The Wild World of Lil Pete!

Are You Garbage? Comedy Podcast

The hosts sit down with Brooklyn comedian and internet personality Lil' Pete to explore his chaotic upbringing, wild partying years, and path to recovery. He recounts

Key takeaways

• Lil' Pete spent six months in rehab after an opioid overdose at age 37 that left him on life support for ten days following a Klebsiella pneumonia infection.
• He grew up in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, as an only child to an Irish Catholic father who played high school basketball with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and an Italian Roman Catholic mother who was a special education teacher.

Main topics

• Brooklyn upbringing and family dynamics
• College years and early career as a personal trainer

Notable quotes

"I was actually kicked out of the halfway house because they had actually made me the manager."

Conclusion

The episode offers an unfiltered, darkly comedic look at the chaotic r

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:00) Stop the presses, gang. The American Garbage Special is out on YouTube right now. Numbers are cooking. We thank everybody for their support. Keep sharing it. Keep telling everybody about it. We Speaker 2 (0:09) love you. Yeah, and if you like what you saw, we are on tour right now. We're going to be in Appleton, Wisconsin, San Jose, San Diego, Tacoma, Atlanta. Philly. Hello. Springfield, Fort Wayne, Connecticut, Phoenix, Arizona, Timonium, Maryland, Milwaukee, Chicago, Cincinnati, Columbus. All tickets available at RUGarbage.com. If you've got a garbage question, come out and see the boys. Yeah. Speaker 3 (0:31) Welcome to another exciting edition of RU Garbage, the show where you find out if your favorite comedians are classy individuals or absolute trash. Now, here are your hosts, Kevin Speaker 2 (0:47) Ryan and H. Foley. Speaker 1 (0:50) Hey, everybody out there, and Speaker 3 (0:52) welcome back to everybody's favorite podcast. This is Are You Garbage? Oh, yeah. It's that little show where we sit down with your favorite comedians and we find that it's a group to be classy. Yeah. Get the big old piece of trash. Garbage. I'm Speaker 2 (1:03) your Speaker 3 (1:03) host, H. Foley, coming at you on a beautiful day. We're out back here with Tooties in a new edition. She just bought a gun. Mm-hmm. Speaker 3 (1:12) My ghost coming at you from right next to me, that counts as a win. Speaker 2 (1:14) Luke, give me a yes or no on that. You've used that one for sure. No. Speaker 3 (1:19) Dig up the tapes. Show me. Call me Speaker 1 (1:22) a liar. Speaker 2 (1:23) You're a liar. Speaker 3 (1:25) Okay. Got me to the rights on that. He is the CEO of Are You Garbage? He is an international businessman and my best pal in the whole wide world. Give it up for KJ, Kevin James, Ryan, everybody. And that was a lie. Speaker 2 (1:37) Shout out to everybody for tuning in. As always, please make sure you rate, review, subscribe on iTunes. Full Speaker 1 (1:42) video available on YouTube. Full video available over there on Spotify. And the boys are climbing the freaking charts, baby. Speaker 2 (1:47) then obviously the greatest website of all time, www.patreon.com slash areyogarbage. You go over there, you join the 17,000 strong that are over there on a Patreon. And Speaker 3 (1:57) that fantastic special on our YouTube page, American Garbage. Please do us a favor and check it out. Spread the word of garbage. Yes. But gang, we couldn't be more excited. They were incredibly, and I mean incredibly special guest here with us today for the first time. This young man has been causing a stir. Bit of an internet sensation. Making waves on the internet and in the comedy scene. Very funny stand-up comedian. Give us a favor and give it up for Lil' Pete. Speaker 2 (2:24) Lil' Pete's Speaker 1 (2:25) here. Speaker 3 (2:25) Talk of the town, Speaker 2 (2:26) this guy. Speaker 1 (2:27) Thanks for coming. Happy to be here, guys. Thank you for having me on, man. Of course, man. You're welcome. Thank Speaker 3 (2:31) you so much for coming in. Give us... The backstory, the origin story. I heard it's a sort of tale. Speaker 1 (2:37) Are you a New York kid born and raised? Born and raised, Brooklyn, New York, Bay Ridge. I've been living in the same house for the last 42 years. Oh, shit. Except for the one year that I was in rehab, which was almost 10 years ago. Very nice. You did a year in rehab? Yeah. A year? Did about six months in rehab, then about six months in a halfway. No shit. Yeah. That's Speaker 3 (2:58) a halfway house for you. I was actually Speaker 1 (3:00) kicked out of the halfway house because they had actually made me the man. manager of the halfway house when this Speaker 2 (3:05) guy's got stories already my kind of guy will be when Speaker 1 (3:08) they saw how responsible i was and how reliable i was and how much of a leader i am they said we want you to be the manager yes Speaker 2 (3:17) we Speaker 1 (3:18) want you to be the manager of the halfway house i was like okay great uh-huh so you know me i'm always telling my stories we don't and strip club stories and everything okay One night, some of the clients at the halfway house was like, we would really love for you to take us to a strip club. And I said, you know what? That's a great idea. We're going. So instead of taking them to the NA meeting, I was taking them to the strip clubs. Sure. Wound up hooking up with this cute little waitress. And it became like a regular thing. So no more NA meetings. Now it's like. Everybody's going to the bar. Yeah, we're going to the strip club with Lil Peep. Speaker 3 (3:50) Wait, Speaker 1 (3:50) you were taking Speaker 3 (3:51) people from the halfway house to a strip club on a regular basis? Speaker 1 (3:54) On a weekly basis. Were they drinking? In the beginning, no, but eventually it led to it, yes. Speaker 3 (4:00) I caused Speaker 1 (4:01) a massive relapse. Speaker 3 (4:02) Really? Yes. Tampa Speaker 1 (4:03) Bay Ridge went out. And then you Speaker 3 (4:05) were asked to leave the halfway house. Speaker 1 (4:06) I was asked to leave the halfway house. But why Speaker 3 (4:08) six months in rehab? Speaker 1 (4:10) Oh, that was the program. It was a six-month thing. Six months? Yeah, Speaker 2 (4:14) it Speaker 1 (4:14) was a six-month Speaker 2 (4:15) thing, yeah. Holy Speaker 1 (4:16) shit. Speaker 2 (4:16) Yeah, you should try it sometime. Speaker 1 (4:19) Yeah. Speaker 2 (4:20) Okay. All right, let's go back a little further. So, yeah, born and raised Bay Ridge. That's correct. What was the family dynamic? Like, mom, dad, brothers, sisters? What was the house growing up? Speaker 1 (4:31) Only child. Only child. Yes. My father was Irish. Okay. Very Irish Catholic, very into sports. Everything growing up in my household was basically focused around sports. That was my job. Make the baseball team, make the basketball team, make the soccer team. It was more important than schoolwork or anything. My mother is an Italian woman, also a very Italian Roman Catholic. She was a teacher. Okay. A special ed teacher. Okay. Coincidence that she had a kid who's borderline special ed, you know? Speaker 3 (5:08) Is that true? Speaker 1 (5:10) Absolutely. Okay. Yeah. Verbal ability, extremely high. High verbal ability. 98%. Uh-huh. Performance ability, 2%. 2%. And I'm like, who the fuck are these two guys that did worse than me? You know what I'm saying? Speaker 3 (5:25) Okay. I like this. I want to meet Speaker 1 (5:27) them. I want to meet them, you know? Very, Speaker 3 (5:29) very. Classic New York tale. Irish Speaker 2 (5:32) -Italian. Irish-Italian. It's like Speaker 3 (5:36) fucking oil and vinegar. Speaker 2 (5:37) Did your dad play sports when he was growing up, or are you just obsessed Speaker 1 (5:40) with him? No, absolutely. He played in high school for Power Memorial with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Speaker 2 (5:45) Oh, shit. When he was still Llewell Cinder. Speaker 3 (5:50) Basketball. Your dad played with Kareem. Yes, he did. Holy shit. Powell Memorial, Speaker 1 (5:55) 1961. Correct. Powell Memorial. Yeah, it's not even there anymore. Speaker 3 (5:58) Damn. Speaker 2 (5:59) Is that a public school? No, I believe it was Catholic. Yeah, probably a Catholic school back in the day. Damn. They're Speaker 1 (6:05) very Catholic, my father's side of the family. Not Kareem. Not Kareem. A lot walked by, you Speaker 2 (6:12) know. The dream, baby. Okay. Was, you know, very New York thing. Was your extended family in the neighborhood as well? Like your aunts and uncles and dad's family, mom's family? Or was it? Speaker 1 (6:25) So my mom's family lived in Bensonhurst. But it was just my grandmother and grandfather. Where we went every. Sunday to have dinner. Okay. Really? Yes. The larger side of the family, my father's side, the Irish side, they were spread out through Jersey and Rockland County. I only really saw them on the holidays. Speaker 3 (6:45) Gotcha. Yeah. Rockland County. Correct. Yeah. Family gets up there. That's bad news. Speaker 2 (6:51) That sounds like you're making it out, but it's tough going up in Rockland. Rockland County is rough. Okay. Okay. Huh. Speaker 3 (6:58) So how were the grades in school? Speaker 1 (7:00) Okay, the grades in school were good. And did you go to Speaker 3 (7:02) Catholic school or public school? Speaker 1 (7:04) I started at Adelphi Academy, which is a private school. Adelphi Academy. Six blocks away from my house, yeah. Sounds like a cable company. Okay. Speaker 3 (7:13) Adelphi Academy. Adelphi is a cable company. Spectrum Academy Speaker 1 (7:16) is Speaker 2 (7:17) where. Went to Time Warner College. So, yeah. Speaker 1 (7:19) There were, in the original kindergarten class, there were only seven kids. All right. My mother made sure in the early part of my life that I was in a small class where the kids got a lot of attention if they needed it. Speaker 3 (7:31) She knew what Speaker 2 (7:32) she was doing. Yeah, she knew what she was doing. Speaker 1 (7:34) Okay. At fourth grade level, I attempted to go to poly prep, but... They didn't accept me. I was like the only kid in the class that did not get accepted. Speaker 3 (7:44) What's poly prep? It Speaker 1 (7:46) was a higher level private school. Gotcha. Yeah. More expensive, more money, better sports program. Gotcha. Yeah. All of that. Speaker 3 (7:53) Okay. Speaker 1 (7:53) Then for fifth grade, I went to St. Patrick's, which was like a neighborhood Catholic school. Gotcha. Where I played all my sports. Okay. Yeah. Speaker 2 (8:01) Okay. Huh. All right. Very interesting. Did your parents stay together? Did they separate? Speaker 1 (8:07) They never got a divorce, but. It didn't really help the relationship. They were fighting all the time. Did Speaker 3 (8:14) your dad eventually move out? No, he died. He died of a Speaker 1 (8:17) heart attack in 2006. Oh, I'm sorry to hear it, bud. Actually had a heart attack while he was refereeing a basketball game. Went to blow his whistle. That was it. And he died right there? Died on the court, yeah. Speaker 2 (8:29) Holy shit. He went doing what he loved, though, you know? Speaker 1 (8:32) Damn. Were you at the game? No, we weren't. Would you have been? No, but my mother typically would have. It's probably not by coincidence that she didn't go that day because it's probably better that she didn't see that. Speaker 3 (8:44) So even though they fought, they were still, like she went to his basketball games and he refereed. Speaker 1 (8:51) Yes. We had a golden retriever. dog female by the name of Star. Speaker 3 (8:56) That Speaker 1 (8:57) dog probably kept the marriage together more than anything. Because they used to love to walk it together. They used to love to take the dog to the beach, even in the winter. If it wasn't for that dog, there probably would have been some form of a separation between like between 96 and 2006 when my old man passed. Speaker 3 (9:14) There's something to be said for that kind of love, though. Speaker 1 (9:16) Yeah. Kind Speaker 2 (9:17) of gritting your teeth and going to watch them referee in their moral sports games. What was a vacation like growing up? Speaker 1 (9:26) Oh, wow. So we used to go to Cape Cod. Really? Every year we went to Cape Cod for two weeks in August. Wow. Yeah. Good vacation. So Speaker 3 (9:34) you had no cousins or anything like that? Like cousins your age? Speaker 1 (9:37) Oh, no. On my father's side, yeah. I had several cousins that were a year or two older, a year or two younger. And you would Speaker 3 (9:43) only really see them once or twice a year? Speaker 1 (9:45) Gotcha. Who was your Speaker 3 (9:46) crew in Bay Ridge? Did you have a group of friends? Oh, Speaker 1 (9:49) yeah. I always had a big group of friends. Speaker 3 (9:51) Okay. I Speaker 1 (9:52) was always like that one guy that everybody really wanted to hang out with, you know? Okay. Speaker 3 (9:56) That good personality. This guy fucking walks Speaker 1 (9:58) in and takes the room over. 98 Speaker 3 (9:59) % verbal. Yes. Let's go. Speaker 1 (10:02) Yes. No, please. No, I still want to know who the two guys that did worse than me on the performance test were, you know? Okay. Speaker 3 (10:09) What was the grocery store that your mom went to growing up? Speaker 1 (10:12) She went, it's called Food Town now. Sure. It was called Met Food back then. Okay. I Speaker 2 (10:19) don't think Speaker 1 (10:19) I ever Speaker 2 (10:19) heard of a Met Food. Yeah. Did Speaker 1 (10:21) you ever say what your dad did? Okay, so my father owned his own business. He owned a route in which he was a middleman, like a distributor. Of? Pasta, cheese. Good gig. Yeah. Having a route's a good Speaker 2 (10:36) gig. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, Speaker 1 (10:38) he did well, man. Towards the end of his life, like around 2000, the business totally fell apart. Okay. And Speaker 2 (10:44) that Speaker 1 (10:44) hurt him. That hurt him. He became a teacher the last six years of his life so he could teach the kids and coach the kids and all that. Speaker 3 (10:52) Would you guys grow up in an apartment or a house? Private house. Private and small. Small Speaker 1 (10:56) house right next to an apartment building. Speaker 3 (10:58) Nice. And your mom's still lives there today. Speaker 1 (11:00) We still both live there to this day. Speaker 3 (11:01) You live with your mom. Correct. Very nice. All right. We're going to get into that. Speaker 2 (11:04) For sure. Speaker 3 (11:05) I Speaker 2 (11:05) like it. Speaker 1 (11:06) What was your Speaker 2 (11:07) first car growing up? Could have been any age because I know New Yorkers at all. It's not like you get a car at 16 or whatever. Speaker 1 (11:12) So my first car, my parents actually gave me their Volvo, which was a 94 S 70, I believe. Nice car. So that I could drive to college. St. Joseph's College. Went to St. Joseph's. Yes, went with Chris. Chris DiStefano. Yeah, we were college buddies for four years. St. Joseph's College. Speaker 3 (11:30) Where's that? I didn't know that. Downtown Brooklyn. It is. Speaker 2 (11:33) 245 Speaker 1 (11:34) Clinton Avenue. 245 Clinton Avenue. Duh. Speaker 2 (11:37) Right off the fucking G-Train ticket. Chris Speaker 1 (11:39) was the star of the basketball team, the all-time leading scorer. Speaker 2 (11:42) I didn't Speaker 1 (11:42) know you Speaker 2 (11:42) knew Chris like that. Speaker 1 (11:44) Before I did comedy, before he did comedy, yeah. No fucking way. Chrissy D. Chrissy Speaker 2 (11:49) D. Speaker 1 (11:49) Chrissy D was quite the basketball player. Big shout-out to Chrissy D. You Speaker 3 (11:52) say Speaker 1 (11:52) all Speaker 3 (11:52) -time leading scorer? He is? He's the all-time leading scorer. All-time leading scorer. Yes. Good fact check. Shout-out to Speaker 2 (11:59) Chrissy D. Okay. Wow. A Volvo. I didn't see that coming. I did not see that coming. A white Cadillac, something. I did not see the... My Speaker 1 (12:08) father had a white Cadillac. Yeah, Speaker 2 (12:10) he Speaker 1 (12:10) had a white Cadillac Eldorado, yeah. What happened Speaker 3 (12:12) to that? I crashed both of them. Nice. You crashed the Eldorado? Speaker 1 (12:16) Yeah, I did, unfortunately. Was he Speaker 3 (12:17) still alive? Speaker 1 (12:18) Yes, unfortunately. That sucks. I did the same Speaker 3 (12:21) thing. Speaker 1 (12:21) Yeah, I got an ass kicking for that one, man. Did you? Yes, I did. How did you do in college? Did you graduate? I graduated from St. Joseph's College. You did? Yes, but realistically, my mother should have two college degrees. Sure, she was doing a lot of your work. She was helping me a lot with my work, yeah. So you Speaker 2 (12:38) were living at home. You lived at home through college. I did, yeah. Gotcha. Yeah. Okay. And what was the first job you had as a teenager or even a kid? Paper route, anything? Oh, okay. Speaker 1 (12:47) So my first job. Well, actually, my first job that my father got me was working at a- He hasn't Speaker 2 (12:52) answered a question straight yet. Actually, no, it's very- I love it. Speaker 1 (12:56) Got me a job. working at a cemetery, right? Jesus. In which I got fired the first day because I couldn't find the bathroom. I took a piss on somebody's tombstone. Jesus. Right, Pete. Come on. Speaker 3 (13:07) Right for Speaker 1 (13:07) the boss to roll up in his cart and be like, get the hell out of here. You're fired. Holy shit. It was a Speaker 3 (13:13) summer job, I assume? It was a summer job, yeah. What were you supposed to be doing? Digging graves? Speaker 1 (13:16) No, we were like cutting the grass and stuff. Gotcha, okay. So maintenance. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Speaker 3 (13:21) Huh. And what about after that? Did you take the rest of the summer off? No, Speaker 1 (13:25) I got a job, personal training at a Bally's in Elmhurst. How old were you? Like 18 going on 19. That was your Speaker 3 (13:32) first job, 18, 19? Yeah. Were you always in Speaker 1 (13:34) good shape? I was always in good shape, yeah. You always lifted? Yeah, since the time I was like 15. Huh. Okay. What was your first concert? Never went to a concert in my life. Well, Speaker 3 (13:46) you've never been Speaker 1 (13:47) to a music house No, but I've been to a lot of like house music type of parties like Sound Factory Raves yeah that's all that kind of shit big time A lot of Molly's Have my eyeballs spinning have my toupee friggin standing up How Speaker 3 (14:06) long when did you start wearing a toupee? 2010 2010. When Speaker 2 (14:10) did you, as a guy, you know, with male pattern baldness, when did you start losing it? Did you start losing, were you one of those kids that started losing it early? Speaker 1 (14:17) Started losing it early. I did a cycle of steroids, right? In 2002 for my Cancun senior trip. Speaker 2 (14:26) Wait, how old are you? I'm 42. You're 42. So in what year was this? This is 2002. 2002, your high school. You're in high school. You're in high school. You start doing a cycle. Yes, I did a cycle in Speaker 3 (14:41) high school. Speaker 2 (14:41) Because you're going Speaker 3 (14:41) away to Cancun, you want to look good on the beach. That is correct. Speaker 2 (14:43) Fucking sharp kid, though. I don't know what to tell you. That's all right. All Speaker 3 (14:47) right. And your hair starts falling out because of that? Speaker 1 (14:49) That was the beginning of it, believe it or not. Yeah. Speaker 3 (14:52) So you start losing in high school. Yeah. How was the Cancun trip? The Speaker 1 (14:55) Cancun trip was awesome. Yeah. It was worth every year that I took off my life with those steroids. Did you get laid down there? I did. Yeah. I did. Speaker 2 (15:05) Shout out to it. Speaker 1 (15:06) I remember my mother found my steroids and she was like, you have to stop taking that. I said, sure, right after spring break. I said, I'm going to Cancun. I'm trying to get jacked and I'm trying to get some pussy. Back off. Speaker 3 (15:17) I assume your mother knows everything that goes on in the household? Speaker 1 (15:20) Yeah, she did. She Speaker 3 (15:21) keeps it pretty clean. Does she, and this isn't a shot, I'm very close to my mother, lived back at home several times. Does she clean your room? Speaker 1 (15:29) No, not anymore. The last five years. She has macular degeneration. She's losing her eyesight. Okay. She had a knee replacement last May. Okay. She's not walking so well anymore. Gotcha. And dementia runs in her family. Gotcha. And Speaker 2 (15:45) the Speaker 1 (15:45) last five years, she's slowing down a lot. Like, it's actually me taking care of her now. Sure. Very nice. Speaker 2 (15:50) Okay. Very admirable. Very admirable. Good moral thing to do. But up Speaker 3 (15:54) until then, she strikes me as the kind of mom that ran the vacuum five times a day, kept the place spotless. Do you have any plastic on anything in the living room, the couch or anything like that? Furniture cover or anything? We did, but Speaker 1 (16:07) the cat just clawed through all that shit. And she gave up. Yeah, the cat, Tiger Boom Boom, he just clawed through everything. Tiger Boom Boom was the name of the cat? Yes, he takes the biggest shits, that cat. Speaker 3 (16:18) Do you still have the cat? Yeah, yeah, he's four years old. Four years old. Correct, yeah. Okay. Speaker 2 (16:22) All right. Growing Speaker 1 (16:24) up, would you drink milk with dinner? And who cooked? Your mom? My mom pretty much cooked every night. Okay. Yeah. Speaker 3 (16:29) Good Speaker 1 (16:30) cook. Yeah, she was Speaker 2 (16:31) a Speaker 1 (16:31) good cook, yeah. How was Speaker 3 (16:32) her sauce? Speaker 1 (16:33) Oh, her sauce was great, but not... As good as her mom's. Her mother, my grandmother, Talia, was actually the better cook of the two. Speaker 3 (16:40) Where you guys would go on Sundays. Yeah, absolutely. What would that Sunday dinner look like? And would it just be you guys, or would it be any relatives of hers? Speaker 1 (16:47) So it was me, my mom, my dad, and my grandma and grandpa. And then my mom's brother, who lost his job in 1990, Speaker 3 (16:55) spent Speaker 1 (16:56) six years living at home with them. Nice. Yeah. I really, that was my Uncle Vito. I really liked that guy. He was cool. He passed? He died of dementia two years ago, yeah. Two Speaker 3 (17:07) years ago. Speaker 1 (17:07) He was cool, though. He let me have a couple of sips of his