorious figure. she was supposed to slip him a pill Frank Sturgis who wound up being Who was also one of the people that, on his deathbed, said that he was involved in the assassination of Kennedy. of what they said was E. Howard Hunt? Oh, there's lots of rumors about that runs through the latter part of the 20th century the cia and right

23:13 We didn't know about it at the time it was taking place. Right. That's incredible. Wow. Joey can tell you about that. cuba was making an appearance they were trying to shut down any relationship Yeah. there numerous times. You know, He wasn't elected, so he was kind of happened. It wasn't. So in my belief, the revolution in Cuba happened for a very legitimate reason.

27:27 How you doing Susan? What's going on? but a lot of Cubans which is more that can be said in some ways about Puerto Rico and Jamaica and Dominican Republic, either swimming or sailing across the Florida Straits what the fuck happened t-shirt like he was a fucking ruthless cunt and these people are wearing this shirt as if he Like, I have Argentinian friends.

30:28 Because of him. They talk... Really? Why? And I went there one time and never went back. See, Spain is the colonial power. And my mother came over and goes, what happened? Oh, okay. Like a lot of people tortured me when I did the y'all thing. repeat what I said, good luck A monja means a nun. Oye, ponte la pila. No, no, no. Really? and they told their son,

34:30 Vacila tipo. Don't pattern. I hit Ari. the same way twice. Yeah. kid and I came from Cuba, my mother put looked at my gold thing and my mother yelled from the And the parent was like, that's an effective way of parenting. What did the mom want you to do? That's how Cubans raised their kids Yeah, they'd come after the kid. I mean, it was very common to kidnap the kid.

37:46 Somebody came up to her in a parking lot when she was holding her infant daughter. And she was like, oh, fuck you. Well, he wasn't President Trump at the time. Stop talking about Mr. Trump. And she was like, oh, fuck you. they wanted to intimidate, they'd I was just raised to understand what they were doing. things for me but a lot of bad things for me. You know, one of the things that he touched upon

39:55 The numbers? As a matter of fact, they would call you, and they would go, I write you a summons. and saluting the flag when I was the same way? She went to jail for running the numbers. They give you a year for bookmaking in Jersey. What's fascinating to me about this is also fascinating about the mob itself Italian, Irish, Jewish, that sort of assimilated into the system

42:58 the connection between the political apparatus, law enforcement, and the criminal rackets. That template was laid down during Prohibition, That hasn't gone away. That still exists everywhere. What happens is there's an ebb and Narcotics, yeah. Yeah, because the criminal rackets seven five yes i did i also saw saw your interview with Michael Dowd. Organized crime, the face of organized crime has changed quite a bit.

45:39 This process of going through organized crime and gangsterism preying on each other. and fly below the radar i mean In fact, I have a present for you. I run an anti-Castro. And they need that. Paulie had his messages delivered to him. he'd come and put a gun under a car just in case there was a problem with Joe Rogan. And he died with $5 million cash, and he lived in a four-story walk-up.

49:48 Really? So I'd be at school, He loved suits, Sam DeLuca. So the more suits For $200,000, you get a year. Wow. Two years. The Luka don't play games. They get a letter from the Treasury Department saying, What a name, too, huh? His name was Major Battle. and they kept to themselves, and they didn't have social clubs. which the odds are a little less.

54:04 Pulida, it's one number at a time. So why would it be a single number? Okay. So you have the ran it for the italians and maybe it came from sicily whatever the origins of it you couldn't Now, check this out. Nobody remembers that. And at the track. And you wouldn't hear it. And you wouldn't hear it. Part of the brilliance of Battle and his organization was he didn't do sports betting.

57:21 Because he was going against the agreement? So it came from the racetrack. Paperwork. To launder them profits. That's how Sammy the Bull bought lottery Confessions of a A total of $16.5 million. Yeah, yeah. system, a computer program or something? Whoa. The West Coast, like off-track betting, there's coast like off-track bedding. There's no fucking here

1:01:02 sleepers sleepers is a movie about for Irish kids that later was bullshit Oh, really? weren't two or four of those two kids You were talking about the witches. Jess Huston's going to be there. Those were the last three numbers on my dad's gravestone. The numbers are still going on? Yeah. All was selling the Book of Dreams. I'm a board guy. Send $50 of that to Miami because I could unload it to create the utopia.

1:04:27 and the guy that cooked was Black Mike. On Wednesdays, he cooked corned beef. So every hour, the tapes come around and I pick up the tapes. I saw how the money would be taken upstairs. So nobody ever gets comfortable with three months at one place, Because they've got two guys on the third floor that just got two guns Because these bookies would all give me 20, 40 bucks.

1:06:35 It goes to the counting rooms. So the cops got paid. we played handball all day i i had to go to a play with my uncle well you worked for a sports betting When my mother died, healeigh started on 118th street when my mother died he got tight Come here. You know. Where are you girls going? It's part of the whole thing. being made in the five boroughs of New York.

1:10:22 I remember him showing the shake. Oh, yeah, that rule, but that rule got violated and it turned into a nasty uh war an Who violated it? Yeah, he became a snitch and told the whole story. Well, he was probably authorized by his bosses to do it. had a major sit down about it shot at the restaurant And, you know, they could spill, and they took that pail of gas,

1:13:41 You said that in 1975 or 76 in Hudson County, In Hudson County, from 7th Street to 88th Street there, The Sicilians were good with bombs. Now, did anything surprise you when you were, I mean, obviously you're well-versed in organized crime and well versed in these a great story, really interesting but relationship between the U.S. and Cuba the Bay of Pigs the residue of the revolution that way the

1:16:03 It just makes me so aware that what Like, this is not discussed. number one, you're not going to believe me. I saw politics, I want to go up to them and go, if you knew what you were talking about, you all of a sudden this guy, T.J. English, I don't know, I guess you knew the Westies, Now, you see what's interesting about that. I think there's going to be a number of spinoff books from this.

1:18:59 that picture in new york city that people see thousands of people died mayor you ever have a teacher that was a mayor to the 405 and they were buying that property up in the 60s no no they were buying that property No, they make their profit renting it. He was a cop that I got invited into. and he would do whatever. I'll call the fire department. Early in this book process, the movie rights were optioned before I even wrote the book based on the book proposal.

1:22:12 who were daughters of one of the guys thought they could trust me, they couldn't stop talking about it. They had all this stuff they And the lady downstairs, she would pay her rent and tell her, hold this bag. It would be Carmine Balzano. It was that easy. who Jose Battle was. If you knew Jose Battle and you knew that he got in the truck and said, I'm going out there for my men, that's the guy I want with me all the time.

1:24:34 So growing up, there were so many things If I would have met Joey, I would have gone down a rabbit hole with Joey's stories. in his organization ernesto torres ernestico who he met in spain battle was on the run in madrid I've got a guy coming over this afternoon to the apartment. You'll never have a problem with this guy again. I took care of it. And no one else in the corporation can understand Battle's affection for this guy.

1:27:36 Tico doesn't have the brains to be a banker. He fails miserably as a banker. He's humiliated by The bankers come to He hires a few assassins to try to take Ernest Tico out. and in the middle of the afternoon, they find out where he is. They burst into his apartment. He comes back to the bosses, the bankers in New York. because he had a certain ability to do that that they didn't have.

1:29:54 He'd drive around and he'd see a dog on the street and he'd open the door and he'd say, Like St. Lazarus, he's the one with the crutches that got his licks in. And... Until you HBO felt they were that they were that chase fuck this Ross Greenberg kill the guy. That wasn't the He was a murderer, but you still liked him. Let me go pee real quick. you know, I want this guy's head

1:32:43 take on that contract. When Polulu goes to prison, they hire a killer to stab him in the prison yard twice, two separate times. someone has this, I wish Joey was here for this, So they continue to go after Polulu. They shoot him in the street. They think, great, he's dead. They say, you know what? I was raised in Santeria from the age of five. So that's why there's a lot of cross.

1:35:51 and I fell in love with this woman. That big black woman is my godmother, okay? I can't carry guns. And that's the same thing that happened to me on my kidnapping. on Monday? Yeah. I wasn't when I was doing the coke because I knew I wasn't allowed to. the cow's tongue like there was a big story when i was a kid for tati one of uh tati's story that And she became a star after that.

1:38:56 The guy's a Santeria guy. And he took the tongue and they rolled it with nails. What does the saint say? Really? It will get you at some point. culture unless you embrace it on some level you understand it and live it unless you continue it He goes, my passages are Yaguna. You can't kill mice around him. I can't have knives on me. Yes, and yeah my yeah sent a message to my mother. My mother didn't do it. My mother died.

1:42:20 for boys. Yeah, she sent me there It was a price of doing business, Joe Rogan. Now, here's how I knew Joey was legit because when we Tony Montana picks up Michelle Fife That's American. But he wouldn't come in for the shakedowns. she rented an apartment. We know what the fuck you're doing. We pay, and all of a sudden this guy, And one day I walked up there, and every one of those Cuban owners were in there, drinking,

1:45:57 It's where Henry Hill hung out, Dominic Monteglio, and Nino Gaggi. Ernestico, right? After Ernestico I'm worried. A ceremony. So he gives her the very people who are after him, Jose Miguel Battle, he says, Chino Acuna. and fingering the people who killed him. You're very controlled. him. He said because Once they tell me, I already know what they're talking about.

1:49:16 and the Orishas represent different spirits, Plays little tricks. Yeah, I don't whistle. I'd sit at the table I grew up in it. So if your Saint is five, you get hit with five things of water, and they dry you up, and you're freezing. It's crazy. All night on a Friday. They said, he's not allowed in here with a hat. Because I was a kid. It's a bunch of white people who didn't grow up in it.

1:52:06 Yes. That smells like hummus chips. Forest? She's in the Santeria? It's a different Santeria because it's African but it's not Cuban. Let's dance to the spirits. It's watered down. Look love it. Oh, my God. Let's dance to the spirits. And Forrest Whitaker dressed up like fucking monks. They're playing a role. I even took Duncan to him. When I joined this, I knew what I was getting myself into.

1:54:10 In fact, my mother So I left it with this gay guy named Martin the Fag, Mantiga Maricón. And then years later, I ended up robbing Martin in my cocaine fucking hell. saints. You flew to get them. I flew to get next time. And you read it and you'll go, Joe, they knew shit. people would go there, 10, 8 people who were invited. And I could tell this cop was eating

1:56:39 Mm. She goes, I know what's bothering you. I didn't believe in Jesus. Four days later, look it up. They said he died a hero that he was shot by a street criminal and he was given a hero's burial No, I didn't. The real story. He owned the town. left Hudson County I read that recently. It's deeply rooted in the system in certain jurisdictions, and it's not going to change.

2:00:36 It's the same thing. It's the same thing because the So you were married to a Brazilian woman. Wow. It doesn't matter if they're married or not married. They flirt with you. I suppose guys flirt, too. Everyone flirts. The women flirt. Doesn't matter if they're married or not married. They flirt with you. makes your body move. the whole dance is He was tightening up. So I had to play

2:02:52 And every time I come up, and I'll go like this and go like this. to choose the music, the musicians that perform there, and I host the evening. Wow. You do this Yeah, it was a nice way to revisit that culture, pick up the thread of that story. Watch this woman. Look. You were talking about jeans, about... Jamie, what's the name of this? Now that mute does it.

2:05:41 and the chanting that's going on, you would hear all that in a Santeria ceremony Wow this grabbing the pussy shit is And then it was weird. They played Chicago. he would, on Saturdays, he'd recreate it. Cubans would go crazy with the biggest dick in the world. then godfather two michael takes they take michael there and all of a sudden he goes i would have

2:08:19 That these white dudes went on a 50-year looking for Superman, The place was sold out every night. That's real. And he says, yeah, but I'm not going to give it up. where he's going to show me the film and his father had scored it like uh it looked like some kind of torture really uh. And that was it. And this guy had this footage, which is probably worth a lot of money.

2:11:24 Guys today, dick, but was it Lexington Steel? Right. This is what I remember. They set him up in a room with a two-way mirror, He was the freakiest of the freaks, right? Politicians and businessmen would go on junkets to Havana, like, you know, paid for by the My mother died in 79 And one day I asked, So I thought my mother was fucking with me. But the hotel guy would tell us he was up there in a room with a man.

2:15:13 Brown was fucking Richard Pryor? No. Cuba was Marlon Brando. Well, Pryor's wife was saying that back then they were doing so much coke that everybody just fucked everybody. Look at this. He was infected. He might have fucked animals. Oh, Jesus. Yeah, I don't talk about abacua. You come up to an abacua and call him his nickname, Juan did that to two or three people. At my mother's

2:18:00 Wow. That's progress. They don't speak Spanish. They have their own language in Spanish. What's the organization of this group? And they can fuck other men. fuck you in the ass and you're gonna suck my dick but don't you ever fucking think you're gonna with abaquas here it is it says frustrato Go to that second one. Right there. Play some of this, Jamie, so we can hear it.

2:21:10 Now see how the guy shows up? They're the... You know, just Man from the Wizard of Oz. They're the... When I see you... I touch elbows. Not the conga put? Now it's very progressive. They don't have the internet, right? No. No. I think I mean, you couldn't live there because you can't really do business there. Yeah. Yeah, but you can have some cigars.

2:23:39 I'm happy he wrote this book because I knew the story was out there, Joe. Right? when he picks you up at school, they thought they knew the whole story, You know how Amazon drops it off in front of your house? you have no idea. When my mother died, I gave Nina my dog. And give me 50 bucks and take me to the city to get haircuts. Seventh grade. Seventh grade.

2:26:23 Right. And said, put it on her pussy or you'll drive her fucking crazy. i was crying because there was two banks when I was growing up. And I guess Nene Marquez had an affair with her. And that's Joe. I don't know about that. But when the book came out, I got a call from Battle's longtime lawyer, a guy named Jack Blumenfeld, wonderful guy. incident and all of a sudden it would flood my memory same thing that was happening to you when

2:29:38 You know how many basketball games I went into those projects? I want beer, Ernie. So when we were in high school, five in the morning, Ernie, open up. I don't know how many times I went there to play basketball with. And like I said, when I became, I fell into that house. If they got a no-show job, I got a no-show job. TJ, thank you very much, man.

2:31:59 All right.