Uncle Joey's Joint with Joey Diaz - #408 - Willie Barcena

Episode Date: August 25, 2016

Willie Barcena, Comedian seen on the Tonight Show and his special on Netflix, "The Truth Hurts," joins Joey Diaz and Lee Syatt live in studio.  This podcast is brought to you by: Onnit.com. Use Promo code CHURCH for a discount at checkout. Datsusara: Go to DSgear.com and check out all of their great products, like gi's and rash guards, that are made with high quality hemp textiles. Use code Joey to get 5% off of your order.   Recorded live on 08/24/2016.    

This show is brought to you by Datsuzara. Go to DSGear.com and check out their extremely high quality functional gear that's made with hemp textiles. They have bags, geese, rash guards, and much, much more, including the infamous fanny pack. Go to DSGear.com right now and use Cobra Joey to get 5% off. And they sponsor EBI on September fucking 11th, I think, on a Sunday at the Orpheum Theater. They are the true fucking sponsors of EBI.

That's awesome. They have the EBI and they're also probably going to be the math therapy thing. They're a great company. DSGear.com, Cobra Joey. Show is also brought to you by Onna.com. Go to Onna.com and use Cobra Church to get 10% off all of their amazing optimization products like Alpha Brain, New Mood, Shroom Tech Immune, and Shroom Tech Sport. Oh shit.

It's Wednesday, motherfucking night. Lee Syat, Willie Barcena, the Churchill, what's happening now? Oh shit. It's going down. Cock's up. Just kick that mule, Lee. Bang it up. Bang, bang, bang it up.

Hit it. Kick that fucking mule, Lee. Blow up some speakers, cock's up. I want fire coming out of those fucking things. Oh shit. Here you go, Lee. It's a beautiful evening here in Southern California. It's like fucking 80 degrees.

It's going to be hot again tomorrow. What gives the fuck? What's happening, Willie Barcena? What's up, man? Thanks for having me, brother. Always. What's going on, Lee Syat? You sexy motherfucking you?

I had a fun day. It was funny. I came in and I was like, what do you think about doing a gravity bomb? You weren't a big fan. No, because you have a hard time with this regular fucking bomb. You're making all this shit for nothing. You have a hard time with this. Your face turned red before you were sweating.

Your legs were sweating. Everything sweats. The bombs are fucking crazy. It's tremendous. That's why you're fucking hitting them. What's happening, Willie Barcena? Good, brother. Man, I'm just enjoying the scene.

This is laid back. I think all interviews should be like this. All interviews smell this good. It's not even a fucking interview. It's a conversation. Yeah, I know. I'm a fucking ghost. I'm happy you're here tonight because one of the things, a lot of comedians, young comedians,

listen to this shit. It's scary, Willie, if I tell you this. I didn't even think about it until 15 years. I had a notebook and I would write the joke. And that was it. There was no tag. There was nothing. For 15 years, I got over on just energy and just driving on a car to the comedy store and

thinking about what I was going to say. Right. And sometimes it would go my way and sometimes it wouldn't. Well, I think most of the time, it went your way, brother. But it's crazy how 15 years ago, about eight, nine years ago, I started writing. Right. And I go, I like this. This is interesting shit.

I started writing a blog on Myspace and also I said, man, I forgot all about this story. Maybe I should say this on stage. And while you're saying the story, you remember another story and it's just fucking amazing. So I like to sit down now with a notebook. You know, people come into the shows and you want to give them their money's worth, you know. And I've always been a fan of your, like, I've never used to show up to fucking a bar with a notebook.

What is he crazy? It's a fucking bar. Why does he have a notebook? Why is he looking at his notes? And then I will go up there and I'd bomb. No. And you'd go up there and kill. And I go, this is why you have to have a notebook.

So I started carrying around a little note. The only other option I use on this thing is when I get an idea, there's a memo pad now on the iPhone. Tremendous. You can write the fucking note in there and then remind yourself later. But I swear to God, Willie, I fucking got rid of. So I've gotten rid of more good jokes than most people have written just off the top. Laziness.

Being in bed at night and fucking cracking up with the sleep apnea mask on. And going, that was so funny. I remember that motherfucker in the morning and nothing's there in the moment. No, they're farting. If you don't write it down, man, it's literally a fart in the wind, bro. It's gone. Since day one, you were a writer like that. You sat down and.

Well, you know, I, I, I always, when I was a young, young, you know, we were young comics man coming up. I used to watch the tonight show. Right. And I used to hear about these guys, Gary Shanlings of the world. Those guys were ahead of us, way ahead of us. And I used to hear about how they would write and I would hear how sign file would write. And so that's what got me started.

And then I kind of had an evolution like you, you know, I went through an evolution and I think you don't go through it unless you do right because it's funny. We were talking the other day and you were going, man, I started out writing a joke. And then from joke, I went to bits and then from bits, I went into stories. Right. You told me that's the evolution, man. Cause I remember writing jokes, you know, you know, like a, you know, one line jokes and the premise set up punch premise set up punch.

And then, uh, and then after a while it got corny to me, man. I go, man, it's gotta be a little bit more to this. So I started kind of embalishing or, or, or extending the story a little bit more. Well, what, what I, you know, started asking myself, it was a lot of trial and error. So within a lot of that trial and error and like you, I bombed and failed way more than I succeeded. And then, and that's how I, I, I started writing all the time. Cause I, I realized it was like, it was like a, like a batting percentage, you know, only

three out of 10 jokes would work. And it's for, in order for me to have a material, I have to write a lot, a lot of material had to, for me to have material that, that would succeed or even have a nice little new chunk for me to have a nice new chunk, I had a, had a, like maybe a half hour of garbage. So anyways, brother, yeah, that's, that's, that's how, you know, and, and, you know what, having kids, man, having kids to me is what made me right because I knew how to keep feeding these motherfuckers. So, you know, if I didn't keep getting work somewhere, you know, wherever, uh, uh, that

was, that was also motivated for me, Joey. It's funny how you said something before, and I thought completely different. You said before that, you know, how many coming tonight show appearances to drive with Jay Leno? I had 11. 11. That a lot of comics looked at you differently because you wanted tonight showing you how to say jokes.

Now let me tell you, you know me, you know, I'm fucking out of my mind. Yeah, yeah, yeah. To me, till this day, even with that fucking guy on there now, oh, I have nothing against Jimmy Fallon. I like Jimmy Fallon. I'll still see who's going to be on the tonight show so I can tape it and not tape it because to me, that's the best a comic is going to do. I swear to God, my mind, that's when I, when I watch the tonight show and I see a comic

not do well, the next time I see him, I'm going to smack him. Right. And he knows this. Lee knows that we've talked about Eliza going on there one night and blew it up and I was happy the next day because Jesus Christ finally somebody took it to the next level on the fucking tonight show. You know what I'm saying? When I don't watch the tonight show to me, it's the six minutes that every comic should

dream of. That's my world. That's my world. You get one shot at writing six minutes, spotless clean with your real point of view clean though. Yeah, but they also edit man. They edit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The tough part is that they have control of your material because the reality is, Joey,

when you're performing for the tonight show, it's a corporate gig because you're performing for those sponsorships, you know, for the Chevrolets and the BMWs and the AT&T company because if you offend the show, you offend them because they're paying for advertisement. So it's really the biggest corporate gig you're ever going to do. And being that it's a corporate gig, you're fucked, man, because you got to be within these boundaries and you're not allowed to be free and you're a big fan of Lenny Bruce and I am. And I read a book, man, where I was really happy.

It was the last chapter where Lenny Bruce was talking about doing the tonight show with Jack Parr back in the day. This is before Johnny Carson and he talked about how much he hated doing it like he didn't like doing the tonight show because he felt so contrived and he says, I love doing one hour. You know, I love doing my albums, you know, and he did his albums and he did his one hours in theaters and he was free and you're free, man. You know, you're your own director, your own writer.

You get to say whatever the fuck you want to say and you can't do that on the tonight show. But and anyways, man, I know there was there was comics because I, you know, you hear that you hear the gossip within our world, man. Oh, yeah, Willie Barsana, he's he's corny or he's not edgy or whatever. But man, bro, you can go, you know, to me, there was a lot of, you know, there was a lot of a lot of haters, man, because if you, you know, I don't care if you go back to Sam Kinnison, who was one of the craziest motherfuckers out there, watch him on the tonight show.

He's got a suit on. He's got a suit on and a tie, man. You know, you watch Richard Pryor, another guy, he's got a suit on and a tie and doing and it's so you're you're it's a tough gig, man. And and to me, I felt that that within the comics, man, they were like, oh, you know, Willie, uh, you know, doesn't doesn't have a soul kind of thing, you know, because it's very contrived, man. It's so funny how I have this crazy sense of fucking thinking, but when comics would

get things, I didn't have those things so I could never judge their experience. Honestly, even, even when I would let myself start saying something, I go, who the fuck are you? Well, when are you going to be on the tonight show? When are you going to have a showtime? You know what I'm saying? I'm always honest with when you go to clicks, you know, like when you go to a comedy open mic, for example, there's three little clicks, there's one click, you go to them, somebody

will ask you, what do you think about fucking Amy Schumer on this? And you just sit back and watch how much effort these comics put into hating it. And I'm just saying Amy Schumer, I'm just saying that people at home, it could be, it could be anybody, it could be Pablo, it could be myself, you know, when they once you hit a certain level of mainstream, it does something to comedians, it jars there, not to me. I listen, man, that's the, that's the evolution. That means that you're up there. You're up there with the corporate people, you're playing golf, you're going to president

fucking whatever's out. What do you want me to do? You want me to hate you because of that? You want me to hate you because of that? That all started at a fucking comedy club. You had the same dream I had. You just took it in a different fucking direction. I'm happy for you.

No, you know, man, there's a lot of those people that we don't think are funny. We don't think they're funny yet as comedians, like that dude, don't even show up at the improv when he does the last two times he's bombed. We've seen those guys that have that mega celebrity and they walk in, Dave Chappelle always kicks ass because they get on their feet from, I never saw that Chris Rock. They would come in and go Chris Rocks here. The people would fucking go crazy. Those guys never fucking bomb, you know, but there's guys from, you know, whatever we

when they first started, if you, if you Google some of their early sets, Oh, no, no, I'm talking about when they pop into the improv. Oh, yeah. No, no, no, no. No, no, no, no. Oh, please. They walk on water now. Yeah.

Yeah. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. Listen, everybody dies a slow death. Yeah. I don't ever, you know, the funniest people in L.A., the people, like I used to go to acting classes and people would ask me stupid questions and they come to a comedy store, they go to the improv, they laugh at me, they watch me and they go, how long have you been doing

this for? I've been going nine years. And then three weeks later, I'd see them and they go, I got on stage last week and I got a show here and I got an audition in Montreal and I've been doing it for nine days. Right, right. And you look at them because they're looking at you like going, you've wasted your time for nine years.

Yeah. But you're looking at them going, oh, you're going to die a slow fucking death. Yeah. You got nowhere to go. You're going to shit your fucking pants in front of those people. Remember when we started, there used to be a lot more contests. Yeah. Johnny Walker.

Yeah. The NBC National Comedy Contest, this is, and it wasn't televised, it wasn't like last comic standing. Right, right. They came into a comedy club at 10 in the morning. You had to get there by nine, sign your fucking name. There'd be three fucking jerks sitting there with a notepad. Yeah.

And you went up there, did it? And then you went home, then they called you to come back for that night's show. And then you went on to the regionals, the finals. I thought that the stupidest thing is to judge comics, man. You know why? It's like having a, because everybody has a different personality and everybody likes different things. And it's almost like putting up a rock band versus a country band.

It's like, well, I like the rock band, the rock band killed, and I didn't understand the country band. Well, it's what you liked, man. That's why I don't think you can't judge comics. I don't like comedy in that sense. I'm just saying that. Yeah. Well, you can't judge it, but don't even think if it was like, let's say it was like a comic

club here. If you grabbed 300 people, there'd be some people who liked indie comedy, there'd be some people who liked dirty comedy. So maybe, maybe could you just judge it based off a laughter? Well, how they, how they did judge them was based off the laughter. You know, like I did, I was never a big contest guy. I didn't believe it in me though. Like they were, when I first got into comedy, all these contests were happening and I didn't

think I was good enough. I wouldn't go down there, but there was an amateur contest that I went to and I ended up winning and it got me, I guess, it got me a hosting gig, $50 a week, $200 a month. That ain't bad when you're first started. People don't make money at all. I was getting two bills a month right from the fucking beginning. And then I moved to Seattle and they have that contest and to really get work in the area.

They don't care about tape or nothing. They look at the numbers from that contest and I took a sixth and they told me as a dirty comic, you won't even get to the semifinal. So for dirty comic, it was good at that time for me. I was really dirty. I didn't know what I was doing. But when I came to LA, he called me again and he goes, I want you to do San Francisco. Now Seattle had newspaper reporters and restaurant owners and movie theater people.

I could live with that. I could live with that. You know what San Francisco had? Comics. Yeah. That was the Mecca at the time, right? That was when Robin Williams started that. Comics.

Judging comics. They said, I'm not staying here. It's like you coming up to me and me hugging you before the show. Lee, how are you going to feel? If I'm one of the contestants and you're standing there like all excited about this contest, but I walk in and Willie's the judge and Felipe is the other judge and I give him a big hug and I go, we're going to go smoke pot later. How do you feel as a fucking comic?

You're going to go, hang it. Why am I going on stage for? Joey knows these fucking guys. That's how it was up there. I was like, are you fucking? I'm sleeping on the beach Willie. I'm living in my car doing this contest, sleeping on the beach because the hotels are 300 fucking dollars.

Yeah. I'm sleeping on the beach dog. I woke up Santa Cruz Saturday morning. I swear to God, I sat there with sand in my feet, I had to take a shower at like a gym for 10 bucks. Yeah. And I go, am I fucking retarded? Am I fucking stupid?

What? I'm at the comedy store tonight. I got to set if I wanted and Celia Cruz was playing at the House of Blues. I got in that fucking car and I drove home. They kept calling me, where are you? Fuck you. I'm going to do your stupid fucking contest. Celia Cruz is in town and I got an 11 o'clock at the store and shit.

Fucking getting judged by other comics that are hugging it up and smoking dope. The promoter came up to me and he goes, you got any weed? The dude who ran the fucking thing was like, oh, I know you got weed on you. You're going to have to smoke me up before the night is over. You're the fucking promoter. You're going to smoke me out. You're fucked. It's fucking, it's crazy how it's like there's no other, is there a business that compares

to it at all? Every fucking business has the shit side of it. Every business had the shit side of it. Every business has, in the beginning, everybody rapes you, you know, everybody fucks you in the ass. Had any business, whether you're an editor, a mechanics helper, you know, they're paying you eight, but they're charging 2250 for you and laughing the whole way. You know what I'm saying?

I mean, you're getting fucked the whole time, but it's what you take from the experience and what you learn and what, you know, when we used to go to Latino night on a Monday night, right? You walk into Latino night, there were people hanging from the rafters, 2250. Jamie gave you 25 bucks, there was six comics, his budget was 150. What the fuck do you think that there's 300 people in there, 2250. There's $2,000 in the room. You're getting his budget with, you know, $10 a beer.

Yeah, $10 a beer. He's making $6,000 for the fucking night there in Mexico, going crazy on a fucking Monday night. And, and where do you think that money goes, Lee? But you accept it because you go, you know what, man, I'm gonna start in comic. How lucky do you feel just to be fortunate to be in this position? But don't be too fucking fortunate. They're not, they're not, you know, when they come up to you and they say they love you.

Yeah. You better fucking love me. You just made three grand off me jumping up and fucking down. I'm not saying they came to see me, but I'm part of the fucking ensemble. If I was in a fucking theater, we all get paid $6,250, right or wrong for a fucking performance. So I think what it might be is like whenever you start somewhere or something, they remember you. So if you go to all these clubs and you let them take advantage of you with money, it

must be hard. As you get older, it'd be like, no, now you actually have to pay me my money because it's so used to not paying you. Well, you got representation fighting for you. Yeah. You got it. You know, it's really weird when you're out there fighting for yourself and all those sudden agent pops in your life and he calls you at a number and you're like, wait a second.

I did that same gig three years ago for 500 bucks. How'd you get me $5,000? You get pissed off in two minutes. Yeah. You're like, I put $9,000 in that guy's pocket. Now you figure out what's the truth. It's the weirdest game, man. And it's a hotel and there's a car involved and $100 for food.

Yeah. And you're like, that fucking gig paid $500 two years ago. Yeah. Because you didn't have representation. No. It's because, you know, here it goes, man. You call up the place and you go, hey, I'm funny and then go, oh, you're funny. All right.

So then they give you a contract. The contract sucks dick, right? But a couple of years passed by and now an agent calls, hey, he's really funny. Oh, he is. You know what I mean? It's a different story, man. It's such an evolution. Like I sit back.

First of all, I did something with my life. I stuck with something, which was the most important thing of life. You know, you see these people that keep moving around every day. When I wake up, I have a notebook that I just write when I feel I got to go to jiu-jitsu today. I got to meet Willie. I got to do this. And at the end, I always write, I'm very happy that I did something with my life.

Nice, man. That's real cool because anything you're going to do that you have a dream of doing, you know, look at the stones. Okay. Look at the fucking Rolling Stones. They're each worth $250 fucking million. I don't know how much they're getting in Palm Springs. Those tickets are 250 a piece.

They got to be walking out of there with $600,000. They paid their dues. They take that money without no guilt at all. They've been doing this for 40 fucking years. And you as the consumer have to recognize that. You have to go, wow, I'm coming to see these guys that have really been doing this for 40 years. I mean, I've had six jobs in three years.

These guys been doing the same fucking shit. And that's how, I don't know, I'm very fortunate that somewhere I got stupid because for years I kept saying, I'm never going to do nothing, you know, somewhere along the line, I got stupid. When I got into comedy, I go, if I get into this, I got to get dirty. Because everything else I would do, Willie, was for money. Everything else I would do, how much is it to cook $9 an hour? Really?

And all of a sudden you're there a week and you're like, what did I make 360 after taxes is too weighty? I could sell an eight ball and make this. And that thing lasted. But when I got into comedy, I had nothing. I had no wife. I lost everything I had. My kid, I had, I already had a felony.

I had already gone through all this shit. So I said, listen, let me dive into this. But I know that I got to change my lifestyle. Like there's no couch, there's no, there's nothing. I have to get into this. You have to go out every night, you know. Once I saw that, it changed me. Like I was like, I'm in.

And still I wouldn't write. I would just write my goals. I would write what jokes I wanted to do and what all this shit like that. I never really had a clothes there. But then I came to LA and I started watching different guys. And there's people that are good writers, but they're writing bullshit. You know what I'm saying? They're great writers and it's great for the minute and it takes years to see that

like a comic because you know what you're doing. And if you're any comic that's good, you always think you're doing shit like the material I got now ain't working. Even when people are fucking falling on. What are you talking about? I don't like that fucking joke. I just do it because my kid, the fucking, people are dying. It's a good joke.

We never think we have the good shit, you know. So it's really weird how the process just of comedy, just you just fall in love with it more and more. And even though you're getting kicked in the ass and even though you're having all these problems in your personal life, because at some point in comedy in the beginning you get some turmoil, that's life testing you. Just like when you quit smoking and your uncle dies and you're at the funeral pond, everybody's smoking cigarettes.

You know what I'm saying? Well my uncle died, so I started smoking again. You know what I'm saying? It's comedy always. Like I remember fucking living in a car and taking showers at a gym, but going I'm still going to do my spot tonight. You know I remember being in jail for 30 days and when I was in jail writing jokes and going I can't wait to get out so I can get on fucking stage.

Like this was all part of my life and the early beginning, somebody else was just dying doing this no more. Why am I doing this shit? What? It's challenging, brother. I think what you said as far as stories, things that happen to you, like what you're telling me where you're literally suffering, man. You don't know you're suffering at a time.

People when you're suffering, you don't know you're going through it because you're going through it. Once you pass it, you go, damn I was suffering, but when you're going through it, you don't but those are some of the best bits that you can write about, whatever you went through. Whatever was kicking you in the ass are your best bits. I mean that's what I've, through two decades of writing, okay? The best tip I can tell a young comic out there is I just don't write funny, man. When I write, I don't write funny at all.

I write a story, some shit that happened to me and I just write it out, you know? And then what I do is leave it alone because if I read it, I'm going to start crying. If it's my kid not talking to me and I remember the story where he didn't want to talk to me and it hurt or my wife leaving or whatever, man, you know what I mean, whatever happened or something where I was drinking. You always brought it to the stage, Willie. Yeah. When you do that, you believe in it, I believe in it also.

That's when I started getting real laughs and I started showing them my pain and what I went through and whatever the fuck. People love to see somebody else fucking dying like in a way. Yeah. Well, you know what? I think, Joey, I think the audience, because we're all flawed, man, and I think when they see another person on stage that's flawed and us, we're humorous, man, which I think there's joke tellers and there's humorous.

And I think of us as humorous because we tell them a story and when they see, as much as everybody wants to put up a front, a lot of people, we're on this earth and a lot of us have had some trials and tribulations and a lot of us have been there, man, where there's been some pain, but we know how to push it down. So when we're on stage and they see a comic, they can relate now and now they don't feel alone. They're alone on this planet where you want to fucking hang yourself. You look at and you go, fuck, that guy went through the same shit I went through and he's

laughing about it. So I'm going to laugh at my shit. So I think that's the connection that we make when we're telling stories that we're telling. I tell a story, man, where for years it used to bother me, man, and I didn't know how to make it funny because when I was a kid, I used to get fucked up by my mom. We grew up getting fucked up, man. I got hit hard. I got hit with brothers.

You have a willing. It was just two sisters, bro. Two sisters. They're both older than you. No, no, one older. I'm in the middle and my mom used to fuck us up, man. And I remember talking to everybody talks about your mom fucking you up, but man, I was on stage a couple of years ago and I wasn't talking about, man, yeah, my mom used to beat

me. No, not like that, man. I got into details, right? And I said, man, now that my mom's old, she's like a kid. She's all there, don't get me wrong, but she argues with me, do you know what I mean? Like an older person is almost like, and I feel like, sometimes I feel like pulling out a whip and fucking her up, bro, and telling her what she used to tell me, hey, get your hands out the way.

Do you know what I mean? I mean, yeah, when I tell that on stage about, when you just sit, when you put it by itself, man, this guy's talking about whipping his own mom. When you leave it like that, yeah, it's not funny. But when you hear the whole story, man, and you can share this with audience or anybody that got hit when they were a kid and they can see this, man, I think there's almost a sense of, it's a sense of therapy, bro. I believe, you know, I mean, I'm not there to fucking save anybody's life or anything

like that. Don't get me wrong. But I think at times, us unwillingly, there might be some therapy within those, within that humor. For us, as a comedian, for us and audience, for me, I love, you know, on Tuesday nights, now I go to a bar, Willie, because I'm sick and tired of performing on a tightrope. It's a great job, but it's not the way we were brought up. And to get the maximum value out of me, I can't walk on a tightrope all the time.

You know, I'm not the type of dude that could sit down and go, okay, what do I see today on the news? That was funny. All right. I saw something, the fucking, the shootout at the gas station, you know, although there was a lady trying to get gas and she's in the fucking passenger seat. And these people are having a shootout and she's in the passenger seat, though, and she dropped and you can see the bullet holes, but then I don't know what happened, the baby

yelled and I went into the other room. Okay. You write that down, right? It's an eyesore lady getting shot. Okay. If I sit there for two hours, nothing's going to happen. But if I'm on stage talking about guns and all of a sudden by mistake and by the grace of God, that thought crosses my mind, Willie, I could run with it for 20 minutes and it's

a bit. Now, let's say I tape it, Lee tapes it, guess what, I'll never say it like that again. The other day when you said that it's just like acting, you got to feel it. Oh my God, like fucking firecrackers went off in my head. Yeah, because it's the same thing with acting. With acting, you got to get triggers. If you, when I was a kid, I went to that Anthony Robbins workbook. What's his name?

Anthony Robbins? What's that? Tony Robbins. Tony Robbins. I worked for Subaru and as a group, Subaru of America paid for us and we all went to Denver for two days and sat with them. We didn't have to walk on coals or nothing, but if I remember anything from that workbook, he spoke a lot about triggers as a salesman, like how, you know, you could be talking to

somebody and then go to that place and just fucking march him down. And sometimes when you look at your best sets, you're in a coma. Yeah. You're in a coma. You're best set. So when you're in a fucking coma, when you don't give a fuck, that's why I like those open mics because I have to not give a fuck for a few weeks to give a fuck. Yeah.

The open mics are a weird situation though, because like, I've only been to a few. I went to the old time that you hosted at the store and I've been the least few times. Okay. Let's get something straight. Okay. There's open mics and there's open mics. Okay. Open mic 101 is Willy's room is the room I used to do in New York.

It's a bar with a TV and just by the grace of God, they have a two foot step that will as animals use as a stage. Okay. We will take five feet of that and use it as a stage because in the beginning you're not going to walk into the improv. Yeah. I don't care who owns it. I don't care who you, who's dick you're going to suck.

You're not going to walk in there and you personally will find out years later. You don't want to walk in there anyway. So you find these bars where they have no commitment to comedy. They have no commitment to comedy. They walk in and there's a fucking fat fuck from New York on the stage and they go, oh my God, we didn't know you were having comedy tonight. We just want to have martinis. Yeah.

Okay. So they sit down to talk about martinis and how miserable their life is. Okay. Like really? That's what women go out for at night. I'm having problems with Danny. I think, I think he's eating OxyCottings again. Let's go out for a martini and they go out and get drunk and nothing got fucking handled.

But the beauty of it is if you could convince those ladies and not by going, hey, hey, lady, I'm up here talking. Yeah. Yeah. If you could convince those two bitches to turn around and look at you and pay attention, that's how you judge in those days. Yeah. Okay.

So they were unpremeditated comedy people. And you had, and here's what, here's the magic. The magic where you, I think where you got your, your, your, you know, your skills was and getting those ladies or the group, whoever came in to look at you and not do it in a way where you pissed them off because now, now it's all downhill. But if you were able to kind of judo, judo their conversation towards you, it's brilliant. You know, and it's like, and it's just like you say, it could be a simple, hey, girls night out and then, yeah, you know, and they might, one of them might say something might,

one of them might reveal something. She might say, yeah, well, Lisa's here, we all took Lisa out and then you're all starting going, Lisa, yeah, you know, and you just keep going from there. So that's an open mic 101. That's where there's no commitment to comedy. Okay. When I call you up Lee on a Tuesday and go late, Sarah Silverman, is that the stinky onion on Friday night?

I just bought three tickets for us. Me, you and Paula, okay? All week, we're thinking about Sarah Silverman. So we're premeditated comedy. We walk in there. That's the comedy where they're already waiting for Willie. They're already waiting for Joey. I go in there and if I say, my dick's got a rim about it.

Okay. So you can't really, there's two types of comedy. There's two types of comedy. Okay. But to get really good at this comedy, you got to go through this comedy here. And it's brutally because there's 16 different types. There's that one. But really comedy 101 is I'm wrong.

I'm, I'm fucking wrong. Comedy 101 is when you go on stage in front of 15 comics that pay the dollar for a drink at the comedy to do comedy. That's comedy 101. That's fucking brutality. That's where you go home every night and you look at the fucking razor blade and you look at the tub and the salt and you fucking, that is brutal. That is fucking comedy.

Commando 101. You know, there's only one thing that busts you out of that, like a fucking savior. Those guys, that's like that. That's below hell. If you judge it that way, okay? Where they go and every once in a while, they get eight people. But beside that, it's all comedians every night from six to 10 or from 10 to one or from 11 to two.

And then here's where it's tough for some young comedians. You know, enjoy, say you walk in those rooms and there's 15 comics. Maybe eight of those comics are a group. They're friends and they'll laugh at each other's jokes. And when they get a real audience, that joke sucks balls, bro. And now there, now there's like, you know, it was detrimental. Instead of being something positive for a comic, it actually took you a step back cause your friends are there trying to, trying to be your buddy.

Instead of telling you the truth that, that material sucked. So we all started comedy 101. And then by the grace of God, you meet somebody, a comedy 101, who says, Hey, I run a room on Tuesday, another 10. And you got to come in there. First of all, you got to come in there some nights and some nights, whatever town you live in, they got that fucking gamer. And that way, you know what I'm saying?

You got to follow the Lakers. If you think you have to start on time because you have another set. That doesn't work. You're not going to do county while the lake is on, on fucking TV. So these are all the lessons you learned. And then somebody like Lee or go, Lee, come on down to my room. But the other lesson you don't learn, this is the show starts at 10, but you're going to go up a fucking one in front of six people.

Yeah. And they're drunk. And they're drunk. This is something that you fucking die for six months doing this and going, when am I going to get a nine 30 spot at a fucking bar like that? All right. And then eventually you're at that bar, you're at that bar, you're at, you know, it's like you're trying to bust out of this league.

And then you get in with a booker, but guess what he books bars six in the row. You know, the guy from Seattle, triple, triple, and you got, you know, they were all over the fucking country where they book, you know, they book a hotel lounge here. You thinking you're playing at the garden for the 2,000 people. I'm going on the road and shit. What road? And all of a sudden you got to know, don't curse cause they're Mormons.

You know, this is fucking outrageously. This is how right, but this is how you learn nuts and bolts. Yeah. You gotta get your ass kicked. This is how you learn adjustment. This is how you learn how to go into one room and there's 80 people. And the next night there's six, the next night there's seven and the owner's like, man, you got a good crowd.

Last week, that was two motherfuckers. You're like, what? This is fucking the evolution of it. Then you meet somebody and they go, Hey, what are you doing next week? I need an opener in some fucking bumfuck town. Right. And now they pay you 150 in a hotel room and you get five drink tickets. Oh my God.

When you get those drink tickets, you think you're the fucking king. You're at the bar looking for a bitch with that buck 50. I'm one of the comedians and shit. So that's fucked up though, because you always talk about how slimy comedians are, but you're, my, my original question was going to be, how do you know when to stop doing open mics? But it's obviously people hire you. So, but you have to be, but now you have to be friendly with people who

might be douchebags just because you want gigs. Well, there's two different ways. You have people like Willie that come up to you and go, no, I think you're funny. Come to my room on Tuesday night. And then Willie would give you 40 bucks and you got a fucking burrito. You got a good fucking burrito too, dog. I always got that motherfucking too. I bring the hunger to that club.

You wait all day for that fucking burrito. Tell him, I remember Jerry Bednob, Jerry Bednob used to come, uh, for those of you, if anybody's not familiar with Jerry Bednob was, uh, in, in that 40 year old verge, yeah, good guy, good guy, good guy, place the Indian, place the Indian. And, uh, Jay would always, I don't know, for whatever reason, he would always get the burrito, but he would always take it to go to go. Yeah, yeah. They wouldn't even tell you when you got off stage, there was a burrito to go.

That's more than the $40. Cause that's a meal. That's it. You got half of that that night and half of that for breakfast, like a soldier. You can use your 40 bucks for other things like cigarettes and alcohol and fucking narcotics. You know, it's, uh, do you ever, I think that people who missed that evolution, uh, really don't get the full circle of this career. Yeah.

Well, you know what? Um, I think something that's hurting young comics today is this is cause it wasn't around when we were started, which is called a bring, bring, bring a bringer shows. Like you can go on stage, but if you bring people, you heard of this, right? Bring a show, we didn't have bring a show. I had them in New York when I went back to New York at 94. Oh, okay. Bro, for every person you brought, you got a minute.

But yeah, you have no idea. Well, that took a while for that to get here. I was in Colorado and nothing was like that. The, the bookers would say, you know, if you want free tickets, let me know. I would be embarrassed to ask people to come watch me in those days. So I wasn't going to tell nobody, but when I went to New York at 93, it was an education because the comic strip and all those places, they let you go up. Oh yeah, you want to go on and go, come on down and see me.

Lee, you get so excited. You go down to guys like, I mean, I ain't disguising bump into this guy. My name is whatever I'm the manager, but talk to this guy. What's when you talk to this young college kid and he goes, what night do you want to do? He's like, I want to do Tuesday, 19 18th. I want to do the five 30 show, the six 30 show, the seven 30 show. Like I want to do the seven 30 show.

Okay. And I wasn't going to give you an envelope. Lee, and there's 40 fucking tickets and he was like, you got to sell these at 10 bucks a piece and keep five for yourself or eight for yourself. So you always 80 bucks that night or you don't go up shit like that. Wait, and I would just pay the 80, you know what I'm saying? I would just pay the 80 and sell it, give away the tickets to fucking as a sales thing or something like that.

I swear to God, I would be too fucking embarrassed. I would just pay the $80 and go on stage. That's how crazy I fucking was. That's not a bad deal though. No, it was hardly, but I would never going to sell the tickets. And then they had the other shows. The only guy that put me up in those days without people was the guy at the New York comedy club.

I went back to New York for nine months. I got him out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That used to where the two pay? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But the other one, the one on 78th Street. The one called Boston something. No, that's on Fort Street.

But there was one on 78th Street that I'm off of Broadway. And one night I did a spot there and I brought 10 people from my hometown. And this is when cocaine was fucking huge in my hometown. And they all came and were doing coke and they were fucking tipping the bar 10 to 10 bucks a piece. But I'll never forget that one of my friends at that time was a cop. And he was with all his childhood buddies. And I looked at him one time and he was fucked up.

He had coke all over his shirt, but he was standing there with his leg on the bar and his badge and his gun was sticking out. You could see the ring around his nose. He said, I'm like, don't wipe your nose. Like this was a long fucking time ago. And they drank so much that the owner came over to me and goes, you always have a spot here, just bring these animals back. And I couldn't figure it out.

Like they clogged the bathroom. That's when Chris Mozzilli was the doorman. I remember him. He owns, uh, uh, got thems now. He owns got thems. That's when Chris Mozzilli was, he was, oh my God. He had full set of hair. I'm going to ask him.

I see him in September. I go to New York in September, but that's what that hustle was, Lee. Lee, that was a hustler in New York. You just weren't going to get on stage. You had to show up at motherfuckers in those days. So I learned then, like it was in a way, it taught me a little bit. New York, that nine month experience in New York, and I was still reading the Judy Carter book and write her jokes like that.

What pisses you off, the 10 things that give you anger at that level. Those nine months in New York, I wasn't sure about comedy, bro. I was using comedy as a way of getting out of the criminal thing, but I was still, you know, I had just gotten into prison. So I was doing comedy, but not really. It was like my first year and a half in Jiu-Jitsu. I'd only go once a week. In those days, I would get on stage two times a month.

But then when I went to New York, well, all that little hustle in New York got me a little excited, but there was a bar called your old triple in. And I went in there one night and I saw John Leguizano at midnight. And bro, it clicked. It clicked. Cause I always thought that Willie Barcena just went on a tonight show and did eight minutes of material off the top. Bombing with notes, with notes working out and my whole vision came.

Two weeks later, I was on my way to Colorado. I said, I don't need this suffering. I get spots in Colorado when I'm showing up with 10 motherfuckers all the time. There's not as much cocaine in my face. Every time I go to New York to do a spot, I'd stop at a spot and get a package. In Colorado, I can't do that. I really focused when I went to Colorado, but it was because of that experience in New York that opened my fucking eyes to what, how I had to act.

Cause I had the same experience when I saw Damon Wayans back in the day. When'd you start? Right here. What club? What club? What was the first comedy act theater on Crenshaw on 43rd? Jesus Christ. Yeah.

With Chris Tucker, man. I used to give, I used to pick up Chris Tucker. He had an apartment. Um, uh, near the one on one of, uh, of a vine and Chris used to call me up because, uh, he didn't even have a car, man. And, uh, and, and, and it was him. Uh, D.L. Hugley was the host.

He was a young comic, uh, Joe Tory, Guy Tory wasn't even on the main show. Yeah. It was the first show and second show. Who did the comedy act here belong to? Sweet Dick Willie. No, uh, Michael Williams, Michael and Sharon Williams. Now who was the black actor that was in do the right thing? Oh, oh, oh, that died.

Bebes kids. Yeah. Yeah. Um, what, what do you mean? Yeah. Yeah. That's that's the theater. That's a theater, but he didn't own it.

He was just the, he was, that was his house. Then basically as a comic, but I was, I started with Pierre, all these cats. I'm trying to remember cats from those days, you know, uh, but, uh, so I, what's his name? Mark, Mark Hattish hanging with Mr. Cooper. Was that, what's, remember that show? Yeah, Mark, Mark, he's around.

Yeah. Yeah. He's on the TV show. Yeah. He's around. I was getting him spots at the high, bumped into a rouse. Yeah. And he goes, they won't give me spots at the store.

I go, see the Agostino at the haha. So the Agostino said he was going down a couple of nights a week and just working out and he was still really funny. He was funny, bro. Yeah. He's really funny. Yeah. Listen, 20 years in comedy is 20 years in comedy.

Something happens to you. All right. Something happens to you. I'm like, like you said, either, either going to quit and fold or get angry. Cause there's guys that we've been around, uh, uh, have been around as long as we have that you see them on stage and they'd have him. I've seen guys that I go, this guy's got, he has the same fucking material from 20 years ago.

I mean, from beginning to end, I mean, you know, I might not hurt anybody's feelings. Oh, you know, I'm going to see this guy probably tomorrow. You have a couple of these guys, man, and I'll tease them. I'll go, I'll see these comics. And no, no, I don't have the heart to say something, you know, but I don't have the heart to say nothing. I can't say no, no, but have you seen it Friday night? I had a spot somewhere.

Yeah. I'm not dead. Two minutes. All right. I hear, yo, I look up. It's comedian. I'm known for 15 years. We used to do all the little Spanish rooms together.

Did I think he was funny? I thought he had potential, you know, you look at these guys and you're like, that guy's, they all did be something and they have material that you laugh at. And they have material, you were right there with them. Okay. So I have the right to say this. Okay. When I'm right there with them in the trenches and now I'm somewhere else and

they're completely still in the fucking trenches. You follow him saying to you and I see that they work now, but it's not like it we used to now they blame me on things and shit. So it was like, it pisses me off. Like I get pissed off because at the end of the day in the back of my mind, I'm a fucking loser. I could flip this in a way and you couldn't fucking find a way to flip this fucking game for yourself.

You're still hawking around two minutes there. Hello. How are you? Wow. How can I get a guest set? Okay. Absolutely not. You're not going to get up here.

You're not going to get up because I'm first on working on an hour. And number two, guess what? The show's got people in. I worked hard all week on Twitter. You just want to go in there and blow that fucking rumor. And I told you the story five or six years ago, he was on my, I hadn't seen him. I wasn't at the store anymore. So he said he was on this international tour, killing it, promoting this motherfucker

like himself, like he was his own publicist. So somebody was doing a show one night and they asked me to come on. I went up there and there he is. And I go, you know what, bro? This guy was funny a couple of years ago. Let me watch this guy. Let me see what happens if he's really getting it. He had, he had a couple of jokes, but he had one joke dog that used to kill me.

It was about fucking killing animals or something. It used to fucking kill me. And it used to, it was one of those, he's one of those comedians that tells you the joke, but he rides it. He rides the joke out for six or seven minutes to the point where normal people like, when's this guy going to get the fuck off the stage? I'm sitting there enjoying him for like two minutes. And all of a sudden he rips into that joke.

Now it's 2008. He was doing that joke in 97, 98. He was doing that joke. I looked at him and I walked, that's why comics killed themselves, bro. Because when you, and I walked out of a fucking room, I'm like, you're doing the same joke from 10 fucking years ago. It's like, think about Lee, you're in a band and you, and every time you're on stage, you're playing the same song.

It's the same thing. You know, well, they must like it. They only have to deal with it. No, it's laziness, bro. It's lazy. It's laziness. It comes down to laziness. Well, no, I remember more with the band, but yeah, with comedians.

I don't think people pay a comic to see the same joke over and over again. I know after the second time I see the joke, I'm done. I'm done. That's why I hate doing comedy on TV. Because how many takes they do and they all giggle like it's funny. Stop. You're a virus in me. You're making me fucking feel bad.

Nothing's this funny. On the eighth take, they're still like, ah, stop, don't make me fucking punch in the fucking ear. It's, um, what are you reading? You got notes? I think so. You do got no, look at me fucking work. See what I'm saying?

You come from head and shit. Okay. So here's, so for people who don't know, I've been doing, I've been trying every, every Tuesday night, I have to do like three or four minutes of comedy. Oh, you begin on stage? A little once a week. But I don't think I want to do it as a profession, but it's, it's been fun. Um, but were you fearful at first, Lee?

I mean, you went from when we first started the podcast, he came in one morning stuttering, his face was red. I got him high and he goes, listen, when you do this podcast, I don't want to be on camera. I don't want to talk. Right. And you know, you can only talk so much by yourself. Right.

And I would ask him fucking creepy questions and he would turn red and look at me in his face like he was fucking like, you know, he molested him. Yeah. He would work all night and he would work till five and then come to my house at six. So he'd be tired. So I would notice that when I go, Lee, what do you think of the Yankees? You know, just look at me like, well, and then all of a sudden it just clicked.

I made him go on stage or something. We do a live podcast and, you know, the transition was easy. I knew it was going to be hard. And you personally, I knew, I knew he was the type of guy that if he thought about it, he would have a nervous breakdown. So I just got him sizzled. I just got no alcohol higher than fuck. He got like a little nervous breakdown for about a minute.

And then he snapped out of it because the marijuana saved them. And I did a live podcast with him and from day one, he took them. So there's people that, you know, they did a survey years ago, right? And the biggest fear is not dying. It's fear of speaking in public. Yeah. Yeah. That's the number one fear.

Yeah. Fear. Wrong fear. And I, so a guy like me, dog. I sit there and go, are you fucking crazy? Like to me, it came naturally. Like in the sixth grade, I would get up on stage every Friday and lip sync. My eyes adored you by Frankie Valley.

And so I was used to it. My mom had a bar and she wouldn't make speeches. And my mom would ask me questions in front of people. So I didn't think nothing of it. When I heard that statistic, I almost died. But then I have two friends that they don't know that they've even mentioned it to me when I come to the shows. If you even look at me, I will leave the show.

Yeah. And then one time my friend's dad came and I go, Mr. dealer and this motherfucker shot out of there and two days later, he goes, you can't do that to me. He goes, I had to take my heart medication in the car. And I was like, yeah, that was me. I like before. Yeah.

So when I see you go up, I don't even get involved. Do you have a set? Do you have a, I have a couple of things that I wrote down, but, oh, I thought you had a, you recorded yourself. We're going to hear a little bit of you on stage, bro. I don't watch them. I listen to them. You know, and I, I don't push them and I don't push them.

Well, that's why, you know what, when I was, uh, uh, I have some comics when I was coming up and I truly believe that our friendships have been severed because when there were young comics, I used to push them, but I was a dick, bro. I wasn't with that nice guy. You know, I was raised, you know, real hard ass. So I coached these guys like an asshole, you know, we would, we would, uh, go, you know, I take them on the road with me and then we'd get a, you know, we'd go back to the hotel and I'd say like, the fuck was that?

You sucked, man. And, and these guys would look like I didn't know how badly it hurt them. I thought I was doing them good. Do you know what I mean? But they did get better, bro. They got better, but I, but I didn't know they're going to hate me years later. You know, these guys, uh, anyways, man, uh, and so that's good. What you're doing, man.

No, no, no, no, no, I don't do anything. No, no, no, no, you don't do that. I don't do anything. Listen, I can't. That's good that you're not doing anything. It's so weird how people always want you. I don't, I don't know. I don't know what I wanted.

When I first got into comedy, I was a doorman. Then I became the sound guy at the comic store. No. Oh, yeah. At a club called wit's end. It's not there no more. It was there for like 25 years. I, it, it, it stopped.

I took the comedy class in March and it opened like in April. And the guy that taught the comedy class got me a job in there as a doorman. And then the sound guy quit. So they made me the sound guy and the dog guy. And then they made me the bar back. And then I got on stage and the owner didn't like it. So he was like, though, you can't work here and do comedy. So I just started doing comedy, but I was fiddling around with it.

I got it. I didn't follow that. I didn't know. But when I was there, my purpose to work at that club was to ask comedians. They told me, but they didn't tell me, they told me what to do and what things, but nobody ever tells you about the experience. Yeah. The experience of doing this for me right now.

Like I could just write a book on 25 years of comedy and people go, holy fuck. Like I'm ready to go like with a fucking microphone because it's too much. It's too much. There's not enough paper. There's not enough paper, you know, the education. Like I got to tell you something, man. I came from Cuba as people like to do a lot of things. One thing, bro, I went out of the country twice.

I didn't fucking like it, Willie. I don't like eating foreign chickens. The meat tastes different. The butter tastes different. Everything tastes different to me. I'm the, I'm captain comfort zone, you know what I'm saying? So, but one thing, bro, I liked that it showed me the country. Like I went to every fucking state to do comedy, except maybe I don't even fucking

know, even Utah, who when I first got into comedy, I wasn't allowed in Utah. You know, shit like me, people like me would not be allowed in Utah. And now that's one of my stops every year. Well, I'm sure, you know, when you first went to Utah, it was, was, was it where if you went to a bar, you had a sign application? It was that, cause that's how it was when I first started going to Utah. Like we're, when I heard the law since change, but, but like 20, 15, 18 years ago, if you went to a bar, every bar demanded that they had your application.

Like if you're applying for a job, I don't know if you saw it was. Yeah, bro, I was from Utah. I point the first place I went to in Utah was Ogden, Utah. I was close to a military thing. I forgot who, who was headlining Dave triple sent me there. That was my real legit road animal gig. Like that was it. I had been paid before a couple of noodles, but this was fucking eight

hour drive, you know, 60 bucks in my pocket. And I got there and they go, the hotel is only has one room. I had to share the room with the fucking headliner. That was my first experience. I got, he wasn't a creepy guy and he was okay. He was funny. You say that man. I've had the creepy guy.

Did you ever work a club called Spellbinders in Houston? No, you know, we know what happened to Spellbinders, Ralph. He fell through the stage there. No. And he's Ralph, he may, he fell. He was 500 pounds and he went on the stage there and he used to, he used to be in a strip mall years ago. He was one of the best clubs in Houston.

I did it years later when the improv took it over for a while, but Ralph, he fell to the ladies, you know, till this day, I bring it up to him once, once a month, if he calls me, we'll be talking and I'll go by that time. He fell to the stage. He fell through it. Oh, he didn't fall in front. He fell through the stage. There's a boy that was loose and Ralphie suit.

Oh, brother, you know, you know, he was roommates years ago with Joey Medina. Right. You know, I'll please. Okay. So I used to go over, over their house. I'll tell you a story, bro. Okay. So this is years.

I mean, I'm talking 18, maybe 20 years ago, Joey and Ralphie were roommates. We were all hungry at the time. I could barely pay my apartment, right? Nobody could. Okay. So I get to their place and I could smell pot roast, man. I got a giant pot roast. This thing could feed six people, bro.

I'm not kidding you. And I looked at Joey and I said, you guys are cooking, right? And then Joey gave me a look like, no, no, no, like stop, like, like, no. I go, what do you mean? And then he took, he goes, that's, that's Ralphie's. I go, that's Ralphie's like all of it. He goes, yeah, I go, fuck man, it was all his bro. So, so then I don't know how it happened.

Right. Me and Joey go like this. I'm going to McDonald's. I don't know who said to this day, me and Joey can't figure out who said it first. They go, hey, you want to go to McDonald's? Yeah, let's go to McDonald's. Fucking McDonald's. Let's go.

We go to McDonald's over in Hollywood, man. And we get to the counter. I ordered my food. He orders his food and the lady goes, yeah, that'll be 1275. And then I look at Joey, like you're going to pay, right? And Joey goes, no, I ain't got no money because you go pay. I say, I ain't got no money. I thought you were going to pay.

We had to walk out there and leave the food there, bro. And wait the pot roast. No, no, but we, that was all Ralph's. Let me tell you, let me tell you a creepy. You know this, right? This used to be off. This apartment was by Paramount. Yeah.

You made a right off of Melrose. And it was like in this, in this fucking, uh, it looked like apartments that were built in the forties for fucking like Martians or something. So Ralph, he lived there. Alex Raimundo lived there. And somebody else lived there. So one day I'm out doing a gig or something like that. I'm living in my car.

It's gotta be 98. Okay. And Joey Medina goes, bro, I'm going to do a USO tour. And Alex is living in Austin and he goes, the other guy lives in San Diego. Who's ever staying there? He goes, if you want, just pay utilities. Don't drink the alcohol or whatever. I stayed there for three months.

It was the weirdest three months. Why is that, bro? Of my life. It was just the weirdest three months of my life. Is the place haunted or whatever? At the time I was haunted and what was going on. Yeah. Demons following you.

It was like, uh, I had a girl on here in the podcast and I was talking about the dirtiest experiences of my life sexually. Okay. Like drugs and people that I knew, all those experiences pretty much like three or four experiences happened that Joey Medina apartment. I tell you, he's a freak, the dirty, and he wasn't there. He left in like June and came back in September and I started staying there. Like in June and the first two months I would watch TV.

I'd cook, I'd fucking clean up after myself. I did laundry somewhere else. I slept in the back. There was no air conditioner. It was fans, but fuck it. I was just happy to have a place to take a shower and do comedy and shit like that. But I was doing blow. I was out at the comedy store.

I didn't have no money. I was just doing blow. I'd go out and get a package, 20 bucks. But at that point that everything was really moving fast. Comedy was moving fast. People were starting to, that's the, that's the first time. Joey Medina was one of the first guys to do was independent CD at that time. In 98, he'd take the, with a midget.

With a midget. Yeah. He'd tape it. Yeah. And my, and one night we were at Ralphie May's house and he put the CD on all three of us fell asleep. So that was a big joke for a while. A dog.

I'm tired. Put the Joy Medina CD on for a little while. No disrespect to Joey. It was just something that happened one day. Joey was really good to me and opened up his house to me. Just off the top of my head, I remember three experiences that was so disgusting with women in that place and drugs that were just like animalistic. Like I still think about it today and go, what are those women thinking today?

Like I'm embarrassed. Like it wasn't, that's, wasn't supposed to happen. That one was supposed to come over for smoke or joint. One was going to come over to do blow and she was married. And one was a friend of Joey's that Joey sent me an email going, my friends coming up from San Diego, she's going to sleep in my room, let her sleep. I get home. There's no blankets on my fucking couch.

I go, what the fuck is this? I knocked on her door. I go, did you take the blankets? Can I take one of the blankets? She goes, I only have one blanket. She takes it off. She's completely naked. I go, what the fuck?

How does this happen to me? How does this dirty shit happen to a nice night? What a fucking night. I come home all coked up. I got a couple of rocks in my pocket and this chick's naked on it. Like that type of, and I was poor, tuna fish, mayonnaise and that type of shit. Like it was that type of comedy experience. I still remember going to the store.

I was getting spots at the store. I had a car that had no insurance and no registration and the brakes were low. Like I was about to kill somebody in that fucking car, but I was relentless with it. And finally I'm tired. I didn't give a fuck, Lee. Lee, that car went everywhere. But you, you know, funny you say that, uh, uh, Joey and Lee, I'm telling you, man, there's a, even though you're broke as fuck and you're eating that tuna, uh, out

of the can with the mail, you feel like you're in control of life because you're your own boss. Do you know what I mean? Like you don't have, you put no, but you don't have to go clock in anywhere, bro. You know, Joey, uh, I'm sorry, you know, I would do it all over to get the same result because me doing that tough life and just not giving up is why I'm still here today.

Like it's so weird. Those little moments that I still remember, yeah, other reasons. The experiences that led me to today, right? You know what I'm saying? Like all that shit now, I look back at all that shit, 10 years of shit people, 10 years of sleeping on couches and having a car with no insurance and no driver's license and no credit cards. Cause I was abandoned for 10 years.

I just disappeared. I didn't do nothing. Taxes, no license. I was the invisible fucking man, dog. It's fucking crazy to think about that. And then I met you guys and that was weird because I would hang out with you guys early, then I would shoot to the store and then I would see you guys every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

Yeah. And it was crazy. It was crazy. Yeah. We weren't allowed to the big house. No, no, no, no, but those rooms made me the comic that I am today. I always think about the brave bull, bro. Oh, the brave boys, you know, I always, you know, I see Rudy now and I always give

Rudy a hug because say what the fuck you want to say, bro. I did 300 sets there. 300 fucking sets at that brave bull. That was a time where Rudy paid what? Remember it was 15 bucks for Friday and Saturday, but then in the summer, you got summer pay. So it went down for 12, 50 a show or 15 a set. Right.

But you could probably get like a burrito. That was the big thing in those days. Get some food. If you could get food, that fucking made up for everything. That was a good gig. That was a good gig. Food and three drink tickets. Shit.

Shit. So, I mean, and then that's why that's one of the big deterrents is really is how long it takes. And sometimes like the last few weeks since I've started doing, I was like, fuck, I was an idiot. Maybe I should have started five years ago and that'd be comedy. But I don't think it would have been good because I would have been terrible. I would have been like, I would have been like, I would have puked on stage.

It's got to be your passion though, man. It's not, but yeah. And then that's all sorts of, it's got to be your passion. And I'm going to tell you something for young comics today. It's a different game than what it was when you and I started. Because when you were, listen, when I was doing kind of in my fourth year, I was already making, was I, was I make, was I getting rich? No, I wasn't getting rich on the road, but I was covering my

ACEs, I was just doing drugs and living like a nomad. But I couldn't, I couldn't have done bad. There was opportunity down now. They don't even give features hotel rooms. They don't give feature acts hotel rooms. They don't want to pay me. Then they don't give them a hotel room. These kids live on that app where they got to get out of the room at 12, and

then they don't get a hotel room to a right before the show or after the show. Because the hotel room is 92% off. They get up at like 39. When you work with these kids at certain comedy clubs, you're like, holy fuck. They got you living on a fucking app to see what hotels and they give you a room at 60% off at 10 o'clock at night. They don't even give you a fucking hotel room. To me, I was homeless.

Yeah. So those hotel rooms were a sanctuary for me in those days. They were fucking sanctuary. You got to figure, I was homeless from 95 to 2000 homeless couches, Josh Wolfe's couch, Ralphie Mays floor, Joey Medina's fucking thing. My car, I was homeless guys, homeless in Seattle. I lived with abroad. If I didn't live with her, I had an apartment with Josh Wolfe, which was

basically a towel and he got rid of that apartment. I moved into an office. There was no pictures of family smile. So those were the five years I gave up with fucking nothing. I mean, there was the hotel room, the office had a towel on the floor. But you know what, man, of all the comics of stories that I've heard of comics coming up, Joey, I think nobody burned bridges as much as you and me, man. No.

Cause listen, we're in LA, we're in Hollywood. We're in a place where people master kissing ass. And you, when I hear stories about you and then, and you know, the shit that I did, I think we were, some of those things that us had taken us a little longer to make some money. It was some of it. We caused ourselves, man. I remember doing the theater with you, bro.

I don't know if you remember this, it was the funniest. We did a theater in Bakersfield. Oh please. And, uh, and we were, for whatever reason, man, we all got paid. And, uh, so we got our checks. I had my check in my pocket and then I hear you screaming, man. And here's, and I'm like, and it sounds like, uh, you're going to fight like a fist fight and I go, holy shit, Joe, Joey's going to fight somebody.

So I run up these stairs, right? Cause, and I go in this office and I see this, this little dude just scared. And then Joey's, Joey's like, Hey, you cocksucker. I told you, if you're going to pay me, you motherfucker, you give me cash. You son of a bitch. I swear to God. And this is what cracked me up, man. I wanted to laugh, but I did it because it was serious.

And it was, but he goes, cause he had a brother, the guy had a brother. And he goes, if you don't give me my god, that mother, my god, that money, I'm going to grab your ass and shove you up your brother's ass. I want to die, man. Willie gave me the money, Doug. Willie gave me the money out of his pocket and took the check. We signed the check on with a Willie. Willie saw how mad I was because the guy was Valentine's day.

And the guy called me at five 30 and I already had plans. Me and my wife at the time, my wife, who's today, that was my Valentine. And we had already plans. We were going to go to Sizzler, we were going to live it up, have sex and shit. And also I get this fucking call to fucking go to a gig and I go, let's not come to the gig, but at least give me cash. I can get dinner up there. I got like a coupon and I'll never make it back.

So when I got up there, he thought I wanted the money for Coke. I had my wife with me. My wife was right there. My girlfriend was right fucking there. I lived with her. I wasn't going away with that money. In those days, she'd take it out of my fucking ass. She knew I was a fiend.

She knew the fucking deal. That's what pissed me off. And you know what? He signed me as a client. And then, yeah, then now we're not together no more, but we're always on the phone, we talk, yeah, yeah, yeah, we're always on the phone and we talk. And, you know, he's a big time manager. Yeah, yeah, he's a big guy.

So, but I remember you scaring the shit out on that night, bro. I respected a lot of your decisions. Like I had heard things that you had done made me laugh my ass off, but always. Well, I got, I got thrown out of your home club when I was open. Micah, which one? The comedy story, you know, for you yelled at Mitzi. Yeah, I yelled at her because, you know, the story, man. She was, she was out, she auditioned all the Hispanic comics in the, uh, the

belly room and every comic was up there, you know, shaking and baking for her. You know what I mean? And then I remember, uh, Johnny Sanchez was sitting next to her, like buttering up to her, remember all the comics would butter up to her and I remember going up to her and, but we did the jokes. We did our material without an audience and I started thinking, man, you, you know, that's fucked up Mitzi in my head. I'm thinking, you have the white comics in front of an audience.

You have the black comics in front of an audience, but you have us with just telling jokes to you. I thought I just felt like, you know, uh, uh, subhuman man. And in the middle of a bit, I just said, Hey, bitch, I go, what the fuck? And she's, what did you say? I said, what the fuck? You're going to, you're going to audition us like this, like we're some fucking animals and I grabbed the mic, you know, the story that we're all there.

It was like 12, uh, Latino comics. And I just threw the mic on the floor and I left and she said, what's this? I can, I remember as I'm going down those stairs in the valley room, I can hear, hear her screaming. Um, what's his name? What's his name? And I ran back up and I go, my name's Willie Barsana. You bitch, don't you ever fucking forget it.

And you know what, Joey, she never forgot it, man, because 10 years later, Danny DeVito was doing a fundraiser and he saw me somewhere and he did his fundraiser at the comedy store and he showed her all the comics he wanted and she said, yeah, everybody except this guy. So she had a good memory, bro. That's crazy. Well, you know, the stuff I did, man, and yeah, listen, but it's crazy because the comedy community always reacted to your actions and my actions, like they

were way off fucking line. But before the show, you and I were talking about the people we were raised with and how we were raised with and how we held somebody's word now. So this place rattles when you come from that type of backing to California, LA, if you're thinking of becoming an actor or a comedian and you move out here and let's say you're from a tight-knit Pittsburgh neighborhood, that's primarily Catholic, your mom hitting the head with a frying pan, your dad's blue collar, whatever the fuck you came from, you come from a different world in this.

Yeah. And when you come out here after a year or two, even when you get success, you're really looking at it going, this ain't right. That's what tests people. That's the willpower that some people look around and go, this ain't fucking normal. To me, it took the longest yard to go. This ain't normal. All right.

This is not normal. It's not reality. This is not reality. Well, we grew up and we were talking before the show started. And I think what the part of our personality is joy is we know, okay, some of the guys that we know growing up as kids that got murdered. Yeah. There was a, you know, it was a, I don't know, over here, there was drive-bys,

bro. There was crazy gang stuff, but there was a lot of guys too that, that growing up people that I know, they got killed for lying, for just lying or stealing from a certain group of people. They would, hey, that guy's dead. And then you find out, you know why? So you knew growing up, look, if I keep my nose clean, I know these guys are bad people, but all I have to do is not lie and I'll survive.

Right? It wasn't a while you had, you had to fight, right? But if you kept your nose clean for the most part, that was a sure way to stay alive and by, and that means you don't get into other people's business. You don't lie. And, uh, hey, I didn't see, I didn't see nothing. I don't know nothing. I don't give a fuck.

Right? I don't know nothing. Yeah. Totally all the time. And then we come to, we don't know nothing. You confuse people. I don't know nothing. What do you mean?

You, I don't know nothing. But then when they're in this comedy world with these actors slash comedians and everything, and they're the biggest backstabbing, lying weasels in the world. And you're like, dude, in the real world, you get slapped them in the mouth for that. And that's all stuff. Me and you. We can tolerate none of it. We can tolerate.

Yeah. I mean, not that way. I mean, I'm not the last thing from a tough guy, man. I'm a big pussy. But, you know, you know, even a pussy fucking smacks back, right? Who are you saying, Tarzan? No, but it's, I learned a hard lesson when I was younger that we, it's never really good to stand up for something.

Like, like, and that's fucked up in a way to say, I don't really know how to say it. But for whatever reason, I was at the camp and we were mad. My whole bunk was mad at a council or something. So we signed a petition on the wall and I walked up to the thing and I said, wait, we wanted this guy fired or something. And they, like, they sat me down. They're like, yeah, like they, like everyone riled me up. But like, and they were like, oh, yeah, we're with you.

We're with you. But then when they can win back, then not, yeah, not everyone's with you. So it's like, you can't, you can never really trust them. Everyone's always going to be with you then. But when it gets down to it, no one's really going to be there. You're somewhere. Can't be somewhere. I'm really white.

No, no, no. Where's you going to hold? Were you around this time? I'm curious, man. There's actually a listener who was a counselor. Um, hold where you were on this time. It's great. So, okay.

So you were 10 or 11. You had a little dignity to you. Yeah. You learned the lesson though. Yeah. You learned the valuable lesson. It's really weird, but really hot. No, you know, uh, I was telling, I was telling, I, I know Willie and I

respected Willie 15 years ago because I knew Willie was doing something. I knew Willie would see you and he'd see something in you. He'd invite you to his rooms and his rooms used to be packed in those days. And there were Mexicans and they were drinking in there ready to laugh. And there was always the two token white guys and token black guy, but there was always hot chicks. And I remember going to the one on two Wednesday was El Coyote. Yeah.

But Tuesdays was the one by the car dealership. And I remember the first time I went there, you came to 40 bucks and somebody put coke in my hand in the tent on the way out. You had to walk through a tent. Yeah. So the show is inside, but once you walked out that side door, there was a 20 foot tent where you could smoke and shit in there. So I put a coke rock in my head.

I'm going to come here. But I, you were helping a lot of comics. I remember you coming up to me a couple of times and saying, say this, that joke's funny. And I knew where you were coming from. And I respected you because you won the fucking tonight show. You're in the fucking tonight show, bro. Okay.

That's it. That the proof is in the pudding. You got the right to say something. It's that dude who don't get spots that comes up to you and goes, dog, you know, it'd be funny. No, no, none of your fucking jokes. You don't even know what the fucking tag is. You're in the back watching me and shit.

You're still signing up to fucking get spots and shit like this. Those are the guys that pissed me off. When you'd come up to me in those days and go, put that there and put that there. I'd go right back to the store and do exactly what the fuck you told me because I saw those tonight shows and I go, Willie's a lot of things, but we can write a fucking joke, Jack, from fucking scratch. And it wasn't until a couple of years ago because I hadn't seen you no more. I hadn't seen you.

You were doing this. You were doing that. And one night I get home and pull, I put some showtime special on Willie Bar center and I was floored. I was floored. Like I remember days later seeing a bunch of young comics and going, dog. The show that made me do comedy was, uh, uh, when I saw Dice's special, that's what really pushed me.

I liked the beyond the sunset strip, but there was, uh, uh, I saw Nick the Apollo one night on a, on a young comedian special live from Tempe, Arizona. Nick's one of the good guys, by the way. Everybody bombed, everybody bombed in that show. Ray Romano bombed, Janine Garofalo bombed, David Spade bombed and all of a sudden this fucking monster from New York went up there. That didn't give a fuck. And he said, is this place hot or is it me?

Or is this place 200 yards from the fucking son, the air conditioner in your room and Walt Disney woke up in my room. He was frozen and he just went, he destroyed the fucking room. I don't know where I'm going with the story. Oh, he was a good writer at the time. You could tell that he would spend time. Yeah, you could tell. You could, even his jokes were raunchy or whatever, but you could tell

they were well written jokes. And when I used to watch him and you, I used to go, these guys are doing something that not everybody else is doing in that group of joke type people. You know, which Sainto has a little bit of that. By a little something to cheer up the room. Where's the, where's the Februan? What's the name of it for breeze? Okay, Joey, but, uh, no, they was, no, I like what, no, I got to tell you, Lee.

So I get a call, I'm on the road and I get a call from just like three years ago when the showtime special came out. And my message from Joey is, Hey, cocksucker, I just saw your showtime special. It's fucking hilarious. I swear to God, if you were white, you'd be rich. It was just, it was just, Lee, it was just written well. You could tell he had the notes. See, planned it out.

You could tell he knew exactly where to look at the camera. He had all his marks down. And I sat there and I go, this is a true fucking professional, man. And it's really weird that when we started the podcast and I, we categorized comedy and we were talking about lens and I got a, I got a problem. I love everybody. And when I see comics doing their shit, I really like it. But every once in a while, you get a person dressed up as somebody.

And in LA, this is active ill. And before I got here, there was a guy that was running game and he was very successful. He was selling his soul and the people around them were selling his soul. He claimed to be a Mexican guy, but there was no, he had 10% Mexican blood in them. The blood he had in them was a fucking pirate. He had the blood of a pirate, you know, and dog, he got on my last nerve.

Like every move he made, it rotated me. And that was Jeff Valdez, you know, and I remember going up to that night. I lost my cool. Like, you know, that was at the store, right? Is that what you're doing? Marilyn Sting, you know, I couldn't have him in the room. Yeah. Like that's the type of person that I'm like, I knew what he put Marilyn through

because Marilyn used to call me crying and say, Jeff, make me showcase again. He's all, you know, he, but then I know he gave her a show and all that stuff. And he was only paying the $50 an episode. I don't know what the fuck happened. Oh, me in my mind, I didn't want him there. You lost it. I was there, bro. I was going to, I felt peppered.

I go, man. Oh, I went off. I first off, I hadn't done coke in seven or eight days. So right there, dog. I was dying inside Willie. I was dying to bump into a guy like him. You know what I'm saying? I hadn't done cocaine.

At that time, it was like four or five days. It was killing me. It was fucking killing me. And now Marilyn dies. Yeah. Like Marilyn fucking dies. And what happened was I went to New York and I had a great hotel room. My buddy said, I got these three miles, bro.

Take my, this whole towel. It was in sea caucus. And for the first time I'm not in the single. I've been like this fucking sweet with booze and their refrigerator. And for some reason I go, you know what, bro, I don't want no cocaine time. I did a benefit for the cops on Friday. And I did a benefit for the high school basketball team on Saturday. Sadly, again, I went to the fucking show on the way home.

Somebody said, you want to take a ride? I go, and that night Marilyn died and I came back the next day. And then the, everything was on Wednesday. And when I went to the fucking thing, there was a war going on because Paul said he was going to pay for the funeral, but he didn't want Montoya there. I mean, it's a fucking funeral. Right. And next thing you know, I'm sitting there.

It's Wednesday. And I see fucking Jeff out desert, 12 o'clock, walking into the church. That already started fucking me. I waved at everything, but I'm like, what is this fucking hypocrisy? All right, all right. You know, and then I went home and people called me up and they said, you got to go down there. And I'm like, I'm not going down there.

I was hurting so much. Are you talking about the store? Yeah. I didn't want to go either, man. I don't know who talked me into going with my wife. Who talked me into going? Jody Ferdy. I was, I was in my underwords at home and I told my wife, I'm not going.

I'm not going. And she goes, you know what, you should be respectful. It shouldn't be about you. And that's why I went because I hate going to those things, you know, I did not want to be involved. I wanted to go to bed at eight o'clock. Anything after eight o'clock in those days, I was in pain. I'm not doing coke on all those days.

I do as much as I could. And I smoke, pot, smoke, pot, smoke, pot until I just passed out at nine 30 from the fucking pain. And I remember going, you know what, fuck it. I'll go down to Maryland's and on the way back, I'll get a package. And dog, when I walked in there and they said, you go up there first. I didn't see Jeff. No, no, I did see Jeff.

I saw Jeff getting food. He was getting free food, him and his wife and the attorney. And I go, look at this motherfucker. Oh, fuck. And right there he signed his own death warrant. And right there I went to the side of the stage dog and I was fuming. And the Spanish check came up to me and she goes, you got to open up the show. Or you got to go up first or something like that.

And I go, okay, I'll go up first. And I went up there and I'm up there, dog. And I'm trying to do material, but I can see him from the corner of my eye. And my blood pressure was boiling. I hadn't done coke in a few days. And it went from, it went from no material to fucking torture. Fuck you. Fuck your wife.

You're a fucking, you're a fucking Jew, Mexican fuck. Oh my God. I go, you're too greasy to be a fucking Mexican. Too much of a fucking slime to be a Jew. You're fuck. And he's like, my name's on the wall. You sucked as a comment. Oh, that's right.

What your fucking Jew hat on with the dingles. He used to put a yarmulke on with little dingle bells, like a Mexican would, whatever the fuck. He used to drive me crazy, dog. When I saw those pictures and he bought a club with Judy Brown, he was just wrong. Like, I just thought he was wrong. And I thought, I thought in the back of my mind, like so many Mexican shit I got off on him, but nobody did. And I was pissed.

I was like, this guy, and then he did a second festival where he rented out the theater on Vine and the other one. Do you remember he had George Lopez and Rudy and everybody signed up for it. And then a week before everybody pulled out and then he kept calling me up, going, come on, I'll send the car for you. And I'm like, bro, you're making $55 a ticket. You're not paying nobody. And that's when I really got pissed off at him.

And I just didn't like it. No, I'm like, I don't need these fucking people in my life. No, that was indicative of a lot of the people that were there right now. They're in LA, bro. That's why, you know, uh, I was pissed off half the time, man. But these, I was telling you, when we, before we even gotten there, I said, man, I hated all these meetings you go to and these cats give you hugs and they tell you how much they love you.

And then you go home and then your agent, my agent calls me and tells me, yeah, that guy fucking hated you. What do you mean hated me? Fucking guy gave me a hug. I thought we're best friends. He was so much bullshit in this business. And that, that guy was, was a, you know, an example of the, of the bullshit that we are, you know, well, that's the thing that we couldn't deal with at

first, you and I, we didn't know how to navigate ourself. You made up, you said late early on that you went to a, a festival one time and you weren't socially, you, you felt like you weren't socially. So this day, I don't feel socially accepted at those functions. Yeah. No, I feel like the odd man out, man. I don't go to them. I don't want to go to festivals.

I don't want to do none of that stuff. I don't want to, I don't want to have to be at a bar with people talking at no time. I don't like that no more. I can't lie to you. I can't stand specifically listen to me. I grew up in a bar. Okay. Let me just ask you a question.

Most people don't go into a bar to their 14. I grew up in a generation where if you, if you were a dad and you brought your kid to the bar, they could sit him at the bar, they could drink soda and watch the game. I did that with my dad all the time. Yeah. You can't do that to that. You can't even think of doing that.

Really? Yeah. At eight o'clock, we serve alcohol. There's nobody on their 18. We'll lose our license. Everybody's walking around fucking scared. That sucks. That was the best.

I used to get shilly temples. Yeah. That's what you do. You eat a thousand fucking cherries until your mind goes crazy. You get a fucking headache like that. What was I talking about? I didn't know. We're talking, no, no, we're talking about Valdez, man.

You know, and how, you know, the sliminess of, well, that shit, bro, that for five or six years, I didn't get worked because of that. In fact, a couple of years ago, I was involved in a project. And all of a sudden they stopped calling me and I asked a friend of mine. They said, did you go off on a producer a couple of years ago at the comedy story? He didn't even know the story. And I go, yeah, one.

He goes, they don't want you involved in the project. Oh man. I didn't, hey, listen, I spoke up for what I believed. He disappeared. Right. He's gone. So he's around. He's got a Facebook page.

Yeah. You know what, man? I'm actually pretty sure I'm meant to at least suspend my Facebook page. Why would I? You said something to me last night. You said that, like, whatever you're doing, whatever you're looking at, I want to take it away. And I think what it is, I think it's Facebook.

I think it's too much. Cause there's just so much. Listen, man, we had this conversation last week. I was at a bar last night trying to do comedy. Okay. I got a cheese tray in front of me and I got waffles with fucking. And that's for everybody. Right.

Rodrigo was there. Burke Christ, it was there. Joe Perez was there. Lee was there. People coming over and saying hello. Then there was a break in the bar, Willie. And there was three more. And there was two Latin chicks, two chubby little Mexican girls with a black

dude, and they were all giggling. And then next to them, there was another guy and then two more guys down the corner. Out of all those people, there was two people who weren't looking at that fucking phone and it was me and Joe Perez. And for the first time last night, George Perez, no, this kid named Joe, he's a young kid, 20 years old. That was a funny, funny kid. I'm sitting at this bar and I'm watching this baseball game and all of a

sudden I look over and I see all these people, the guy next to me is texting his fucking taxes going on. This guy's texting. The three chicks are looking at one phone. Giggling, they're playing like fucking pokey man at the bar. You know, and I looked at them and I go, when I was a kid, I would be at a bar drinking, I'd be drinking, I'd be having a good time. I'd be eating the cheese.

You mean the moment? Engage, engage in conversation. There was 12 people at the bar and seven of them were on their phones. Like it was the end of the world. And they don't know me. I'm like, I said something to Lee and Bird. I go, get off the fucking phone. You guys got to stop.

You guys got to stop. It's got to end somewhere. I wish I could wake up one day and just delete everything, but it doesn't take that much of my time. I get up, I do it in the morning and I move on with my day. Sometimes I want to smoke and join on Periscope. That takes three fucking minutes to be very honest. I get lost in it and it takes up probably hours of my day.

Yeah. I know your home fucking ticket ticket because here's what happens. They have these videos. So you scroll with place. Haha. That was a funny video. And then just scrolls up and there's like 8,000 and you have to keep doing this. No, I don't.

That's when I call you at eight and you're telling me you're sending emails. I know you're fucking around with that. Looking at stupid videos of Chinese people. And giggling and listening to podcasts. You're out there fucking around. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. So yeah, that's why I'm thinking about deleting it. Don't delete it.

Just take it off your fucking phone. Start taking shit off your phone that delete you from your fucking life. Start taking shit off your phone that is taking you away from life. Next time you caught up in your phone, look up and go, I could have just got shot in the fucking head. Next time you're in that little pond with the bird where you go smoke a cigarette or drink your fucking coffee and you look out and you look at your fucking phone, look up one second and look, think to yourself, right now I

could be getting shot in the head of terrorists could just take me. And if I was looking up, I could have caught this motherfucking hitting under a tree and play fucking possum. You understand me, Lee? No, I don't want to die, man. Do you want to die? No, that conversation we had last week about Ari, it's really sunken me where he threw away his iPhone and he went back to the little phone

and he said he was taking too much of his time. I don't, you know, this, I don't use the shit on this. I don't need this. They just, I've been with sprint for 20 fucking years. Yeah, no, I would be lost without GPS. So I need it right now. Cause you, I don't know how do you think people got around with the fucking horse and buggy?

You think they had GPS when I first got here, they used to give you a paper thing and you had to go to where you wanted to go. And it was page eight, 19 and you had to get a magnifying glass. Thomas guy, Thomas guy. That was the most annoying fucking thing in the world at Thomas guy. What are you going to do? Well, I'm, you know what a Thomas guy does. And listen, every time I've been in the car with you, you've got me lost with

that fucking piece of shit. You one time that the Agostino cost me an hour of my life, taking me around the fucking thing, him and Emma Wong, whatever a fucking name is. Anyway, I wanted to talk to you guys about something that, that, that's real important to me. And the one of the reasons why Willie's here. Wow. I got the special.

I'm shooting it for new wave, October 15th. I did the math. I was thinking about it one day and two people have given me jokes. I mean a hundred people have given me jokes. Two times I used to joke. One time Willie gave me a joke, like in 99, he goes, you should tag it like that. At one of those theater, Latin things up in fucking, uh, Texas.

No, up the corner here. We used to do not, yeah, Modesto and all those years ago, there was a lot of action up there and there was a black dude. That was a football coach, a high school football coach. And he used to do rooms up there every six weeks and he didn't pay as bad and we get a whole lot of room and smoke pot and giggle. But one night you told me one joke about a boat or something from Cuba, but I should try it and I tried it.

And the other time a girl gave me a joke and I did it and a year later, some guy accused me of stealing his joke and I went to her and I go, did you write the joke? And she goes, no, I heard it. Well, I go, why would you give me a fucking stolen joke? So after that, I don't listen to fucking nobody. I just mind my fucking business because you end up doing somebody else's fucking joke and you whatever. But I thought about something.

I go, you know what, I've heard of people having a special and hiring six writers to do the special and they do that dirty work. I didn't want that. I wanted to do the dirty work. I wanted to be a part of the dirty work and be a part of the process and go out there. This is going to force me to be a better comic. And I said to myself, who can I fucking work with as a coach?

Like if I wanted a fucking coach and stand up to talk to me about stand up, I would trust myself or maybe two people and there isn't two people. There was one person that was you. Bro, when you, uh, I gotta tell you, man, that was very special. When you, when you, when you came up to me and said, uh, Hey brother, would you work with me on, on my special? Because I've always been a big fan of yours, bro. So when you told me that, I was like, hell yeah, man.

I thought about it and I broke it down in my head and I go, listen, man, he's the only guy I'm going to listen to. Why? Because of the night shows because that is the best form information of a set a human being could do in my world. I admire that for people who talk shit on the tonight show. They can suck my dick because you want me to tell you something? I could kill the tonight show because it's my world.

It's four minutes and 58 seconds, but I'm fiercely terrified of it. You understand me? So when I see somebody kick ass on it, I understand the level of how good they are and the level of professionalism that it takes. Like you said before, it's a corporate gig. To me, it's too big. My circuitry would go off. I would start talking to the audience and ask people what they do for a living.

What do you do for a living? You haven't been to Connecticut, like I would fucking not handle it. So when I wanted to put, you know, I want to still put my life into it and my words. I wanted you to come and instruction that shit. And that's exactly like every time I leave you, I saw, I talked to you for an hour. The reason why I only talk to you for an hour was not cause I don't like you. It's because I got a processor. You just told me, you just blew my fucking mind.

You know, you just blew my fucking mind. I never even thought of comedy writing the way you think of comedy writing. I have a complete different admiration for comedy writing. Now, now, because of my connection with you, I'm never going to throw away material again. Once that special is shot, I take a week off and we get back to the tape recorders and we go to every dirty bar and fucking recede it and we get an hour and six months. That's the only one I'm going to do it. That's the way you do it.

And then the next six months, you chop that motherfucker up at the seasoning. That motherfucker up and that's how you do it. That's how a fucking professional comedian does it. And I did not do it like that forever. So now I'm re-energized. Now I know how to do this. Now I know you taught me the steps, how to get in there. And we're going to, every time I shoot a special, it's me and you to the wheels

fall off because I listened to you. I wouldn't listen to this from the other room. I would have never listened to this on the other room. I'm going to tell you, I got to, I got to tell you, you know, you, you, when we were talking, uh, I think yesterday or a couple of days ago, and you said how, how much, uh, because you're around UFC and Joe Rogan and you're around all these guys that fight and you're into Jiu-Jitsu and you said to me, man, Willie, uh, I realize now how martial arts evolves, how, how guys go from learning something

to evolving and getting even better. And you said you applied it to your life, right? To, to, to your stand up. Yes. Okay. Now here's where I, I, I, I, I applied the same thing. You know, Ruben Castillo, I don't know if you ever heard of the guy. He's funny fucking guy, man.

This guy, three losses, right? He lost to Salvador Sanchez, Alexis Arguello and Julio Cesar Chavez. All right. This guy is funny as fuck. But he goes, Hey, Willie, I'm going to tell you something. If it wasn't for those three fucking guys, I would have been the greatest fighter of all time. But, but anyways, this Ruben Castillo, man, is, uh, this guy, he used to do a show,

a boxing show here in LA years ago with Chick Hearns. They used to do a show on, on a local tellage. I really pick his brain when it comes to boxing and, and, and that circle of people, he's around. Anyways, when, when, when, uh, when I realized how they coach like really good boxers is they don't change his style. What they'll say is, let me see you box and, and you could box awkwardly, but they'll, they'll teach you to fight from that.

They don't change you. They'll change. Okay. You're going to be an awkward looking fighter, but you're going to be a good awkward looking fighter, or you're going to be a South Paul, but you're going to be a good South Paul. You know what I mean? When, when I, when, when, when, when I hear you on stage, first, first of all,

boy, I cracked the fuck up all the time to me is just, it's, it's easy. It's an easy gig, man, because all I, all I see is, is, is just telling you going, Hey man, instead of doing joke, a joke, like, uh, uh, one, two, three. Why don't we, why don't we start with three and, and then put two here and one here and has, it has a smoother transition. That's all I do, man. That's all I do to your creativity. You know, and the fact, honestly, brother, I'm a tight thing.

There's not a lot of comics I respect. I mean, you and I have been, you've seen me at comedy clubs where I walk in and I probably say hi to two people of the, there'll be 20 comedians in the room. And there's only one that I go up and shake hands with and say, how are you? Good to see you. How's the family? Everything I do my set and I leave. I, I, I don't like a lot of people, Joe.

You know that. And, and, and listen, man. Uh, the fact that, that I, that I'm, uh, you trust me with this. Hey, bro, it's a privilege, man. It's a privilege, bro. Hey, man, I can, you know, I, I'd like your fans to check out my, uh, my Netflix special, bro. Now, how long has it been on Netflix six weeks?

And what's the name of the special called the truth hurts. Okay. You watch this fucking special guys and you send me a fucking tweet or you send William Tweet, go watch your fucking favorite comedians and then watch this, this special, watch how he prepares his material, watch his conviction, watch how every, watch it, not once, but twice, three times. If you want to really learn, watch where he puts and positions his words. That's something that you can't even go to college for.

You really can. That's something that comes from, and I always watched you do it. And we sat together and you're like, I think you should say that word. And I would go home and go, Jesus fucking Christ. And then I would go on stage and it would fucking just work like a charm. And that's the first time, Willie. I wouldn't take instructions from a lot of people. Hey, bro, what?

They suck dog. No, I've been seeing you a lot more recently. I haven't been, I haven't been calling your shows as much, but now I have. And you, but you haven't been repeating it. So what are you doing? Are you just trying new stuff every time here? So what I'm doing is you tape it. Willie tapes it.

If Willie tapes it, he takes it home and he gives me notes. If you send it to me the next day, I sit with a blank notebook, a blank notebook. I put the date on top and I listened to the whole recording with your phones on. And then I really don't do much. I can't lie to you lately. I've been laughing. I cannot lie to you. Some of the shit you taught me the next day, I forget about.

Now I'm hearing it. Now I'm hearing it. I'm going, wow. So now I understand that Tuesday nights for me is 30 minutes of material. And I'm going to get eight. And it's not really material. It's just a couple sentences, maybe a word, maybe hummus dick, maybe something we said, you know, you threw me an idea the other day and I wrote it down.

And I'll wait till the improv to give you all that so you can watch it. We'll do our thing next Friday night at the ice house. We're at the ice house next Friday night. The second September, September, the second. Yeah, we're doing two shows on Friday night. So I'll get to do whatever material you want. But whatever, whatever time you want me to do, I'll just take two sets that night and do the first show to two, two, half of it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The other half like that. And I don't care what the audience thinks, just so you can hear it. And they'll give me a CD then I'll work on it again during the week up there. And then Friday and Saturday, you and I together again at the improv on Melrose on September 9th and 10th. So we'll tape it again there and we'll look at that the following week. I go to Austin, I come back with five more sets.

Then I go to New York and I come back with four more sets. Then we got a week off that week. I see you like two or three times. I go to Columbus. I come back from Columbus and I got Tuesday night at the comedy store. We'll run it again. And then the week before when I come back from Columbus, Tuesday night before Chicago, I run it again in the belly room.

I go to Chicago. I tape the special at a baby, man. That's the process I'm using. That's the training. We see this is this a man without a plan is not a man. Nietzsche, I'm not going to get another shot at this. OK, I barely got this one. I got one special in 25 fucking years.

If you think, listen, you and I discussed something and I discussed it the other day on the fucking show on Sunday and I give props when props is due. You and I watched the fight and I've been telling you the main thing I got about MMA was every time a fighter showed up and says he's got a strong punch. And after every fight, that's all he had to tell me. He didn't evolve. He didn't go to jujitsu class. I didn't even try to wrestle.

GSP used to go to gymnast and he go to mumbo class. Yeah. And then he go to Pilates with broad. Then he go swim. You know, that's why GSP became who GSP was. I could go, you know, me, I could smoke 15 joints, do a bit about sucking pussy. Do 15 minutes about getting my dick sucked in the shower. I do a bit about something generic and then I'll close with something disgusting. And you watch it and you go, yeah, he was funny.

But after 20 minutes, he lost me because it was the same Joe Diaz. He didn't evolve. He didn't evolve. I don't want that in my special. I want it. I want people to see him go out. Joey actually put work in like Colin McGregor. He's disciplined.

Yeah. He still said fuck 80 times. The last time I saw it, he said it was 198. He didn't say pussy. He didn't do, you know, listen, when I'm on stage and people are laughing, I'm doing a sex joke. You think I feel good? Look at me. I'm not 20 no more. I'm a 53 year old dude doing a joke about eating pussy.

It's funny. We giggle, but it's not what I it's not what I want the country to see. Whether it goes on Netflix or or fucking showtime, wherever it goes, I'm going to have one shot at this. So this is why I wanted to show up like fucking Colin McGregor. The most important is I'm prepared. Yeah. That's it. When you're prepared, your special comes true.

You do your hour 15, your hour 10. They chop it into 55. They show a tape of you jerking off with a tuxedo on with your buddies in the beginning and you got yourself a special. Let me give some shout out to get you out of here. Let me give a shout out to my man. Chess seven, Raj, Don Wrangler, Cleo, Jake Music, Richie, Manganus, McAnus.

I don't know what the fuck you and Irish do. I love you, Chad Riza, Greg and Lynn up there in Seattle, holding it down for Uncle Joey and Matthew Oliveris. Don't forget I'm at the ice house Wednesday night in the back. So I'll do another hour back there. Nice. And send that to your August 31st. And then I'll be back there. The ice house has become fucking workout headquarters.

All right. That's it, man. Willie, I'm happy you came on. What's the name of your special again? No expectations. No, it's called the truth hurts. What the fuck? It's called the truth hurts. It's a and it's right now the truth hurts.

And if you want to see how it works, because see, here's what the problem is right now. And it really burns me up because now it brought in my horizon, a lot of things. It brought in my horizon on music. It brought in my horizon on. We were talking about the ABA and the NBA. Right.

And we were talking about the differences of how the ABA was for players who went to college, but they had to go to a community college. They fucking got three chicks pregnant in the eighth grade. Their family was on welfare. He didn't take the A.C.T.s. He shot a teacher in high school. But they end up in the ABA

and they led the league in scoring on a tremendous basketball place. The ABA the NBA was more civilized. Right. The same thing happens in comedy, but you people don't see it. OK, you have these great run of comedians that are media-fueled comics.

OK, you have a great run of them. And some of them deserve the publicity and one of them couldn't fucking make you laugh if they had a gun to their fucking head. But that's just the way life goes. The media stands behind them and fuels them. You guys embrace them and there's nothing you could do. Then you have this other level style of comic.

And let's say it's a comic like myself, a comic who's been around for a while. And one day he pulls a stunt, but he does something and he fucking people start coming to his shows and he starts getting better as a comic. But eventually he moves on like everything else. Even everybody moved from Led Zeppelin. There's nothing you could do.

It's evolution. But those comics that do that, that have been around and then their popularity goes away because the show goes away or the tonight show goes away or whatever the TV show goes away, these guys keep working. The public just dismisses them.

But these guys are still, there's some guys that take their $6 million and they go fuck stand up comedy. That's what punk ass bitches. But there's comics that are like, I was a comic then and I'm a comic now. That's what I'm cute to do. And they keep improving.

But meanwhile, you're going to see the comics that the media is pushing on you. This guy's in your hometown and you're like, I've never really heard of him. They said he was on a TV show in the 90s on ABC. I really don't want to see him. You know what I'm saying? There's a lot of great comedians that are working today

that nobody goes to watch because everything else is fueled at this style of comedy or they have to have a tattoo or a beard or glasses. Yeah, I thought I was in the whole town. I was watching comedy. I saw 10 comics I never seen before. But they were all dressed weird. Like they all had something like beards.

Like three of them had beards. You know what I'm saying? Like they're going to cut a fucking tree. It's a manufactured persona. Right, it's a manufactured persona. They saw the girls with tattoos and half her head was shaved. And then another guy came up

and he was playing the fucking nerd. And another guy came up and he was Belushi Junior. He was trying to jump up like the fucking dude who died from drugs. So it's just really weird. You are one of those guys that are fucking a great comedian. Thank you, brother. And someday somebody's going to notice

a picture of you or put a statue of you up. You know, you look at, you know, I heard the story a couple of weeks ago that Ralphie May was at the improv one night, fucked up on fucking whatever. And he looked over there was a picture of Seth Rogen up there and he took it off the wall and ripped it up and broke it in half or something like that.

And he told the improv so then a couple of weeks ago he went to Montreal and he had to do something. Seth Rogen was the judge. And Seth Rogen heard about what Ralphie did. And I don't know what the fuck the story is. And in our world, we know who the, you know, it's like when somebody says to me, well, that TV show is great.

He's great on that show. Well, he's a comedic actor. He's not a stand up comic. That's different. You just said in the beginning, you were there with D. L. Hugley. This is 26 years ago. Chris Tucker's a guy.

Chris Tucker, Pierre. These guys are still around. They're still fucking comedians. These guys didn't give up once the TV show went down. I know I, wasn't he back on the road? Chris Tucker got back. Yeah, yeah. He started traveling again.

Started giggling again. What type of dog? It's weird how fake the awards are too. Cause there's one of those guys who, a comedian no one really has respect for, but has a show and all I've heard is everyone hates it. And I was driving down the street today. This is the billboard.

Four Emmy nominations. I'm like, I haven't heard one good review of this show. How does it have four Emmy nominations? You know, you just, you know, it's funny. Cause he, Joe, he touched on something, man. That I've always talked about on stage with, with the little bit of audience, like, you know, when I get my audience to come see, I got,

I got a small audience, but those motherfuckers are loyal, bro. Loyal, you know? I know. We did the fucking shit in the hangar. 60 people had taken pictures. He signed morale, let's play the drums. You had it going on and shit.

No, bro, but I always said like this, man, like, like these, you know, like you said, comics that, that for whatever, I don't know, whatever happens, man, the industry kisses their ass, loves them. These guys, these guys know how to play the game. And to me, what they've become is like, like I ask them, think of a hamburger right now.

Right away, they say McDonald's. What's the, what's the worst burger you can have? There's a Big Mac. You know what I mean? It's just, but if you really think of a good burger, I know a place called Rick's Burgers and it's on Fletcher and Riverside. It's just, it's just one place.

Well, they might have two. I think there's one in Alhambra, the guy saved some money and bought another. But I'm like a Rick's Burger, bro. I just don't have that McDonald's money, but fuck my burger, it's delicious, brother. You know what I'm saying? But listen, I hope your people check out,

check out the special and hit me up. Let me know what you guys think. If you think it sucked dick, tell me, hey, you know what? It sucked dick. But if you liked it, hit me up. Listen, one thing about these people knows I don't like them. I wouldn't have you in that chair if I didn't have the utmost respect for you.

So they know, they know. They're sick and tired of buying fucking bullshit and seeing bullshit. They want to watch good shit. If you want to watch a real comic, you watch this fucking special and take notes. And you might, whatever, say, wow, listen, watch what he's fucking doing.

You could watch the work in it. You ever go to a fucking place and you look at a statue and it's a guy that just fucking put a mold on it. But then you go to another place and you see a statue and you go, wow, I can see the work and the detail that guy put into that. Then the restaurant owner will come over and you'll, can I ask you a question about that statue?

Where'd you get it from? Because I took the guy's 16 fucking years. That's what it feels like when you see Willie Barcena performing. You're not gonna see, you're gonna see a well-structured fucking show. Sometimes it goes off the rails. You know what I'm saying?

Sometimes there's a couple cocktails involved. It shit happens. That's what sure it was. That's right. But every fucking ain't done wrong with that. Let me give a shout out to my main motherfuckers, Datsusara, baddest motherfuckers out there. I really liked, listen, I got about 30 more pounds

like a fit into the fucking gi they sent me and I can't wait, I'm gonna do flying sidekicks in the fucking hand with the whole thing. I'm in love with their bags. I'm in love with the fanny pack. You know, I don't travel without the fanny pack. The wallet, the fucking iPod, the fucking rolling papers, the lightest.

They got rash guards. They got fanny packs. They got big bags. They got little bags. Listen, everything about them, I'm impressed with. The durability of their fucking bag that they sent me out. Like I said, I got 19 pockets. They sent me a fucking canteen.

The same one Robert Duvall gave the soldier in the apocalypse now. He can trick out any guy who's holding his guts to drink out of my canteen and shit. But no, all fucking around. Do me a favor, go to DSGear.com. Take a look at the great selection of rash guards, geese, I think they only have two geese,

but let me tell you something, they're hemp quality. They got belts. They got bags. I mean, if you want it, they got high quality stuff and it's well priced. And I'll tell you what I'm gonna do, all my listeners, go to DSGear.com right now. If there's something you like,

go to DSGear right now and press in. Boom! And get five motherfucking percent off your order, okay? Everything is hemp, quality made. I mean, Chris is a great guy. I trust him, you'll get the shipping sent to your house. I mean, everything's, it's tremendous. I'm in love with their stuff.

Like I said, the fanny pack, if you travel and the black jujitsu bag, they're fucking phenomenal. I got my knee pads in there. I got a white belt in there. I got a blue belt in there. I got an extra knee pad in there. I put my wallet in there. I got two towels in there.

I got no spray in there. I got a canteen in there. I got a rubber thing in there. And I got a pouch of fucking protein powder in there. I put my D in there. I put my belt in there. I put a fucking bag in there to put the dirty rash guard in, which is sent to me by Datsusaira.

That's how fucking much they know about what you go through with jujitsu. Not only that, they sponsor EBI. So they're right there in the fucking trenches. So if you're a jujitsu person, go to dsgear.com right now and cut the motherfucking shit. Number two, honor.com.

Always on top of it. I got some mixed greens sent to me. The lemon lime, fucking tremendous. You understand me? Let's say you don't want to eat your lettuce. You don't like your fucking broccoli. You don't like your fucking hugats. Nina, do I?

This is what you go to. Go to honor.com right now. Whether it's the hem force protein, whether it's the fucking alpha brain, which is a money back 100% guarantee. They don't even want the product back. Whether it's the shroom tech sport or the shroom tech immune.

Hey, I got 10% off on you. On the way I go to the box and press in. Church. Boom! I'll give you 10% off that. If you like the kettle bells and the bats and all that stuff, I can't do nothing for you there.

But as far as supplements are concerned, Uncle Joey's got you back. So honor.tsusaira, I want to thank you as both. Again, dsgear.com and press in. Joey. Boom! Honor.com and press in. Church.

Boom! There you go. 10% off, 5% off. Both of them deliver to your motherfucking door. And that's a wrap, bitches. I want to thank Willie Barcina one more time. Don't forget about the truth hurts on motherfucking Netflix.

You think they put them on Netflix if he's some type of fucking half a mutt? Get your life together, bitch. Lisa, I had a great weekend. I love you, Willie Barcina. Love you, bro. Don't forget Austin, Texas, September 15th, New York City, September 24th,

Gotham Comedy Club, cut the shit. Don't tell me later, Joey, I was gonna get tickets and you put me on the list. There ain't no list. I grew up in fucking Jersey. I got 18 people calling me up, giving me dates and shit. Leave me the fuck alone. There's no list.

Get the tickets today. Stay black, have a great weekend. We'll be back Monday morning for you motherfuckers. When you wake up Monday, you'll have a fucking brand new podcast. I love you guys. Stay black, have a great weekend. This show was brought to you by Dotsu Sara.

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