The Church of What's Happening Now: The New Testament - #540 - Joey Diaz and Lee Syatt

Episode Date: December 7, 2017

Joey Diaz tells Lee Syatt what his three days on tour with Wheeler Walker Jr were like and why he likes those kinds of shows. Joey also tells Lee about his very first days in comedy, and how fear can hold us back. This podcast is brought to you by: FujiSports.com  - Use promo code CHURCH for a 10% discount on all the best jiu jitsu and martial arts gear.   Hellotushy.com - Go to Hellotushy.com/church for 10% off of your order and stop using nasty toilet paper forever!   Onnit.com. Use Promo code CHURCH for a 10% discount at checkout.   Amazon.com - Go to Joeydiaz.net first and click on the Amazon banner to support the show   Recorded live on 12/06/2017.


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What? Oh shit. Oh shit. What's happening? You bad motherfuckers, Uncle Joey here with his favorite Christ killer, Lee Syatt. We're going old school today. It's the second podcast of the month.

First off, I know you're concerned. The fires are closed by, bro. This shit started Tuesday night when I was driving back from San Diego, I think. Whenever the night I was driving back from San Diego Monday, my Subaru was a tough fucking car. And when I got the Irvine on the 5, which you guys, I'm talking to you're saying like Joey, like, yeah, I know what the fuck Irvine in the 5 is. My point is the wind was fucking so strong that night.

It was so fucking strong. So when I was coming home that night, about 11.30, maybe 11, I called Lee. I saw fire trucks already. So when I woke up the next morning, my wife, you know, and you could smell it outside, kids that were in Sunland and Sun Valley, which is real close to North Hollywood, where we are now. So, you know, my heart goes out. I mean, they had to close the fucking 405 this morning. I mean, it's a messier guy.

It's, thank God I'd have to travel over the hill or anything. I mean, everybody who's got meetings today, I know for a fact of fucking canceling shit because it was even hard getting here today. Oh, have you ever driven on the freeway when there's been fires? I've done it. I've had it happen twice since I've lived here. A few years ago, it was just, it makes this look like a, it made it, like, it made mine look like a match or something, like a little brush fire. But like the side of the 405, maybe four or five years ago caught on fire.

And there was heat. Like, I was driving south, so it was on the opposite side of the freeway. And I could feel the heat through my window. And that was, and then seeing the, the end of the videos this morning of the 405. just completely on fire. I can't imagine. And then a few months ago in Burbank off the 210, which was closed yesterday,

the 210 had it too. Like just a little, it was towards the end of it, but it was still like little spots of fire. You don't realize how scary it is until you see it. You could smell it. A lot of schools were closed today. You know,

I mean, some of the schools didn't need the fucking clothes, but the problem is the air. You could feel it. Some people really react. I feel it a little bit. My wife, I get tasted. Okay, whatever.

You know, I don't feel it that much. I didn't find dashes on the fucking car this morning. Really? Yeah, mine was covered yesterday. Yeah, yesterday, yeah, but not this morning. So I think whatever was close to us, except of Ventura. But still, my heart goes out to all you people, what you're living through. It's a fucking nightmare.

I also want to thank the people who came out to the Wheeler Walker show. It was a fucking adventure. You know, and as a stand-up comic guys, to do a rock venue, it's very hard because the comedians are standing up. The audience is standing up. And when you stand at your attention level, something happens. People go crazy. Ari likes to do those rooms. I enjoy them from time to time to toughen my skin.

I just run through. You have to, you know, every three minutes. Where's Lee? Where's Lee? Well, obviously, he's in my asshole. Like I brought him in the fucking. And they you know, it's like it's like they don't stop like where's Lee? Where's Lee like I don't know he's playing the fucking bongo somewhere do you see him

anywhere around here? No, so don't worry about it let it go. So but no you have to fucking fight your way through that. It's not like being at a comedy club where security comes over and says the next word you say you get thrown out. So you like you wouldn't even know it's hand-to-hand combat comedy. That's called hand-to-hand combat comedy. That's where you go when you want to get you.

get really good. You do 20 of those deals as an opening act for a band and that's how you just learn to fucking get the toughest skin in the world. Although, you know, when a lot of comedians have come on the show and we discuss triple runs. The reason why triple, what makes the triple run so hard are they're not standard comedy rooms. Yes, some of them have a monthly comedy show. So you train people from small towns to come there. But some of them are like in sports bars, okay? So you go to like Marty's eight-ball sports bar in Montana.

You know, they're there to watch fucking sports. So all of a sudden, the comedian goes on stage. That's called hand-to-hand combat comedy. They got their back to you. They're watching Oklahoma They have their back to you? Yeah, like they don't. So that is

one of the early stages of comedy. That's what toughens you up. When you go home after a night of doing comedy, in a situation like that, you don't think about the laughs you got. You think about the people who had their backs turned to you.

And then you say to yourself, you're not going to go back there, but this is what builds your mind as a comic. You start going back there to get little goals. Like when I started, I started a place called The Broker. I started at the Comedy Works in Denver. But where I really developed,

where I really developed my comedy mind, I got to hand it to them, was at the broker. because there wasn't no going to the stage, Joey Diaz, there was none of that shit. Like, I just walked up there cold and it was steak night. So it was 1595 or 1495 for a baked potato or steak, a salad, and an iced tea or something like that and a dessert. And then you got a free comedy ticket. So these are people that just went to get a steak from the broker.

The broker was known for good steaks. Tuesday night was slow. And they just handed them a comedy ticket with their dinner? Yeah, they just handed you kind of. You got, no, the comedy show is in the steak room. So if you want to eat the steak, you have to listen to the motion of the convenience. Was the owner like a big comedy fan or something? No, the owner was a guy with a wig at the time.

That was a sweetheart of a guy. He owned four of them. And they were all very unique restaurants because the first thing they did was bring you a shrimp bowl. I told you about this. Yeah. And they had the woman's bank. where you had dinner basically in little rooms that were, where you took your money,

where you took your safety deposit boxes to look at your, what was in the box, that they turned them into little kitchens, into little tables. So, and they had a curtain, ladies and gentlemen. So you could actually go in those places

and have sex while you were eating. They would bring your shrimp and you could get like, go down on your wife. It was crazy. Was that allowed or did that just kind of happen? You give the waiter a 20, tell them that don't come back for 20 minutes.

Oh, my God. And tell them not to let the little Mexican kid come back there either. You're going to be under the table eating your wife. I don't fucking know. Eat. But anything is possible. But my point was that they just did it. Tribble approached them and they said, yeah, let's do comedy.

And I was very lucky. They don't do comedy no more and they don't even consider it. Somebody who worked there reached out to me recently. He said, listen, bro, you know, we listen to the podcast. I just want to let you know that you're not even allowed on the premises. What did you do there? It ended good But not like it

It doesn't sound like it It was just dog It was my It was my teeth cutting It was a job I had from December of 91 Six months into comedy I got this job

And it lasted me Till January of 93 Until I got five Wow that's two years That's crazy So it was basically It's like a year In a month

Or something like that Because it was 91 I had just gotten separate. Yeah, 91 was when I started. So it was December of 91. December of 92 is a year. Oh, January of 93, we got it. I got five before the week of the Super Bowl.

Because I pushed the manager into the bookshel. As you walk in there, there's all the library books. What? That's funny because I was thinking about, you know, you ever hear that song, No, you're never going to get it. No, you're never going to get it. Not this.

It's by a duet. a four quartet from the fucking 90s. When I started there at this place, they were having, you look at your life and you think of the opportunities and how they pop up. You know, I get out of prison, I get a job, I become a good roofer, I become an estimator, the whole time wanting to do comedy,

but not having the balls to even consider it, like wanting in the worst way possible. like just wanting it so badly that I was walking around and now thinking back that was what my problem was that you were so a rager I was so I wanted to do comedy so bad

but I was so fucking scared like I get just telling you this right now people I have tears in my eyes and I'm holding my like I'm gonna fight I can't explain to you how hard it is to live your life and want to do something but you're so fucking scared. Like I was in prison.

I had my mother. I had nothing going on. I was a thief. And I had nothing going on. I'm finally married. And I got a little baby. And I fucking got everything going. But I fucking wanted to do comedy

in the worst fucking way. And I didn't know a how or a how. But let's cut the shit. I was just such a fucking pussy. I was such a fucking pussy. And this desire came just from the dice tape.

and like the people in the crime jail? No. So I got out of the halfway house in 89, and this desire started January of 1990. This desire, close to it. Let's just assume, because I remember a 989, I was in a halfway house, and I rented the downstairs and brought the and dress clay in tape. Right. And at that time I thought it was very funny, and I was angry because I thought that

these are the thoughts I had in my head for years what he was saying. So you're mad at him that he said it? Yes, I was mad at him that he said it before I had the balls to say it. And it's just so weird to me to think about you having fear about that. Oh, my God. Fear, like wanting to do it.

And it was a closet thing. I didn't tell anybody. Okay, so like... It wasn't. There's no way I would say it because if I told somebody, then they would pressure me. So like, let's go back to 19. 90 though. Okay.

You're thinking like, you're like, okay. I'm roofing. Open mic tonight. I'm making, no, no. I'm making $700 a week flat as a fucking estimator. Okay. Okay. And I'm making maybe $2,000 a weekend working houses, like reroofing houses after hailstorms.

Wow. Okay. I'm putting half of that up my nose. I'm putting the other half in the bank. and I'm giving the rest of my wife, you know, the whole thing. I'm living my fucking life. I wasn't doing badly. I wasn't doing bad financially.

I had a condo. I had a fucking car. You know, I had like this life that I had always yearn for. This was it. This is it, guys, right or wrong? You just came out of prison. You've been a loser all your fucking life. I mean, you had it down to you were fucking 17,

and then the Coke and the bullshit and all the shit in my head took me into a level was just disgusting and I ended up in jail for it. Okay, so let's just talk about that. I come out, it's 90. I got this. This just pops up in fucking six or seven months. You know, it took me about a year of roofing, like nine months of roofing, to realize that the company needed an estimate it.

We were, they were, the company I was working for was, my brother-in-law's company, but they again were too scared to fucking go out and get work. So they, guys, let me tell you what was going right now. So their subcontracting work, which means somebody else was getting to work and keeping half the profits, but I was still making money, so I didn't give a fuck until one day I was a family thing and they're all talking about how all these jobs are subcontracted by this big roofing company. And they're really getting killed.

And I go, then why are you doing them? Why don't we go out and bid with them? And then I'm like, that'll take us too much away from my job. The problem was there were two great roofers, but there were three great roofers. The brother-in-law and the two brothers were tremendous. The guys, tremendous. I mean, when you talk about roofers, like I say, certain people are born for certain things. I learned something every day from my brother-in-laws.

They were, the two Polacks, the kings, they were brilliant fucking young guys, man, when it came to figuring out shit. They lived for that shit. Like, they went to work, you know, when you lay roof, it's not just going up there. You're going to bump into different situations every day. They had done it so long, and they were in this. If I was in my 30s, they were probably 35, 36, they were doing it since they were in high school. They knew these jobs backwards and frontwards. They could do their shit in their sleep.

Right. If they haven't seen it, they could know how to fix it. Oh, my God. They were brilliant. And all we did was take off old roofs and then put on new roofs. We never fucking re-roofed. Everything was bright. So we would have to cut the old roof, take it off, put the insulation down, put the wood down, wherever it was needed.

And then laid a rubber. And then we used to do ballasted roof. which means they're roofs that you put rocks on. You ever go to a roof and they have rocks on the roof? That means that it's a ballasted roof that it's rubber, but it's held down by this rocks. So the rubber can. And then you seal the sides with glue

and you put a kind of like a metal molding. I forget what it's called now. It's been 20 years. I'm sorry. And that's what that's called. We specialized in rubber re-roofs. We did hot roofs once in a, a while, but my brother-in-law's thought it was very dangerous.

You ever go into a place and you see two fucking people downstairs with masks on and they're pumping hot, tar to a roof? Oh, yeah. Those things tend to blow up. Jesus. So my brother-in-laws were involved with a couple of them blowing up. So now that they were roofers, they just committed to those type of roofs. So one day I took it upon myself to contact, like we did work with Firestone.

We did work with a couple different rubber companies, Carlisle. Carlisle was our number one rubber at that time. And I myself, ladies and gentlemen, so you know, thought that how nice would it be if I could create my own position in this company? So what I did was I contacted all the rubber companies. I told them what I did, how I did it, how I knew about their product, and how I wanted to be representatives for their products. And they sent me to estimating school. So I think it was either Carlislew or Goody. of Firestone one of those it was I think it was Carlisle at that time who sent me to a seminar

for like eight weeks I did this guys even though I was doing drugs and selling coke I stuck to this fucking little seminar shit and did they expect you to only sell Carlisle and you were going to do that anyway I was going to sell everything I didn't give a fuck I was gonna push Carlisle but if if they were set on if it meant the job I would get certified in all of them That's what I did. I got certified in all of them. You know, I hustled the way to get certified in all of them. So I started bidding. Well, guess what, guys?

I started getting jobs. It took about 90 days, but I started like, I learned how to get blueprints. I learned how to read the blueprints? So wait, so how do you even bid? How do you even know people, people just, like, have a, you go around. Again, like everybody knows, I'm a fucking stiff, but I'm a salesman, and I know how to fucking create a position. There's nothing more than learning harder.

What do I tell people? When you call me, what do I tell you every time? What are you doing? I'm putting the pieces together. That's a true statement, true and true. Right now, Lee, you have a position. You're a position to come in here, do two podcasts with me, and go home. One day, you're going to be at home alone, and you're going to go, whoa,

there's a complete different position there, and I'm going to create it, and I'm going to double my fucking salary. That's how people do it, ladies and gentlemen. And you don't do it by selling it. You do it by doing it and showing it to the employer. And then once you've made him money, or once you show him there's a potential for money, they'll let you create the fucking position.

People don't do this anymore. My brother-in-laws had no idea that I was even doing this. Until one day, they were like, where were you this afternoon? I said, I went down and put a bid in on a fucking bill. building downtown. And they're like, what are you talking about? And I'm like, yeah.

I got that bid in. I got another bit here. I got another bit there. I was bidding fucking everywhere. And then bam, I got like this job. I don't know the numbers and the parameters, people.

It was fucking 20 years ago and like Chinese to me. They closed the deal. So you were doing it for your brother-in-law's company? Yeah. So I would go to it. Now I created my own position. I would go to work with them at 7.30.

help stock the roof, get on that fucking roof, work as hard as everybody else. And at 1 o'clock, once the roof was torn up, the hard and heavy work, I would eat lunch with them, change my shirt, wash my face, and I leave. And I go on construction sites and start bidding. Oh, construction sites.

They gave me a truck. They gave me a cell phone. And I started bidding, dog. And in that process, now I became a bidder. Now I was not only in the now I had my own job. It's like the opposite of selling. So now they were going now I became a stocker also. So now I was stocking supplies for the job.

So I would call Rocky Mountain Roofing Supplies at the time. I opened up an account with them. I had my own account with them and I would call them up and say, deliver three rolls of this to this place. Deliver these tools, this amount of stone. I would call the Stone Company and set the drop for 3.30 every afternoon. By 3.30, we had to be done with the roof so the stones would come because you have to lay the stones out that day. So not only do you cut the roof, throw it off, lay it all down, put the insulation down, and then put the rubber down on top and then put all the corking and all that shit around and do the ceiling around the pipes and the air conditioners and all that.

That all has to be done by 3.30 because at 3.30, a truck comes and he don't want to hear no stories. and there you are with these things up on the fourth floor with a thing connected to you a tube and rock shoot out of that and it's you and me brother and you got to go and spread the rock so take it and then spread it you push it to the farthest end and then you open up the valve and the rock falls and you run back and you load the rock that's what I used to do every day that's what I used to do every day man

and then I created my own position everything was going great okay, I got a great job, guys. But in Colorado, when you're a roofer, it snows. So yeah, on those days, you might go fix leaks. People have leaks, shit like that. You do little repairs. You know, you're always going to have a leak there. There's always something.

You know, it snowed fucking 82 inches. And all of a sudden the next day is 90 degrees. What do you think is going to happen? And one of those days, I was at home. It was January. It was freezing out. And I was at home. My wife was working.

The baby was with my in-laws. And I went to the video store. It was the first time I had been alone in months. And for some reason, I rented something, but I rented Punchline. It was a movie about Stand Up County with Tom Hanks and Sally Struthers. And I brought it home, and the kid from Angel Salazar that was on the podcast was in there. A bunch of comedians, the Wayans. And it was a story about a comedy club and a big time comic and he becomes,

uh, Roseanne's husband's in it. Oh, okay. You know, you never saw Lee? No, I don't think so. It's a great movie.

It's, uh, it's a great, see what, if they have a clip of anything from Punchline, Tom Hacks, and I'll see if there's like a scene that really got me started. When I saw that movie that day, I probably watched it three fucking times. I, I remember doing that with the, like the VHS from the video store, but three times. Like I watched it three times in a row because at that moment, it let me know that that's right there. Like I was miserable in my marriage at that time.

It seemed like we didn't love each other, which we didn't really at this point anymore. I'm not going to tell you that. At this point, I was just a guy working. You know, I was just fucking working. and I had a little office in the back and I would sneak my little cocaine from time to time

but you know, beside that scrolled that. Let's see what the... Because there's a couple things that he says in there that were pretty... that got me. But anyway, it don't fucking matter. So I watched that movie and right away I wanted to fucking... It just clicked with you?

Right away I wanted to do stand-up. And something happened that they got a job in New Jersey. Your company? My company. So all the, I had, at that time, the company was based out of New Jersey, but we were living in Boulder. They were doing a job in Denver, and that's how I got on. It was an 18-month job.

But the 18 months was now over. I got them a few jobs, but now that was over. Okay. So they came to me one day, and they go, listen. If you want to, you could come to the East Coast with us and roof. We got a couple jobs back there. It might be three, four days a week because we have to keep our guys employed. Or you could stay here and keep bidding jobs and we'll come back.

You schedule them and we've been them. By this time, I already had my little roofing company going where I just did residential homes. And you were good enough just to do with you and a friend? Me and a friend to do residential homes on the weekends Got it So I had burned down a little bit We were doing them every weekend We did about 20 weekends in a row

And then we took like three weeks off We did another 10 and then Because he roofed all week Right see you He roofed on a big scale also all week So the crazy thing was that Sorry about that people I had a little fucking allergy

The smoke is killing people So here I am So I go, you know what? My buddy calls me one day in the middle of all this. Now it's like February of, of, uh... 90? Of 91, okay? And one day, before they leave to Jersey, they go, we got one day on this place.

Can you do it with us? And I go, yeah, come on. I don't give a fuck, absolutely. And they go, get the supplies for us. and we'll meet you there tomorrow morning at 6. Well, guess what happens? The next morning I wake up and there's 22 inches of fucking snow. But I shovel my way out and I head out there

because the supplies are still going to drop. And I will never, ever, ever forget that day as long as I live because the snow was coming down so hard people that I couldn't see four feet ahead of me, but I didn't have a jacket on. Why? Like I had a hooded sweatshirt and gloves on because it wasn't cold. It was like this really weird blizzard.

So by the time I got, I think we were doing the job in Arvada. And by the time I got to Arvada, they had shoveled the streets. The ladder was up. My brother-in-law had shoveled the section of the roof, and we were just waiting on supplies. So we're up there, and it's not cold, but you can't see. You can't fucking see. guys, you know. For me, it wasn't cold at that time. For my one brother-in-law, he had a jacket on and whatnot. Now, there's another two or three guys standing around, and I walk up and I go,

all the supplies here, and all of a sudden, boom, as soon as I said that, the truck comes down the block, and, you know, like with a high-low, they pick the stuff up, and then you have to get it on the roof and take the chain off it, and then you disperse it to wherever we need to do the job. this whole time I'm on the roof shoveling I'm working with them but now it's 10 o'clock the stuff comes and we

now everybody starts to work but everybody was starving and they go Joey what do you want to do do you want to order food and they go no no no no because they had green jelly oh shit okay so I would go over there right order the breakfast

and while they were fucking preparing the breakfast I'd have a bowl of green chili, and I'd read the paper. So this is my last day of roofing with them for about three months. It's February. They're going to go home. And you're going to be out of a job. So I'm out of the job.

Okay. So I'm going to go home. They're going to go home. If they need me, they'll call me. But I wasn't really out of a job. I just was going to have a few weeks off to sell. And if they picked up in Jersey, I was going to go back. Okay, got you.

Okay. So what we had to do is with the roof we had done for 18 months, there was a leak. We knew there was going to be a leak there. We knew there was going to be a problem. It was a certain section. It was fucked up. So I'm at the restaurant, ladies and gentlemen. It's my last day at work with my brother-in-law until I sell another job or whatever.

I was not worried. I had my little side gig. I had a little money put away. And as I'm eating the bowl of chili, there's a rock. Mountain Post right next to me. Okay, just laying there. You ever been, you ever sit at the table, ladies and gentlemen, there's a fucking newspaper there?

And I don't know what. I didn't get, if you know the Rocky Mountain News, it's not like a traditional paper that you open. It's like the New York Post. You open it from, like a book. Okay, but for some reason, when I opened it, I went to open it to the sports page. You know when you just take like 16 pages or whatever the fuck it is?

Like, you take a guess. and when I opened it, it landed on a page and it was a picture of a stand-up comedian with his hand up in the air and a microphone and it said a stand-up comedy in Denver the new explosion. Lee, my fucking heart stopped.

And how long ago had you watched the movie? A month. But up to this month, I'm all fucked up in the head. I watched this movie. Now I'm more fucked up, and I'm not going to lie to anybody. I did 9-1-1 comedy clubs, 4-1-comity clubs, and I did call the Comedy Works after I watched The Punchline, and they said it's Tuesday nights, you have to call a week advance, and I, guys, do you think I called?

Fuck, no. So, like, that's what I wanted to ask you. So, like, you're like, okay, call a week in advance. When you're, it's Tuesday morning, and you're like, it's the day to call, why don't you call? Petrified. Of what? I had the American dream And now I wanted to live my life

Like a nomad how I'd been living it all my life Was I fucking stupid I got a wife I got a little kid I'm becoming an estimator on my own Oh so you saw like You saw it as a career change I almost had a college degree

But the school wouldn't let me go back on campus Because of my felony You know I mean I just had all these disasters And what do you want me to do I'm gonna quit everything to become a stand-up comedian that's a fucking pipe dream but I open up this newspaper

and it says stand-up comedy blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah it's huge it's the explosion of Rosanne now this is February of 91 Roseanne was fucking hugely like you know The TV show?

It's like King of Thrones It had just dethroned Cosby's Cosby's had been number one on whatever night on fucking for eight years in a row. Nobody beat them. Jesus could come out playing the drums for the Beatles and they still couldn't beat out the fucking Cosby show

and Roseanne beat him. So Roseanne was the shit now. So all the article was about was about Roseanne and how she became a comic in Denver and all what's going on in Denver now, the explosion of comedians in Denver, the open mic

scene. And then The thing that says how to become a comedian. And they had all these things that you could do, but they had one right there in Boulder. And it was starting in about a week and a half. And again, I pour seed out for the first three or four days. And then it was $35.

And I go, I buy cocaine five days a week for $50, $100. I can't go spend $35. And I went and I spent the $35 fucking dollars. And so like you were already thinking I want to be a stand-up comedian full-time? Not at all. Not at all. Please don't embarrass me, make me cry. Not at all.

I thought I was a fucking loser on a lucky streak. That's it. Who the fuck was I to be a stand-up comedian? I just wanted to do it. It was eating me alive how bad I wanted to do it. but who the fuck am I, Lee? What the fuck have I done? What are my chances? I'm lucky

I'm walking around. I got people looking for me because I own $13 of the dollars in Jersey still and I'm going to be a stand-up comedian. Who the fuck am I kid? I went to prison. So what was so exciting about it? Like the crowd cheering or laughing? What was, what drew you to it in the movie?

When I watched the movie or when I read the article? What about the movie or like seeing that made you want to do it. The movie seemed like the book I read in prison about Lenny Bruce. It seemed like these guys that drop out of society

in a way, you know, they all had day jobs, but at night they hung around this comedy club. And I know what this feeling is like, you know, and it's like, if you know what comedy clubs are like, Tuesday, Thursday, Thursday, 1, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday on the off nights. And then Fridays and Saturdays, those guys are Krista Lee, Joe Rogan, myself,

we come in on Fridays and Saturdays. So Tuesday, Wednesdays and Thursdays belongs to the local comedians. And that's a bond. You know, when Josh Wolf comes on the podcast and you guys hear us going back, that's not a, it's not, that's a bond of 22 years of him knowing

my inner demons and me knowing his name demons. We were there. We were there in that same dingy fucking basement, three nights a week, weekend and week out for two years. You know who has money, you know who's eating your french fries, you know who's doing drugs,

you know who's stealing jokes, and you need that. That's where the character comes from. But at this point, I didn't know these things. I just knew I wanted to be a part of something. I thought I wanted to be a criminal that I didn't want to be a living out of. Jail is not the place to be.

If anybody's been in jail, please explain to Lee. Oh, I don't need to. I don't need to think it's not cool. It's nothing. Don't listen to that shit. Your freedom, somebody telling you what to do and what time to do it, nothing's worth your freedom. So I knew the criminality, if I would do something criminal,

it would be something that would send me to jail. They always had this chance of getting out of. But never again was there going to be a machine going to involve. Never again was there going to be a two-ounce drug buy? Nothing. I was going to live under the radar. You want to buy an A-ball? I got to know you a long time.

You want to buy a quarter-round? Something like that shit for me to make money. I had to really, really know you. That still seems dangerous to me, but. And I know when you're making a buy for a cop. You know what I'm saying? Like, I already know these things. So I didn't tell anybody, guys.

I lied to everybody, including my wife, and I would tell them that I was doing something on Sunday. I forgot what I told them. Because at that time, I was still involved with the Boulder County, like the county system. Like, I still had to go to meetings once a month as a fella, and then fucking, they talked to me about job opportunities and career shit or whatever.

And I didn't say that to nobody. The class was at 1 o'clock on Sundays for three weeks in a row. I didn't tell the fucking soul people. Not my dearest friends in Jersey, I told nobody. And I went every Sunday, and I went to the back of the class. There was probably 13 people. And I kept my mouth fucking shut. I didn't say two words.

And I think like the second week, we started talking about ideas, and he asked me, and I told him what I thought, because he gave his homework. And then the third week, the homework assignment was actually to go on stage. That was it. There was no fucking around. Would you perform in class?

Out here in L.A., they milk you to death, ladies and gentlemen. They put you through the 12-week course, and then you perform at the improv for $400 in front of volleyball agents. Listen, there's nobody in the audience, okay? And the percentage rate of those people that stick with that class are like 3%. So my class was basically a couple of, like, chefs. real estate people, people who worked in offices, and it's crazy, I'm telling you the story. You know, it's just, I walked in there,

and none of the people in there appeared like there were stand-up comics. Like, none of them made the cut from my visual eye what it took. Like, I thought of everybody, I thought everybody had to be like Richard Pry, and these people were just all too fucking plain. but that... Did you think you look like a stand-up comic? Not at all.

No? I thought, guys, by week two... By week two, I thought that maybe... This was a great experience. Like next week, I'm going to get to go up, and that's going to be great, and I'll never do it again. So you thought you were going to scratch that itch and get it out with... That was good enough for me, guys.

At that point, I was so insecure. about my opportunities and possibilities that that was it, that was it. I'm fucking, I'm about, this is like a little psychiatrist because this is terrible. I thought that no, that this is it.

I will go to one more class. Three minutes he wanted, no, no, a minute. He wanted this to do a minute. Like kill Tony time, yeah, just two a minute. Like one minute. And man, guys, that week was the fucking hurry show.

I'm taking myself back right now. Like, it was just a horror show. Because I couldn't tell anybody. Nobody. You think they'd laugh at you, or what did you think? I didn't think anything. I just, it's like, it's like some, but one of your friends coming up to you and telling you they have HIV.

Like, that's what it felt like to me. Like, Joey, what? You did what? Are you fucking stupid? When you, you're not a stand-up comic, but, So I did the third fucking thing. The third class? The third class.

I did my minute, and then he consults it you after class. And I made myself like number eight. And what you did was you stood outside the classroom, and you went in. Like they announced you coming to the stage? No, no, no, no, no. Okay. Oh, no, no. You sat there in front of the class, and you drew from a hat the first time.

And I can't tell you what number I was. I don't know. I know that when I went to get my review. So after the class, he closed up. It was a three-hour class. And we all stood in the hallway while he went back in. And then you went in and he'd tell you your review.

Ah. What you should do, what he thought you should do. And when I went in there, he was a white dude from Long Island. He was cool. You know, he seemed pretty fucking cool. But I didn't think he liked my comedy. And when I walked in, he goes,

who are you influences I said I really like Richard Pryan and I like Hicks like Andrew and he goes you should consider this he goes you should consider this and here's my number if you need help

I go what do I do from here he goes there's open mics everywhere just start going to open mics when I walked out of there are you fucking kidding me I'm not listening to this fucking clown you're crazy So you weren't excited?

You were like almost... I was excited. Come on. Fuck yeah. Those are the words exactly that I wanted to fucking hear. Right. Those are the exact words

I wanted to fucking hear. But then you immediately went to and I went home. I went home when I looked in the mirror and I'm like, who the fuck I'm like? So I had no fucking gig. So I opened up a fucking paper one day and I see new comedy club opening in Westminster, Colorado,

looking for doorman, security bartending. blah blah blah blah all this shit so I fucking got in the car I didn't say nothing to nobody and I ran up there and I applied and I put Jeff Harms his name the teacher's name as a reference and the guy called me that night his name is Clooney and he goes can you work Thursday Friday Saturday this week in the door and I go yeah and I went I worked the door and they liked me and I talked and I did that not I didn't say no to nobody, but I got a day job selling Toyotas.

My buddy talked me back into selling fucking Toyotas. And I went back to selling Toyotas and what I thought what this place was was completely different than what I had every... Any other car place I had ever been at. Better or worse? It checked you. When you sell cars, there's a lot of dealerships that don't check you.

This place checks you. You're like saying, Joy, what's a check? Well, there's some places you come in at 8 o'clock, you got a cup of coffee, you bullshit with leave for a little while. You tell them how bad the day is, and then you go outside and wait for fucking customers all day, and you do whatever the fuck you can't. This place you had to go in there,

and right away you had to get a notepad and write three of your goals down. Remember we had Jim Handy call up here? Absolutely. And you'd have to write your goals down for the day, for the week, and for the month, and then write how you're going to attain those goals. So before you could even touch you. your fucking phone or talk to a customer. They were by

the book. That's why everybody went in there at 8.15 because you had to write your goals. You didn't want to miss a sales call at 8.30. Oh, okay. So it forced them to... It forced you. And if you didn't like it, you got fired.

It was that fucking simple. Now, again, I had told Jim when I got the job, that I had to do something awkward. Like I didn't tell them that I was bartend, that I was a dormant at a comedy club.

That was even too weird. Like, you wanted to say something? I didn't want to say nobody. The only person that knew at that time was my wife. And she was like, you're doing what? And I'm like, I've always liked comedy, and I, this is what I, I don't know, maybe I want to do this.

And she fucking looked at me like, what? I got an 18-month-old kid at 16-month-old kid and you want to try comedy. Like, she didn't even have to say it, Lee. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, she didn't have to say it.

But it didn't matter because I was making money. It's like I was blowing money. I don't know. I was going to make a hundred hours a weekend more. And be gone for two nights. Right. Then they offered me five nights a week. They said, can you work the door Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday?

And I said, sure. then they came back to me a week later and they go the DJ quit can we train you in the DJ booth and give you like a $2 raise so I had myself this fucking you know we're running the club

25 hour a week job at night and selling cars in the daytime riding goals and one day I finally told Jim I go Jim I'm fucking you know at a bartending I'm a DJ at a comedy club

and he goes you're doing what? I go, I'm DJing at a comedy club he goes, you shouldn't be DJing, you should be on stage. And I was like, what are you talking about? He goes, bro, I've been watching, you know, this whole fucking thing gives me this whole spiel. That was great and dandy.

And this is after the class. This is after the class. And then a month later, I sell a car and I go in there early one morning to make sure the car is ready for the customer. He's picking it up at 10. So I get there at 830 and I give the, the lock clerks,

20 bucks a piece to vacuum it, fixing it up with gas, you know, make it look nice for the customer, so when they get there, it's not a piece of shit. And one of the kids was Jim Handy's son. Gotcha.

So when I walked back there, he goes, it's funny you came back, we were talking about here on the drive here. And I go, well, what I do? He's your dad mad at the butt

that I kept him here until the time, and he goes, no. He said that he's sick and tired of his life. That if he had any balls, he'd fuck. and quit his job and take you on the road as a comedian. You could start your comedy career.

And I couldn't believe it. I could not believe it. And again, Lee, this is April. And I'm like, okay, I'm going to call the Comedy Works. And I called the Comedy Works, and guess what I did that day? They called me that Tuesday morning. Joey, yeah, you're up at 8.45 Monday night. And I waited to that morning, and I canceled.

And I canceled. And I kept my guys, I kept canceling and canceling. What were you nervous about? What the fuck do you think I was nervous about, Lee? I don't know. You're so confident in all these other ways. It's hard for me to even picture. It was, I was scared of the truth.

I was scared of the truth. I knew that if, I knew that if I failed at this, I really had no fucking options. I really. Even though you had a success. Two successful careers, car sales and roofing. I wasn't successfully. I was working like a fucking savage.

I wasn't successful at all. Who the fuck are you kidding? I was a hustler and, you know, I was lucky. I knew how to sell drugs, so from that I translated into, but I was just spinning my wheels. I was just spinning my wheels like everybody else. my wheels like everybody else does in that life and not even knowing it.

Like not even knowing it. And I love car sales. And I loved roofing and I was good at estimating. But just wanted to try. It was like what you were meant to do, you thought. So now I started watching videotapes. I just kept watching

fucking videotapes at night. Nobody was awake. I'd watch the best of BET. No, no, no, no. I'm sorry. The best of depth comedy jam. and I fell in love with Joe Torrey's comedy and then I started watching a Rodney Dangerfield's young comedian special and I fell in love with Bill Hicks

and I fell in love with Andrew Dice Claire had not seen them and I would hide these guys I would hide these fucking things like I didn't want nobody to know I would treat them like you would treat porn if you had a wife and you didn't want your wife to know like that's how secret to know Like listening to them very low and like, why are you?

Yeah, late night with the thing on ready to fucking go to cable TV if she even came down the stairs. Fuck. Like it was just horrible. And I was, you know, asking the comedians questions every week when they would come in. How is this life? What do you think? You really have a family and do this?

Some guys had day jobs and were still doing it. It was just very obscure and I still refused to get on fucking. age. I still get fucking canceling. And then people were telling me, ask this Cooney to do a guest spot. And I didn't have the ball. Here I was working here. And they're telling me, ask the guy to do a guest spot. And I did not have the balls to ask the guy

Lee. Fear will ruin your fucking life if you let it. Because we know it's going to get you to the next point. That's when you're scared the most. When you fucking know that this is going to save your life. That's when we get the worst set of fucking fear. That's when you know that you're fucking, when you know something's good for you, it's more that we get scared. Like, listen, it's a great class. It's free, but it's an eight in the morning, but it'll change your life three times a week. You will refuse to fucking go because of fear,

because you might like it. And now, now you're feeling. faced with the reality of it. Like, that was my fear. Like, I had fear of failure, and now, let me tell you something. If I wouldn't have gone on stage, I would have been in prison right now. There's no two ways of lying to anybody here.

We could do the math. I'll do the math in front of you. I'll do the math in front of you, people. How long do you think it would have taken for you to get arrested again? Ten years. There was no way. There was no way.

A leopard can't change it. spots. There was no way. It took me 10 years of comedy to stop being fucking felonious for comedy to win. You know what I'm saying? It took 10 years for comedy to win. For me that, like, when I got to the comedy store, I'm like, whatever I'm doing as a comic, now I'm a comic. No more stealing, no more, you know, robbing a case of booze to make 30 bucks. Like, the only person who was getting in my way up to

that point was me. I got in trouble in Seattle. I had problems in Boulder. When I went home in 94, I was just a walking fucking disaster. Come on. How, how, how the fuck? But just something. Something kept telling me,

you got to get on fucking stage. And finally, my ex-wife said, when are you going to get on stage finally? She heard me call the Comedy Works. And she got a babysitter. She got a babysitter.

that night. She put me in the spot. That's nice. And she fucking, you know, we went to eat somewhere or something. And by that time, we were done. We knew it. This was just,

I don't know. I don't know what happened. I can't explain it. It was weird, guys. Like, I just lost interest in anything except working. And this little child. We drove to Denver. And I got on stage and Matt Woods was there.

And people came up to me and told me I did great, that I had great stage presence. And I just knew, Lee. I just knew. Now I was more heartbroken. Because you knew you had to make a change or something? Because I knew that I had done it. That's it. I jumped over the hardest fence.

I could do this again. And sure enough, I got a gig two nights later. Up in Greeley, Colorado. for like a paid stand-up game? I think he gave me $10 for gas. That's cool. $5 for gas or something like that. Which came back to haunt me.

Which came back to haunt me six months later. How? I'm going to tell you how. Let me do it. No, no, no. I'm going to tell you how. I got this five bucks from... This was another angel.

I got to write in my book. This guy came into my life as an angel. He was there that night at the comedy. works and he gave me the thing to this show at Greeley two nights later and he booked a room in Greeley called the Down Under which they still do comedy at the day excuse me and he would book me as much as he could at Down Under for 50 bucks a pop and I would go there and just bomb late like you know and then he would pay my rent basically I would call him up and but we get way ahead of ourselves okay sorry so he gave me either five bucks or ten bucks for the gig

Okay. Right. And then after that, this is August. This is July of 91. In August, I did some bar, and then in September, I went to New York, and I did an open mic. And then in October, I came back and me and my wife separated. And that's when I saw that the broker was doing a comedy contest. So I went down there and won that chapter of the comedy contest.

that meant you advanced. And then when I went back that time, I had to figure it out, so I invited all my friends from work. But they cheered for me, so I went to the finals. And then at the finals, this guy Andy Payton was there and a bunch of other comics. Now, I looked up to Andy Payton.

The picture in that article in the paper, the day I opened that picture was the picture of Andy Payton. With the green chili, wow. With the green chili. Andy Payton was this guy who was very crafty. He's a mayor of a town now in Colorado. He was very crafty, and he

booked rooms. So he had made it to the finals also. But his big argument was that I was a professional because that time, Bill Bauer paid me $5 for gasoline. He's probably a good mayor. This is December 18th of 1991. You're a professional for $5.

And he told me I was a professional because I took that $5. It's an N-CAA violation. You fucking believe that? And that's my fucking, and I was, but it's so weird how after I went through that fear thing, everything changed in my life. Like I saw everything bigger. I became bolder, you know, I mean, would it take four months after I got on stage for us to separate? you could tell that I was done.

So after you got on stage that first time, how often would you do it? Oh, not at all. Oh, okay. I was a bum. I was a bum. I was a part-time until I did it, whenever I had to go to the broker,

and then one night I went, drove all the way to Denver to do a room that started at 11, and they put me on at 1.30 in the morning, and there was people in the audience, and I ate such a bag of dicks. I never went out again. Like I said, I'll never go to open mics again.

I'd just go win that contest at the broker. Every year. Every fucking, no, I didn't know. But that, no, I was fearful the whole time. I was very, very fucking fearful the whole time. It was kind of scary. It's weird how the brain works. So, like, even though you, like,

conquered your fear, you're still kind of scared of it. Well, after I conquered my fear of it, then I ran into another obstacle, which was called divorce. which really changed the plan because now the plan was that I conquered my fear but that's as far as really

I was going to take it I was probably going to be an open mic from time to time get on stage cracked jokes and that was going to be an extent of it I was a family man but on October 15th 1991 when I walked home and she informed me she was moving out

like Felix and from a form whatever. It was weird because I was very sad that I was losing my family but I was very happy at the same time and I was becoming a stand-up comedian. Like now I had no choice. Now I had no excuse.

You saw it as like a freedom to do it? Like you saw it like me, like how quickly do you think about stand-up? I doubted that the child was going to live with me. I knew I was going to see the child every week. Right. But I died.

that the child would live with me. So maybe I could see the child two or three nights a week and do comedy the rest of their time and keep a day job. That was going to be the extent of it. Lee. That was the personal thought. But how quickly did you think about stand-up? Right there.

Well, that's great. She left right there. When I looked at that apartment, there was nothing left. And, you know, right there, I was like, so now I don't have a fucking excuse. And all of a sudden now there's a contest at the broker. like what a fucking coincidence like so

my spirits are kind of down I can't lie to you but at the same time comedy was like hmm okay so that kind of picked me up and guys I still remember this

like it was yesterday I bought an Accura I went out and bought a bunch of music I didn't buy furniture I had a stand I had a TV and I had a bed with no fucking post

like it was just two matches on the floor I didn't even have them. They took my desk, because it was her father's desk. They took my silverware. If you listen to Testicle Testaments. Remember, I tell her, she took my mustard. That's fucked up.

She took everything. You know, I had my credit cards, and I had a little bit of fucking savings, and I had credit. And that was it. And that still, it wasn't. I was doing comedy. I became one of those guys that was doing comedy. I was getting drunk. I was getting fucked up.

But every week I became tighter and tighter with the waitresses at the bro. See, after I won the contest, December 18th, I won the contest. And I waited. There were so many people I had there that night. Like, I must have had over 100 people that I knew from Boulder that night. From, like, work and your friends? Work, friends, people from the halfway house. People from A. Bose pizza, these hippies I knew.

It was crazy It was crazy I probably had really 75 I'm exaggerating Old car salesman Car salesmen from different places Where I worked Everybody was snorting coke

Everybody was drinking It was great And I went 500 bucks or a thousand bucks So I called the guy a week later And I said listen bro Let's be honest You got that fucking magician in there now What the fuck is he doing for you?

And he goes What do you mean? I go why don't you fire him make me the house, I'm sick. He goes, well, all I can pay is $50 a week. Done. Done. That's $200 a month every Tuesday, and I get to do comedy.

How long did you think about asking him to do that? Two days after I won the contest. Was it like a spur of the moment thing? No, I had gone there every week to watch comedy now. And it's a fucking, it didn't take a genius that this fucking magician was, He was, listen, like I said, it was 1495,

who the fuck knows to get a stake and to watch the comedy show? Okay, the ages ranged in there. This guy was old. Boulder's a college town. This guy was 50. And he was to top and off,

he was a really, really, really bad magician. Like that, that added insult to injury. They got to the point when the guy was doing 20 minutes, they would start talking, and heckling them, and throwing shit,

and the waitstaff had a fucking interfere a couple times. It was those type of situations. Jesus Christ. So then it kept happening, it kept happening. So I just called the guy out of the blue. Guys, this is what you need to do, man. I didn't call the magician, and I didn't

go behind the magician's back. the magician was having a fucking hard time there every Tuesday because he was the host of the regular show so now what it was was every Tuesday two comics went up and then Tribble would send two other comics up so it was like a whole show like an hour and a half show

or a two hour show but every time this magician went up people would get up and run and leave Was that bad? No you all fucking god awful because he had to be you know when you're young you don't know how old somebody is, but now that you know about reflexes, the guy had to be 55, 60, maybe 70.

The birds wouldn't come back. The cards wouldn't disappear. He would give you, like, he was one of those guys that would say, take a card, and they go, it's the ace of spades, and it was really a red heart and eighth. Oh, my God. You know, he was just old. So people were starting to laugh at them and giggle

them, and management knew, I knew they were getting complaints. Once I won the contest, I waited two days, boom, and I made my call. And I said, listen, whatever your name is, I've known you for a long time. I love the magician, but if you sit back there, it's painful on fucking Tuesdays. Since I won the contest, and I'm a local boy, and I know people, let me come in there every Tuesday and host. And he goes, let me think about it, and I'll call you back.

And two days later, bam, I got the hosting job, the broker. And I was off and fucking running. Do you ever run into that magician again? No, he died. No, they still kept him. They kept him. You know what? They did a lot of different activities.

So they used them on Wednesdays. The place had a social night where professionals from around the time would come and then mingle and black guys would fuck white chicks and give you free shrimp and shit. Then Thursday it was ladies night, right? And then Friday and Saturday it was just a hotel customer so they didn't need them. But on Sunday, the truth or the matter is, when I lived in that region, guys, the truth of the matter is, now I don't go to these things no more

because I really got spoiled when I lived in Denver. Lee loves him. What do you call those things that you're going to have all the type of foods? Oh, buffets? Okay, these two places to me were Fogo the Child before Fogar the Child came. The place that you see in the Shining,

the hotel and the shirney the place where they worked the place yes that they closed down right that was the best Sunday buffet in the state of Colorado at one point people would fly in there what did they have

they just had everything that you fucking wanted I forget eggs Benedict they'll everything all that shit but meat and cut and chefs and people cooking it was fucking brilliant it was you know whatever the cost was at that time, it was well worth it.

And the second best one was the broker where I did comedy at. And one Sunday a month was seafood. So every gavone was done. It was still 30 bucks for all you could eat. So they kept the riffraff out. You know what I'm saying? You're not there eating those fucking Vegas shrimps

and that type of shit with the nerves still in it and the fucking blood and guts. You know, you're eating nice clean shrimp. Bro, but they would have a salmon that was cooked. old juice down like New York style and you would just go up to it

and pick little slices from it they had all I would do is drink 30 glasses of freshly squeezed orange juice it was the best freshly squeezed orange juice you ever tasted in your fucking life the way that would just leave the thing like his 20 bucks leave the fucking thing and keep coming up

don't take the vitamin C away from you I've been snort and blow for three fucking weeks and you want to take away the container How was the bacon? Everything, Lee. I mean, I don't think I went really. In those days, they had so much selection. Until this day, do you want me to tell you what their best thing on the menu was?

Yes. The Rice Krispy Treats. I love Rice Kris Kris Kris. I would kill a motherfucker for a Rice Krispy Treat there on a Sunday. Sometimes I would go in there before I eat the regular food. I eat like 22 fucking Rice Krispy Treats and shit. Give me the whole tray. Oh, my God.

Let me do some shoutouts real quick. First off, Bob Linguish, thank you for the box. I love you at all my heart. I gave you a call this morning, and I saw that you called, and I'll call you back. My man, Fat Jesus, my brother from a different mother, always got my back. Mr. Jeffrey Collins, my man, mad homie,

Adam Osmark, B.J.J. Today, Natasha Dissick, you're a savage, Gordon, Tara, whatever, you're full. fucking ex-savir. You know what your name is? And my man, Frankie, motherfucking parada.

The dates are, I got no motherfucking dates. I do Sacramento guys. I come home. I relax with my family for the holidays. We'll still be doing podcasts. But like I said,

I'm gonna get the fucking ear surgery. I can't get the fucking date yet because of the hospital, but I should be getting it this week. But I'm here with you, motherfuckers. Till the end, you know what I'm saying? There's no big deal, guys.

I'm in at six, the doctor said, and I'll be in the car by 1030. Oh, your favorite? Yeah, the one thing, it's just like the other thing. They gotta leave something in there. So I mean, for four days, I'm gonna have like a little fucking antenna coming out of my ear,

and I don't need nobody bothering me. Trust me, if you know me, you do, you know I goof on myself, I'll do a periscope with you motherfuckers. And hopefully we can get pot smoke to come out of the tube, and then we'll fucking break the fucking internet. But that's a complete different situation.

I've been getting a lot of different... It's a time of the year, guys. It's a time of the year where you fucking go off the deep end mentally sometimes. You know, you're counting the days. You're financially not going to fucking make it. You know, you've got cousins,

and nephews and nieces, and you're stressing out the holidays, and you don't have a job or whatever the fuck it is. But on top of all that shit, guess what? You lost somebody. Like this year,

We lost a lot of weird different people that in some way or another you had a connection to, you know what I'm saying? From Chris Cornell to fucking, you know, Ralphie Mae, you had a connection of these people. You grew up on Chris Cornell. You actually heard Ralphie May spill his thoughts and words, you know, whatever. For me, it was Ralphie and Celine and God so many people. But it's also, like I got an email yesterday. I haven't gotten a bunch of emails. You know, my man, Mr. Ten Stacks, you know, people,

Pablo Lingus lost the father this year, you know. There's the time of the year, bro, where you're going to the holidays thinking, it's my first holiday when I have my people, my back. And it's a fucking horrible thought because you know that on that holiday you're going to break down. is your first holiday without this individual. Trust me, I went through it.

I wouldn't talk to you, you know, Mr. Tenstacks, his mom is going through something and he wanted to know what he should do and it's been lately the last two or three weeks. It's been an array of emails of either debts, ODs and your family

members and the holidays are coming. And this is it. This is the deep waters of life. The first. hard day without your peeps. You have no idea because

first off, you think it's going to be so bad. But then you get there and you try to uphold the tradition whatever the fuck you did. And no matter what you try to do, there's that elephant in the room. You know, some people don't even want to get up on that day. I remember the first Christmas without my mom.

I didn't want to get up on that day. There was no way I wanted to wake up that day. That's terrible. That's just terrible. And we all think that way. We have that thinking. The other night I went to, I got to tell you guys, you guys learned from me and I learned from you.

I've been tormenting Lee now if I don't know how many fucking years. And you know what guys? Lee has picked up a weird thing in the last six years and it's not his confidence it's not that he's got a girlfriend it's not that he eats more edible it's not that oh we don't like Lee because he wines I had the pleasure of going to watch Lee on stage

last week ladies and gentlemen and you know I don't blow smoke up your mother fucking ass. It just wasn't great comedy. It was sensational comedy. It was so sensational that it was offensive to me. And that's when I realized how sensational his comedy was. Lee Syatt had the cadence, and I'm not making fun of him and I'm not making no joke here. And I'll tell you something, that night you had a weird cadence of Bob Kelly, Lewis C.K. And just...

Are you juggling me right now? No, I'm not joking with you. Guys, we went to this place called the Fourth Wall. This fucking knucklehead's been going there for the last three weeks on his own. You pay $5, you go up for five minutes. You know, I say to Lee every night, Lee, you got to do something with your time.

I didn't even know he was so serious about it. So this knucklehead, two or three times a week. He goes down there and pays five bucks next to a sushi place and a bartending school. And there's eight or nine people. And you go up on stage for five minutes. So last week, listen, I was home for three nights. In my house, there's a slight low.

But there's not enough time to do something. But there is enough time to do five minutes, especially when it's around the corner from your house. So I said, Lee, do me a favor. Pick me up. And let's go down to the fourth wall. It's next to the 7-11. I'm not to go there later on. me and Lee torment that fucking

we've been going there for years. You just knocked on the window when we walked by. That was so scared. He just waved. There's a fucking Russian dry cleaner in there that I take my action to, I love with all my heart. There's a sushi place

with like a it's like a question mark. You know the rating is like a question mark. It's like you're on your own, you know what I'm saying? And then there's a, there's a bartending school and there's this place and you look at it and you're like I'm not doing comedy in there let me tell you something guys this is where comedy begins and I wanted to go back in there and just watch what open my eyes look like again I'm doing it as a business now guys

and when you do it as a business it just sucks dick and you want to just take it back into the places where you just went up there and told jokes and there's no no agents in the room. There's no fucking, it's just straight up comics, and you get to express yourself in a weird way. And I went down there and watched Lee. Lee went up first before me, and he went up there, and he did some jokes about his parents calling him. And you don't want to pick up the phone, even though you love them, because they call you eight times a day. Your father calls you to tell you about the lunch special, and your mother calls you to ask you if you watch these videos. I mean, and the cadence and his patience

up on stage was just brilliant. I mean, he just did all this stuff that was so original that I was blown away. Like, I had to go up there. I had to go up to and out do fucking Lee now. You know what I'm saying? But, uh, what the fuck, Lee? I haven't, I really haven't done it like that much. It's, uh, I've always loved it. But like, as a spec, I never thought,

I was that kind of funny. And I still don't even think I'm really that funny. That you went down there. Like, to be honest, the things I said about my parents, that was the first time. I just had said that that night. Oh, my God, that they fucking, he picked up his father. And on the way back from the 405, that was enough that if it was up to him, he would have taken him right back to the airport. I mean, he was going, now, I got offended because I got no parents.

So I'm thinking this fucking guy is a dungeon Jew. Ain't he making fun of his parents? He doesn't know how lucky he is. It's a joke, Dan. So, but it was so great. how my button got pushed for two minutes because I wish I had parents that called me eight times a day and I can fucking torture them too. You know what I'm saying? Like I would just flip it.

I would flip it on them. If I was you, I'd flip it on your mom for sure. It's time for you to start loosening her hub. Started calling her eight times a day? Yeah, ma'am, I just smoked this fucking joint that would kill Jesus and we call you back. That would kill her, but it would be fun. Yeah, but no, this is it. Now you got, because that means you don't want to hear from you now.

You know what I'm saying? She don't want to. Now you're flipping the tables. You see what I'm saying? This show ain't about ha-haz and he's. We're flipping the fucking tables here. And the last thing I want to talk to you people about is my boy has been, we had a discussion maybe two and a half months ago here,

and Lee spoke about different thoughts he had going on in his head in his life. And you can tell. I can tell us something was going on it. And he came out and he spoke and then he, uh, like the true savage of the years, he went on Groupon

and got a psychiatrist fucking visit. How's it going? My brother. It's going great. It's trying to think. It's been, I think, I think, exactly three months or four months. And it's just it's everyone told me like

I might have to shop around a little bit for a therapist. And I didn't have to do that at all, really. I went on my insurance. I just, I called a couple and she initially told me she didn't know if she had time for me. I went in once, and she reminds me my aunt a little bit, so it's kind of a little bit familiar. And it's really great. It's, so sometimes, and it's weird, sometimes I judge what I'm telling her. I'm like, oh, this isn't that bad. Like, as I'm saying, it sounds like I'm like, it sounds like I am whining. Like, that's what I, that's what I don't want to do even to her, but it's been, it's just

been interesting to bounce ideas off of someone. Like, there hasn't been, I'm not, there has, I don't think I had a breakdown or anything, but there hasn't been, it's just been nice to talk about the little things that are usually just, I'm going back and forth all day in my head about. It's nice to just say them out loud. Sometimes I don't even listen as much as I should to what she says. It's just if me saying it, I'll say, oh, that's what I should do about that. So it's nice sometimes just to vocalize it.

And it's, it's, uh, just working on different things that, that, like, I, she's, she's worth, it's something that, I actually, like, it's kind of like how you had, when you had the, uh, the island of serenity. she was talking about how I have like things that like stresses that get in your life or things that you worry about or things that I overthink they all go into one pool instead of

I should have a pool with my girlfriend with my parents with my work and I should separate it and for with my brain I just oh it it's just a constant

like if I if I get my I let myself not be busy, it'll just go pretty much all day. If I let it, sometimes, when it's bad, just thinking about things I should have done, even in, like, one of my curses, I have a pretty good memory. So I'll remember stupid stuff from freshman year of high school, but like, oh, fuck that guy. Or just, like, just stuff, negative stuff about me.

It doesn't, it changes so often, but it's nice to be able to, have someone tell you like you should figure out ways to separate your stresses and it'll help you like manage your life rather than it won't see it won't seem so big you feel better now uh yeah i mean i don't i'm not on any medicine she hasn't even mentioned it um it's yeah i i i don't want to stop i uh i definitely like going i like going once a week uh actually i have to miss this week but I'm going to go twice next week. Yeah, I look forward to, because I've had that issue for my whole life. I've always felt it's very weird that I'm doing a podcast because when you say bully,

do you think of like beat up like in the, like, I don't know, your shirts ripped, all that stuff. And that stuff happened a little bit, but not, I was just more like in a weird, nerdy, I was always fat Let me ask you question Because I had the same issue Were you bullied physically Or were you bullying yourself mentally? Did you think they didn't like you?

Or did you think that they looked at you differently? There was a little bit of physical But not really like Like two or three times From my whole school, eight like kindergarten to So it wasn't that bad And like what I was thinking about it wasn't like

and it was a mix of me probably thinking they didn't like me but it was also like and who knows they could there could be people listening to this right now that I grew up with that could say I'm crazy but it just I never felt like I really

like belonged or like I just I don't know I just like occasionally I would go like when my mom was when your parents scheduled play dates there's that but once it gets to middle school and kids start scheduling their own shit stuff it kind of slow it like

I would never, the way you didn't want to do comedy, I didn't want to call someone up to hang out. I don't know. It just, it still freaks me out. And, uh, and so I always, I never really, I didn't talk much, I guess. I, I, but I would, I learned, I learned that it, like, to be, like, that, the goofy, fat guy, I guess. And so I would, I would talk, but it wasn't, I had, like, I always had, like, one best friend

who I would be even sort of open with, but not fully open. It's hard to be open. But you normally have a lot of close relationships, I guess. You know, a friend of mine called, that I grew up with, and he said, I finally listened to your podcast. He goes, in fact, listen to a ton of them. He goes, I know why you like that fucking kid. And I go, why?

He goes, he reminds you a lube, doesn't it? And I go, yes, he does a lot. And the stuttering. I understood the stuttering because when I first became friends when we were 15 when he approached me the first time it was to ask me if I had slept and messed around

with his girlfriend and at that time he would beat me up and no no no doubt about it but when he came up to me he wasn't scared of me but the stuttering so I knew because he stuttered I could lie to him and go no why the fuck would I

and it's so weird how when people stutter. I goofed on lubs all those years. Everybody did, the stutterer and, you know, when we went to a movie theater that time, and Robert Plant was singing the song

remains the same. Like, librenno, you know, all that shit. But I knew that I liked you. Because not that you had an insecurity, you just you wanted to say something, but you really

didn't. You know, that's how Lou's always seemed, unless I got him fired up. But that didn't mean nothing. I loved where his heart was. Till today, I talked to Loeb's, you know, once a fucking week. He calls me on Sunday nights or something.

And is Loubs different with you than he is with, like, other people? He still talks to me. He doesn't talk to anybody anymore. He hides. He doesn't want to see anybody. He don't know nothing. He got a job as a high lift operator. and the company

promoted him to a truck driver and he's happy as fuck his father passed away his mother got put to like an old folks home and she's reliving life again she's loving life again and he has to move out of his house

he's got about a year to move out of his house so he's just living there by himself but what are you going to do you know what I'm saying that's great I'm happy that you went to the doctor, you're getting something out of it. I thought you were going to go for three weeks and then not go back because you'd be intimidated. That's the first step. That's the first step to get into the next level.

It's nice because there's really, like, I don't know her from anybody. And I guess there's always a pressure with people that you know that, like, how they're going to react to what you say. Or what they're going to think about it. And there's not really any of that with a therapist. Like, they, they're not going to tell anybody. If they tell anybody, they don't know me. So it's like, you, sometimes, like, in life, like you said, where you would lie to everybody about what you were doing, not tell them. There's no reason to lie to her.

Like, it's, uh, I'm going and I'm hanging and being there for myself. They're, like, you just tell them the truth and it, they help you work it out and they help you, like just realize just weird things, just like little things like, uh, I'm just like, just like,

even weird things that, like I always think that people are mad at me, which is weird. And, and one, and one thing that she said that really stuck with me was, like, even if they are mad at you,

like, so what, what then if they're mad at you? And then, like, you realize, like, nothing really happens. Like,

nothing's going to really come of it. And it just, just it kind of helped me. I still freak out about it sometimes, but it's a nice way to think about. Well, I'm happy. You went over there. As I could see that you're smiling. At night I would leave here. You look like gloomy guts.

But you're back. You're taking those classes now. Oh, yeah. The gym. You're sweating a lot better. Body attack and body combat. You're going out there and seeing people. People are seeing you. You're in the room. And they love you. They love that you there. They don't give a.

fuck as long as you're there. They don't like the motherfuckers that aren't there because they're there that they're in the morning, you know? Right. They're like, why should you have an excuse? It's weird when you work out in a group like that now. And first, wait till you become friends with three other people and they'll come up and you go, no, no, no, no, go to 1130 one with the other guy.

Class is way bad, and then a sudden you go there, that's what happens. It's like anything else. But they got to see you in those classes. Right. And then it's a fucking piss. It really is. I'm proud of you. I'm proud that you sit on the podcast.

That you had, you were struggling with this. I'm also very proud of the stand-up. And guys, you know what I'm in a long time. I wouldn't talk like this. It was smooth that night. The shit about your dad was money.

The shit about your mom was money, you know. And then we only had five minutes and you were happy. You had time. You did it. It takes a lot of balls to do it. I just told you tonight how hard of the time I had. And 27 years, here we are later. With all that fear, it's still fucking there before every show.

I thought there was going to be a fire last night. They were going to cancel last night. And I was like, oh, my God. But, you know, it's like I never want to get on stage, but I really fucking do, you know. Like, I never want to get on stage, but I really fucking want to do, you know. And it doesn't make you feel better?

If I'm on stage in four nights, it affects my personality in who I am. I got to get on stage every four nights. It's like I can take time off. I might be able to take a week off or something like that. But after that, I got to get on stage quickly. I feel the difference because all that shit stocks piles in my head. All the stuff you want to say? Yeah.

Now I got the notebook. You know me, dog. I'm at the place. I sit there for a little while. I ride. I order breakfast. I eat it. I make a few calls.

And once the food is gone, I ride again for another half, 45 minutes. I get the fuck out. I got my system. Right. So I've been scared to go to any other open mics. That's the only one I go to. That's all you need.

For right now. That's it. That's your little own personal commitment. That's what people will fuck up. when they start going outside the room. You're there. Do it for another three more weeks. Do it till the end of December.

Then January 1st, or another one on Tuesday night. Where there's a bar and you have to go. You may go up before one in the morning. But you got to get there at 9 and buy two drinks. Okay. Okay, then you've got to do those.

Those are always a pleasure to do. You know, that's the kind of shit that, you know, people, which you get 10 people anywhere. They'll come support you anywhere. As weird as it sound like the thing that stopped me from doing it for so long, it's like I wanted to go somewhere. I like going there because no one knows who I am.

No, it's perfect. Nobody needs to know who you are. Right. Not that I'm anybody, but I don't want them to just laugh because it's it's the funny. It's funny how, you know, people think they have to act. I'm very proud that I'm just to stand. I started like a stand-up. And I stuck with it like a fucking savage.

I'm very proud, especially after I told you that story today. I thought, you know, that you knew how much I was, it took so long for me to get the courage to get up on that fucking stage. It's ridiculous, man. Ridiculous. And you know what? I'm lucky. And I told Felicia to drive home to Santa Ana last night from the final little show with my man Wheeler Walker, which that was the, uh, that was the. toughest room.

Santa Ana was tough. I mean, Orange County, they were a little on the weird side. Tell them like, who the fucking, they fucking wheeler walk was filthier than me for 45 minutes, playing music. And like I said, I stayed the first night. He was fucking,

you know, I listened to Tucson. Oh, I was with you. Yeah. I lived on nothing. We heard one fucking jam, and we walked out of there. And then I watched some footage on YouTube. He was great. He was great. And Tuesday, then I hung around for a little while.

And Wednesday I watched the beginning. The opening act was great also. It was an experience, man. And I'm happy I got the opportunity to do three nights with him. It's a little different, but it wasn't like not a huge commitment? I just shake it up a little bit.

You have to have a lot of energy. They're standing up. So once you give them that gap, you really, I didn't really pound them down last night. It's like Alvarez on Saturday night, how he went to the body. Right. That's what you have to do in those rooms.

you're going for body shots you gotta go for 12 minutes of body shots with them just to respect you so you're not going out like in the huge laughs huh not for not like for huge laughs it's a music venue you know they're standing the fuck up league you know so they had the last night

they were tipping up you know every night they had beer cans I mean these people are fucking savages you know what I was interesting watching that show after doing like a few weeks of open mics just like the difference in the rooms. Like they were like you said, they were yelling. And it was like the little room I'm in there's a tiny room.

I feel very safe. I couldn't imagine doing something like that. Well, that's where people are wrong. This is like the beginning of jiu-jitsu. Why are you sparring every day with a black belt if you're a white belt? Right. Same thing. You're just going over there for a little time just to get your basics down.

get your five minutes down. Now, in a few weeks, then we're sending you to the barriculars. You've already been. You were at my taping. You've been on stage thousands of times. So that's like going backwards for you, but it's good that you did it

because now you're getting out of the way. Right. You can't go backwards now. Now you've done open mics, and you've opened up for me at the Ice House. You've opened up for me when I shot the special. That was crazy. Yeah.

So it's amazing that when I first met you and we started the podcast, you said you did not want to speak on the podcast. I did. Yeah. I still, even now, it would scare me, I think. And now, six, five and a half years later. Here we go. I'm doing open mics. Well, I'm fucking proud.

I did get mad at myself. I was like, oh, I should start at the open mics four years ago. I don't think I would have been as good I think I needed to... First off, you watch a lot of specials. Oh, yeah. Which I could tell when you were up there, you got influenced from different people.

All of them are good. I put my finger on Louis C.K. Really? Yeah. I don't really watch that much as Louis, but okay. So it was really interesting to see. But anyway, like I said, I got a shot out to Mr. Ten Stacks

for his mom. You know, we're a family. Like a theater church page is cleaning up a little bit. people going there with more straight stuff. We got taken down. But the emperor of the church, Tiki Sayat, put his back fucking together. But anyway, we got to take two steps to the rear and get out of it.

I got shit to do. I got to go to my daughter's ballet class. So please don't mind me. And then I'm headed to Sacramento for my last weekend of the month. But we'll be back Monday and Wednesday night. Wednesday night podcast, prepared to watch it. It's going to be a four-hour.

five-hour podcast here. We're going to have food. Rick Ramos is here and myself. And we're going to show you the 10 films you need to watch over the Christmas fucking holiday just to get it out of the way. From boogie nights to the exorcist to the whole fucking thing.

We're going deep on Wednesday night. We might even take so hallucinogens. Lee's got to have the scenes prepared and it's all going to be beautiful. But like I told you in the beginning of the show, Listen, it's the holidays, the new year. Let's start it off with a clean asshole. Enough is enough already.

All you want for Christmas are some clean butt cheeks and a clean butt asshole. But when you got excess bone cones, aka fucking dingleberries, hanging from your bowels, you know what I'm saying? And some fudgy pudding smeared all over your fucking, your fucking nut sack behind the nut sack. You ever notice? you got that little brown gizm back there. That's what happens. But you don't need that to happen because you can spray that all the way

with the tushy bidet. You follow me? Ooh, it's the perfect asshole cleaner than a white Christmas. They now come in a millennial pink and blue and they just added more colors so you could add to your bathroom to give a pizzazz.

People come over, they take a piss, they see that you got a color, fucking tushy, and they go, this guy's got fucking clas. ass. Meant care, this guy's a fucking savage. Anyway, here's the deal, all right? Hello, Tushy's going to take care of you. The way they're going to take care of your asshole.

What are you going to do with a dirty asshole? Let's pretend you want a 69. Who wants a 69 with you? Nobody. Because your asshole smells like one of those fucking, anyway, no matter what your asshole smells like none of your fucking business. It's not good. We're just talking here. But anyway, for the sake, you give us somebody a different Christmas present.

Everybody gets sob. everybody gets fucking ties. Everybody gets... Who needs all this shit? Go to hellotushy.com right now. Like I said, they got too fancy colors and they started $69. Santa can afford that.

Stop wiping your ass with nasty fucking toilet paper and get clean ass with Tushy. Hellotushy.com and use the code church for 10% off your order. Listen, your muffler's gonna be tip-top Magoo. Take that from your uncle Joey. Number two, like I said, you got to be up on your

fucking supplements. And that's what honor comes in. The alpha brain, come on. A hundred percent money back guarantee. They want the product back. Hem force protein. Hemph protein. Digest so much eat. Come on. Cut it out. Stop fucking kidding yourself. It's a new year.

You got new beginnings. Let's go. You need some fucking help with your cardio. A little shroom tech sport. You travel for business, a little shroom tech immune. Go to honor.com, go through the supplements. The fucking jerky is sensational. The MCT oil is off the fucking hook, but you got to try it to like it. You understand me?

They're the best supplements in the market. Go to honor.com right now and press in. Church. And get 10% off your order and stop fucking around. And don't forget, you go to Joey Diaz.net before you go to Amazon. No, before you go on Amazon. go to joeydeers.net and click on the amazon banner so we get lee a nice little christmas present this year all right

we could send him away to fucking longbeats excuse me somewhere nice than long beach from new years all right you know we gotta take care of lee on this side if not he's on the switch governments and start doing a podcast in russia and take all the trump's information whatever the fuck it is well listen hopefully i'll see you motherfuckers in sacramento if not i'll see you around town I love you, coxsuckers.

Have a great weekend. Thank you for listening. Stay black. Uncle Joey and Lee Syatt. We love you.