Nobody know's themselves

Nobody Knows Joe is the podcast that proves age is just a number.

Hosted by Joseph - a hospitality veteran who’s spent decades in the restaurant and bar scene - this show is equal parts wild stories, unfiltered laughs, and hard-earned wisdom. Joe isn’t your typical 58-year-old. He still goes out. He still parties. And he’s still the life of it.

From behind-the-bar confessions to outrageous life moments, unexpected interviews, and surprisingly sharp advice, Nobody Knows Joe dives into the chaos, comedy, and clarity that only real experience can deliver.

You think you know Joe?
Trust us - you don’t.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Nobody Knows Joe. Again, I'm starting to learn about myself, so let's let everyone learn at the same time who I am. Uh I had a great guest the last episode with Meyer, and I'd like to thank him again. And my guest before that was Noah. I'd like to thank him again. And this one, uh I was talking to a buddy of mine. We were talking until like five in the morning on uh on Friday night. We went drinking and then went back, sitting by in the studio, we were talking, and he's a really good friend, and we're talking about, you know, shit and this and that, and he looks at me like, Are you okay? I'm like, No, I'm still hurt. I'm I'm hurting, you know, it's a hard time for me. I'm still hurting, uh and I screwed up and I'm trying to fix it. Uh trying to fix me before I fix anything. And learning about myself and new words and feelings and all that. I'm not that, I'm not a Manellial or however you say it. I'm not that kind of person. I'm not awoke like everyone else is. I'm old school. And it's just different things. And and I said, Yeah, I'm hurt. And he goes, You know what, buddy? Everyone's hurt. Everyone's hurt in this world. I did something in my mind, and only in my mind I can tell, but you know, it could be in anyone else's mind, they'd be like, Yeah, it's nothing. But in my mind it's a little heinous. I've never done that before. I'm not a goodie two shoes. I've been bad. I've done a lot of bad things. I've hurt a lot of people. I've I've physically hurt people, I've you know, in relationships I hurt people. I hurt my kids by getting divorced, and you know how that is. And this one here is I hurt someone, and I know I have to get over it, which I am getting over it. And what I did wasn't that bad in life, but to me it was bad because I did something to someone who didn't deserve it. But there's always a backstory, so you know, it takes two to tango, and she did bad things, and I did bad things, and we are where we are, and thanks to Hayden and Jake, I have a podcast, and I can line up some of my feelings and my therapy out on here, and then also have fun with this. And on Friday I had a call from a friend of mine, another buddy of mine, whose daughter is in the hospital and ill, that she may not make it, and put me into my mind and saying, mental health is a really big issue in this world, and we all have to help each other. We all have to sit there and think, you know, ninety-eight percent of us have a great, you know. We you know, we have food on our table, we have a roof over our head, I have no complaints, I have my health, you know. I lost 35, 40 pounds in four or five months, and that's what the willpower of my friends helping me, my family, me, my kids, everyone helping, keeping me motivated to do it. And, you know, we just have to be thankful for what we got. And you know, sitting there at four in the morning, you know, pouring my heart out to a good friend of mine, him pouring his heart out to me. Guys do that. It's not just girls, guys do that too, you know. Like, you gotta be man enough to know that it's okay to talk. You gotta be okay about that. And a lot of guys don't. A lot of guys fear that and think that they're weak. There is no weakness anymore. You know, these millennials came out and said, Yeah, there's no more weakness, everything's fair game. And you know what? Thanks to them, you know, and this is where we are today. You know, and we have to understand that in this world we gotta be thankful that we can do this, you know, like I'm thankful for Hayden, you know, for helping me with all this. I'm thankful for Jake for helping me with all this. You know, this started I think two years ago. I think it was two years ago we star he had a podcast and I went on and ever since I wanted to go on and literally I tore my quad. I was in a hospital bed for literally three months. I had to use crutches, I couldn't put my foot down on the ground, my sister was helping me, taking care of me, I was in the living room. Hayden gave me a gift of a sp of a microphone and I would sit there at night by myself and I would talk to myself and say, you know what, I I want to do a podcast. And then it never transpired till I think it was two months ago when we first started, three months ago, we started talking about it. Him needing accounting advice, which I'll help anyone, you know. I'm I'm good at that. Better at that than this. Uh and you know, we just have to realize what we have, and it's okay to hurt, and it's okay to feel, and it's okay to work things through, and it's okay for all that. You know, we don't I don't have a phone line, I can't help anyone, but I hope the people listen to this. But we all have pain. We all suffer, we all do things to hurt people, which we shouldn't, but we do. We fight, you know, we love, you know, we you know, we think of different things how we can help people, and then we think of different things how we can get back at people. You know, revenge is not the greatest thing in the world, but it's a tool. When it's good, it's good. And when it's not, it's not. That's how we have to look at of things, you know. You know, and right now my life is okay. It's not great, it's not bad. You know, I'm still working out things in my head, I'm still doing things. You know, I like to thank all my friends out there for supporting me. You know, I want to say sorry for all the people I've hurt. I want to say sorry to my kids for hurting them, getting a divorce from their mother. It wasn't supposed to be on them at all. And going through all that, I don't know if anyone's been divorced, it takes a toll, takes a toll on everyone. And me learning, you know, when I was 40 and got divorced, I was an idiot. You know, you don't think of these things. You don't think of the repercussions. As you get older, you will realize the repercussions of a lot of things, you know, and you gotta work through them, you know, and sometimes you just gotta take yourself out of the situation and look at you and say, Can you do better? And a buddy of mine told me that. That's what we were talking about on the weekend on Friday night. He's like, You gotta just not overthink things, and it's not all about you. You know, when you're in a relationship, it's not about you. You have to understand that other people can't do everything you can, and you can't do everything that they want, and that's the one thing that we have to understand and learn, which I am, and you know, breakups aren't great, they're they're really hard, and you know, and then you know, you go onto Instagram, you go on to TikTok, and you have all these people saying all this crap, and I think the problem with all that is Instagram and TikTok are a problem because again, like I was saying before with my buddy Mayer is a dope a dopamine hit, everyone wants it. But again, when you take a drug or drink, you know, cocaine, weed, ecstasy, acid, marijuana, you know, alcohol, and I've and I've been a drinker my a lot of my life, it's a high for an hour, a high for a day, and then you come back to reality. And that's what love is. Love is a high for that moment that you're with that person, but then you have to take it and realize, okay, you know what, we gotta work on it, we gotta know what's real and what's not real about it, and we gotta move forward. Right? It's not like it's there for the taking, it's like, you know, here a story I'll tell you is I was ten years ago, maybe twelve years ago. Heavy, heavy drinker. I used to drink a bottle of Jameson a day. And me and a buddy of mine went on a 40-day drinking sprue and we drank every night for 40 days and get drunk. And one night uh I I get home and my son's in in his room, I'm in my room. I wake up in the morning, I'm like, Jonah. He goes, Yeah. Yeah, Dad. I'm like, I'm not doing well. I I I need to go to the hospital. So he calls me an Uber, we get to the hospital. I may have said this story before, I don't know, I'll say it again. I get to the hospital and it was bad. It was bad, you know, if the doctor said, you know, if you didn't come in within 72 hours you would have woken up, you would have just gone to bed and that's it. I drank myself to a stupor, and today I learned that you can't do that. And the same thing is with friendships and relationships, you can't overdo it. You just gotta take it in stride, you just gotta take it one day at a time. No one's perfect, no one has the ability to be perfect, everyone has flaws, and you have to accept it. And in my last relationship I accepted a lot. I I had no boundaries and and I think that was my mistake, is like I had no boundaries and I should have put boundaries on stuff. And then when I did put a boundary on something and I stuck to it well, I had the boundary from the beginning, you know, but I didn't stick to it. But when I stuck to it at the end, I screwed up. And I did something that is unexcusable in my world. In this world, people tell me it's not that bad. You got to a point that you were there and you did what you did and just move on. So moving on. I lost a good person, I missed that person. Did she miss me? I have no clue. We're on no contact. And uh that's how it is. So my buddy and I were talking till five in the morning. I can still stay up until five in the morning at my age, partying, talking, doing whatever we need to do. And he helped me out a lot, and you know what? It's a good thing. It's a very good thing. You know, I go to therapy, that's a good thing. This podcast is a good thing. And you know what? We're gonna stop on that and we're gonna talk about other things that are more joyful than my depression, than my my mind that is not a hundred percent there. We're gonna talk about, you know, I went to a great restaurant, you know, I went to a great restaurant in Miami. It was prime steak. Me and my buddy went and it was great. Food was amazing, the atmosphere was amazing, and reasonable price, but it was just I wasn't crazy that day with him. We had fun, and there should be more of things like that in Toronto. And I don't know, in Toronto it's great experiences in restaurants, isn't that great? You know, it's either you go to Jacobs or Harbor 60, and everyone in there is stuffy and stuck up, and we can't do that. We need to live life. Alright? We talk about the leafs, you're right. You know what? The general manager sucks. The upper management sucks. It's not about the players, it's all about the management. You know? Let's not do the same thing we did with the Blue Jays to the Leafs, go to the bottom, and then work our way up like we have last year. Let's go fix these Leaf team up sooner than later because I've been a fan. I I wasn't even born when they won the Stanley Cup. I was three days late. But I've been a diehard Leaf fan forever. All my friends are Hab fans, which I'm gonna go to a Habs game for the playoffs. Have fun in Montreal, which is Montreal's a good city. Montreal's a very good city. You know? Put your headphones on. Kabys with me a little. This is Hayden. Montreal's a good city to party. Montreal knows how to party. Toronto still doesn't. You know?

SPEAKER_00 13:42

Yeah, yeah. I mean I I yeah, I I agree. But uh I mean I don't really party anymore though, so I don't really you know what I mean with with uh Toronto. I I I've been hearing a lot that people are not liking Toronto to party in. I I will say the AGTL has been killing the restaurant and bar scenes with beyond. But like but like the last within the last year and two, you know.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

So not to be mean to anyone, but these 905ers coming from Brampton or Mississauga coming downtown Toronto.

SPEAKER_00 14:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:12

These guys have to, you know, like I'm sorry, I don't like to use the word, but the douchey. You know, it's getting douchey.

SPEAKER_00 14:20

There's nothing wrong with douchey. Douchey's a good word. Is it a good word?

SPEAKER_01 14:23

I don't know. Douchey's uh I don't know. You know, it's like these people I don't know if you can say that, but humanity in Toronto is not cool anymore. It's not where it used to be. And it's weird, you know. I went out this weekend and we went to the Ace Hotel and we went to the rooftop with my buddy, and it was just like I d I don't know what's wrong with people. I really don't. It's like everyone's trying to put on a show.

SPEAKER_00 14:57

Yeah, I mean, well, what about our area, like Ausington Dundas? Um it's definitely changed, but I mean it's it's still It's very cool, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:08

But it's too many people coming in trying to be cool, trying to fit in and they can't. It's not like us OG guys. You know? Uh you know, like there's OGs and there's OGs, and you know, I I was there when it nothing. Yeah. You know? We built it and people came, but again, like you said, the ADCO attacks it. Attacks, attacks, attacks, so it'll be nothing. I feel sorry for a buddy of mine who owns bar bar uh bar bowie. You know, poor guy, you know, they're after him for no reason. It's ridiculous.

SPEAKER_00 15:44

What's going on there?

SPEAKER_01 15:45

They keep shutting him down, like they keep you know, yeah, you know, what with capacity issues or capacity issues, you know, like the B, what's it called? The BAO out there or I don't know what that is. What's the BA, whatever they are? The association. The BIA. The BIA, yeah, the BIA. I like the BIA. You like the VIA? Yeah, yeah. No, but you know what? Again, we're in April, in June, Dundas Westfest is gonna come, and they're gonna be out there s stopping people, you know. Our our mayor is a moron, again, I'll say it again. I don't know who won the election tonight, but if the Liberals get a majority, again, we're more fucked up than we were ever. You know, it's like this war is stupid, you know, it's like everything that's going wrong is going wrong. You know? And it's hard, it's hard to fight depression in the society that is so effed up. So what do people do? They drink, do drugs, to escape the reality. It's like uh it's crazy. It's crazy to even think that in in 2026 we still have to be governed and still have to be, oh, you know, you're overcapacitated by two people, oh, you know, this or that is like like let people live. You know, let people understand that life I understand we have Uber now, so no one needs to drink and drive anymore, which is great, you know.

SPEAKER_00 17:27

But uh but no, no, I think the landscape with Toronto has been definitely switched up a a a lot. Um I mean I'd noticed it since COVID, but like right before COVID, that was pinnacle, I feel.

SPEAKER_01 17:41

Before COVID, everyone was partying. It's like it was like no no holds bar.

SPEAKER_00 17:46

Yeah, but you have a new wave of people that aren't drinking and that kind of stuff. Which they're still going out, but they're not which is I'm I'm fine with people not drinking.

SPEAKER_01 17:53

Oh, I'm fine with yeah, you don't have to drink. Yeah, you don't need you don't need substance. Again, I could sit there. My my lifestyle right now is a three drink minimum in Toronto, a maximum in Toronto. I won't drink more than three drinks in Toronto. But you get me going like I was in Miami, no hold bar. I'm not out to get anyone, I'm out to dance, and that's what these people are, and I can do it sober, and everyone can, and everyone can, you know, everyone has the ability. But it's so hard, you know, like I own a few places and it's weird, you know. I'm a little older. Again, like even the the the girls, you know, even guys and girls when they they don't know how to communicate anymore. It's so weird. The the sty the phone has destroyed any communication, you know? And Instagram and TikTok and whatever it is has destroyed even worse because you don't know what's real anymore. You know? It was funny because I'm with a friend and she's like, Oh, you know, a friend of mine saw my brother and he was with a girl who wasn't pretty. He was catfish. I'm like, Do you really have to say like he wasn't catfish, he's just a non-attractive person. Not everyone in the world can be attractive. Again. You know, I'm a I'm a a seven out of ten. Hayden is a nine out of ten, you know. It doesn't matter. It's it's not about you deciding where you are, it's what someone likes about you. It's the inner part of you that sticks to people. And that's where and that's one of the things that why I'm in therapy is because I lost a good person who was very nice, had issues, but I can deal with her issues. But she was great all around, you know, other than a few things. And I was great to her, she was great to me. But I just finding that people aren't communicating anymore, and it's always trying to find out what that person has. You know, it's like, oh, what do you own? How much money do you make? You know, it's like everyone wants the free ticket. And that's that's not right. And you know what? In the old days we used to go and dance, and it's like, just dance with me. I'm not asking you to marry me, just dance. And people today, you can't dance with anyone. God forbid, you look at someone the wrong way. You think that you're gonna hurt them. It's like, what do you think what are you doing? You know, I just find that crazy.

SPEAKER_00 20:32

You find that mainly in Toronto, like you're saying Miami doesn't have that?

SPEAKER_01 20:36

You know what? When I was in Miami, again, I was walking by and I paint my nails black because I have issues with biting my nails to the core and bleeding because I sometimes I have to feel pain to know I'm alive. Uh and a girl comes up to me and she's like, Oh, cool nail polish. I said, Thank you. And her friend comes to me, she goes, Are you gay? I'm like, No. She goes, Well, why are you wearing nail polish? I said, Why are you wearing a hat? She goes, but my hat's cool. I said, So is my nail polish? Like, who cares? And her friend's like, Yeah, leave him alone, let's go dance. I said, Let's go dance. And we went dancing. You know what I mean? It's like here, I don't know, people are won't comment, people won't do anything, you know. I have black nail polish, you know, and people are like, oh, okay. You know? It's just a little a little stuffier in Toronto than elsewhere that I see. Maybe because I'm a tourist and I don't give a crap. And here it's my home base and it's different. Yeah. I don't know. But you know, I've seen I've seen a lot of changes in the in the clubs. I've seen a lot of changes in the bar industries. And you're right. The ADCO is down on everyone. It's capacity capacity. is like just relax, you know, if you have one person over, two people over, it's not gonna kill anyone. You know? But again, we what are we gonna do? You know? We can't do a lot. Like we just have fun and let's have try and have fun. And nine oh five is when you come down to the 416 We know you're a 905er. Don't act like one. Act normal. That's how simple it is. You know? Just be normal. You know? You don't have to flash you don't have to you know be think that you know you have to do something. You know? You don't have to be Drake. You know what I mean? Like you know the OGs of the 416 know exactly how to act. We all know how to do everything. So that's it for now. We're at twenty five minutes. I'll let you guys go or do you have any other things uh Hayden? Are we good?

SPEAKER_00 22:59

No I think we're good.

SPEAKER_01 23:01

So why don't we wrap this one up? I'll get my thoughts together for the next one and we'll go slowly and I'll say one thing therapy's starting to work you know I'm starting to feel a lot better you know I'm I'm getting I'm getting comments that I'm looking better you know I'm not as heavy as I used to be I'm half the man I used to be you know goal leaf's go next year hopefully get a first uh top five pick Jays are slumming it a little but you know what I think they're playing into everyone's hand because they're gonna come out fighting soon when everyone's healthy. Raptors, you know what? I don't know if they'll get past the first round. They might with Cleveland but let's hope they do I'll be at the games you know if you guys want to stop by and say hi if you know who I am because I don't know who I am yet nobody knows Joe. So you won't see me there because you won't know if I'm there or not. And that's it for now. Have yourself a great day and let's rock and roll next time. Bye for now