The Church of What's Happening Now: The New Testament - #749 - Joey Diaz: Going Out of My Comfort Zone to be Better in 2020

Episode Date: January 6, 2020

Joey talks about his plans for the new year, his recent reread of one of his favorite books, "The War of Art," and what he's doing this year to take him out of his comfort zone.  This podcast is brought to you by: Athletic Greens - Get 20 free travel packs worth $79 when you go to www.athleticgreens.com/church MyBookie.ag -  Use code promo Church to get a 50% match on your first deposit up to $1,000. Onnit.com. Use Promo code CHURCH for a 10% discount at checkout.  

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Listen, you're going to look, you're going to hit me up on Twitter and say, Joey, it took a couple days. But that stuff makes me feel like a savage. I feel like Aquaman with a 10-foot dick. Anyway, go to athletic greens.com right now slash. church and let's get this party started Lee kick this meal Monday it's a whole new year it's a whole new set of rules whole new set of prerogatives if you were doing it last year and it didn't work out for you why are I going to keep doing it again it's a second chance a second chance for

you it's a second chance for me but right now it's Monday baby let's get this party started That's you're telling your people. Listen, I don't know who that mutt was last year. I'm back. I'm back. There we go. That's all you need to say. I'm back.

That's really nervous. I'm back. Say that to yourself 100 times and get the party started. It's Monday, bitchy, January 6th. It's a whole new year, people. Thank you for being here. This is like our seventh year doing this. We always go back to baseball.

on the first episode because that's what it's all about. First off, happy New Year to you and your families and hope your holidays went smooth. I posted that Brody episode up, and I said what I said because, you know, a lot of you guys thank me. I feel what you feel, guys. I cut when I bleed, too.

What do you think? Just because I'm up here in Hollywood, hanging out with these MOOC delors, that things changed. You know, holidays never changed. Some people are really good around the holidays. Some people are really good. bad. Don't beat yourself up. Ever since my mom died, I've been terrible around the holidays,

and that's just the way it is. My little daughter helps me a little bit, but not as much as you guys. I had a rough last couple months. But anyway, who cares about that? Let's talk more about you. I had a great time in San Francisco and Calusa Casino. If you came out to the shows, thank you very much. In the bottom of my heart, I had a great time. The second show, I had the Ari Hecler, who had to put in this place. Don't talk bad in front of my friends. That's my resolution for two thousand, listen 2020 is my

butchie no more year if you ever seen the Sopranos season 6A there's an episode where Phil Liotato is at the end he's 60 something years old and he

comes clean to himself and he tells his little underling butchie no more and he goes on a murder's rampage at the end he gets his head run over by a truck I'm not talking about that I don't want that to happen to me. What I'm saying is no more butchie, no more. Whatever's been going on in your life

that's been plaguing you or whatever, no more butchie. It's over. Thank God to my man, Eric Rocha, for bringing that episode up. That's one of his favorite episodes of the soprano, one of our friends. And he always says that, no more, butchie, no more. And it's true. When do you end? When do you say no more? You never know. But anyway, I had a great New Year's, had a good time to think. I didn't work. I didn't want to work New Year's. I did my work, San Francisco. going Colusa. I wanted to spend a week with my family.

I didn't get on stage. When I got back Saturday, it was so weird. I looked at the comedy store schedule and I was ready to call the guy and get on stage and I go, no, I'm sticking to my promise. And I'm not getting on stage all week

until Tuesday, just to clean out the head and start from scratch. I was sick of that material. And I've been making little notes every day and I'm getting somewhere. Is it funny? Who the hell knows? You just got to keep swinging people.

Every day you keep swinging. But one thing I did do, a lot of people are going to say, what did you do for New Year's? It's weird. I got calls the next day, and my friends hit me up. For New Year's pretty much, everybody in my hotel room was in bed at 9.30. My daughter tried to stay up at one eye and away for the Jonas Brothers. But they lied to us. We thought we were going to get the New York feed, but we got the California feed.

So forget it. We tapped out at 9. We drank some apple cider as a family. We clung juice glasses. we gave each other kisses, and the two girls went to bed, and I decided to read a book that we've discussed on here.

It's been years, but I read it. I try to read it right around holidays every year just to keep me, put me back in perspective. And every time you read the book, you go, wow, have I been slipping? And it's the War of Art by Stephen Pressville. I read the book again.

And the book, you know, a lot of people are going to go, oh, Joey, well, no. It's a breakthrough that, block, it's a breakthrough that the blocks and win your inner creative battles. This is nothing to do with comedy or writing or whatever. I look at this as a manifesto to life because you're always thinking about your next step, right? You're always thinking about your next move. And it's got, you know, if you come to me and say, well, Joe, I want to open up a pizza restaurant, well, two blocks down there's a pizza restaurant and two blocks the other way there's a pizza restaurant. So what you're

telling me is you want to put your life savings and go to war for the rest of your life and then compete with dominoes and pepperoes and Popeye's Jr. and Little Seas, that's what you want to do. So by reading this type of stuff, and maybe it hits a chord with you and let you know what you really want to do. Maybe you don't want to open a pizza place. Maybe you want to start a sauce or something that it improves your playing field. You're playing on your playing field. And it's so weird, I was reading. something that I want to read to you guys that was sometimes we're not conscious of our own resistance

we'll pick up as a... Oh no, that wasn't what I wanted to read to you guys the wrong page. He talks a lot about resistance and what resistance is and basically resistance is when we don't do what we're supposed to do. You know, it has a chapped on resistance

and unhappiness. And this is, months ago, spoke about frustration. This is the book I read when I'm frustrated, really, really frustrated. So I want to read this to you. Most of us have two lives, all right? The life we live and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands resistance. So one day we're at lunch and you said to me, Joey, I really want to be one of those Irish kettle dances. I want to put a keg on my head and a skirt and dance, but I have two kids and I have to make a living. That's the same thing, okay? What's stopping you is resistance. If you really wanted to find, if you really, really wanted

to do this, you find the way to do it. Have you ever bought a home, a treadmill, and let it gather dust in the attic, ever quit a diet, a course of yoga, a meditation practice? Have you ever bailed out on a call to embark upon a spiritual practice? Dedicate yourself to humanitarian calling. your life to the service of others. Have you ever wanted to be a mother, a doctor, an advocate for the week and a helpless, to run for office, crusade for the planet, campaign for world peace, or to preserve the environment? Late at night, you experience a vision of a person you might become, the work you could accomplish, to realize being you were meant to be. Are you a writer who doesn't write, a painter who doesn't paint, an entrepreneur who never starts a venue,

Then you know what resistance is. Okay. This is what I want to cover this podcast because this is what eats away at all. My biggest, I count them. You know I count them. And if I go on my Facebook, Messenger, Twitter, the three biggest questions I get are in this order.

How do I get off drugs? How do I stop being depressed? And how do I get into stand-up comedy? and all three of them have the same answer, and it's an action on your part. It's an action on your part. Listen, it took me 14 years. I struggled for like maybe 10 years to get off the powder.

It didn't happen overnight. I had to work at it, and I got myself into deeper, deeper holds, but I was consciously thinking about getting off that powder. You know, we all have the life that we live. But we all have the life that we want to live. You know, like, you think about, what's the life I really wanted to live? And I got to tell you something, you know, like I told you guys, the biggest regret I ever had was that I'm a loser.

Like, there's a disease, right, that a friend of mine had in high school where she would look at herself in the mirror and she would see herself fat. So she stopped. She would starve herself so much that it was like impossible what she looked like at the end. She had to get psychological help and stuff. With me, guys, you guys see some guy on stage and a theater. I see a loser who went to prison and I got lucky. You know, I got a little lucky. How did I get lucky by knowing that I did not want to be that guy with the ponytail

with the lead zep when a shirt at subway? I knew that. That was, and that's where I was going to end up. I got, I had all the excuses. I had everything I could to not get me to the next level. It's weird. A guy hit me up on Facebook last week and says he can't get a job because he's on probation. Once you say that to yourself, you're never going to get ahead.

When I got out of, now, when I got out of the joint, it was a complete difference that's what's going on now. We weren't as computer savvy. So you couldn't. But I always worked myself around it. You know how you work yourself around it? Become the best employee the guy has. Joey, how do I do that? The guy won't give me a job.

Just tell him that you want to work a week for free. That you'll mop the floor with everybody else in that place. And you're going in, you give it your own. I guarantee you, even when you're felony, even if you raped your cat, even if you molested, well, if you molest somebody, nobody's going to give you into work. I don't even want you around. But if you did something that was a mistake,

listen, man, it's a mistake. A drug thing is a mistake. An addiction is a mistake. There were all of the mistakes that we made. Yeah, when I kidnapped the dude, that wasn't no mistake. But I did a thousand other things that were mistakes. That along the way I just acted impulsively or whatnot. You know, it ends.

It ends. People always ask me, how do I stop depression? How do you stop depression? Well, number one, getting the show. Get in the show. Get in the show. There's days I wake up and I could tell something's coming over me. And immediately I get in the shower.

I get in the shower. I start my day. Put on clothes. Go outside. See the sunlight. Take a look at the sun. Tell the sun, thank you for giving you another day. I don't care if you run back inside and sit there to your ass grows roots.

That's got that's none of my business. You got to pay your own bills. I don't really care what you do. But that's how you conquer depression. These are all things that require action. How do I get on stage? Joey, I really want to be a comic. What do I do?

Well, what do you think? Well, you click your heels and you call Dartty. No, no, you get on stage. Well, Joey, I don't know what stage to get to. Okay. About a half a mile from here, there's a wing place, right? What's the name of me? Big wings.

Go over there. Go over there and in between a game, try to get everybody's attention and say, how you doing? My name is such and such. I want to do stand-up comedy. And break your cherry. Get humiliated. get a wing thrown at you? Who cares? Who cares? You accomplish your goal. Who cares? They

gonna throw a wing at you? You better have cheese on it. You know what I'm saying? Nothing worse than getting hit with a spicy wing when a chunk of blue cheese ain't on your face. But I'm not gonna be mad at you. If you come to me and go, Joe, I went to the wing place. I almost started a ride. I went up on stage instead of a racist joke and there wasn't no stage. I'm not gonna be mad at you. I'm gonna be proud of you. That's how you become a comic. You know, how do you get off drugs? Slowly, you make a plan. You know, I'm going to do this.

I'm going to do that. With me, it was completely different. I'm not going to lie to you. But I will tell you one thing. It was a slow process because I was working towards it. It just took one trigger for me to drop to my hands and knees and say, I'm not doing this stuff no more. I got to give myself a better chance.

This is the life, you know, like we're talking about in this thing. We all have two lives. the life that we're living and the life that we really want to live. This is the year that we're going to cross that bridge, even if it's one thing. You know, I know tons of people who are like, well, I'm an aspiring singer, but I don't have connections, and I still have a day job. Sit down, make the plan, and go sing. Always remember, nobody.

is going to turn down free entertainment unless you just got awful. Unless you just got awful, the owner's going to come over, pull you aside, give you like a free dinner and tell you listen, don't come down here no more. You're scaring my customers. You know what I'm scaring?

I thought you sang pop songs you over here singing Black Sabbath and these all Christians and all that stuff. You know, we used to do comedy at a bar that was none to hang out at. Oh, yeah. And they'd be having dinner Yeah, they would be having dinner.

I think it was just a bar. It was like a restaurant in like the middle of the suburbs. And the guy came up to me as one thing. He goes, you guys can't do the comedy here no more. That's crazy. Because there's a bunch of nuns that come in here. They've got to hear that stuff. It's not going to work.

Nobody is going to turn down free entertainment. So don't come to me with your stories and Joey, I can't get on stage. I can't find the place. You go to Jerry's Deli and tell them you need a corner. You bring your own microphone. You go over to the guitar center, and they'll send you one of those little speakers. And if you really want to do comedy, you go do comedy.

When that show was on, that show on Showtime that I did twice, about the comedy store. I'm a guy up here. There was a guy up there in that show that actually waited tables and did comedy at the same time. He wanted to do comedy so bad that he got a job waiting tables. You know the restaurant was right up here in Know-Hoh. It's that place.

sells the good sandwiches. Oh, okay. All right. It was that they used that place. If you go in there now, you could tell it, they changed it around because it was a different set. He sold, it was supposed to be like a, like more of a Jewish deli type place. And then he put a setting in the back. And when everybody had their food, he would run up on stage and do comedy.

That was his love for comedy. Can I get mad at a guy like that? If I go eat at a restaurant, listen, when you go eat at a restaurant, the last thing you and some guy telling nasty jokes. I got that one place you take me to up in North Hollywood on Wednesday nights that people are eating and you got to go up there and be an idiot. That's not going to work either. Right.

You know, but if you really want something, go for it. But do me a favor. Read this book. I don't get to go online and buy it used. I read this book once a year, and I try to read it right around the holidays. This year, I didn't read it around the holidays because we had the super bad thing. a lot of things going on, but I grabbed it on the way down to the little retreat with my family, and I read it in two nights, and I made notes again, and I saw so many things that I had even

been doing. So I'm refreshed from it. Like, I'm ready to kill a guy from it. We talked about it a few years ago, and I haven't read it since then. I'll have to reread it. But what I remember about it, what I remember taking away from it was how, like, the stuff he was describing was stuff that I absolutely did. It just shows you how everyone does it.

This is what, listen, man, when you take a look at yourself and you're honest with yourself, you know the pain of other people. It's called empathy. Some people have it. Some people don't. You understand the pain. I understand the pain of the holidays. I understand the pain of being alone.

I understand the pain of being homeless. I understand the pain of being addicted and want to be clean. I understand the pain of wanting something that seems so far away, but it isn't. But I think they're just going to give it to me. Everything is at your fingertips if you really want it. This is his first thing that he writes in there. That this is it. This tells you everything you need to know in a hand show.

love these type of books. I've always been an autobiographical type of guy. All right, this is what he does. This is a page called What I Do. I get up, take a shower, I have breakfast, I read the paper, brush my teeth. If I have phone calls to make, I make them. I get my coffee, I put on my lucky work boots, and I stitch up the lucky laces that my niece Meredith gave me. I head back to my office, crank up the computer. My lucky-hitted sweatshirted is dripped over the chair with the lucky charm I got from a gypsy in Santos de Mara Mer for only eight bucks in Francis and Franks and my lucky Largo name tag that came from a dream I had. I put it on. I'm my thesaurus. Is my lucky canon that my friend Bob Brassandi gave me from the Moro Castle Cuba. I pointed toward my chair

so it can fire inspiration into me. I say my prayer, which is an innovation of the muse from Homer's Odyssey translation by T.E. Lawrence of Arabia. which my dear mate Paul Rink gave me and which sits near my shelf with the cufflinks that belong to my father and my lucky acorn from a battlefield of thermoplay. Now, think of all that goes into sitting down for this guy. It's about 10.30 now. All right. I sit down, I plunge in. When I start making typos, I know I'm getting tired.

That's four hours or so. I've hit the point of diminishing return, something we speak about a lot on them. this podcast. The point of diminishing returns. What you could give the P, I could go on the road from Tuesday to Saturday, but if you pay 35 bucks to see me on a Saturday, I'm going to be dog shit. Why would I do that to you people? That's why I only go out on Fridays and Saturday, so I'm always fresh. All right. When I start making typos, I know I'm getting tired. That's four hours in and I hit the point of diminution returns. I wrap up for the day, copy whatever I've done to a disc and stashed a disc in a glove compartment in my truck in case there's a fire and I have to

run for it. I power it down. It's 3.30, the office is closed. How many pages have I produced? I don't care. Are they any good? I don't even think about it. All that matters is that I put in my time and hit it with all I got. All that counts is that for this day, for the session, I have overcome resistance. And that's what I'm talking about. And I go through the same thing. And I tell you guys every day, I tell the young comics every day, this is not about being special.

This is not about being lucky. This is not about social media. This is about who could do the same thing over and over every day. You were just going to, I'm about about his sitting down process. Like, because on the outside, and obviously it works for him, but on the outside, all that stuff seems like resistance. Like all like his sweatshirt and the cannon and, but maybe it works for him? It's an outline. It's an outline of his day.

It's what he needs to do to be efficient. He sat there for four hours. Have you ever sat down for four hours and wrote? No. No, it's very tough. If you read Stephen King's book on writing, he sits. I mean, facing the Eath with the door open, with this and this and that, and this.

I mean, he's got a thousand things also. But what the process is telling you is to sit. If you read this and Stephen King on writing are two different books, but two similar books. They inspire you, and it's two great writers that open up their world to you for what makes it work. you know when we had t j english on i asked i asked him a bunch of questions and he was telling me that his main thing is outline the outline is everything for him now a lot of you guys at home will

listen to this call joy what does this have to do with me it's the same thing you're outlining what you want to happen 2020 what do i want to happen i want this to happen i want to uh do 300 spots I want to lose weight. I want to... I mean, even if you write down, you want to fall in love, there's nothing wrong with saying that you want to fall in love. Just tell me the process is that you're going to do to do it this time. How is this time going to be different when the chick moved down there with a tomato tree?

Do you know what I'm saying? Is this going to end with a restraining order again? Is it going to end with you throwing her out? You know, everybody got out of a relationship and now this can't get into another one. If you do get into another one, What things are you going to do differently? Write them out and stick to him. Stick to him.

Stick to him. That's the most important thing. That's why I love this time of the year because it gives me a chance to look and go, yes. I got the soprano movie. I did some great shows this year. We had some great guests on the podcast. But how can I be better in 2020?

I've been thinking about that since mid-November, since I slipped and hurt my hamstring, and I was sitting there all alone, you know, and you have two options when you're in pain. To add more pain to your pain or to take your pain and do something with it. And that's what I did. I did the one-man shows at the store with a bad leg.

The last two I've written have been way better than the first two, so even that's coming along. I got four more this year. I got January, February 19th, which is my birthday. I got March and April, and then we'll decide what we're going to do if we're going to move it into a theater, into Hollywood, a small 99th sit theater.

You know, we got the soprano movie coming out. I got an announcement to make some dates. I'm doing some dates with Joe Rogan this year and some big venues. So I'm excited about all these things. But what can I do? We got, we're going to do an audiobook deal, so you guys should be getting an audiobook sooner than that later. Why?

Because by the time I write it, I have to write it from my grave. It's too much. I'm not a real writer. and it was taking me too long. Thank God my agent understood and we're going that direction. But these are the things I want to do this year. I don't want to be the best comic work

and I don't want to help make Kevin Hart money. I don't even care about money. I just want to give you guys the best shows I can. I'm taking a week off because I started writing another hour. You know, I'm going to write a new hour from what I'm going through right now. Maybe if I'm lucky, I'll put the old hour on CD. There's no specials in my future.

ain't nobody going to get me no more specials. I ain't C-Soe. There's no more, you know, Netflix. Those days are over. I'd rather stay underground anyway with you people. I want you people when you listen to me to think that you listen to a criminal or something like that, you know, so. Do you ever look back?

I mean, obviously, like, the whole name of the game for this podcast and everything is improving. But like you said, you had some good things happen last year. Do you ever look at it? like, okay, I got the Sopranos movie. How did I do that? Like, was I focused on this? Or do you not focus on that stuff at all?

What do you mean? Focus. Like, do you look at what you did well and try to recreate it? Or be like, okay, I was doing this. Well, first of all, you can't recreate because I don't know what's going to happen. If you know anything about this town, this is a day-to-day town. Like, I spoke a couple weeks ago. I'm not sure where my acting career stands right now.

I know that I enjoy podcasting. I'm really, really getting into the nuts and bolts of stand-up again. You know, I'm really digging it again. Like I was digging it like my fourth year in the business. Like I'm really digging the writing process. I'm really pushing the browneries because I really don't care what people think. There's no more safety net in my stand-up. I'm going to be 57 next month.

and what are you going to do to me now? You're going to take what from me? I'm just talking on stage. I'm just talking what I feel in my heart. It's not like I'm Mark Kelly and a bunch of young girls and peeing on them and stuff. So I can sleep at night. I can sleep tight at night.

I'm sleeping my eight hours at night. So I'm good. I want to get better as a stand-up. I want to be more consistent. I had a few bad shows this year, a few live bad shows. I think the second show in San Francisco. The score wasn't as good as the first one, but that's just me being overcritical.

You know, I think I had a rubset in New Orleans. I had a rough set in a couple towns. But you know what? I'm going to keep going to the store on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays when I'm not in town. I've left my schedule kind of wide open January, February, March, and April, because I do have a couple of commitments. I have to fulfill. And then May, June, July, go out a little bit more.

and then definitely after the Soprano movie really, really attack Providence, New Jersey from the northern tip. I think I'm hitting Staten Island and go see my Goubaugh brothers. I'm hitting Philadelphia. I'm hitting Baltimore.

I'm hitting Connecticut. Well, even this. Okay, so do you think you're more, and this is the word I always used to describe you, but do you think you're more calculated now than maybe you were after like the longest year Oh, absolutely. There was no calculation because there was drugs involved.

When there's drugs involved, there's no calculation. There was always a strategy. I cannot lie to you and tell you that there was always a strategy, but something has to happen for you to bang a strategy out. You know what I'm saying? So my strategy is to keep getting on stage and keep making adjustments to your material every night, right? And then eventually somebody fumbles,

ball. Now I get a chance to score on the 30-yard line. I got four shots. That's what you're always. So something happens. Something else happens. They're going to come out back to back. Now you have to change what you were working on. You might have to change what you were working on. So every day I live on a different audible. You know, people don't understand that every day the rules change in my life, not the rules, but the days change. I could wake up tomorrow. It could be something completely different. I can wake up Tuesday and get a call from a show on CBS that says, hey, are you available

Wednesday? We had a recurring character that fell out. We'd love to have you. And I already had plans to go to Aruba with you and two other morons. Do you understand me? So I always keep my schedule open. I have enough on my plate with my daughter, the podcast, trying

to write a book, a one-man show, and material. I got enough on my plate. I have taken the stress off the special. off my life. If I do anything, it'll be like a 40-minute spot from the store with some combination-type stuff. I haven't figured out, and they're not sketches.

I'm not a sketch guy. I'm not going to dress up like a moron. Just to show you the 24-7 effect of what we've got going on right now. Right. And that's basically all I want to do. You know, I was telling you guys at the beginning of the show, I struggled a lot. this second half,

November and December, I think ever since I went back to shoot the Sopranos, I realized that I had a lot of dead time on my hands. And the reason why I have a lot of dead time on my hands is because I have a rule in my house.

If from 9 to 5, Monday through Friday, I could pretty much do whatever I will. Whatever I want. My daughter's in school. I take her to a Muay Thai on Mondays and Wednesdays. And I like to be a part of her life. She needs to see me there, okay?

Me and my wife don't need to be there, but I want to be there. Okay? I want to be there. I have my own personal reasons. I think my nights are getting a little bored. I thought of two things. I thought about getting like what Dante's doing. somewhere in Reseda at night, somewhere maybe, what's the town over, Sherman Oaks?

Right. Get like some, you know, two-car garage that has rats in it, fumigated, painted, restructure it, maybe do a room where 15 comics could sit in and 15 people, maybe have like a little podcast studio. Keep this, but have that more. as a comedy workshop for young comics. I'm sick and tired of comics getting ripped off in this town. The young comics, I really am. The open mic process should be an organic process.

I have to keep the lights on, so I have to charge you a little something, but I want you to get something. I want you to be treated like a comic. I want when you touch the doorknobs, the doorknobs are clean. I want a camera there so you could tape your sets, not for $50.

You know, give whoever would work in the machine, five dollars and you get your tape so if you come in every night you get a tape if you pay the five dollars to perform you get something out of it and uh start creating little groups of these comics you know where eric runs a group and you run a group and you look at each other's tapes and you say where you need help constructively that's how comics build comics don't do this by themselves i love to sit here and tell you i did all this by my myself but I can't I got a lot of help from Rick Dukerman and Rod Long and Josh Wolf and Joe Rogan and Doug Stanhope and this is the help that I see open mics need open micers go on their

own tangent and they build these things in their minds that because they listen to all the open micers and it just sucks I don't like what's being done in that life so I thought about doing that I wanted to be involved with some in my life but I just don't have the time to do something like that I would only probably be able to help comics out two nights a week, and that defeats the purpose of what I'm trying to do. You know, I have my own podcast, I have to do my own spots. Again, I hate feeling like a bully on stage. That's why I don't go to a lot of the smaller comedy clubs

because there's a bunch of open micers going up, and those guys got dreams, and they've been working on a joke, and I go up there with my dirty material blow up the room because their energy levels aren't. You know, I'm a professional. I'm a professional. what I've been doing. I know how to take apart these rooms, and now they brought four friends, and they got to follow me. That's not fair to them. That's not fair to anybody, you know what I'm

saying? Unless you're at the comedy store where you know what you're getting yourself into. When I walk into the comedy store, and I got to follow Rick Ingram or DeLea, one of those guys, I know what? I'm getting myself into. That pen better be good today. This is not about the feather, the same. And I got my superstitious things, too. You know, we all have superstitious things before we're going to do something. You know, I don't listen to the radio on the way down to the store. There's no music before I go do comedy. And I take my mind somewhere where it hasn't been in weeks, somewhere dark, to a story of something bad that happened to me because I want to feel that pain.

I don't mind driving with people the gays. You and I have driven to a couple of ice house gags and it's a different experience and I still do the job. But when I go to the comedy I don't really like nobody in a car with me. I like to think of something. A girl telling me no, you know, the simplest things, the simplest things that made you feel embarrassed, that now you're going to prove to that bitch. She made a mistake, even though it was in the sixth grade.

You know what I'm saying? Like, you asked her out in the sixth grade, she told you no. Right. And now you're going to go down to the store and do a set to win her back. Too bad. She's probably dead and buried.

That wasn't the sixth grade. She probably got hit by a train, an Amtrak or something like that. So, you know, we all have our different things. I'm not mad at Stephen Presfeld because he does all those things. It's a ritual.

It's a ritual. You know, there's nothing worse than you having to sit down, you get an idea, and you've got to go to the bathroom. I know. And you've got to take a long poop. Well, drink your coffee. Make your emails.

What I tell you to do in the morning, 901, that phone starts ringing. In fact, I already sent emails out to agents. I already said, it's Monday morning. I sent emails out Saturday night. When I got back at 11, just a few men ages, after you left the house, that we watched the New England game, how high were we? Pretty high.

I was sending emails. You know, emails a hoi. Everybody's getting an email, welcome to the new year. Do they make sense? Oh, yeah. That's why I always worry about that one. Oh, yeah. It makes sense.

As long as I don't buy plane tickets. I'm all right. I had a little incident there for a couple months. What happens? Do you buy a plane ticket? Oh, I buy them for like next year. I got to wake up the next morning and look and call the people now and say, I'm sorry I bought this for 20, 21.

You know, you get four or five edibles in the night. And a couple bonnets, you're buying, I'm buying plane tickets to a Rube. You know, I ordered a bar of soap. You know, that soap I will use from my feet. People don't laugh at me. This is how stupid. You know, I never want you people. to think that you know Joey D is a genius of sorts by any men and I'm very proud to let you know

that before Christmas I ran out of an antifungal soap okay you know for the Jiu-Jitsu and for the defense soap yeah defense soap I didn't want to bother my wife you know what I want some I just click it I click the link and I send it to my wife and she's got the Amazon I figured you know what my wife is going through enough let me order two bars here it was a four-pack lee i swear god it was a four-pack you let me bars of soap i got in the mail 700 44 i got 44 bars of soap in a box i'm going to give them away to some of my friends because now do i call them back and get angry no i looked at the order guess what i ordered 44 why because it was 1245 at night and i shouldn't be ordered anything you just keep clicking at the

Descartes? Oh, you should have seen me. Something must have happened. I added 82 people to cart. I looked at the account. I told the account was light by 150. Oh, my God. I didn't know what was what, and that's what happened. So now I got 44 bars of antifungal soap. It looks like I'm doing boxing and jiu-jit to tell I'm 100. Because I'm still going to be able to use them all. So I got problems, too. Don't worry about it. I got tons of problems. That's As long as I don't order, as long as I stick to tweet and evil things and Facebook and evil things, I'm okay.

That's it. That's it. I'm okay. I don't have to order plane tickets. I don't have to order anything. You know, it's funny I was having a rough time with my time, so I didn't know what to do. So I started talking to my wife about it. It got serious, guys.

It got really serious because what we usually do is we get home at 5, 515 from activities. uh, mercy does homework. I answer emails and make some calls and get everything prepared for the next day. Then we eat dinner as a family. And then I watch the world news tonight, which just makes me sick to my stomach to watch. I don't know why watch it.

It's 15 minutes of garbage and 10 minutes of the same stories that they've been telling you for the three days. The girl got stabbed in New York. That was two weeks ago. Why is it still on? Oh, she bit the black little kid's finger. I don't know what she did. I don't.

Enough. Enough. It's the same goddamn stories. every day. So I told then I sit there and then at about eight after mercy goes in the shower and the tub is when I start writing

and I prepare for my night. Even though I've written in the daytime, I'm just talking about my night activity. So if my spot's not till 10 it takes me 10 minutes to get to the comedy store. I do 90 over Laurel Canyon so I can leave my house at 20 to 10 so that means I'm sitting there.

You know my wife goes to bed at 915 So what I decided the other night was the first night I came over here. I know you noticed I was here one night. I came over here and I brought a notebook and that was okay. Then I came over another night last week and just listened to music and that was okay. And then one night I said to myself, I went for a physical in June this year and I got x-rays of my lungs and the doctor came back and said there's a little fluid on your heart. I want to send you for an angiogram or whatever

And they did a bunch of tests to my heart And they didn't have to put a stint on anything My heart was good because your heart just blew I didn't want to tell you guys And I didn't want to worry you know Uncle Joey Dog 27 years of blow There's got to be something going on But lately I've been working out

I've been taking my garlic tablets And doing a little cardio And I lift weights And I've gotten all my flight of fight response But ever since like June I've only been to Jiu-Jitsu like maybe three times. Just because of that thing they said to my heart, I found Jiu-Jitsu to really stress me out.

It was stressing me out. I wasn't getting nowhere. I wasn't making any progress. And I talked to my instructor, Brent. I just told him I'm going to take some time off. From time to time, I go in there and do a pride with Vinny and roll around with Vinny a little bit. And I still go to my Muay Thai boxing classes there.

and I still do my lifting, but I just needed something at night. But guys, when you get to be over 50, your body's on like this testosterone thing. You know how odd it is for me to go down to the store some nights? I told you, I drank four expressos. I got to drink four Cuban expressos. Like, I'm not tired. Like, I'm not physically tired, you know?

So I got in the car one night. I couldn't have come back here. And I think last Monday night, I went to 7.30 jiu jitza class. I just went and sat there and watched. And everybody came over and gave me a hug. And everybody asked when I was coming back. And I said, you know, man, this is what I need.

I need to go to jih Tjitsu at night. I thought about it for a few days. And then I made plans to go one night. And I said, no, I'm just going to go watch. And I went and I watched the advanced class. and talked to Vinny, talked to my professor Brett, talked to a couple of guys.

It was just great to see him, and I saw that they got a couple new older guys. So I went home, and this is what I did. This is one of my problems that I had when I was going to Jiu-Jitsu. I started at Valley V-MAC, and it's a great school.

John Budd, Paolo, all the teachers they had were good, but they didn't have a daytime program. The daytime program, wasn't excelled and they had to cancel it and I was starting to you know mercy came and I was going consistently I was doing okay and then everything switched I started going back to the comedy store I started you know doing podcast that night I started uh you know just life changed so I got a writing assistant job in Wilshire and I said what the hell I'll

go to Hegan. And Valley, I was in Valley for three or four months, and they gave me a stripe. I did well. I love Hegan, Machado. You know, Hegan's is like the master guy, but Hegan's like a great guy. I went to Hegan's for like three classes,

and one day a guy didn't get me in an arm bar, and the clock went off, and Hegan goes, oh, very good today, and he gave me two stripes. Did I deserve those two stripes? In my heart, I didn't think I did. But I'm not going to argue with the great Higa Machado. You know what I'm saying?

And then when the writing job ended, I said, let me switch because I can't go into Hollywood every day to do Jiu-Jitsu. In fact, Alberto has Jiu-Jitsu Monday through Sunday, and I could pick my day as he gives you seven different options to go to. So I started going to Alberto's, and I went pretty consistently. I love Alberto Crane, by the way. I love Joey Alvarado. You don't have him on the show. I loved all the people that tried. train there, Josiah Wakefield, and his girlfriend.

They were just a great bunch of guys, but it was moving fast for me. And I kept going, I kept getting beat up, and I kept getting beat up. And one day, Alberto gave me a blue belt. That I deserved the blue belt. Guys, I've tapped two people in my life. I got one guy on a Camorra, and one time I got a guy in a collar choke from the closed guard. That's it.

In five years of Jiu-Jitsu, that's been my claim to fame. And sometimes I pass your guard and I get scared. I can't breathe. It was just a bunch of excuses I was making to myself. It was called resistance. So I took the stripes off my belt. I took it down to one stripe. The belt that I really, really, really, really am.

A white belt? Yep. Oh, wow. And I walked into jih Tjitsu yesterday morning. I went to the 12 o'clock open mat. I had scheduled to private with Vinny. But when I got there, there was a lot of, guys there there was this one Irish guy big guy didn't know he was Irish there was

this one big guy there at one stripe and I said hey man I don't know what your name is my name is Joey do you mind are you leaving and he goes no no no in fact I want to practice some of the stuff Vinnie told me so it was five to 12 and me and me and him got on the mat we just did a slow motion jiu-jitsu you know sweeps escape the mounts you know a real slow but I told them I don't want to stop I want to keep this pace up so basically mount the position on me get your submission I'll sweep you and we'll keep moving just so I could sweat oh my God I had the best one of my life I had the best time of my

life so now at the end he choked me as usual because that's my best thing I got is getting choked and I said that's it I was pretty happy it was 1235 I had rolled with him for about, you know, 20 minutes of movement, and we went over a couple drills, and I sat by the side, and I asked him how many times a week does he go there? What days does he go? And he told me he was an oil rig guy,

and then he goes on an oil rig for four days, and he'd be back Friday. So I shook his hand, and I said, I'll see you here Friday, you know, or Saturday, you know. And it was really weird. I go, what made you? Is this the first school you've ever been to? And he goes, yeah, I just,

he goes, I went to a boxing gym first to get me ready for this. So I went over there for about six months and now I'm here. And I go, what made you come in? And he goes, he looked at me. And he goes, listening to the podcast. You talk about how much it changed your life. And you also said to just keep showing up. He threw the words.

I had thrown at you guys right back in my face. I don't know if you guys noticed this year for New Year's, I sent you guys all a little on Twitter. I said, Happy New Year, love to your family. Thank you for making me a better person. I don't know if you guys caught that or understood what I was saying to you guys. That because I sit in this chair with Lee once a week

and I talk to you guys, now I have pressure to perform. You guys are my silent pressure. It's not like you guys hit me up on Twitter and go, Hey, Joey, you better be good. We're coming on Friday night. You hit me up and you go, Joey, we're coming Friday nights. We're smoking 18 joints. We love you.

What I do is for you guys. You guys have become my silent life coach. It's like we're both helping each other out. So that was a pretty, when he said that to me, you said it yourself, man. Just got to keep showing up. It reduced me to fuck. Like, I was just embarrassed because this is what I've been saying.

all along and I stopped doing it. So now I'm going to start going on Jiu-Jitsu Tuesdays and Thursday nights at 5.30. Well, I'm going to give it a try. And my goal is to hit two Jiu-Jitsu at nights to get out of my comfort zone. So for you guys, thank you for helping me always. You see what I'm saying?

You guys think like I do this and no, no, no, no. I get more out of you guys than what you guys get more out of me because I tell you my most intimate thing, and I learn from you guys. All the emails I get, the little quote, listen, there's always a jerk offer too that doesn't understand what we're trying to do here.

But we're the church motherfucking family, okay? To me, this is a lot more on a podcast. When I started this podcast with Lee, it wasn't to be cute or to be funny or to be the next big thing or to sell tickets. It was to let you people know that you could do it. Don't believe anybody.

You could do it. Don't believe your mother. Don't believe your father. If you think you could do it, do it. Prove it to yourself. Why mess around? I never thought I would be to the levels that I've been here. I did this to become a man.

Along the way, comedy came in, and my manhood and comedy worked together, and they got me to where this is, which is here. So yesterday, that was my lesson from the day. From now I can't talk shit no more. I got to back it. Some guy called me out of my shirt. So because of him, I'm going to start going to Jiu-Jitur at night twice a week.

And that's it. That's the podcast today. I wanted to talk to you people about what it's like. And that's it. But it was a great year 2019, but I promise you that 2020 is going to be that much better. Today, when we finish this podcast, order the war of art or there's a war of art for writers. There's so many. Stephen Presby has a couple great books out.

He's got Turning Pro. But my Bible for right now is the war of art. And there is the art of war by Sun Tzu. That's if you plan on being John Wick part-time. I don't think none of you is a John Wick, so knock it off. But that gives you some interesting points also on the psychological of it. But for today, I just want to talk about the war of art. I want to talk about resistance, and I want to talk to the two lives you live that are inside of you.

do you want to be 54 one day and realize that this is me 56th I quit when I quit jujitsu am I trying to be Joe blackmail no I'm just in the business and not quitting because I know if I don't quit that my comedy will get that much stronger and I suggest you people do the same thank you very much for listening thank you for being with me on a Monday 8 this ain't the podcast of jumping up and down we got that one for you the next two or three podcasts Today was just to kick off the new year, tell you what the church is doing this year, what the church needs to do this year.

We need to go out of our comfort zone. And if I'm going to do it at 57, you guys are going to do it at your 20s, 30s, and 40s. It's that simple. Thank you for listening and have a great day. Before I end this, real quick, don't forget, honor, they've been with us since day one. And listen, I usually don't like a lot of vitamin people or whatever.

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So don't forget, listen, it's January 6th. I love you guys with all my heart. I got nothing. I got, I think, Friday, the 17th. I'm in Bakersfield at the Fox Theater. And the 18th, I'm at the Tower Theater in Fresno. Fresno, I'm coming. It's been a long, long time.

And then on the 25th of January, they added the second show, Atlanta at the Tabernacle Theater. Tickets are still on sale. You got what you need. Besides that, I'll see you guys Wednesday, morning, tip-top Magoo, ready to go, ready to powerhouse through the month. It's a new year. You got to own it, baby.

Thank again to Stephen Pressfield. Thanks again to the flying jubim, most importantly for you guys for having our back and support. And this again, the church family wishes you a happy new year 2020. Kick this meal, Lee. I want to be around. Pick up the pieces. When somebody breaks your heart, some somebody.

Somebody twice as smart as I A somebody who To be true As you How he does a puzzle Fits So When I'll discover

That prevent