The Church of What's Happening Now: The New Testament - #475 - Joey Diaz and Lee Syatt

Episode Date: April 25, 2017

Joey Diaz and Lee Syatt have a certain je ne sais quoi tonight live in studio. Joey ate something new in Oxnard, Joey talks about one of his comedy mentors, and why he thinks about what he was like at 28.  This podcast is brought to you by:  Helix Sleep: Go to helixsleep.com/JOEY to get $50 off of your order off your custom mattress. MVMT Watches - Go to MVMTWatches.com/church to get 15% off of their high quality watches at revolutionary prices. MVMTWatches.com/church for 15% off, with free shipping and free returns.    Onnit.com. Use Promo code CHURCH for a 10% discount at checkout.    Recorded live on 04/24/2017.  

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Number two, here we go, baby. You're sick and tired of sleeping. You don't know. You're back. HELICSleep, night after night, the same bed. I'm telling you, it kills your back. Go to helixleep.com right now, answer some questions, and I'll tell you what I'm going to do.

If you go to helixleep.com slash Joey, I'm going to give you $50 off your order. That's helixleep.com slash Joey, $50 off your order. Do your thing, Lee. Let's start this motherfucker. Oh, shit. Get your shit together. Watch that monkey.

It's Tuesday morning. Here we go, motherfuckers. Oh shit. We ain't fucking around. The church of what's happening now. Oh, shit. Move your fingers. Watch your wallet.

They're pickpockling. People so cellar. Shut out. Church of what's happening now. Coming at you. April 25th, 2017. Oh shit. Here we go.

When black people were black people. I just don't know. Oh shit. What's happened, you bad motherfuckers? Uncle Joey here with my main man of debt. Lee Syed over there coughing up lungs and shit. Well, you give me the same bong hits that you take. I need to take, like, let it.

I see all these people online taking bong hits and they go, And they take a little puff of a cloud And they don't I need to start doing that Those are the same people who get allergies And they fucking They put knee pads on when they ride bisoners They don't take a chance You gotta take a chance

When you smoke reef of Columbus I'm taking a chance If you came to any of the Oxnard shows Thank you very much Some of the shows were great I'm still slipping on stage I'm stuttering and shit But it was still a great weekend

the fucking food there at Levity Live. It's the number one fucking kitchen and comedy right now. Really. They're really doing a good job. Levity Live, Nyack, and Oxnard. They're hitting it out of the fucking. They even got you eat something you've never had before. Yeah, they had me eating kale and shit.

They trick me those motherfuckers. They got these steak bites as an appetizer with like these little onion rings on a bed of fucking. I thought it was spinach. I'm like, this spinach is delicious. It's got garlic on it. Jesus Christ. The last night I was there,

They told me it was kale I almost died but what are you going to do You gotta take what they're giving you some time That's how my mom used to trick me I told my mom used to give me a Caps Cows tongue Oh

And she looked like a steak with potatoes And that eaten And she goes that was cow's tongue And I want to puke to death But That's I haven't tried Lingu I haven't tried Cabezer Oh you know you can't know

When you're eating it And then my mom used to make cabs brains And you're slice them thin Paper thin You put them in eggs egg batter with flour and a little fucking Italian bread crumbs and you fry them up let me tell you some you squeeze some lemon on those motherfuckers you think you're eating a chicken cutlet then after you eat 15 of them they tell you it's calves brains you want to shoot yourself

what a brains taste like delicious when they're fried delicious I only had them once after my mom died that's how that's how much I loved them and a friend of mine said they made them the same way it was garbage they were gooey in the inside I don't like that shit but anyway no Oxnard was great. I had a great weekend with my family. It's great to have a light schedule. Guys, like I said, when you get older, those airports are fucking tough.

Every weekend, plus I'm lurking in the middle of the night. It takes me a few days to recover. Thank God I got jujitsu. Thank God I move. Thank God I try to breathe bad. I drink water on the flight. I don't drink alcohol, you know, because that'll fuck you up on those flights.

I'll drink 19 gallons of water. I'll piss every 15 minutes, just on principle, just to keep my life. My legs moving so my ankles don't swell. I'm a chubby dude. I stay in the window seat and I don't move. No, that's why your ankles get all fucked up and shit. You fuck up your circulation.

And then, man, the right in that plane ain't that fucking good for you. So it's good to take a couple weeks off. I take a plane a few weeks to Salt Lake City, which is a hop, skip, and a jump. And then I take a plane in the fucking Milwaukee and Detroit. And after that, I'm done for like five weeks, man. Jesus. I'm taking breathers. Yeah, man.

This is your longest break, I think. since I started with you. Yeah, no, but it won't be a break. I'll be the fucking right in the fucking thing. You never take a break. You make everyone a feel like every time you call. It's like I have to, even at night sometimes I'm like, you call. I have to have some work I was doing or something.

Like just you're like you're always doing something. Well, I break up the day into eight pieces. You know what I'm saying? So you're doing an hour and a half here and I want to have there and now I want to have here and now I want to have here and now I want to have there. You go to write for an hour and a half. You're outside in the sun. You come back. I go on a half here.

I try to fuck around with the book. I'd sit down later on. I sent emails in the morning. I fuck around on Twitter and Facebook. Your days always organized so you don't rot the death on that fucking chair. Right. I don't try to do three-hour chunks. I don't try to be earning this Hemingway because they'll kill my fucking back.

So those days are over with. When I was trying to write the special of those months, I had that back pain. It was because I was sitting. Oh, really? I was sitting in chairs and Denny's. I was going to coffee shops. I was going to bars. I was always sitting down writing, so I had to figure something out.

So now I just do it in short spurts, because it drives me crazy anyway. I'd rather write a paragraph and get up and take a walk than sit there for four hours and burn out like a fucking momo. And then that last paragraph you write means dick because you were so retarded. Your brains were fried. Fuck it. Go give yourself some air, take a walk, smoke a dube, go talk to the cat or something, just break the monotony for a half hour. You deserve it. You've been sitting there.

Yeah, it's hard. My hardest part is getting started. Once I'm working, I'm fine, but I think that's why people have Adderall so much. And I never tried it, and maybe I should have. But, like, I'll sit there for eight hours doing, like, spinning, rain, appends, doing anything but the work I'm supposed to be doing. No, sure. What the fuck you think you're dealing with? I was like that, too, for a while.

And I needed Adderall. I just needed to fucking eat. Someone you need to eat. You know, it's crazy that I've lived here for 20 years. And I've seen people. Come and go in this town, but there's a certain, and I can't, Lee, you've been with me five and a half years now. We've been fucking around. Yeah.

Have you ever seen me in the five and a half years go to the celebrity parties or want to go to premieres? I've been waiting for my invite. I haven't got no one cool. I just don't do that stuff. Yeah, no. I could go to parties. I remember when I first got here, getting invited to these parties. And I probably went to two of them, and I knew right off the bat and belonged there.

Like I had just always felt that I didn't belong. And don't get me wrong. People spoke to me and I made people laugh and I mingled. I just always felt like I didn't belong there because I always felt that the people that saw me at those things thought I was there for a reason. So I always tried to avoid all that type of stuff. But aren't they there for that same reason? Not really. They're really friends and they've already made it.

That's successful. Okay. You know, they deserve to hang out one another in line of one another. I'd never gotten to that point. So it was just weird that people think that I don't know how to describe this, sometimes that who you hang with or something will get you to the next level, whether in film,

like sometimes I'm watching a movie and somebody will say, well, the reason why he got there is because he's such and such and his son. Or the reason why he's there is because he's such and such his nephew or something like that. And they really don't understand. What people don't understand is that somebody could walk you to the dance.

You still got to go in there and dance. I think you're mostly right, but especially in that industry and filming stuff, it seems like there's always going to be some movie, some TV show to hire people. So, I mean, I think in a lot of jobs, you're right. In the 20 years I've been here, I've been given maybe three or four roles that I got a call, and they said, come on down and do the work. And it was when I first got here, believe it or not, like on pilots for Fox or ABC. There was a casting director that I called me twice.

There was another cast in direct. You know, so, yes, I can't lie to you. But even if people have you in mind for a project, and this has been the whole time I've been here, I've always had to go down there and audition and fucking be prepared because I always felt that if Lysayat made a call from me, I got to be better than everybody else. When I worked from my in-laws, when I got out of prison, I worked along six fucking guys, and I could look you in the eye. And if I could find any of those guys today, except for Mike Roebuck, we could call him up right now. Don't tell you that when I worked, I worked.

Like, I didn't talk. I didn't share the chat. I didn't have to rub sun tan lotion on myself and take a break. I fucking got dirty. Like, you know, I went there to work. I worked this hard or hard than anybody else because I was working for my in-law. laws and I never wanted able to say I was a dumb son-in-law

I took a certain pride in that yeah I mean did you have an experience with someone who who you like you worked at a place and their son was an asshole or all the time yeah all the time and you look at it and go Jesus like my friend

Veneery the guy who owns the funeral Apollo when he was a kid he worked and when I look you in the eye and I tell you he worked he worked like when we were 17, his parents would go to Florida for the holidays and gear would stay home and work in that funeral Paula. And he knew every aspect of it by the time he was 18 or 19. He knew how the cleaning would be. He knew the autopsy procedures. He knew all the people who had to deal with to get debt certificates.

He knew all that shit because he did it from scratch since the time he was probably 12 or 11. He's probably, I mean, not to get you off track, but someone like that, he's probably in the top 5% of all morticians in the country. He's been doing it all his life. All his life. But on the other hand, you might see a family where they own a construction company. And the kid don't do construction, but he drives the best car in town. He has the nicest shoes.

So guess what? The guy joins the service, he gets fucking thrown out. He goes to college. He never paid attention in high school. So now he has to turn to the family business. So here's a guy like you That went in there at 18 and busted his hump And now you're 32

And he walks in there And now he's your boss This happens across America And across the world all the fucking time Because the kid goes off He never paid attention They pampered him as a child And now he has to actually go work

For the family business And they're not going to hire him as a fucking goat Because the kid's already mentally broken So they're going to give him a cush job And this guy's going to come in and tell you with your fucking position. Show about 11, leave a three. Sure. Booze, broad, it's a little blow.

I saw it all the time. And in a way, I wanted to be that. Yeah, it sounds great. I wanted it. I wanted to be the kid that your parents gave you money and you drove the best car in town. And you did drugs and everybody thought you were cool. That's a great fucking way to live. But good luck.

One day that balloon's going to burst and you're going to be left out in a cold. You know, I always said that when I was 18, 19, besides my thievery, I wasn't doing bad financially working in the city with numbers. I had the drug problem and all that shit. But beside all that, it was a living and I was good at it. And I knew the ins and out of it because I did it as a child. Were you worried at all? I mean, I guess in the grand scheme, it's one of the lesser of your crimes.

But doing numbers, you were never worried about going to jail for it. No, it's a misdemeanor in New York City. But misdemeanor's not bad? I'm scared of you. I don't even want a misdemeanor. No, they disappear. after a year. You go see a probation officer a few times.

You're out of there. Jesus Christ. You know, a misdemeanor for numbers, you're not going to get pissed tests. You know, those are fucking nothing. It's the ones you get caught. Like, I got caught for Reefer in 1983, 84 in New York City, one of those fucking years. It's 83. It was the year Valvano and his team won.

So it had to be 83. Okay. And I got arrested maybe a month before that and I had to go to court. They gave me, like, I didn't do dick. Like, I didn't do dick. Like, probation in those days was dick. Like, I went, I got arrested. There was a date on the ticket.

When I had to go to court, I had to go at 8 o'clock at night. I went down at 8 o'clock at night. There was some fucking attorney there. He asked him what my name was. I told him, I shook his hand. He goes, all right, this was going on. If you want to take it to the trial, to take it to trial, but if you want a plea bargain there,

where they decided on a six-month deferred sentence, which meant if I didn't get arrested in six months or in trouble, that sentence would go away. All right. That was it. I went to court for basically empty-to-go, all right, boom, deferred sentence. I'm not trying to be an asshole, but you've had, you just said you got arrested a month before that.

Was there any part of you like, fuck, I might get arrested in the next six months? No, no, no, no, no. I got arrested for that ticket the day after the Super Bowl. in January, like 29th or 30th of that year of 83. Okay. I didn't go to court. So the court log was so backed up that I didn't go till Monday night, the night that they played college basketball championship.

So March. Which was the last night of March. I was on the street for two months. Okay. And by that time, I had been arrested in New Jersey already. That's what I'm saying. For possession of stolen tools and possession of fucking distribution of fucking drop. no, there was no drugs at that time.

It was all like fucking stupid shit, like burglary tools. Stolen tools. Yeah, like burglary tools and shit like that. So I had already been arrested in Jersey, and now I got arrested in New York a month later, but I'm getting out of there, my own reconnaissance, because I told them I've been arrested in Jersey,

so everybody knew they knew how to find me. You almost have the whole tri-state area. Yeah, so I almost have a whole tri-state area. So now I got to go to court in New York City, and I walk in and then the dude goes, boom, deferred sentencing. So help me God They go all right Go see the court clerk

I went to see the court clerk She gave me like three sheets of paper One of them had a number And he goes call this number Between 48 hours Or they'll be in the rest warrant Put on you And I went home

And I fucking call the guy the next morning Why wait to 48 hours I called him next morning This bitch didn't call me back For 48 hours I called him like four times Left messages Called his receptionist

And they said he'll get back to you in time He called me up and he goes, what's going on with your life? I told him. He goes, was this your first arrest? Now I got arrested the month before. This is all done on the phone, dog. I'm in shock.

I thought I had to hang up, and he was giving me an address to go report to, he goes, this is what I want you to do. What's today's date? I was like, I don't fucking know. April 3rd or something. He goes, call me next month on the 3rd. And I left that April 25th.

And I remember calling him and go, and listen. I'm just going to ask you permission or not I've got to go back to court Do you want me to I'm leaving for Colorado What are you on me doing? He goes nothing Call me next month

And tell me how it is out there That's kind of scary And that was it And we did that We did that maybe three or four times And he goes listen Your probation's over? Yeah, you're putting

Don't call no more Are you sure you even calling It sounds like you were calling one of your buddies No, we just call him and talk to him I forget what his fucking name was It was 34 fucking years ago 35 years ago, what the fuck do I know? It is kind of crazy when you think about, like,

if you're like going into a restaurant, and I guess not everyone, obviously not everyone who's on probation is a terrible person, but you don't know who's in, like everyone just walking around. They just have to call a probation officer once a month. Well, now it's completely different. Okay.

Now probation is a little bit more monitored. You know, probation is what I call a rope. When I tell you, I'm going to give that personal rope, that's probation. That means that you're going to have. hang yourself with it or you're going to pull yourself in. Like seven out of ten times when they give you probation, not even, no, no, no, no, no, I'm lying.

I say six out of ten times. When you get probation, you get arrested, but then fucking... Let me see if I can Google it. Yeah, it's a tremendous rate. It really is a fucking really weird weight, really weird rate of what it is, a percentage. I mean, not to say that they should be breaking any laws, but aren't like the rules really strict?

Like if some of them you can't even drink. No, no, there's different types of rules. I know when I was under the influence of all that shit, there was like if you drink, like the other day I was watching a commercial, they said, Listerine with no alcohol. Right. You know why?

Because in the halfway house, people are fucking failing left and right. Some people were lying. They said they were taking Listerine, but some people were getting tested on the way out the door. Gee, so they were drinking Listerine? No, they were, they used Listerine in the morning, you fuck. Well, yeah, well, the reason I was asked, because in Boston, it freaked me out.

There was this one homeless dude on the common who would drink Listerine all day. So I thought, I thought that's what you meant. They had to have no, no alcohol Listerine for the convicts. Okay. Yeah, he was, he drank it, he drank it. If anyone's in Boston, like halfway up Tramont Street on one of those benches, he's only at least when I was there he was he just lived on that bench and then

you knew when he was done because the bottle would turn from green to yellow because he would pee in the bottle that's a beautiful story I'm happy you share that with me I never I never knew you were around people like that people who had class like that

I always surround myself with the best joy but sometimes you hang out with people for the weird reasons I knew early on when I got here, and I could look you in the face and tell you honestly that nobody was going to do anything for me but me. Do you understand me? And I could give you a thousand examples.

And you had friends. I had thousands of friends who had huge friends, huge friends. You know, I met Ahmed was roommates with Vince Vaughan, and the other. guy when they wrote swingers. If you watch Swingers, a meta, metameters in the scene or two in the movie. Oh, wow, I don't have to watch it again.

You understand me? I mean, that's, that's everybody gets certain opportunities in this town. It's what you do with that dance. Louis C.K. was writing for a show, a sketch show. He brought me in. I auditioned. Louis asked me if I wanted it, but it wasn't like do paperwork.

I had to audition. I think I even audition for scare tactics. Yes. Yes, I did. Even though it was given to me already. So, like, just so people can understand who aren't in the, like, I don't even know. I'm assuming maybe Brad Pitt doesn't have to audition. No.

But, like, what level of people do you think are still auditioning in movies? Or, I'm just not even sure when people go in. When do you think the point is when you just get called in? I think this is how it is now. I think now that you look at a movie and you attach. It's the money guy to the movie, correct? Right, yeah. You attach who's going to draw a fucking seat to the movie

unless you want nobody to go to your fucking movie? All right, so you've got to get one of those people and you've got to pay them fucking huge. Whether it's Will Smith or Tom Hanks or fucking the other guy, you've got to pay them a couple mill, 20 mil, whatever the fuck it is. And then you've got to make offers out to supporting actors. Kevin Bacon, Lawrence Fishburn.

So they get offers? They don't have to audition anymore. office. They get offers and then if they read the script and like the script and I'm just talking speculation here they meet with the director and maybe a producer and they tell them the vision of what they want from him and then maybe he'll give his interpretation and maybe you'll read in the room one scene where they want just not because you didn't get it and then everybody after that has to read I'm sure that there's three or four or four. four people on this set who you just give roles to because they're friends with the producer.

Maybe the role is one line. Right. I had those, you know, I'm not going to lie to you, I had those given to me. I told you, I bumped into Sam Ramey. The guy who put me in Spider-Man too, the director, the big-time director. You bumped into him recently? I went to, listen to me. Okay.

Monday, that Tuesday, I did the 420 with Doug. Doug Benson. And Chloe Dykstra was up. Right. And on that show, that Tuesday, I told the story of how Chloe and I met. Chloe called into the podcast in the very beginning of this podcast. I don't remember what I asked. This is way before we had a live guest.

But Chloe and I, Chloe was 14, 15, and she was the little girl on the train with the glasses up. Right, yeah. So here we are 13, 14, 14. fucking years later on the Doug Benson show smoking dope and one of the conversations we had while we were waiting at tape weren't you there yeah you were there was about Sam Ramey how cool Sam Ramey was blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah how luck we were to work with Sam Ramey at that time well here I am two days later at Amazon and the guy one of the guys Matt comes over to me that we're

pitching with and he goes hey man, I saw you on everybody. Everybody loves Doug. I'm getting dead with hi. Talking about Spider-Man, too. He goes, I never knew you were in Spider-Man 2. And I'm telling him this story like that Tuesday. Like that Tuesday afternoon.

He goes, yeah, I watched it for a little while on my computer at work. He's one of the headwriters and stuff. So, or whatever he is, a producer, or whatever the fuck, he is. He's my dog. So the next day, we go to pitch. And who the fuck? do you think of sitting in the army with three other people

but Sam Ramey Oh shit Now I haven't seen Sam Ramee In fucking You know 12, 13 years Since I was Spider Man 2 Got shot

Maybe summer of 2003 It's fucking 2017 I haven't seen Sam Ramey Since we shot the movie And then we had like a screening That was the last time you saw That was the last time I saw

You know So Here I am in this office I don't say nothing He didn't recognize you? I didn't want him to. I signed in, and I fucking sat where I was sitting, which was on the other side of the room. And I wondered about walking up to him and shaking his hand and thank him, but no, didn't need to.

And all of a sudden, they call or said, and I'm talking to Matt, and Matt goes, look. And as I turn around, he's walking up, and he's walking towards the stairs also. And he's a gentleman, so he stops, and he goes like this, and listen, he looks right. right at me. And I go, thank you for putting me in your movie years ago. And he goes, I was looking at you. You look familiar. I go, yeah, I'm the guy in the train. And he goes, I go, you know, I did the, I saw Chloe Dykes Street yesterday and I told him. And he was like, wow, that's weird. This is a weird deja vu. You know, it's great to see. It's great. You're still doing it. Da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, you're still pitching, you know, shit like that.

That's awesome. Yeah, it was great. It was great just to see him. He, he, he, he, he, he You know, man, he took a chance by putting me in Spider-Man, too. But even like that day, I didn't know nobody. I didn't know nobody. I had an agent those days called Nancy Apt. All right, this bitch did not fuck around. Her office at that time looked like it had been hit by a bomb in Beirut. Okay, you know, 15 years, from 97,

to two years ago, I didn't really have an agent people. I had like somebody who was posing as an agent. But in 98, I signed with a manager called Jeff. Jeff was a fucking barracuda. Jeff did more for me than anybody in the entertainment business ever in a matter of four or five years. But I didn't have the credits. I didn't have my chops yet.

I would still go to audition. do a great read, but my hand would be shaking with the sides. You know, I wasn't ready for Jeff. But Jeff tried to get me with agents. And the whole time, he would always go to me, listen. I know you want to sign with this guy, and I know you want to sign with this guy, but I know this lady at this agency.

And I would go, I don't want to sign with that fucking lady. I don't want to be with that agency. For you to be known, you have to be with a big agency. But every agent turned me down. So I'll never forget a week before Christmas He talked me into meeting with this check This is What's the street that turns into the 101

LaBreya or Highland I think it's Highland Okay so you're going up I want you to visualize this Okay You just passed them all on the left-hand side You're going up to the 101 Okay, as you're going up

There's a little island On Highland Right before you hit that street street where the 7-11 is and the fucking subway sandwiches on the corner. That's a little island street. As a matter of fact, across from there, when I first got there,

I used to sell porn on the phone. What? What do you tell you that? Who the fuck did you do what I'm saying? You don't know dick? You think you're a private investigator. So this is how bad this neighborhood was. What kind of porn did you sell on the phone?

Porno. Like DVDs or VHS? Yeah, when I was selling cigars, When I first got here, I was selling cigars on the phone. I would love to hear your porno sales pitch. I was terrible. It was maybe 400 a week working in those days.

I used to work maybe 10 to 1. I was pulling down four bills a week. I never even looked at the movies. I never even read their names. I never even saw a box. I had two options. you can either load the boxes to porno into the boxes

or you could call porno places across the country and sell them porno. I rather do that on commission. I would show up at like 930. I used to live on, this is, as a matter of fact, this was way before the cigars. This is when Highland was basically fucking filthy.

Like that movie theater was Chinese theater. Isn't it Santa Monica and Highland that Yum Yum donuts? Yeah, yeah, yeah, with the transvestite talk. No, I don't know if it's Santa Monica. I don't know nothing about Santa Monica. We're talking about Hollywood Boulevard going up to the 101 Boulevard. Highland.

That was, in 98, that was a fucking den of death. And in the court, when you went like this, before you folded into the 101, like 30 fucking yards before you hit the Hollywood bowl right there on that corner they stole it was fucking 20 people on the phone and 20 people stocking boxes and trucks would be going in and out of there all day and they either gave you like

eight bucks an hour or you made commission did you have to have like what like I just imagine you selling gay porn transvest I had no idea what I was selling there was a sheet of paper and they tell you what to read on there and I said the name of the things or something yeah hot sex with shit coming on their ass

it's a hot seller and you compare it to something. I don't remember. I don't remember nothing, Lee. I look at a cinematography in this one. This is 98, 97. I don't know nothing. But anyway, to make them long story short,

across from there, there was a building. That today is gorgeous. But in 90th, when I got here, and I was dreaming of this fucking big agency where they offer you water and shit, this plight. I remember pulling into the underground parking, and I'm like,

Oh, my God. When we walked up the step, there was little fucking condoms and shit. Oh, at least they had parking. I'm like, Jesus. Yeah, but no, they rob your car. What good is having parking if you're going to rob my fucking car. And we'd walk up the steps to this elevator. Then you pressed it and you went upstairs.

And the whole building, you know the building we were in on Lancashire? Right. That's what it was. But that's my agency. People fucking taking naked pictures in there. They had private investigators in there. You know, it was just a fucking greasy building. And here's this fucking agency.

And I opened up the door with my fucking manager at the time. He goes, listen to me. It's not the agency. It's the agent. He goes, excuse me. Excuse me. He goes, this lady, he goes, I've been here and I've been there, and I got my own management company. And this lady is a fucking person.

Hip who. Jesus. And, yeah, I guess it really doesn't matter. Which lady. But it's scary. It didn't matter. Like, she got, she called in. She had been in a big agency for like 10 years.

She knew everybody in town. And one day she got sick and tired of wearing a dress. She wanted to wear fucking sweatpants, not do her hair, and bring her dog to work. So she went to work at this place. And she took a fucking huge clientele. But this lady never stopped. When I tell you, Lee, she was on my phone every fucking day pushing me, and she specialized in comedy character actors.

So her and I clicked right off the bat. We must have booked 15 things together. That's how good and precise she was. I'm surprised she's not still one of your agents. She abandoned ship. She went back home for a while, and then she came back, and she thought about it. she thought about joining going to Aqua Agency,

which if she would have gone to Aqua Agency with the knowledge she had today, she would have killed it because Aqua is one of those small agencies that if you sign with them, you're going to audition. Like if you sign with Aqua Talent, like I was with them in the commercial department, there wasn't one week for three years

that I didn't go out an audition. Either they got you something that you were right for, or you went in for a fucking Asian. They didn't give a fuck. They got you out. They kept you sharp. They were very smart. They kept you sharp.

Sometimes they'd send you out for those fucking demos where you got $3005 for the day and you didn't get residuals, but they kept you sharp. And I was very impressed with that. The whole point is to keep you working. The whole point was when I left them, I didn't leave them because I wasn't happy with them.

I left them because I was trying to get into voiceovers. So every eight people think that you come out here just like me that you come out here and you have to lock in with a big agency And that's bullshit Even when I first came out here I signed one of an agency called the coloring book Did I ever tell you that? Yeah, the two black ladies The two black checks and the agency was like a kids agency Okay, you know how embarrassing that was like everybody else's paper like in those days you had to put your resume behind your headshot and stay it. Okay. So it would have to be perfect eight by 10. So I would go to fucking, by the way,

it's closed. Whatever. Harry Wong fucking printing and on Sunset Boulevard went under right next to El Campadre. That's fucking, that's a heartbreak. That place had been there since Jesus unless Chicago, dog. But anyway, you'd have to have it. Most people wanted their paperwork white, but in a good way, she made you put it a pink. Yeah. Well, yeah, stands up. stands out. So she was very smart in that department. You just didn't like having paint paperwork? Bro. She fucking closed my deal with Bronx County that time.

And she did something else. She got me a couple things that I sat there and went, wow, how did you get me in for this? Like, she was that good, too. She just disappeared one day also. It's crazy. The percentages of those small agencies out. They make a run for it, and then they crumble.

Something happens. and everybody runs. At that time, I was with three agents at one time. Like, I was working three agents at one time. Is that allowed? No. I didn't give a fuck. There was no computer then.

The computer hadn't been involved in. Okay. The computer really didn't get involved. Electronic submissions didn't really start until maybe like 2004. So until 2004, I had a rain here, like six years, that I had three different agents, sending me out for three, different. And it's truly, like I told you, it's really weird what I learned. But back to the situation at hand, cuckusker, before you throw me off again. I'm sorry. Adam Sandler's nephew.

Great kid. I forget what his name is. Great kid. Just the fucking him and his sister, I met him when he was really young when I did the longest yard. He called me in years later to do one of his short films. I had a great time. I got invited to the premiere and stuff like that, you know, you think somebody like that by now would be a huge director in this town. No, he's still out there fighting for his fucking life. Adam can make a call. Adam could make a call, but guess what? I don't think Adam would want to make a call, and I don't think his nephew would want him to make that call.

Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah. The only reason I got my first job. In L.A. was because I went to Emerson, so that was one, and then B, my dad knew the host of the show. So he called and I got the internship. So it's, uh, when I, when I left that first job, it was, I, I really, uh, made a point to try to get a, like, I, like, I, and it, it hurts me too, but I always try to do it without other people's help. I feel like at a certain point I should, you should ask for help, but yeah, it does bring a certain amount of, pride to just do it, just apply, or just do anything just from start to finish on your own? Like, I was talking along as to the story, and he was telling me to listen to a podcast, whatever his name is.

And he was saying that Joe had done this and this and this for me. It's so weird. I sat down. You know what, Joe took me on the road. But when nobody knows, in the beginning, when I first met Joe, he used to take Chris McGuire on the road. All right. It was when I first met Joe, Joe was just starting to go on the road. I was going on the road on my own as a feature act.

I really didn't have anybody taking me on the road. I remember I would work with certain people, but I would never ask them to take me on the road. There were a few people who did take me on the road with them like Todd Jordan and Rick Kearns and in my early career that they liked me. And then later on I had like Jimmy Schubert When I came out here

Took me on the road a few times And helped me out And who was? Paul Rodriguez in the beginning You know But I always knew That I didn't want to be that guy I knew that

I wanted to always be able To do my own thing Not just to sit at home And wait for that beck and call You know what I'm saying Like that's the type of person I wanted to be Like I was still

at the comedy store every night. I was still, I did all those Mexican rooms in South LA, every single one of them, every night or a week. That's what pays for my addiction, but at the same time not knowing, I was also becoming a better comedian. Because I would go into deep terrain four nights a week and then go to the comedy store or everything is hunky dory. You follow me? You know, there's places where people come prepared to laugh, and there's places but it's a bar and you got to go up there and blow your fucking toe off to get their attention. It's like using the

what is it called the donut? When you're swing. Batting practice, yeah. It's a little different, you know. It's really weird to, and then you learn a fine line. You learn a fine line after like five or six years of doing that.

You learn a fine line in between those shows and how different they are. and how different you have to walk down the aisle of those shows. You can't do the bar material on stage, and you can't do a lot of the stage material at a bar. Would it be hard for you to do a bar show now? No, no, no.

Bar shows are easier for me. You want me to tell you why? Yes. Ready? It's 30 minutes. It's high energy and filth. Mix all a little compact. and just laying on them.

But it's got to be high energy. So you stand out from everybody else and you grab their attention. Because at a bar, the television is going to be on. At a bar, the pool table is going to be fucking people are going to still play pool. That sounds a lot like a comedy store set to me. No, a comedy store is a controlled savagery set. It's a controlled set. When I go to Luz Lounge on a Wednesday night,

because I want to have three drinks and snort a couple lines of blow. And all of a sudden I get there and fucking Joe Diaz is on stage talking nonsense. It's a complete different night. I didn't come there to listen to some guy talking in my fucking ear. Right. I went there to fucking get drunk and do a couple lines and maybe pick up some dirty chick that's there. So it's an hour and a half of that. So you have to convince me that you're funny.

I have to actually pay attention to you. So maybe a guy that's not as an experience goes up first. He doesn't really do any damage because it's a different environment than the open mic per se. And even the stage set. Are you with me? I'm with you. I'm just, why do you think that, like, it just seems like that would be funny anywhere. Why doesn't that relate to, like, if you went like a comedy club, why doesn't it work?

Because when I go to a comedy club, you're paying to go in there and you're prepared to laugh. That's the psychology of the game. When you go to an open mic, half the people aren't really drinking. They're frustrated comics just like you doing material. It's when you have a few drinks that you loosen up on stage. And open mics, do not get me wrong, are a lot of fun. I always enjoyed open mics in the smaller cities because it felt. like the comics are fighting for something.

And I could take you back to three or four cities that I went to, and I personally saw growth every four or five months because of that certain open mic type pride in those small cities. Cities like Houston, Texas, cities like Austin, cities like Boston, there's still small cities that you could do comedy at, that it's not as glamorous. but you get funny fucking fast.

A lot faster than you would be in L.A. Do you know why? Because you get thrown into the lines a lot faster. And they're different type of lines. So it's okay if you fuck up in the back of your mind. The psychology of it, it's okay if you fuck up in the back of your mind. It's interesting because you have a different judge

every time you go on stage. It's not like the audience is the same. so that's actually something that I haven't even thought about before you can't even really it's hard to judge your material because some material works on some audiences and doesn't work on others always but but it changes every time you do a show so it's hard that must be how hard to judge how your material is doing because you don't have a constant you don't really have like a boss being like oh yeah your work is getting better you have to have someone come back and be like oh yeah I saw you

two weeks ago well I know how I do once I get off stage when I'm on stage I feel what they feel uncomfortable sometimes they're having a really good time energy is energy and what you give out is what you get back and you really learn that when you're on a stage and people are in front

of you whether you're in a play whether you're in a music I can't imagine playing the band like I did that thing you know what's his name show with you when I sang down there the goddamn comedy jam that was a completely different animal You don't me, dog.

I overhand it a lot. I allies everything when I get stoned just like anybody else. And I thought about that night and where that anxiety came from. That anxiety? Fuck. Anybody would have got that. I thought that was fucking like breaking down because I got anxiety. Anybody would have got that that's ever been on stage before.

It's the same anxiety you get when you get on stage as a comedian. Now I was singing, which I had that. That meant I had, you know, like people behind me playing an instrument, which is another form of fucking, you know, like the, another constant. I had never really had that. Yeah, you never experienced that. Especially in front of 200 fucking people, whatever was in that. And I know you're an actor on a stand-up and you have probably better memorization than most people, but you did stand-up that night, too. So you have to do, we have to remember your stand-up and you have to memorize a song.

I didn't fucking know that you had to do a story about the fucking song. I had no story about the song. I just went up there and dicked around in front of a bunch of rock people. I'm just saying memorizing a song. It's tough. Okay, a complete different fucking genre. That's what Jim Florentine is tremendous at. Jim Florentine goes to these rock bars and rocks their fucking world.

You understand me? Something that I can't. I could do, but I don't do it often. I do more of comedy clubs, sometimes a theater. where you actually pay and fucking come see that specific fucking comedian. At a rock club, it's the same difference.

But they're a little rowdy and plus. There's a constant. They're standing. That makes the comedy a little tougher. Right. Especially if you want to take it into murky waters and go past the hour. Do you think bands have different kinds of set, like way they play the songs?

Because that's weird. Like to have different kinds of ways. you do stand-up is unique. Well, you know, a band wants to change or maybe they want to add a cover to their you know, repertoire. I don't know. I don't do music.

Right. I know how comedy changes. I know that for me, I can't take, let's say I had a set 45 minutes. I was going to put on a fucking special. Right. I know that there would be certain places where I couldn't run that set.

Just because of what their thought pattern is, or just by me thinking I know what their thought pattern is. So it's a two-way street. But it generally works. You know when it works? When the energy is behind it. When you believe in your material, that's when your material works anywhere. It could work in hell.

It could work in a Christian church. It works anywhere when your belief is 100%. That's what I've learned. When I'm really loose and I'm really loose. and I'm rocking and rolling, that's it. That's it. I believe in this material. I believe in what I'm fucking saying.

The story I'm telling you, this is how it went fucking down. I was fucking there. My goal is to take you there. That is my goal as a comedian. When I bomb, I know I failed at all those fucking aspects. Or one of those aspects. Because there's possibly, like when you sell something,

if you go tomorrow and go, Joe Dears, I don't want to fucking do podcast no more. And my uncle Louis said he'd get me a job selling what's hot now, pharmaceuticals or printers. Printers. Let's go with printers. Are printers still hot? Yeah, sure.

Everyone needs a printer. All right. Let's say you went and sold fucking printers, right? You're going to have your way of selling, but the company's going to have you do steps. They're going to send you Oklahoma for a week where you train, and the sales professionals there are going to show you you have steps. on stage, believe it or not, you have steps. And if you don't fucking believe me,

watch two or three of the greatest. The people who I learned the steps on, number one, Bill Hicks, he walked you through steps. He planned those steps. Even if it looked like improv, it was all planned? It wasn't improv. Wow.

He was not improvising. He was setting you up. That's brilliance right there. Number two, Sam Kennison, what is setting you up? Setting you up to eat your fucking guts out. That's a different type. You know what I'm saying?

It's weird. And then you had velvet hammers like Richard Jenny. What does velvet hammer mean? A velvet hammer, exactly what I'm saying. You don't see him coming. And he just sucks you in with a unique way of storytelling like Richard Jenny. Those are the people who taught me

that they had it planned out. There's sometimes I have a plan and it still goes, it still goes fucked up. And there's sometimes I don't have a plan and the plan actually hatches right in front of your fucking eyes. How's that one for you, cock sucker? I don't know if any... Does anyone have a plan?

I mean, I know some people do, but like even when you look like every sometimes i think whenever i hear about like these really influential people in history i just think maybe like they were just they probably had shitty days and they didn't know where they were going and maybe they just came like maybe it just happened i don't know no and some part in some way they had some part of plan or a belief or both because before the plant your hats you have to have some sort of belief in what in yourself yourself or whatever fucking you want to do. If you want to sell fucking cameras door to door,

you have to have some type of belief when you knock on that door. Why am I providing you a fucking service? Why do you need to buy this from me? This is why. I'm going to tell you why you need to buy this camera from me because of all these reasons. Pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, so you have a plan.

And after a while, by you keep doing it, that plan, you'll see the catches of your plan. Where you're hooked people. You know what I'm saying? With certain words and stuff. Like you start seeing what people respond to? Yeah. And all of a sudden you start taking pauses.

Because when you're selling something like that, pauses are number one because it shows that you have control of the conversation. Okay. You know, when I sold, I learned a lot. I've talked about this on this show a thousand times. I give that a lot of credit to why we're doing what we're doing now. because they came apart where I became a business instead of just a regular comedian.

There's two different mindsets. But to get that mindset, you have to have a belief. And to have that belief, you've got to cover that spread. You got to do the fucking work. There are some we've talked to. You weren't ready for Jeff Gettlin. At that point, did you think you were? Like, did you think you'd put in the work?

I had been doing comedy seven. At that time, I didn't know dick about dick. I got here when I was doing comedy. Let's face it. Honestly, I got here when I was doing comedy six years. As a, as a individual comic, I was a mediocre feature act when I moved here. No acting experience except a college film at the University of Colorado. That's it. No acting classes.

Didn't even know about that world. I like movies. But did you think in your head at that time, are you saying, oh, I'm gonna, I'm a star. I'm the best comic coming to L.A. You were reasonable with yourself. Not at all. Not at all. Not at all.

When I saw Pablo Francisco do Seinfeld in Spanish, I knew I sucked. When I saw Doug Stanhope destroyed the comedy store at 830, whatnot, I know I suck. When I saw Joe Rogan destroy I met a meds room one night. It was an hour set that

until this night I'll never forget the reaction of people in the room. That's when Rogan was Rogan. 1998, 99. He was uninhibited. He had worked this set for like a year and a half.

Two years he hadn't gone on the road with this and it was pinpoint. And one night he unleashed it. You know, I still remember those early performances is how I saw. I was like, wow, I'm far away from this shit. I remember seeing

Greg Giroldo and seeing fucking earthquake one night at the Laugh Factory basically take the wall, paint off the fucking wall. And it wasn't a black night. It was a white night. All right? You know, you

see these comics and you go, Jesus, what the fuck did they just do? Well, how many comics do you think are realistic with themselves or how many do you think are like, oh, I could do that. I'm that funny. At that point, I did not think that. Well, I could strictly be honestly. At that point, I was doing comedy maybe eight years when you round it all up.

2000, 2001, that was 10 years. By that point, I had been in LA four years and I had seen some great fucking sets. You know, I saw some great. sets. I saw a comic one night, Lou Torres, on a Thursday night, take the original room apart. He did some comics, he did some jokes,

he did some impersonations, and then he sang. I don't never forget this. There was a black dude that I met in Seattle. I can't remember what his name was. He wore a little hat. He was very good to me. He was very nice to me and Josh Wolf one night in Seattle.

He was on a TV show. He was the music. director. Okay. On a show on ABC, the Stephanie something show. And he wore a hat. He was a black dude. And he was on the show at ABC, and me and

me and Josh Wolf were feature an MC that weekend. We got on that weekend on purpose because we knew the place would be packed. I never believed that working with the guy would make me a start. Do you know what I'm saying? Right, yeah.

Or cheat my way through anything like that. It just so happened. The guy was crazy. He went to the Jaguar and shit, and he asked this Friday night, what are you guys going to do? And we're like, nothing. We're fucking feature acts.

He goes, come with me. Let's go to the strip club. He took us two towns over. We went to a strip club. I got like one lap dance and I had a bag of blow. I had to take a cab home. It was fucking horrible. And the next night, he took us out again.

Well, guess what? Three months later, I'm in L.A. I didn't know I was going to move to L.A. And he was at the store every day. It's crazy how you meet people on the road before you fucking move here. It always have to be nice. What the fuck is his name? Now it's going to haunt me.

This show got canceled. He still did spots, but I remember seeing him one night at the improv. On a Saturday night, he sang. He'd crack jokes. And he played the piano. He fucked that room up. So my point is, when I saw those people do those things, I thought I was years away realistically.

I could be honest with you. I thought one night I was in the main room and I saw Paul Rodriguez destroy that room. And Mitzi Shaw told me something that night that stuck with me. So I knew. And she goes, you see that? That's 20 years. At that time, I was doing comedy maybe eight years.

I was like, fuck. 20 fucking years. But you know what? I never thought about it. I never said, I'm going to stick it out to 20 years. I just didn't think about it that way. I just was happy I was doing it that day. That's the crazy.

I was happy I was doing it that fucking day. If you do anything for 20 years, you have to be, like at least pretty good. I can't even imagine doing something for 20 years. Neither could I at least I had. Neither could I. That's why I didn't give a thought. When I was at the eight year mark, I was like,

this is going to end any day now. Because, yeah, I got on stage the first time in 91. Okay. Of July. So, or June, one of those two. So by fucking 2000, I'm like, this is going to fucking decide what's going to happen. I'm going to get hit in the head with a building or some shit.

Sounds like you're listening to my brain now. Then I got the 10-year anniversary, and I was like, this is crazy. I had the 10-year anniversary. I had a girlfriend. We were poor, but we had an apartment. We had one car, and it worked. I was doing blow. It worked.

And you know what? By like the 11th year, I was doing, TV. Trust me, I would walk out of those auditions in shock. Like I signed with Jeff in 98. I started clicking in 2001. Yeah, over those three years, there was individual things and Bing, Bang, Boom, an hour on this game show or something like that.

But theatrically, I didn't start clicking until 2001, 2001, 2002. 2003, and I think Jeff left. He became a producer in 2002. I stayed with Nancy Act. You follow me? So I lost the manager, but I called her up right away because I knew that was as good as, like, when I went and met with them,

when we walked out of there, I'm like, I'm not signing with her. You're crazy. That's a haunted house. There were pictures on the wall and fucking coffee cups, It looked like Bruce Willis's office in that fucking movie. There were Damon Wayans. Well, it was paperwork everywhere. That was her office. But she's like, dog, all my people work.

All my fucking people work, Joey. And I'm like, okay, whatever. I walked out of that like, fuck you. I'm never, he's like, you got to sign what I'm telling you. So when he left, I went right to her because I knew one thing. I would get out there. for auditions at least for auditions at least

holy shit pretty fucking crazy shit but what I was telling you is that what I was trying to tell you that even when I met Joe I met Joe on a very innocent level when I met Joe

I didn't know what news radio was I could tell you honestly I did have at that time I didn't watch TV I was so focused on stand-up. I couldn't tell you what was on TV. If it wasn't on after one or two in the morning on HBO or one of those channels, I had no idea what TV was. In the daytime, I was usually working or sleeping or coming down off Coke or there was no TV in my life when I got into comedy. So when I met,

you know, at that time, there was a bunch of people hanging out at the store. Andrew was there every night. You know, I didn't talk to Andrew for maybe two, two and a half years, three years when I was at the store. I just didn't think I had a right to go up to him and talk to him. If he wanted to talk to me, he let him fucking talk to me and I'll talk back to him. That's how I was raised. I wouldn't go to those times.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Gary Shanling was still going to the store. Who's the guy that blows up the balloon? We're still going up to the store. Lenny Clark was going up to the fucking store. There was a bunch of fucking people going up to the store in those. days. So both of those brothers were going

to the store. The weigh-ins were at the store every fucking night. In those days, there was Damon and the brother who was the director of fucking in living color. They would come out together

every fucking night. And one would do a set, and then the other guy would do a set. You know, there was a ton of people that I used to say hello to. I would have mild conversations with them. Hello, goodbye. Are you up next?

How do you like going up late? You know, shit like that. They were just talking to me about that type of shit. But for some reason, I never thought, honestly, that me asking them, like, the only thing they could do that anybody could do is give me advice. And I had God rest of the soul. I had Rick Doberman in those days who I really believed in. And I kind of wanted a career like his. What was his career like?

He would do a few movies a year. He would do a few weekends on the road. He had a wife and he had children. And he kept it simple. You know, he was in a few movies. He was in a few Tom Hank movies. And whenever I would have a problem in those days, I would call him. And he would have sorted out for me.

I think that's, I was going to ask you about that. I think that's hugely important because we were talking about it earlier, how you can convince yourself of something, convince yourself that you're not good or convince yourself something's going to end. And I think, how long did you have him as like a sounding board? I met him in Seattle in 97, 96,

and we stayed in touch mutually through a friend. This was way before social media. You know, I was involved with it. I didn't get involved with a hotmail until 98, 99. And I forgot all about my fucking hot mail on the code and shit. I just remember I had a hotmail like 2001 when I needed a fucking email that. Seriously, I didn't know nothing about a computer or nothing. And then when I got to L.A., I never wanted to ask our mutual friend for Doakerman's number.

So what I did was I had spots at the store. And he would have spots at the store. He would go up there on the weekends. He would do the laugh factory, the improv. Then his wife and him would close it up at the store. He'd smoke a number out there with the guys and stuff like that. And I'd see him. And one day he offered me his number.

And he goes, if you need any help when you hear, call me. So I didn't want to ask him to be a regular at the store because I had Stanhope. I had Carlos Monsie a voucher for me. I had that kid, the black kid from Seattle voucher me, when I just told you what the whole stuff. I had a few people vouching me in those days. And I got a call, and I became a regular.

I kept Brick Doakerman to the side. Rick went on the road in those days, but very subtly, especially to Canada. So in those days I could get into Canada I never asked him You know I never even brought it up with him

But what would happen is For some reason We would get spots on the same night So I would have his ear For 10 or 15 fucking minutes But every time he saw me I made sure I approached him With something

Like I had advanced You know And it was weird We had a few conversations and I had a few conversations with his wife and those those conversations still fucking I still remember those conversations about how to act how to go over the top but not go over the top just in movies in general because he had done all those movies and at first I would go to acting lessons but if I had a producer session I would call him and he told me exactly what to

do and I do it exactly to the take so a lot of the shit I do for auditions today is because rest in peace because of Rick Dokeman. And then they work? Do you like you find, do you stray from what he told you? Like you fuck up and then if you try what he said it works? Well, he would navigate me on every move. Like when I got to pilot,

he told me what to do next. You know, he was an old school hustler. So he would tell me to go to that fucking bookstore and buy the casting director book. and get the address to the top 10 casting directors and hand delivering them an envelope with a resume and a handwritten fucking letter. And I did that to the T.

And guess what? My auditions went up 30 fucking percent. Now, did they go up 30% because they read the embalops? Ah, maybe. It went up 30% because I put 30 more percent effort in. And that's what he used to always tell me. You have to work it from every fucking angle.

then I figured out from him telling me that we're casting directors I figured out if you buy that fucking backstage west on Wednesdays you get auditions from that in the beginning I didn't have a fucking agent so all those auditions I was getting were auditions that I was generating and even though I was blowing them

like I was completely wrong on all them like that went years that I didn't book anything that's the honest fucking I don't even think I used to get callbacks back to that's how bad that was but by going into all those rooms and getting it out of the way they weren't big projects they were all going to be fucking sex or shit anyway in the long run i never saw one of those things getting played out or they probably went to a small festival or something they weren't going to change my life right but all those auditions i went

through got me ready for fucking it was like three years of auditioning to get it finally down to, wow, this is how I have to do it. I took acting lessons and I mixed it together. But I would call Rick for different things like that. He was like a mentor to me until about 2004. And then I didn't hear from him for a while. He went back to Canada. And guess what?

What happened? I booked the longest yard. Oh, shit. And I didn't call. And I booked The Longest Yard, like, I think I left him a message on his phone. And that was the end of that. I never heard from him again, all right? And guess what?

What? The Longest Yard gets released on, like, a Wednesday night here. Like, and I don't know nothing about this shit. They don't tell me that. I don't want people at home to think. There's a premiere. There's usually a casting crew. Let's pretend.

There's a casting crew on Monday. night and it would be over by a century city where we did Doug. Okay. Right there. Okay. That's where the casting crew, there's a movie theater there. Gotcha. So it's not as big and glamorous?

No, okay. No. That's for casting crew. You can bring your wife. Let's say you're the camera dude. You can bring Paula. Okay, gotcha. All right.

So then Tuesday, they take it over to Hollywood Boulevard. And they do the glamour. The Red Carpet, the Stars. Tuesday or Wednesday, right? And then Wednesday, they watched at Oprah's house. Did you know that? That's how every movie gets released now? No.

This is... Okay. I was going to say. I have no idea. Spider-Man 2 came out. There's no longest yard came out. You know, Chris Rock was friends with Oprah. Sam Ramey was friends with Oprah.

Makes more sense. So I heard... And I didn't... Dog, did I get... No, dog, please. I don't want nobody to know. Nobody invites Uncle Joey those things at all.

Uncle Joey hears about this shit years later. And that's how I figured this out. Then Thursday, they have a screening at the studio for regular if Steven Spielberg wants to come. Okay?

They serve whatever, some food. You go, you mingle. You got to be Jewish to get in there. Like, nothing else gets in there. Ninety-eight. 0.3% of Jews. One guy slips in there because, you know, he wants

lent money on the vague for the one dude. Something. That's it. This one black guy. One Asian guy. And that night, something must have happened. The movie got released Friday. And that Friday night,

I'm in Houston, Texas. I was in Houston for the weekend for a purpose because I did well in Houston. And the Houston, and the Houston football team was doing like a minicamp. I knew this because the

comedy club owned his wife worked for Pepsi. So she knew all everything that was going on with sports in the area. And they would do some type of thing. So she had them go to the movies with me. Oh, shit. She set that up too.

Were they the Oilers in or were the Texans? The Texans. They were the Texans. They were the Texans. So she set that up. I didn't know nothing about these viewings and nothing like that. I didn't know how it worked. I would be lying to you if I knew nothing.

I'm in Houston, Texas. So I'm basically in Houston getting fucked up. I barely made it to this movie with the Texans. Then that Friday I had the radio. So that night, the shows were packed. For a person who wasn't a well-known comic, I did really well in Houston then. This is 2005.

Okay. So... Had they seen the movie? By that point, do you think? A lot of people went to the seventh, like, this late movie was packed, and then Saturday it was dripping from the fucking scenes. Oh, my God. But I'll never forget that that Friday night,

I'm doing a couple lines of Coke. It's about one in the morning, Houston time, which would make it 11 o'clock in L.A. Right. Right, yeah. And these days, they used to close the comedy club, and you could sit at the bar with the owner then

and a bunch of guys that would be in a couple you know they have like 30 people and they don't get me wrong some people are drinking some people in there drinking and smoking and there were some people like myself

that were fucking filthy animals and we'd be going to the bathroom doing bumps and drinking Yeager Meister and beers and shit and getting fucked up old school Texas and all of someone that guess what my phone rang

it was about 11th 15, 11.30 at night. It was Rick Ducombe. Oh. And he goes, what's up? And it was like an unknown number. So he blocked it or something? Yeah, it was blocked. But he was blocked because it was called out of the country. Ah. And he goes, how you doing? Congratulations. Don't want to him.

Mike. And he goes, listen, I just want you to know something. Monday when you get in and call me because I want to set something up with you, Tom Hank wanted to meet you. That's one of the last times I talked to him, Doug. He set a meeting of a million time, angst. That was it. And then I talked to him once after that, and then recently I already passed away,

maybe a few years ago. But he was sort of like the guy in the beginning that talked me through things. He helped me make little moves. Would you be like, should I do this club, should I take this deal? Yes. He became, and once he knew I was serious,

he got more into it. It wasn't because I was slipping them. Like I was making calculated moves even then. Like I was here for maybe a year and I popped that Taco Bell commercial. That Taco Bell commercial was huge. It was everywhere. Did they see me for a split second if you had a fucking eagle eye? And contact lenses, binoculars, and a NASA telescope.

That's the only way you could see me in this commercial. But guess what? away before the computer. I told everybody at that store. And then people had come up to me and go, I saw you and I saw you that. So it was really crazy, Lee. You'd have to be fucking that fast

to see me in this fucking thing. But that was the first thing. I booked. I shot the pilot for CBS. And then I popped basketball. So this was, I remember still auditioning for basketball, calling him afterward. And going, you're not going to believe what happened.

and I just auditioned for basketball and he goes, listen, if you get that movie, that's going to be good for you. What's Tony Bennett? It's Monday, bitches, that we were strong to him. Yes, it was. To pick up the pieces. This starts seem to be doing okay.

Somebody breaks your heart. Oh. Some, somebody twice as smart. I'm a somebody who will swear to be true as you used to do with me who'll leave you to learn that misery loves company anyway, let me give a fucking couple of shots out of here

my man Joey Zaza tweets Thank you for the candles One shaking the devil's hand And selling his soul I had to fucking light that one on fire With a chicken blood and shit, you fuck Anyway, thank you for the candles My man David Garner

My man Matt Borkazar My little black Sabbath fucking gumba Who I'm gonna see in fucking wise guys In Utah in a few weeks Sam Femino Michael J. Brandon Jamie McGl

Franklin Zant. My man Zach Gids with the fucking picture of his fucking Heron and Anders there. Happy Jay, happy birthday my man. Jay Bitch, aka Johnny Pittsburgh,

aka Mani Gansomani Sangin. You know, I love you, Jay. I'll see you in September. And my other main man, D. Ferretti, what are you kidding me or what? 20 through the life, no parole. You understand? Sammy Lisa, what's going on, Coxson?

That's what I'm face. Tomorrow's a weird day for me, and it always is. This year, it didn't bother me. I'm not going to sit here and tell you. I need this, go see a psychiatrist and nothing. I got no type of problems like that. How many stars are you lately? 10, I think.

You should have 8 15. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm too going to say. What are you going to do? I apologize to me. You know, I still love it either way. It's...

I bust your balls, me. I bought you born from out because there's a lot of nights I actually go there and way before I went to see the hypnotist. I got to be honest with you. You know, way before I went to see that hypnotist, I was hypnotized with myself in a way because I wanted to go home at night. If you, listen, man, there's no fucking fountain of youth.

Your body's your body, your heart, your heart. things happen along the way, you know, you don't know what's going to happen with your heart or if you smoked the wrong fucking cigarette

that one time that they put the extra contamination in, you don't fucking know. Every day is the fucking windy road. Was it my luck? I did. No, you did.

But anyway, the point being, what the fuck is the point being? See, you made me fucking... There's no fan of youth. Tomorrow's a hard day. You bust my balls. Yeah,

and some nights I would go home at night. And, you know, I ain't the stars like you. I did what you did. And sometimes not in my office, but I go in my living room and I turn off the TV

and I put the chair thing under my legs. And I would just close my eyes and I would take myself back to what I felt like when I was your age. Like as dumb as this sounds, people. You know,

I would just sit there and I'd close my eyes and go, what the fuck? That I feel. when I was 28 fucking years old. It's right now my feet from how high my blood pressure went up. I could feel my body throbbing under my... Like, that's how I felt at 28, like my fingers.

Like, I was hypnotizing myself without fucking knowing it. Were you angry? Why was your blood pressure going out? I think about the person that I was at that age. And I was just, a cased animal looking for trouble without knowing. And I had just come out of jail, you know, but I was still not doing what I was doing before.

There was no weapons. There was nothing like that. I was just basically, 91 is when I got on stage the first time. 91 is when I, the year started, me really wanting to be a good estimator. so I went to seminars and did all that shit on my own and about the same time I wanted to do stand-up so 91 I was 28 I was getting married

no 90 I started comedy but while I was starting comedy I gotta be honest for you I didn't know what direction I was going with my wife and the kid and four months later we got separated and that was over So at your age already, I had been out of prison. That's crazy. I started stand up and I had gotten divorced. And I sit there and just thinking about that

makes my fucking heartbeat and my fingers shrug for a few reasons. There's a few reasons there. It reminds me of what I felt like when I realized I was going to be able to do comedy for real. That was a fucked up feeling to have. You had it early on in doing comedy? No, no, no, no, no. When I was, when I fucking got looking at just me, just me telling you that right now.

My eyeball, I just lost 10 fucking pounds on my soul. Really? Listen, man. You have no idea what it is to do something, fall in love with it, have a certain feeling about it. And know this is what you want to do, and you got to figure out the way to do it. And one day you walk in the door and somebody fucking tells you, here you go. You want to do comedy?

Here it is. Like for a month, I was in shock. Yeah, I was in shock. I was getting separated. Yeah, I was in shock. I was seeing my daughter. But I was in shock that the answer I was looking for was laid out in front of me. Like, I was in fucking.

shocking shockly. Like I kept thinking, how am I going to do stand-up and make this work? Well, now I lost my job with them. You know, I was off probation. I could leave the state. I had a nice car.

I had a little savings. If I was going to do stand-up, this was the time to do it. You know what? We're going to sell the condo anyway. I've got myself a little apartment in South Boulder. No part of you thought, let me get an apartment and I'll get a job and maybe there's comedy thing isn't for me.

I wanted to give it an old fucking Yankee try, if that's the expression. It should be. I wanted to just try it for a while, just to see. I didn't want to go overboard. I wasn't thinking about nothing big, nothing, nothing like that. I didn't start thinking about craziness until about nothing. nine months in. About nine months to ten months in

so I started thinking craziness. What does that happen? What is craziness? Crazness means that, you know what? I don't know what these fucking old batted comics are talking about. Kind of what I look like right now when I'm telling you. Like I was fucking

at this point I'm maybe 29, maybe turning 30. I'm about 29 by this point. And I had been I had been the House MC at the broker for a year. So once a month, I would get a different comic. And they were great comics. Doug Stanhope was one of them.

I've mentioned this before. I mean, there were too many to remember. Some of them still do comedy. Some people are comedy writers now. Some people have moved on. You know, it's pretty interesting, the people I opened up for. And it was always a two-show, you know, two comics. It was a feature and a headline.

And the features were usually from anywhere from Oregon to Seattle to Northern California. They could be from Chicago. It was fucking crazy. So you meant two new comics every week? Every, every once a... Yeah, every Tuesday. What am I saying? Once a month.

Every Tuesday, no, no, no, no. Hold on. Yeah, every Tuesday. Every Tuesday, I'm in a different comic for a year and a half. That's your call? College course. But by about the seventh or eighth month, I had already made a decision.

I was like, you know what? These guys, they don't know what they're doing. Oh, yeah, I had already made a decision. Like, I started in July of 91, and by December of 92, had a solution to all my problems. Handy with it. You want me to drop it on you? I would love it.

All right, my solution. was to move to New York City. That's a good start. And do comedy in Manhattan. And that Jay Leno would walk into the club one night. And I would be on stage doing stand-up. And he would

talk me off the stage and tell me to be on the Tonight Show a week later. How many times a day did you fantasize about this happening? 200 times a day. And it could have been him or Letterman or what's the guy who just died, the little Jewish guy, Mickey Rickles,

what's a man? RIP Mickey Wreckles Oh my god, I call them Mickey Wreckle. Oh my God, I call them Mickey. That earthquake weed is good. I thought, oh yeah,

the earthquake week, that's a loose energetic that shit there. That's the real deal. All you guys are going out of the jungle and the fuck. See, Jesus. You're wasting plain fare. Come over here.

smoked his death with Uncle Joey. Don't get beat up on United. Oh, my God. No, no, no. No, I didn't know. I had no fucking ideally. Look at the shape of you. Look at the shape of me.

Oh, man. Another thing that I was thinking about tomorrow, I called my friend today. I have like three friends tomorrow. That's their birthday. You know anybody tomorrow? 25th's their birthday. I could check Facebook, but I don't think so.

No, please. I don't need for you to just, if you don't know them off the top of your fucking head. I know anyone. I know my mom's birthday, my dad's birthday. I know three people. I know three people that have them birthdays. So.

Go ahead. I'm sorry. Just, why is tomorrow a hard day for you about thinking about why it was like when you're 28? Oh, no, no. I was telling you that this, sometimes I just go home and think of what I'm like at your age. Right. I don't think I was any hungrier than you or. I think I wasn't as confused as you're one.

I wasn't starting new business every week and get business cards. You should. How many business cards if you're given away? No, no, none. I had them on the sheet and it was just me and him. So I gave away one card. Yeah, I feel very good. I feel, it's interesting.

My 10-year high school reunions right after Thanksgiving. And I feel more unsure and confused. now than I did when I was 18 going to college. What are you afraid of you going to go back and your friends of doctors? No, I'm not going back and I just can't. You've got to go back. I'm not going back for Thanksgiving. Listen, that's the worst time to fly.

I'll tell you what I've done. Let's get you a nice suit. Let's get you like a fucking gold chain with a Yamika star, like one of those Jewish stars. Can I get the Yamaka that you've always talked about with the blood diamond? No, no, no, no, yarmacas. You're going to go up there looking good, nice and. bald and cute. You're going to give yourself a little fucking gold. You're going to lose

40 pounds. You're going to go see the Mexican doctor. I'm going to shoot you with a couple fucking Mexican illegal drugs. You walk in there looking like fucking Main Street Charlie, fucking yoke to the gills. And you go to your high school reunion in 10 years and you're lying to people. What do you give a fuck?

They're going to be lying to you. They all just got out of jail. They all just fucking names. I know what I mean most of them I mean most of them stayed in Massachusetts. It's fine. They're doing great. Mother Richard. How many of those people I've you kept in touch with? One.

How many people are you graduating class there? Three or four hundred, I think. Yeah, you were a regular fucking jump bundle, Joy Wards here. Yeah, no, I don't know. People don't know. People don't like me. Who know? No, I don't know. You're a nice guy.

I'm busting anymore. No, but if I went, I'm sure I'd have fun. But it's just a weird feeling. I felt so sure at 18. And at 28 now, it's not that I'm unsure. What are you unsure about Lisa? It's not even unsure isn't the right word for it. I have so, there's so many opportunities right now.

That's when I'm not, like, I'm not good at the cheesecake factory because there's 8,000 pages and everything looks good and I can't make a decision. So what do you want to do? I love podcasts. It's definitely going to be in podcast. It's just, uh, And it's not even, it's not even like what I want to do. It's like, it's as you, as you've talked about, hopefully at some point, someone's starting something.

So if it's for TV shows, that could be, it just has so many different ways podcasts could be used. It's a little overwhelming sometimes. Well, let me tell you some. I'm 54-year-old. I'm still fucking confused. Yeah. So that doesn't make me feel any better. It never goes away.

Because if you have any kind of heartbeat, as fast as technology is moving and all the things that are happening as fast, you have to, if you're a CEO of any company, any company, you have to always look at these things, how fast this is moving,

if there's a writer strike, where you were running. You saw 96% today. 96% where you would be putting your ads. You know, these are all things that, right now with all the technology, you don't know what's, going to happen. And that's, and that's

the scariest part because even with YouTube, people are getting really mad at YouTube right now because they've changed their whole ad structure and there's, like, there's been so many podcast networks that have come and gone in LA since we've started.

And you have to think that when they're in their first meetings and they're setting up and they have the talent, they all were just as or more motivated and excited that as I am. So, but, But it's, it's, when you see so many people failing, it's daunting. Well, I'll tell you what, man.

It was very appealing starting a network. Right. There was a while there when we spoke about it, and it was very appealing. But I knew one thing. I knew that I'm not the most affluent person in the world. I know that I'm not the most charming person in the world. I know there's a certain taste. And you know what?

If I'm going to focus on something, let me focus on what's in front of me. which is the podcast. I always wanted to be consistent and I always didn't have to worry about anything. The last thing I need to do was show up here on Monday and Wednesday and the camera's broken and there's spaghetti out on the fucking table

and there's a rat in the fucking garbage and I see a condom in there. I don't want to share a studio on anybody. Right, no. I never wanted to do anything. That was part of the freedom that I wanted. You know what? There's times I sit here

that maybe I should belong. to a podcast network and why don't I and whatever. You know what, man? I got thrown out of the Boy Scouts and I learned my fucking lesson. I could lie to you and tell you I was in a street gang. I was never in a fucking street

gang. You know, when I knew kids who hung out of the 148th Street, that's it. I did never nothing organized like that except play basketball and some football. I didn't know anything ever before like that. And I don't want to know it. I didn't want to be a part of something like that.

I'd rather enjoy what we're doing right now. Oh, yeah, and that's the thing. I'm not itching to get out. It's just you and I talk about it a lot. That's what we talk about after the thing. Because maybe what you're saying is I should be looking at the people, like the All Things Comedy and the podcast ones and the people who have succeeded instead of focusing on the ones who failed.

Well, the one that succeeded did it, I'll tell you why, primarily, because somewhere I'm there, they haven't experienced. There's somebody who, a lot of those guys tried to switch from radio to podcasting. Right. I'll tell you, it's two different forms. And it's two different formats. And people are ready for a change. Do you understand when I'm trying to go with this? Right.

And so a lot of people are left like dinosaurs. There's limited amount of radio in these markets where I go to it. It's not like where I can go into a town and do radio for three days. How many, how many, like out of ten, do you do radio now? Other ten city? Yeah, usually. I usually do radio in every city. Okay.

But it's one morning. It's 8.30 a.m. and 9.45 and we're done for the day. it used to be 8.30, 945, 1150, 230, and maybe a 340 call it. Wow, that's a lot.

Those days are done anymore. Unless you're Rosie, or Donald or somebody like that, you know, they put out a press release and they call back for them, you know. But to answer your question,

let me tell you some, I don't think there comes an age when you're not confused, and unsure even a little bit even as you're depositing the check in the fucking bank. That's all I'm working towards. I don't know in my head all I want. Do you want a structured life?

I mean, what is it that you're looking? No, no, because I don't necessarily need a structured life. I would like I would like to be able to have what my goals used to be all money related. So that's where I, that's my mind first one right now. But in reality, The past few years, I've had a very, I've lived three miles from the studio.

I do a few podcasts a week, but I have a lot more freedom with my day than I had when I was out of office. Listen to me. Forget all that nonsense. Okay. The beauty about this podcast was, the beauty about this podcast and how I knew this podcast was how anything works in this life, you have to love it for free. Right. If you can't get up and do something for free, do not fucking do it.

I'm talking about if I call you up, you know what? Remember when I, you know those movies I did with the dog? Mm-hmm. All those movies, those companies that did those movies were a little bageloush, if you know what I mean. And the second movie I did with them, there were certain people who were not getting paid. As a matter of fact, the guys who were, you know, picking up cameras and moving them and polishing it and setting them up and setting the cameras and putting the color in the room and all that, there was a lot of those dudes that were not getting paid. They were doing this for five weeks for free just to get experience. Yeah, yeah, I have to do that.

Somebody put them together to do this. In many ways I agree with the concept, but in many ways I didn't. you want to not pay him. I could see not paying him for three weeks, but pay him anything after fucking six hours. You know what I'm saying? They were working these motherfucking 12 hours. You're willing to do that when you first come out when you come out here?

But it's, I'm sure you now you're a little bit jaded and now it's... Oh, no, no, I'm not jaded. I just understand the concept now. I've worked on big film. Remember, let's get something straight. besides grudge match, the last big film I worked on was somewhere after the longest yard. I'm talking about where people open up the door for you.

I'm talking about where you go to wardrobe three weeks before. I'm talking about where they take you shopping. If I analyzed that, I met them at Wardrobe, and they took me to, like, fucking, in Midtown Manhattan, the men's big and small. the shirt was two G's. The shirt alone was two fucking geez. Did I try to clip it? Just for the shirt. The leather jacket had to be,

Jesus God knows how much. It was that soft leather that looked like paper thin and weighed nothing. That jacket was, I forget what the fuck that was. They took me shopping. Next thing you know,

whatever happens happens. And I'm doing these $100 a day movies where you bring your own fucking clothes. So I've done all the movies at every level. If you look at my MDB, there's some big movies, but there's also a lot of small movies. You know, for a while there,

I wanted to get good that I was doing, so I'd work with you. You know what I'm saying? Work with you a little bit. Who gives a fuck if you fuck up on scared tactics? You can't fuck up, it's improvised. It's funny. It's funny.

You're talking about this. I actually wrote this down. So when did you stop taking those roles? Like the roles that with a $100 a day movie is the TV shows, maybe you... After I did 25 of them and I came to a conclusion. You know, the girl that did the movie with Kleeneas with as a boxer girl? Yes. Okay, you know, that movie, I don't think if it's that movie,

I think it's the movie that Cleeneas would see her, saw her in, to put her in that movie, was a hundred-year-old. A $100 a day movie. When they book you in those movies, they always sell you the concept that they have an out and you're going to be seen. And there was a lot of those films I did that on paper would look great until I got to the set.

And I was like, oh, shit. There's a few movies I did that I think are great, but nobody ever seen. Why? The company dropped the ball. You'll see it 10 years from now, late night at 3 in the morning, on some fucked up channel as part of their fucking thing. There's something I did in 2000 that still runs on.

There used to be a gay channel. Logo. It ran on there once or twice a fucking month. I'm not going to tell you the name, but I don't want people to know and shit. because the director of it and the producer and the writer were gay. So they wrote this script. So they sold it into different,

so you never know what you're doing, but a lot of things, the reason, to answer your question, the reason why I stopped doing a whole-a-old-day movies because they were getting me nowhere. That's the honest-to-God, bottom line. But I don't want somebody else to get that mindset. I also did 20 of them.

Can I go on my MDB with you right now and count them out for you? I guarantee it's a lot closer to 20 than not. The six basketball, the six dog movies I did were all a $100 day movies. With Dean Kane, those are all a hundred-old-day movies. Wow. Okay, I could name, if I look at my MDB, there was a time of redemption, all those movies. hung on the day. You bring your own wardrobe.

You better bring water just in case. You know, there's no guy with wardrobe bringing your wardrobe to your room. When you do a movie for CBS when you get there, the wardrobe's in your room and shit. You know, you're going to make up. They tune you up. No, no, no, no, no.

And there's these fucking movies. It's a chick standing there. And she'll come next to you and touch you up a little bit, and that's it, motherfucker. It's two different worlds. What's the comedy equivalent to a $100 day movie? Like a B-club or featuring, or like, when did you stop doing that?

When I elevated myself, remember, I elevated myself to headline in 2005 officially. Before that, I co-headlined, I featured if I had to the make ends meet, but I was starting to headline. Now, when I navigated my way into headliner, was I a headliner? No.

I navigated my way into a headliner how I planned I would by doing movies and TV. The longest yard was my launch pad. After that, I booked myself as a headliner, period. All those clubs I have featured for, I called them with a different fucking attitude now. even though they hadn't seen you do an hour you were just like I've done this movie I've been at your club four times already I've blown your headliner out

let's lift a rock Troy what are you talking about yeah come on they would hit me with a number that was so lowly with no plane ticket and I would bump them a little bit and get a plane ticket out of them and then you know what

let's pretend 300 people paid just because of the longest yard that's more than a lot of people believe in that yeah you have 52 weeks and then are those sort of clubs like are there B I'm sure there are A there was a couple clubs I did really well one time Dallas Improv

Houston Last Stop It was somewhere else that Even in 2005 I was starting to build a little bit On an audience New Jersey New York you know No but then you drift away You get away

Now they started doing movies. I got a girlfriend. The one club closed down. The other club lost its management. The management hours used to, you know, things happen. Things evolve. So now you evolve from one club to another. It's usually not because of my loyalty.

If you take care of me back then, I'm still with you. I was with people towards the end. So I'm one of those guys. But today, clubs open up, a new one open. some of the old time has moved on, you know. So you can't really be as loyal to the clubs anymore? No, I'm still loyal, you know. I love certain clubs.

There's certain clubs that you've been to like I wouldn't dream and going anywhere else, even what the agents tell me. I can name like six of them off the bat that I wouldn't leave. I love them. I don't want to do a theater. I'd rather just stay there. You know, but just how I hypnotize myself to think about being 28

just to see what your head is at no disrespect to you just to say Jesus Christ what was I thinking at 28 like I was already married I wasn't really thinking about banging her anymore we already had the kid it was brutal

and I'm working 40 hours a week and once I got on stage I really wanted to do it but before I was thinking about that today's one of my I tell you I have three friends to the birthdays tomorrow. So one of them I sent the card to

the other one, me and her are not con si cumsa that much anymore. So I'll wait till I feel tomorrow and see if I'll just send her a message on Facebook. And then the one is a close, close friend of mine that I love dearly. So I made a point to call it today, you know, just to get it out of the way before tomorrow.

And she called back around at the time and I went outside and what's up? And we just spoke for a few minutes And I was like, happy birthday I just want to get you today because I know you're probably She goes, you were right I'm going to do this thing

and the reception's bad done that me and my husband So at one point she's like Jesus Christ We're getting old Joey You know, she calls me Cocoa still And I was like, I know I know, I know

You know, she goes, I went to my cousin's wedding Blah, blah, blah. My dad 10 years ago was doing something And now he can't do it no more because it was neat, you know, just, we're just talking generalities. And she goes, I gotta tell you something. You know, you always call me on my birthday. And I was like, I remember the day that's easy.

And she goes, why? Because you love me? I go, that, but it's the day I left New Jersey the first time. And she just was like, oh my God, I still remember that night. Like, yeah, we were friends. friends. We were tight friends, even back then. She hung out at that bar, because I used to hang out of it, and I used to borrow money from the fucking loan shark there. So you're going to go on a way party that night? No, I had never told there anybody I was going away.

So why did she remember that night? Because I told her, like, two nights before. So you guys were really close, okay. We were close, but as that time. Time came. We were starting to get closer. We hung on the same click and we liked Chinese food and we would go to White Castle at night and we giggled. And she had a boyfriend and I had whatever I had going on. But I kind of took an interest in her and we became friends. We kept it at that. So

Then two nights before I left It was like a Like a Tuesday I saw her out And I pulled her out So I said to me your favorite Don't say nothing To nobody

And she was cool Like I'm going to Colorado With Jimmy Berkel You won't worry about her Writing you out Or aren't people fine to you? No I trust her that much man

I trust her that much At that time, I knew that even if she said something, nobody was going to take a helicopter to Colorado. Don't get me. Nobody was taking a plane to Colorado. When you said the word Colorado, those people, in those days, you might as well tell them fucking Jupiter. It's the same distance in their mind.

She kept quiet for a long time. And she was concerned at first. I knew I was leaving for about three months. Colorado, I knew for about a lot. month. And today I was just when I hung up with her, I was thinking about how I felt, you know, like Jesus, what did I feel like two nights before that? I was holding on by dear and Lee. They were coming at me from all directions. I had about six fucking people looking for me. And they were coming at me from all direction. And I was chucking and driving. At the same time

that I was chucking and driving, I'm wrong. Robin with three hands. And I'm just trying to put money away to go on this mission to Colorado. And we're already set to go and I can't boogie. But I wasn't worried about that way. I was really worried about

what I was going to do. Like, can you imagine being 19? I know there's people who have done this before. But I really thought about what the fuck I had done at that age. It's weird. I don't, whenever I hear, listen

to this, these stories, I don't picture you as a 19 year old kid. Because when we were saying earlier that by my age you were married, and I was like, Jesus Christ, he went to Colorado that early. You're just such a good storyteller.

I just imagine it as you now. To think of it as a 19 year old kid doing that stuff is 19. Compared to me at 19 in college is very different. I was sitting there going, what the fuck am I going to do with my goddamn life?

You know, my buddy had just lost money in the Super Bowl. I was working for fucking peanuts. You know, who the fuck was I kidding? I was at that bar three nights a week, acting like Tony fucking bananas, snort and a half gram of Coke. That's 40 a pop. That's 120 when you're 19 a week. That's 480.

That's not even including the fucking alcohol. That's not including the meals out with your fucking retarded friends. which I enjoyed every single one of those times. But I was saying that's what my head was at 19. Was I going to get a job? Listen, I was one of those dudes that wanted a job, but I didn't want a job. I wanted a job, but I didn't have to show up to.

And I was going to hold out though somebody gave it to me in my perverted fucking disgusting mind. That's not like a perfect job. And eventually I had to go to work. And I did go to work for a while. I really did work for a while. but I needed cash to go to Colorado. Like I needed a cushion because I could shovel snow

or get a job as a garbage man in those days because all my friends had ends at those places. But it was the end of April. How much snow is there going to be? Probably not much. Not much. So I was trying to get a job. So once I thought about the fucking no snow,

I was like, I'm going to need some money for a few fucking weeks. So I wanted to rob as much as I could. could. Now, isn't Robin. I was trying to get that one drug deal. That's all I fucking wanted. And he left. And I was bummed, and then he broke down, and he came back.

No part of you thought of getting just a regular job. I thought about it a thousand times. But deep down inside, I was too far behind on the money I owed. I was too far behind on where I stood with

people who cared for me and people who love me. I was just too far fucking behind, man. And guess what? I wasn't going to one. I was trying to go into vocational school. First, I was going to be a plumber. Then I switched it to masonry.

Then I quit after five weeks because the guy fired me from the masonry job. So for you to be in the masonry program, you had to be, have a job in the masonry job. Then I got a job in a brick place. So I got put back into the masonry job. Then I got fired from the brick place. They wanted me to hold bricks in 20 below fucking weather, you know, a hooded sweatshirt with no heater in the warehouse. So I was just, I was looking for a job, but not really.

I wanted a job that I could go there and have pork chops and something to give me a line of blow. That's what I fucking, that's, Jesus. Christ, that's how retarded I was in 19, if you really want to know. So that's what I thought. I thought I was like a job bartending, or I could be the life of a party and pour drinks and make two, three, three, three, four nights a day and snort coke and wear like a vest and try to be fucking cool with the ladies. But that never panned out for your uncle Joey. That plane really does.

No, every job I got, they made me. worked like on off days. Like I had a good job as a bartender, but it wasn't the bartending I necessarily wanted to do. I wanted to do small pub type bartending where you know

everybody and shit like that, but it didn't really matter. You know, I think about when I talk to people who have given up things in their hometown to come out here or just to leave and I've remembered how

how hard it was, how hard it was for me. Because the hardest thing I was going to, like, I knew I was going to miss my friends, and I knew I was in a miss this environment. It had been all I ever known. New Jersey and New York City, that whole area is all I ever knew, you know? And that's all I ever knew,

but I was ready to get out. I was so excited to leave. Part of me wanted to get out, and part of me fucking didn't. But I remember the fear I went to, in that car driving from New Jersey to Colorado the fucking fear of wanting to get there

because I wanted to see what this was all about. It was fucking brutal. Like that's how, you know, and I even wrote about today when I went over to the court, that's what I wrote about today. That's what was, that had me all fucked up today.

Was that fear of the unknown? Just the chance I took. But once I took that one, chance. It was all over after that. Because I knew I knew I could do it now. I lived on my own for fucking ten months in Colorado. I paid rent every

month. I bought my own groceries. I used to buy a head of lettuce and Oscar Maya salami and chop it up with Italian dress. And what? That shit's good to go, Papa. You still look, we were talking about sloppy Joe's in the green room.

I haven't had a sloppy Joe in probably 10 years. That's because you're fucking, but tell them what you did have. Tell him that. Tell him that Uncle Joey hooked you up in Santa Barbara. Oh, my goodness. Okay. So we went to Toma.

It's an Italian place right on the beach, right near the pier. And not the pier, like, the, uh, wherever the boats go, the marina. And, uh, it was great. We called up because we thought you had to get a reservation. And the guy saved two spots at the bar for us. He had two places already set for my dad, and then when we got there. And I didn't even look at the menu. I just got the lasagna.

And my dad got the Capulini, I think. I have a picture of it. It's the biggest trim I think I've ever seen. And the lasagna, I ate every single bite of it. And... We went back to your room and you fell asleep. Like the savage that you are. But you probably ate some chips when you went home.

You got a good time with the chips this week. Yeah, I don't have candy or something. You're fucking... Well, you're eating 2,000 milligrams. So, yeah, if you're fucking thinking about leaving where you live, man, it's fucking hard. Just do it that. And sometimes you got to do it. You know what?

You can always come back and look like the other 10 dudes who failed. Who gives a foot? But at least you fucking went. At least you went for it. That's what they do. They put you up against the wall like this guy left too. And he told me, this guy had the answer. too, but he came back

and look at this guy, he had all the answers. He was making millions sure he was. Why the fuck is he back here on the bar? Right. Working off the tab. You know, that's what I dreaded. And when I went back in 84, I didn't go back like that.

I went back because I missed that fucking lifestyle. I didn't go back because I failed. I always knew I was going back to Colorado. I just wanted to know when. I wanted to see what I could get out of my life. I stepped dead, but at the end it was all a wasted time. Right. I should have stayed in Colorado.

It could have probably been a different person today. I think so? You never know. What was going on? No, I'm lying to you because one of the reasons why I went back to North Bergen was because they had put something together. I had done an aspirin, a burglary, and I knew it any day they were going to nail me. And if they nailed me for that bird,

burglary, they were going to nail me for 10 other fucking burglarglars. Maybe, I don't know, give a take. Because they were drug dealers, so I don't know if they reported it. But I was such a kleptone those days. God knows what I took. God knows what I fucking took. Fuck. It's crazy.

It's crazy how your life's changed. Well, listen, I could take. these things and sweep them under a fucking carpet oh I can tell you know I mean you can feel better and ain't all fucking roses and ain't all fucking you got to work for everything I did triple runs I I moved to Seattle I I sweated out two years up there you know this was real this was fucking real and I don't mind putting in the work it's just just I

in my head by the time I'm 54 I want to have some time where it's a little bit more relaxed well you worry about that when you get the 54 yeah I'm not that worried about right now worry about when you're 28 that's the other thing whenever you think ahead of time

all that thinking I did was a waste of time because I never thought about the podcast I never even saw it coming here we are five years later so don't think about nothing because you never know what life's got down the corner as long as you stay positive and you're willing to try new fucking things you never know me you never fucking know you understand me now talking about working hard you need to fucking rest night after night two people lay in the same bed like two mooks but when it comes time to buy a new mattress only one

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Lee, what are you giggling about, Lee? I'm just giggling. I'm enjoying it. Yeah, you're enjoying it. All right. That's what I need. Figuring I have an enjoyment over here. Well, I'm trying to read and struggle here.

I'm looking at Lee, and Lee's looking sharp today. He's got a blue sweater around. His beard is tight. He's got a few spots on his head, but when doesn't he have some fucking ailment? It's either a spot in his head or the fuck-the-bigh-brow

or the fucking ingrown toenail on the eyeball. It's always something with this poor guy. Anyway, but what Lee is sporting with all new fairness is a beautiful MVMT watch. Pronounce movement.

It's a beautiful a watch. I had one too. Mine slipped. I'm waiting for a coat to get a new one, but between you and I, if they don't send me a coat, I'm going to buy one anyway because it was that much of a night. It was that nice of a watch. I usually wore it under my sweater when I'm on stage. It's stylish, it fits, it looks really good, and you know what? The most important thing, it doesn't cost normal leg. That's the most important thing. This company was started by two broke college kids, that wanted to wear stylish watches but couldn't afford them so they started their own watch company. They started this with social media, videos, they launched into podcasts, YouTube, radio, you name it.

These savages did it. Movement watches, they started $95. At an apartment store, you're looking at $400 to $500 for the same watch. Movement figured out that by selling online, they were able to cut out the metalman and the retail market providing the best possible price for you. Listen to this. They got classic design,

quality construction, and style minimalism. They've sold over a million watches worldwide in 160 countries. Listen to what we're going to do for you. You know, I love you to death. I want you to look good for the 4th of July.

You don't have a jacket on. You want to look sharp. You don't want to look like a MOOC. People ask you what time is. You can talk to them. You know how it is. You want to mingle, you have to have a nice watch. What I'm going to do for you is get 15% off today with free shipping and free returns.

Something that you don't like the black watch. You want it in gray? There you go. But do me a favor. Go to mvmtwatches.com slash church. Again, going to mvmtwatches.com slash church. You're going to love this watch. and you're going to save $4 to $500.

Look at Lee's watch. This watch has a really clean design, and I'll tell you what, every time I see Lee out, people always say how nice to watches. Again, go to mvmtwatches.com slash church. Join the movement, you savages. I want to thank Helix.

I want to thank MBMT. I want to thank my brother Lee Syatt, and I want to thank Hon, and I want to thank you, savages for always being there for us. Tonight we decided just to go old school, chit chat, see what's on each other's mind, be very genocet co if I like to say.

Don't forget Thursday night, the Timbler brewing. And then Saturday, I think the last, the fucking ice house already sold out. So that's how fast we're doing that. Beside that, I'll see you savages Wednesday night. Get ready to rock. That's all I'm telling you. of Iraq Wednesday night 8 o'clock have a great night thank you for listening to the church of

what's happening now thank you for the love you know we love you too