#754 - Josh Potter - The Church of What's Happening Now

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Church of What's Happening Now #754 — Josh Potter

Podcast: The Church of What's Happening Now: The New Testament
Episode: #754 – Josh Potter
Host: Joey “Coco” Diaz, Lee Syatt
Guest: Josh Potter
Date: January 23, 2020

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Episode Overview

This episode is a lighthearted, candid, and authentic deep-dive into the realities of pursuing stand-up comedy, with a special focus on Buffalo, the grind of life on the road, and the quirks and characters of comedy club culture. Joey Diaz, Lee Syatt, and comedian Josh Potter share war stories, discuss the state of comedy scenes, reminisce about Buffalo's heyday, and touch on friendship, struggle, and resilience in the comedy world.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Buffalo Memories and Love for the City

• Joey and Lee’s Buffalo Stories: The hosts share personal memories related to Buffalo—food, culture, and sports, noting the city’s resilience after industrial decline and the exodus of companies like Fisher Price (“Buffalo has always been just so fucking… I have such a connection to Buffalo. That’s like my connection to Jersey.” — Lee, 10:18).
• Comedy Club Life: Recollections of Buffalo’s evolving comedy scene—clubs like Funny Bone, the Anchor Bar, Duff’s, and Helium (“Buffalo needed a comedy room in a desperate way. And Buffalo supports comedy. Like, they fucking support comedy.” — Lee, 26:58).

2. The Grind and Sacrifice of Comedy

• The Hustle: Raw stories about sleeping in cars, long bus rides, and living paycheck-to-paycheck in pursuit of stage time (“People really never know. And if you look back at those times, you’re like, was I fucking crazy? Like, what would make you drive and sleep in your fucking car? It's a love.” — Lee, 49:19).
• Growth Through Hardship: The emotional highs and lows, from bombed sets during playoff games, to the thrill of getting your break (“It was the longest 25 minutes of my life… it was just think of getting punched in the face 25 minutes.” — Lee, 37:01).

3. Comedy as Community & Family

• Mentorship & Loyalty: Joey and Lee express both tough love and pride in Josh's perseverance in LA. Joey also reflects on the importance of helping fellow comics in need (“I tell people… you need something, you come see me. I don’t want you sucking dick. I don’t want you doing nothing you don’t need to do…” — Joey, 77:57).
• Mutual Support: Stories of passing gigs, sharing rides, and small but vital acts of kindness (fronting money for Ubers, giving leftover food, etc.).

4. The Darker Side: Club Owners, Industry Stories, and Life on the Fringe

• Unsavory Characters: Memorable portraits of club owners, and staff “on drugs,” and run-ins with colorful personalities—a mix of fondness, caution, and gallows humor.
• The “Comedy Condo” Life: Honest conversations about the realities, dangers, and quirks of living in comedy club-provided condos.

5. Vulnerability, Scandal, and the Modern Comedy Landscape

• Being Real With Listeners: Joey affirms the importance of honesty and authenticity for attracting and maintaining a loyal audience (“I’m happy that I was always very vulnerable with you guys. From day one… Like, people telling you stories, people letting you know that it’s okay to be human.” — Joey, 73:59).
• Recent Controversies: The hosts touch on issues like old podcast content resurfacing (“They fired a kid off a Saturday Night Live because something he said in episode 280 of some episode that somebody dug up.” — Lee, 68:25), and the complexities of accountability and context.
• Sexual Misconduct in Comedy: Brief but blunt mentions of scandals involving people they know—always with a mix of harsh realism, dark humor, and a compartmentalized take.

6. Comedy and Life Lessons

• The Value of Struggle: Consistent themes of making something out of nothing, the value of pushing through doubt, and the importance of choosing passion over stability.
• Traditionalism vs. Trendiness: Joey’s aversion to unnecessary novelty (Viagra, fusion foods, pineapple pizza), preferring “the original stuff” and maintaining respect for tradition—whether wings or comedy.

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Memorable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• On Buffalo’s Spirit:
  “Buffalo has always been just so fucking… I have such a connection to Buffalo. That’s like my connection to Jersey.” — Lee (10:18)

• On Surviving the Comedy Road:
  “People really never know. And if you look back at those times, you’re like, was I fucking crazy? Like, what would make you drive and sleep in your fucking car? It's a love.” — Lee (49:19)

• On Comedy Resilience:
  “It was the longest 25 minutes of my life… just think of getting punched in the face 25 minutes.” — Lee (37:01)

• Joey’s Philosophy on Support:
  “You need something, you come see me. I don't want you sucking dick... I'll give you seven. You know what I'm saying?” — Joey (77:51)

• On Living for Comedy, Not Sales:
  “The sales thing, I’m like, oh, no, I don’t want that job… But for this? The grind? Yeah.” — Josh (55:02)

• On Being Open With Fans:
  “I’m happy that I was always very vulnerable with you guys. From day one… Like, people telling you stories, people letting you know that it’s okay to be human.” — Joey (73:59)

• The Buffalo Food Experience:
  “You’re biting into a drumstick wing like you’re eating steroids and you don’t give a fuck.” — Lee (12:39)

• Josh on his eyesight and adjusting to LA:
  “I don’t drive anymore. I sold my car… Plus I’m going blind, so I probably shouldn’t drive anyway, you know.” — Josh (45:10)

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Notable Segments & Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment / Topic | |-------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------| | 04:39 | Introduction of Josh Potter & praise from Lee | | 07:42-11:44 | Prison acid trip stories, Buffalo reminiscence | | 12:36-16:13 | Buffalo’s comedy clubs, food traditions, wings, club culture | | 26:55-31:00 | Josh’s career arc: Buffalo, Cleveland, Helium Comedy Club | | 31:08-38:31 | The nightmare of performing during a local team’s playoff game | | 41:13-47:26 | Josh’s radio career, shift to full-time stand-up, struggles | | 49:19-50:28 | Sacrifices for comedy, car living stories | | 68:20-73:59 | Scandals in comedy, the importance of honesty with fans | | 77:50-80:11 | Acts of kindness, community, support for other comics |

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Additional Highlights

• Food & Buffalo Staples: Joey’s and Lee’s love for traditional Buffalo wings (Frank’s hot sauce and butter only!), blue cheese, beef on weck, and Wegmans.
• Sports Culture: Major theme of how Buffalo’s sports obsession deeply affects entertainment and comedy bookings.
• Comedy Generations: Reflections on past and present club owners, shifting opportunities, and the evolution of the scene.
• Josh’s Next Moves: Josh promotes his upcoming headlining spots and talks about his future plans in LA and podcasting (80:30).

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Tone & Language

The episode is filled with Joey’s trademark brash, unfiltered style, peppered with dark humor and honest, explicit observations. There’s a strong camaraderie—a sense of “insider” conversation, with references and language true to the comedians’ backgrounds and experiences.

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Final Takeaway

This episode is a gritty, affectionate snapshot of the stand-up comedy lifestyle: the struggle, the grind, the love for home towns like Buffalo, and the unbreakable bonds forged through hardships. It’s as much about survival, loyalty, and authenticity as it is about making people laugh.

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For listeners new to the episode:
You’ll walk away with a real sense of what it means to chase comedy not for fame, but for love of the art and the family you find along the way. The episode is rich with “inside baseball” stories, honest talk about the industry, and genuine laughs amid the struggle.

Transcript

[Joey Diaz]

Reading some podcast ville, you bad motherfuckers. It's What, Thursday the 23rd? Whatever the fuck it is. Who gives a shit? You're alive, you're fucking smoking dope. Most importantly, you're ready to sling fucking dick. Listen, the song of the day, out of respect for Buffalo, is yous and Die by Rick James.

[Lee Syatt]

78. Put that on right now on YouTube.

[Joey Diaz]

That's when black people are black people. Even Martin Luther King popped up and said, jesus, you're on fire, Rick. Anyway, the church of what's Happened now is brought to you and I want to welcome them because I fucking love this shit. Butcher Box. Listen, the big game is right around the corner next week. That means you're gonna have a party, which means you're gonna have a bunch of fucking savages tearing through your refrigerator, eating up all your food. Hopefully you'll have some class and you won't feed these people fucking hummus or a bowl of potato chips or veggie plate because you're a fucking savage. This year, level your game the fuck up and give them Butcher Box. You're like, joey, what's Butcher Box? Butcher Box is a subscription service that.

[Lee Syatt]

Sends you 9 to 11 pounds of high quality humanly raised organic meat every month.

[Joey Diaz]

They ship it frozen and vacuum seal so it arrives as your door, as fresh as a fucking pussy out of the shower.

[Lee Syatt]

You understand me? Last night I had the fucking salmon and my wife made like a little cape of lemon sauce on top and it was fucking tremendous. She took out two steaks tonight to take a look at. I'm gonna give Lee a couple burgers they sent us. Listen, it is sensational. I'm usually not big on these food services, but lately with the meat shit and you gotta take care of yourself with the organic.

[Joey Diaz]

What I'm gonna do is this. They can, they got free range chicken, heritage pork, wild caught salmon, grass fed beef. But they got something that all you motherfuckers love.

[Lee Syatt]

You ready? Since I'm talking about buffalo, you ready? Wings.

[Joey Diaz]

So right now Butcherbox has a special offer, Lee. You might as well write it down. Free wings for life of your subscription. That's three pounds of wings and every box you order forever for free. Plus you get 20 bucks off your first box and free shipping in the lower 48. Just go to butcherbox.com church and use promo code. Church and check out. Listen, I'm going to be checking up on you motherfuckers, okay? If you get Butcherbox, you're going to get an extra little reward from me. But you also got to cook the.

[Lee Syatt]

Wings a certain way. Not teriyaki, like fag boy, not none of that shit. It's Frank's hot sauce and a stick of butter and you whip it around and you put them in there and then you take it out and you fucking sift them. If you're not gonna do that and cut up nice blue cheese with a nice piece of celery, don't deal with me no more. Don't even listen to this fucking podcast. Go to Pollo Loco and I hope you choke to death.

[Joey Diaz]

Anyway, the church is also brought to you by ZIP Recruiter. It's a new the perfect opportunity to take your business to the next level by hiring the right people. But finding qualified candidates can be challenging. See, if I knew ZipRecruiter, I wouldn't have lead. ZipRecruiter.com church makes it easy. ZipRecruiter sends your job to over 100 of the web's leading job boards. Listen, let's cut out this shit. ZipRecruiter is so effective that 4 out of 5 employers who post unziprecruiter get.

[Lee Syatt]

A quality candidate through the site within the first day. Can you imagine that? All the time. They're going to save you.

[Joey Diaz]

And right now, the church family gets ZipRecruiter for free. Gratis, niente.

[Lee Syatt]

ZipRecruiter.com church that's how easy it is. ZipRecruiter.com Church Let me spell out Church for you because you might be a little stupid today. I'm a little out of it. C H U r c h ziprecruiter.com church the smartest way to hire song of the day is you and I play it.

[Joey Diaz]

Take that meal, Lee. Anyway, there ain't no meal to kick.

[Lee Syatt]

I had to send them back because everybody's getting in trouble these days. You know what I'm saying? So you can't even. I can't wait till they come back to me and say, hey, Joey, you're in trouble because you told Lee to kick that meal.

[Joey Diaz]

But anyway, I don't give a fuck about mules. Except two mules for Sister Sarah.

[Lee Syatt]

My main man is here today representing Buffalo. Fucking great little comedian, Josh Potter.

[Josh Potter]

Thanks so much for having me.

[Joey Diaz]

Dude, I've known you since before the glasses.

[Lee Syatt]

And I gotta tell you, you've made me very proud the last couple months. Number one, I know you've been here for about a year, a little over.

[Josh Potter]

Well, almost two years.

[Lee Syatt]

It's so crazy how you see you Go to different comedy clubs and you see comics, and a hundred of them tell you what their plans are. And you talk to them, and you try to talk to them as honestly as you can. I've always spoken to you. And then you see them out here and you try to give them love or whatever. In the beginning, this is what I've learned. And I've learned that they go home within the first six months for sure. This is a hard place to make a living. Thank God you were friends with Tom, and he loves you with all his heart.

[Josh Potter]

Yeah. I'm so thankful.

[Lee Syatt]

I've had a thousand conversations with Tom, and, you know, he gave me a little gig on the podcast to put a little change in your pocket. You're doing some work around town, so I really applaud.

[Josh Potter]

Thank you.

[Lee Syatt]

What you're doing. I'm very, very, very, very proud of you.

[Josh Potter]

That means so much. Thank you very much.

[Lee Syatt]

No, you know me, dog. I'm down with.

[Joey Diaz]

Don't call me up at 2 in.

[Lee Syatt]

The morning and tell me about your plans, because I don't want to. Fucking right.

[Josh Potter]

And I don't like talking about that.

[Joey Diaz]

I want to see what the fuck.

[Lee Syatt]

You'Re doing here around town. Josh Potter was there, and you're very likable. I mean, everybody talks to, says they love you. I know you were on a podcast a couple weeks ago, and somebody actually called me and said, listen to this podcast with Potter. He goes fucking ape shit. And I go, let me tell you something. Part of it, you know, you remind me of. Part of why I've always fallen in love with you. And I've never told you.

[Josh Potter]

Who's that?

[Lee Syatt]

The guy that told me that basically threatened my life. He was. Listen to this. He was built like you.

[Josh Potter]

Wow.

[Lee Syatt]

He looked like you. He had glasses like you. He had the intelligence of, you know, name it. He. He ran the prison library. He was from Buffalo.

[Josh Potter]

Wow.

[Lee Syatt]

And he had murdered his wife and the mailman because he was the wife. He was on the tail end of a 30, if, you know, whatever, 20 year, whatever. And he didn't say much. He rolled his own cigarettes. He was just a.

[Joey Diaz]

But.

[Lee Syatt]

And he hung out with another dude from Buffalo. We had like, four guys in the prison from Buffalo.

[Josh Potter]

Wow. All the way out there.

[Lee Syatt]

Yeah. They get together and watch the bills and talk shit. One guy was Big T. Big motherfucking black dude. His family owned a barber shop in Buffalo. You ever come to Buffalo? Come to the corner. There's a Thousand corners.

[Josh Potter]

Yeah, yeah.

[Lee Syatt]

And. And this librarian and me and this librarian became tight, and there was. We even did acid.

[Josh Potter]

Oh, nice.

[Lee Syatt]

We got some acid gotten in there because they couldn't test you for acid, okay? And he was a hallucinogenic guy, so me, him and a crip named Torre. Powells, like, they would be. We were in barracks, army barracks, and there would be a guard that would drive around once an hour. And, you know, some nights you can't sleep. You're allowed to go outside and sit on the barracks and read a book. This night, all three of us were fucking flying.

[Unidentified Guest]

Flying in prison, I can't.

[Lee Syatt]

And I mean, this is acid.

[Josh Potter]

Acid in prison.

[Lee Syatt]

Like, real. Like, you're tripping in your room.

[Josh Potter]

Yeah.

[Lee Syatt]

You know, you. The lights are on, you think the cops are coming.

[Josh Potter]

Yeah, they're.

[Lee Syatt]

They live.

[Josh Potter]

The cops are. Are there.

[Lee Syatt]

And finally I get, like, a knock on my door, and it's the grip. Hey. He's like, man, I can't take it in my room no more. I go, all right, let's go get the librarian. We're getting the library. He's like, thank God you came. Because I was just trying to see, like, devils and shit. So I remember sitting outside on a bench, you think about prison. You see these movies and you think about. But no matter where you go in this life, whether it's a negative or a positive, you always meet two or three people that are tight that make that part of your life a lot easier. And these two guys. I own my life, and I'm sitting there with them. And we're fucking outside and the birds are sounding like hawks, you know, at.

[Joey Diaz]

2 in the morning, a little cheep, cheep.

[Lee Syatt]

Sounds like fucking. Then the strength just went on. And we were fucking really paranoid. We were like, I'm assin'. And the guard came. He's like, what the fuck are you guys still doing up? I'm like, we couldn't talk. We're talking about a shipment of meat coming in or some bullshit. Because we all worked in the kitchen, so. Except the librarian, so I don't know what happened. And at one point, the librarian goes, I gotta go to the bathroom. He disappeared for, like a half hour. We just lost him. And to Ray Pals, the Crip looked at me, goes, how fucking crazy are we? We're doing acid with a guy that stabbed his wife to death. To the mailman, he goes, I'll never forget this. That was my buffalo sword.

[Josh Potter]

That's so fucking wild, because you're right. Like, a murderer on acid could have, like, a moment. Yeah.

[Lee Syatt]

And he was like, he was a sweetheart. There was no mental health issues. He was a genius. He was very smart. I learned ice in his veins, you know, I remember I was like the house lawyer, and he did all my work.

[Josh Potter]

Oh, he did all the paperwork because he.

[Lee Syatt]

No, he just did it out of doing it.

[Josh Potter]

Oh, that's cool.

[Lee Syatt]

Like, just to help me. Because he was that smart. He was initiative. He was just. He read that New York Times front to back every day. You know, it's just Buffalo has always been just so fucking. I have such a connection to Buffalo. That's like my connection to Jersey. I met a girl from Buffalo and I started going to Buffalo and I fell in love with the city. And they told me the history of the city. You know, Fisher Price left and all these companies left, and they were left with their dick in their hands.

[Josh Potter]

You were probably there in the 90s when it was, like, real shitty. Everyone was moving to fucking Charlotte and shit.

[Lee Syatt]

I was there in 84. War.

[Josh Potter]

Okay. So you saw the downturn, like, the whole way.

[Lee Syatt]

I was there in 84, 85, 86. We would go. It was a family thing. And they were tremendous. They were Polish.

[Josh Potter]

Yeah.

[Lee Syatt]

The food was just sensational. My man. And I remember telling somebody once, like, I'm going to Buffalo, do comedy. Like, that's the asshole of the world. And I actually really, really got insulted. Like, you don't know Buffalo.

[Josh Potter]

Yeah.

[Lee Syatt]

Like, unless you've been to Buffalo. You know when you go to Wegmans and you, like, Lee wouldn't come back.

[Unidentified Guest]

I did it a girl from Rochester and she told me about Wegmans.

[Josh Potter]

You would live inside Wakeman.

[Lee Syatt]

You just would. Not the old. I remember I go back to Buffalo or Rob Liedemann.

[Josh Potter]

Yep.

[Lee Syatt]

When he paid nothing. And it was a nightmare of a club.

[Josh Potter]

Yeah.

[Lee Syatt]

And then I went back when there was a funny bone there, the.

[Josh Potter]

In the mall.

[Lee Syatt]

And that was sensational.

[Josh Potter]

That was cool.

[Lee Syatt]

That was the first club in the country that was doing blue shows.

[Josh Potter]

Oh, no shit.

[Lee Syatt]

Friday nights. And Canadians would come over.

[Josh Potter]

Yeah. They love coming over.

[Lee Syatt]

It was sold out no matter who it was. True Blue on Friday nights at 11.

[Josh Potter]

Wow.

[Lee Syatt]

So it was like 7, 9 and 11.

[Josh Potter]

I was like a little kid back then.

[Lee Syatt]

The owners. It was a great club because it was across the street from the Wegmans.

[Josh Potter]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Lee Syatt]

And the condo was 50ft away.

[Josh Potter]

Right.

[Lee Syatt]

So you'd cross the street and they'd have these fresh wings. And I'm not talking about these California HIV wings. You bite into them and they've been glued together. It's Brown meat. I'm talking about. You're biting into a drumstick wing like you're eating steroids and you don't give a fuck.

[Unidentified Guest]

I can't wait to go to Buffalo and try wings.

[Josh Potter]

Why can't they have wings everywhere? I don't understand. It's 2020. Why don't we got wings everywhere?

[Lee Syatt]

You know, I made a statement on Rogan years ago, and people. Some people took it the right way and some people took it the wrong way. Listen, there's a thousand. I was watching Dives, Drives and Automobiles. And there's a place over here in Glendale. I went there a few times for Cuban food. I don't know, guys. I got Viagra three weeks ago. I still haven't taken it. I'm a traditional type of dude.

[Josh Potter]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Lee Syatt]

I really am. You know, I haven't whacked off in three fucking weeks.

[Josh Potter]

Wow.

[Lee Syatt]

And I'm. Because I can't get a heart on this. Ever since I hurt my hamstring. I mean, the dick gets kind of hard, but it's like a cocaine type.

[Josh Potter]

Yeah.

[Lee Syatt]

No, you gotta. So until these squats are back up to 300, that's when I get that blood back into that area.

[Josh Potter]

Right, right, right.

[Lee Syatt]

I'll be ready to squirt some yum yum juice on mama.

[Josh Potter]

But you don't want to try it? You don't want to with the Viagra at all?

[Lee Syatt]

No, I'm petrified. Yeah, I'm petrified.

[Josh Potter]

What, are you worried about happening a.

[Lee Syatt]

Heart attack or something?

[Josh Potter]

I see. Yeah.

[Lee Syatt]

You know, but they said Viagra was invented for your heart, so.

[Josh Potter]

But as long as you're not mixing it with coke and.

[Lee Syatt]

No, that's usually.

[Josh Potter]

That's how like, Wyland died and all those things.

[Lee Syatt]

Yeah. I'm not doing dick y. That's what scares me.

[Unidentified Guest]

So you're a traditional guy with the wings.

[Lee Syatt]

I'm a traditional dude. I'm a traditional dude with anything. I give everybody their respect. I'm not gonna put ranch on sour cream pierogis. I'm not gonna put ranch on pizza. I don't put pineapple on pizza. Pizza was not made to have pineapple on it. This is something that we've created. You know, Taco Bell invents by the day chalupa. Even Mexicans, their heads and go, what's a fucking chalupa? So the more you feed into this, the more they're gonna keep creating. And listen, I appreciate different things. I really do. I appreciate you trying and your efforts, but guess what? I Don't want your fusion Chinese. I want the original stuff. You know, when I go to. When I go to Buffalo, I go to the hotel room, dog. I swear to God, whatever hotel I go to, I go to the room, I put my down, I roll the joint while it's dry and I go on Uber and I see what it's going to cost me to go to Dubs and it really doesn't matter.

[Josh Potter]

Yeah, they open another one, I don't.

[Lee Syatt]

Care if they open. Downtown is $66. I call the feature and I go, be downstairs in five minutes. I Uber and I go right to Duff's. And you know, it used to be the Anchor Bar. I think I went to the Anchor Bar once. It wasn't for me.

[Josh Potter]

Duff's is way better.

[Lee Syatt]

Duff's is way better. Anchor was where it was started and where they used blue cheese. You know, Buffalo doesn't have, you know, Buffalo has been getting fucked in the ass for 2000 years. Mainly the Major League Baseball, really. Buffalo Bisons have been the number one attendance. I don't know if it's still alive today.

[Josh Potter]

I mean, we still crush it on occasion, but they've turned teams over so many times since the 90s that it's like the product on the field was shitty for like 10 years. Like when we were the Mets affiliate and. But back when we were the Pirates and the Indians and we were crushing.

[Lee Syatt]

It, the attendance was number one for minor league baseball since the 50s.

[Josh Potter]

Wow.

[Lee Syatt]

And they went out there, I don't know what year it was, maybe 90 something. They were thinking of expanding, but they went out there on April 1st and they were walking on a fucking four feet of snow in the outfield. And they were like, we can't have baseball here. Well, it's 2020 and I know you've made innovations with domes. Yeah, I know you've made innovation.

[Josh Potter]

Not only that, if climate change is real, that shit's going to be dried up by the time.

[Lee Syatt]

Climate change is real. No, I know Buffalo used to get four feet of snow.

[Josh Potter]

It's definitely regular.

[Lee Syatt]

I could see them getting 10ft, 12ft.

[Unidentified Guest]

Next couple, I was going to say, were you there when they got 11ft one year?

[Josh Potter]

Yeah, that was in 2015. And it was like in a narrow area of the city because it was just like this. They called it a knife storm. It came over the lake and it was like this couple mile wide area of the city, just narrow, that had 11ft of snow in it.

[Unidentified Guest]

It was during football season, but then also playing like Tennessee or Something.

[Josh Potter]

Yeah, we had to move the game to like an away game. But like the, the craziest part though is that in January so many times in recent years, there's like a 70 degree day all of a sudden. So that's where I see like, I'm like, this isn't something that I remember as a little kid, you know, like having stretches of days in the 60s and 70s and January that's up and then in March, you know, shit's off the wall. In April, like you said, there's still snow. Sometimes there's snow as late as May. Yeah, it's crazy. It's all over the map.

[Lee Syatt]

You born and raised in Buffalo?

[Josh Potter]

Yeah, I lived there until I moved here. Basically 31.

[Lee Syatt]

Where the parents from.

[Josh Potter]

My dad is born in Egypt and his mother and him moved to Buffalo when he was 17. But he's Greek. He was a Greek guy living in Egyptian. Egyptian, yeah, yeah.

[Lee Syatt]

Did I bring the other joint up with me? Tell me. I left him in the car. I left him in the car. What type of host am I anyway? I'm gonna move to smoke another joint, you get me?

[Josh Potter]

I can, I can go get it if you want me to go. I'm a fast man is all I'm saying. I can run.

[Lee Syatt]

Yeah, it's in a bag in the front seat on the passenger side. Passenger side, right in the front seat there's a bag. There's three other eights in there. Okay, Just bring the whole back. Okay, let's get that. It's a white Subaru.

[Josh Potter]

Okay.

[Lee Syatt]

Thank you, sir. You're a gentleman. The scholar. No, I've been going to Buffalo for a long time. A lot of people didn't know that, that they were. So now they should have a Buffalo, you know.

[Unidentified Guest]

Well, they have Toronto, but. And they have a dome is what you're saying.

[Lee Syatt]

Yeah, they should have like a big. Now with the technologies and everything that they have. Buffalo was ready for a fucking baseball team. The only reason why I don't know what the fuck's going on. That was 12 years ago. Don't quote me on this. Just go to Wikipedia and look it up and see when the last time. Major League Baseball, when I was a kid, Buffalo had the Bills and they also had the Buffalo Braves and the Sabres.

[Unidentified Guest]

They sell the Sabres.

[Lee Syatt]

And then they had the Buffalo Braves as a basketball team.

[Unidentified Guest]

Oh, I didn't know about that.

[Lee Syatt]

Yeah, Randy Johnson, they had a great fucking team for a while as a kid. Not like championship level team, but it. The basketball team leaving Fisher Price leaving all These other corporations leaving really, really left. When all those corporations left in the fucking 70s, whether it was Fisher Price, Buffalo Braves, right, the basketball team with Randy Smith on it and shit, it was like, it was like one bad hit after the other for Buffalo. So the economy really went down for years.

[Josh Potter]

There was a giant factory that manufactured, like, cars and parts and stuff closed down. And like, that was like 30 of the jobs or something in the city.

[Lee Syatt]

It really did.

[Josh Potter]

Bethlehem Steel shut down.

[Lee Syatt]

It was really sad. And I'm being in Buffalo doing. And you always see it. I always say hello to Rod when I go up.

[Josh Potter]

Yeah, Rob. Yeah, I used to work on the other radio station.

[Lee Syatt]

I'm gonna tell you why.

[Josh Potter]

No, yeah, of course.

[Joey Diaz]

Rob.

[Josh Potter]

He featured you, right?

[Lee Syatt]

Rob had a reputation of being like a bad guy or whatever. Like, I remember getting a call and going, when you go up there, be careful with him. He's kind of weird and stuff. And I was always very respectful, even as a feature act, until you disrespected me. And then either I was just gonna tell you to go fuck yourself, or we were gonna box it out or whatever the fuck was gonna happen, you know? And Rob's week started on a Wednesday, and that Tuesday night I was part of the Toyota Comedy Festival. And that's the night when that prick put me up after the salsa band. Oh, Jesus. But something did good happen that I got an audition for the Sopranos from doing that thing. So I had to meet her the next day at 11 o'.

[Josh Potter]

Clock.

[Lee Syatt]

My bus to Buffalo was at 12 from Port Authority. So I met her, got in a cab, shot to Port Authority, took the eight hour bus to Buffalo, got there, that's a bus ride, did the Wednesday night, and they called Wednesday night and said, we need you back in New York. Thursday 10. So I basically had to hop on a red eye bus, fucking sleep at Port Authority, wash my face, and at 10, go to a producer's session of the Sopranos and then catch that same bus I caught the day before. At 12, go back, get back there, 7:30, jump in the shower, go right and do the show. Oh, my God. And Rob helped me get the sides. Rob helped me audition.

[Josh Potter]

Oh, that's great.

[Lee Syatt]

I can't forget that. I was. He paid me $450 for a week. I'll never forget that.

[Josh Potter]

Yeah, he. I mean, him and I had like a. A tough introduction because we worked on. Not we worked in the same building, but they were competing shows, you know, and I was the comedian on this show and he was the comedian on that show. And he obviously was a comic for 20 some years. And. Yeah, he's been a comic for a million years.

[Lee Syatt]

Or got a real resume, of course.

[Josh Potter]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

No, about Rob Liedeman is that he's.

[Lee Syatt]

Not like a fake club owner.

[Josh Potter]

Right.

[Lee Syatt]

Rob Liederman came out here, gave it a shot, and figured a better way out for himself. And I'm never mad at somebody, not at all. If Lee comes to me tomorrow and he goes, hey, man, I gotta talk to you about something. Some guy in Worcester is opening up a radio station. And he offered me a good job. Not big money, but my mother's getting older and I'm open mic in it. Yeah, I could go to Boulder, do the radio show. Because Rob Lederman invented that whole move.

[Josh Potter]

Yeah. I mean, he was making big money.

[Lee Syatt]

Lee, and not going anywhere.

[Unidentified Guest]

Well, that's success.

[Josh Potter]

Well, mine was the other way around. Kind of like, Rob came out here, he was doing the road. He was like a headliner, and he was a part of the big boom at that time, the 80s boom. And then he got an offer to be on this morning show. That was a heritage morning show. And it was, at the time, probably huge money. I mean, it probably was, like, insane. And so he took that, and he also, like, ran a business, and then he opened a club, Comics Caf. What was it called? Comics Cafe.

[Unidentified Guest]

Yeah.

[Josh Potter]

Yeah. And he started running the club out there and was still doing local sets, and he ran the whole fire hall circuit. That's why my introduction to Rob was, like, tenuous at first, because I was trying to get into the game, you know what I mean? I was trying to get sets, I was trying to get shows. And Rob's like, you know, you're. You're new or whatever. So I got it at some point. Like, it took a couple years, but I got where he was coming from, and we made amends. And I just did his show the other day, like, of calling on it, but yeah, so, I mean, he's. We're totally cool, you know, nowadays, but there was a couple years there where I didn't think we were cool.

[Lee Syatt]

Yeah, I never forgot that solid he did for me. Now, when I met you, you worked where the first time.

[Josh Potter]

Now, see, that's the thing. When I met you, I moved to do radio in Cleveland for eight months.

[Lee Syatt]

What got you into Cleveland? Were you already doing stand up? You were just doing radio?

[Josh Potter]

No, I was doing both.

[Lee Syatt]

Okay. When did you start stand up?

[Josh Potter]

I started stand up in 2008.

[Lee Syatt]

Where?

[Josh Potter]

In Buffalo.

[Lee Syatt]

Okay.

[Josh Potter]

So I started radio and nothing was there. Then, no, it was a bar. That. Nietzsche's bar. Yeah, that was our whole world. Two Tuesday nights there, that was everything. And you had come to do a show later on in life at that bar with Ari? No, no, that was at the Town Ballroom. That's where I met you. Yeah, but then, you remember when you came back, you came alone and did that bar for the. For the lesbian comic. Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

So.

[Josh Potter]

But yeah, when I met you, I had just moved to Cleveland to start that radio show and I was gone maybe like three weeks. When we did that gig at the Town Ballroom, it was called, it was a theater, rock club. Me, you and Ari. Yeah. And then I went to do that radio show in Cleveland and there was a Rob Lederman that I worked for there, so to speak, a comic named Chuck Booms. Do you know who that name is? He used to work with Bud Freeman. He was. He used to close out A and E at the Improv. So he had credits, he was around. But working with this guy was a nightmare. Like, this guy was such a piece of. And I just, I was like, I can't work with this guy. And my old show actually offered me a job to come back with, like more money and stuff. So I was like, it, I'm going to go back. And I thought that was it for me. I'm like, I'm just going to die on this radio station or whatever. I'm just going to work here forever. And I did that for about five more years before I came out here, so. However many years.

[Lee Syatt]

Well, you were in Buffalo.

[Josh Potter]

Yeah.

[Lee Syatt]

You got the luck that Helium opened.

[Josh Potter]

That's. That saved my life.

[Lee Syatt]

And that saved your life. Exactly. That was. Buffalo needed a comedy room in a desperate way. And Buffalo supports comedy.

[Josh Potter]

It does.

[Lee Syatt]

Like, they fucking support comedy.

[Unidentified Guest]

So how big is Buffalo? Is it like a medium sized city?

[Josh Potter]

Small. In terms of media markets. It's number like 53 or something like that. So it's a mid sized market in terms of media. I don't know what that translates to in other ways, but, you know, it's. It's decent size. I. I love Buffalo so much and I wish I could do more there. I kind of like hit the ceiling, you know, obviously when I got into.

[Lee Syatt]

The fight with the radio guy.

[Josh Potter]

Yes, that's, that's, that's the show Rob worked on. Right. Wasn't that the same one or was that.

[Lee Syatt]

No, I got into a fight. It was Portland, Buffalo, Helium.

[Josh Potter]

Okay.

[Lee Syatt]

I went in and I said something about if your kid. The guy's like, well, my kid's been getting bullied, and I don't know what to do. I go, your kid gets bullied, you give him some boxing gloves and you teach him how to box. And at the break, the guys took his earphones off. How dare you say that to me? And I go, that's the truth. Unless you want to raise a fucking half a fruitcake. So when we went on the air, he kept the conversation going, like, how you would raise a child that would hate to be your child. And I'm like. I'm like, punk, you're the child's the one that's getting bullied. Say one more word and I'll climb across. Oh, we went at it.

[Josh Potter]

That's wild. I don't think I was in, bro.

[Lee Syatt]

And then we went back and forth on Facebook for, like, an hour, talking yourself, you punk. And then people started to hate them. Oh, my. You. It was tremendous. I called the club later, and then when I went back, the club was like, yeah, he doesn't ever want a comedian again.

[Josh Potter]

Oh, that's wild. That wasn't Buffalo. I don't think I would have definitely heard about that. But I. I can't believe. You remember that first gig we did with Ari, that was like, I. I knew you might. You'd remember me, obviously, from the weekends we did, but I didn't know you'd remember that far back, because that was like. I remember you had that banana bread and. Oh, and I ate, like, so much of it that I. I just had a great time. It was, like, the best comedy experience of my life to that point. At that point. You know what I'm saying? Like, because I was three years in or something like that, I couldn't believe I got that hosting gig and I had just moved to Cleveland, and I hated it. And I was like, I gotta get back to, what am I doing? Why did I leave? You know?

[Lee Syatt]

You know, it's crazy that I owe Buffalo something. You know, when you become a comic and you're young, you. There's a couple cities after you start rocking that you just want to hit for the tradition of the city. Like, I wanted to go to Houston out of respect for Bill Hicks. I wanted to go to Boston out of respect for all the great comics that have been in Boston. I wanted to go to. You know, there was just little places that I needed to go. North Chapel Hill, North Carolina, because they were my favorite basketball team. Buffalo, I went to just with a girl, and I kept going. And then later on, years later, I became a comic, and then Rob Lederman threw me a fucking curveball. I was. You know, I'm not gonna lie to anybody. I'm a regular at the Comedy Store. Been there about two years. I'm bombing 75% of the time, but not as bad as I was. I had a pilot under my belt for CBS and I think I had just done mad. No, no. MADtv would have had a. I had nothing. I did a Taco Bell commercial. I go to Buffalo because I went to Buffalo a couple times. So I go to. For Rob Lederman the first time, and then the second time I go back for Rob Liederman again. But that time we have a problem.

[Josh Potter]

Yeah.

[Lee Syatt]

And I'm talking about a big, big, big problem. It's not drugs.

[Josh Potter]

Nope.

[Lee Syatt]

It's not alcohol. It's a problem.

[Josh Potter]

I already know what you're gonna say.

[Lee Syatt]

It's a comic. It's a problem. That it's a comics nightmare. And a comic doesn't know till he gets there. And it's called when your local sports team is in the.

[Josh Potter]

I knew right away.

[Lee Syatt]

When your local sports team is in the playoffs. There's three types of bars. There's, you know, Buffalo Wild Wings with a bunch of jerk offs jumping up and down. Nobody but a dollar on the game. Then there's that medium one where they have a little bit more money and they all have jerseys on and one side is sitting on the other side. And it's very fucking. If you got a machine gun and shot them all, nobody would miss them. You know what I'm saying?

[Josh Potter]

Yeah.

[Lee Syatt]

Yeah. And then there's this elite people that are missing teeth, that this is their life.

[Josh Potter]

And that's the whole city of Buffalo.

[Lee Syatt]

And read the reports of who got drafted. Yeah, they do. This is their life, you know. Denver, I love you to death. Jesus. I love Jesus. But if you make a comeback, don't make it during a Bronco game. Nobody gonna be there.

[Josh Potter]

I mean. Yeah, you're describing me. That's exactly. I mean, I'm. I'm the same way. Yeah.

[Lee Syatt]

I can't lie to you. I do a Thursday. Wednesday night, I have a pretty decent set. And this is where a lot of things progress for me. This is where everything started for me. If I look back, I have to think about Buffalo. I get there Thursday and Rob goes, we have a problem. It's game five, you know, they're getting angry and angrier.

[Josh Potter]

What year was this, may I ask? Do you know?

[Lee Syatt]

I do not know.

[Josh Potter]

It must have been like 2001, 2002.

[Lee Syatt]

Maybe around there around there because I was having problems here like as a comic. Anytime earlier before that, see what year the Buffalo.

[Josh Potter]

Oh, I mean, I can help you out with all that. I mean there was, there was a, there was a string of years though between 98 and 04. We went every year to the playoffs.

[Lee Syatt]

Okay. So.

[Josh Potter]

And we went to the Stanley cup in 99.

[Joey Diaz]

And there you go.

[Josh Potter]

So it was 99.

[Lee Syatt]

99.

[Josh Potter]

Okay. I didn't know it was here. We went to the actual Cup. Okay.

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah. I don't know dick about dick.

[Lee Syatt]

I'm trying to snort coke and get my dick sucked and trying to get my. Me too. Resume in August. Right. You know, whatever. I mean, you're out there on the road, you're a young kid. You know, women are talking to you after shows, whatever. I want people to understand that these are all fucking jokes and we'll get to the situation later. But I'm out there. I'm just learning the ropes. I'm a feature actor. I'm opening for anybody.

[Josh Potter]

Do you remember who it was that weekend?

[Lee Syatt]

The dirtiest guy in Buffalo with glasses.

[Joey Diaz]

Older guy.

[Josh Potter]

The dirtiest. John Volby.

[Joey Diaz]

What is it?

[Josh Potter]

John Volby.

[Lee Syatt]

Not the hypnotist dude?

[Josh Potter]

No. John Volby was the song, the singer. This guy played the piano.

[Lee Syatt]

He, this guy's a little off color.

[Josh Potter]

Okay.

[Lee Syatt]

Yoda used them a lot off color dudes couldn't work a lot of clubs.

[Joey Diaz]

Solid. Understood where I was coming from and.

[Lee Syatt]

I knew where he was coming from. So I get there and he goes, this is going to be the deal. We're going to put the MC up and then it's going to be halftime and we're going to put you up and then you go eat and then they're going to do another two quarters and then fucko is going to go up.

[Unidentified Guest]

So they show the show, they show the game at the.

[Josh Potter]

So you're doing shit between periods.

[Lee Syatt]

So the comedy show was going to get be put on while the saber.

[Josh Potter]

Game because there's no way that people would tolerate.

[Joey Diaz]

Just not gonna turn the saber game off.

[Josh Potter]

Dude, I, I just said that. I was in Boston at Laugh Boston, my first headlining weekend of my life at Laugh Boston. And they put the Patriots wild card game the same night as, as like, you know, eight. It's at 8:15 on Saturday night. I'm like, oh great. No, the shows are gonna get canceled.

[Lee Syatt]

Done.

[Josh Potter]

I still, I still sold like almost 150 tickets that night. And it was like what? I, I was like even more mad at Patriot fans because I Was like, if that show. If that even. They won't even have those shows in Buffalo. If they said 8:15, Saturday night show in Buffalo on a wild card playoff game that shows canceled. There's no shot that they would put a game on. When Brad. I. I did a. A New Year's Eve with Brad Williams. The. The night that we broke the playoff drought and the game went long in 7:30 show, and the game went long and then we won the game. And that wasn't enough. We had to watch the Bengals Ravens game, the end of that, on the giant screen. Because if the Bengals won, we make the playoffs. So they waited even more like an extra half hour for that. Because people were gonna never leave the bar if they didn't put it on in the showroom. So people would sit down, like, because they're animals. They need to, like, be herded into the showroom to just be like. At least they'll be in their seats so when the game's over, we can start the show. I don't.

[Unidentified Guest]

I don't hate the Bills. It's not like the Yankees for me, but I don't like the Bills.

[Josh Potter]

Right.

[Unidentified Guest]

But I respect teams like that. I respect.

[Josh Potter]

There's no reason for you to hate us because you've been destroying us for.

[Unidentified Guest]

Well, that's about. It's about to end.

[Lee Syatt]

Who gives a. Yeah, I don't.

[Josh Potter]

I mean, I do.

[Lee Syatt]

Fanboy over here. What I'm trying to tell you is that I went up during halftime and I think they were down.

[Josh Potter]

Oh, okay.

[Lee Syatt]

They were down.

[Josh Potter]

And so people are a shitty mood.

[Lee Syatt]

And I'll never forget that I went up there thinking I was gonna be the Captain Kirk of the Enterprise. And it was the longest 25 minutes of my life. I mean, guys, it was. It was just think of getting punched in the face. 25.

[Josh Potter]

I can't even imagine that. It was the Dallas Stars series two, game five.

[Lee Syatt]

And I'm thinking. I'm thinking I'm gonna walk off and get fired. He's gonna call Yoda. This is the end of my Yoda career. That's big, too, you know, this is. You know when you're a feature act and you're making four or five hundred dollars a week, Yoda keep shrimp pork chops. And I walked off and a couple people clapped and a couple people said, thank God. And I remember wanting to kill myself, but Liederman came up to me and said, good job, man. You didn't get anything thrown at you. I was gonna just say, yeah.

[Josh Potter]

It's like they didn't leave.

[Lee Syatt]

You did a great job. I go, are you fucking nuts? I feel like death right now. He goes, hey, could have been worse. You could have been getting stitched up right now. Yeah. Oh, my God.

[Josh Potter]

They didn't laugh because they couldn't laugh in those moments, but they were polite about it because they enjoyed you. Yeah.

[Lee Syatt]

Right away then. Now let's go back to 10 years later and me watching Bill Burr in Philadelphia.

[Josh Potter]

Oh, okay. Yeah.

[Lee Syatt]

You follow me. And I'm like, oh, thank God somebody else went through that.

[Joey Diaz]

Like, I was getting a couple boos.

[Unidentified Guest]

And did they keep the TV on behind you?

[Lee Syatt]

On mute.

[Unidentified Guest]

I would worry about that.

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah, they're very polite.

[Unidentified Guest]

Am I missing the game here?

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah, they kept it on mute.

[Lee Syatt]

They don't mute anything.

[Unidentified Guest]

Oh, no.

[Lee Syatt]

Oh, yeah.

[Josh Potter]

Thankfully, when I started comedy, the Sabers had just, like. I remember the first couple years, I'd be so pissed at the Sabers because, you know, you have your sets during the week and you're like, no one's going to come. There's a game tonight. And then finally, like, The Sabers had 10 years of sucking, and they just became a nod. People are like, well, I'll go do something else. I'm not going to watch the Sabers. The Sabers, like, sucked so long recently that it's weighing down a little bit. They still sell out games, but, I mean, like, people aren't watching them feverishly every night. You know?

[Lee Syatt]

Like, I could see myself if it wasn't for the winters, moving my family to Buffalo.

[Josh Potter]

It's a great place for a family. It really is.

[Lee Syatt]

Well, I like the state of mind in Buffalo. I met a lot of good people from Buffalo. I mean, when I went to Boulder, the people I ran with were Buffalo people.

[Josh Potter]

Yeah.

[Lee Syatt]

I mean, and the guy would have Monday Night Football parties whenever Buffalo was gone. And you go over there, dog, this is how you're gonna know. His mother would overnight wick beef on whack. No, not the beef. He would cook the beef themselves.

[Josh Potter]

The Kimmelwick rolls.

[Lee Syatt]

She would overnight the Kimmelwick roll. I mean, these guys were in.

[Josh Potter]

Yeah.

[Lee Syatt]

And while they were watching the game, they would put the helmets on. And I still remember one Monday night where the kid kept jumping.

[Josh Potter]

Oh, wow.

[Lee Syatt]

And he told them, don't jump. And the kid jumped and cracked his head open. They had an ice pack on the kid's head. Kids bleeding. And the father's like, we're not going next time. Don't jump. You're not going to the hospital until after the Bills Game.

[Josh Potter]

Yeah.

[Lee Syatt]

And the kids sat there with the ice pack on the towel. The mom was crying, pleading them.

[Josh Potter]

I get. I'm like, yeah, yeah, of course.

[Lee Syatt]

This is something stupid.

[Josh Potter]

The kid was dumb. He should have waited the fourth quarter to bang.

[Lee Syatt]

Yeah, to bang his head. But all these experiences take me back to Buffalo. So I can't imagine, like, what. When did you. At the rate. Was there a point at the radio station? Just because there's people in life that are stuck, man.

[Josh Potter]

Dude, I worked there for 15 years almost. I started working there when I was 16, so I didn't know anything else, you know, And I, I. Except for that time that I went to Cleveland, you know, and I didn't know that. I was like, this is going to be my life. But then the jobs just started disappearing. There's no. There was no upward place to go. It just. It went away. At first it looked like the. You know, when you first started 16, you know, it was 2004 or some, and I was like, the sky's the limit. I could be Howard Stern someday. But then, you know, you started seeing, like, the nuts and bolts of this thing and it's going away or whatever, and, like, the jobs are getting paid less, etc. So I just was like, you know, and I never thought. I thought comedy would be, like, my second thing for a while. Do you know what I mean? Like, when I. Until I was 22, then I was like, no, this has to flip around. And radio is the secondary thing because it's not taking me anywhere. Comedy's taking me places already, you know, so out of the gate, I'm doing things that I've never dreamed of doing. So it flipped at, like, 22, and I started taking. I did stand up every. You know, that's when I started really doing it, you know, because the last.

[Lee Syatt]

Time I saw you were really working the helium rotation. Yeah, I mean, you were really in the rotation. They had you going to Philly, I think.

[Josh Potter]

I never went to Philly. They only had me going between St. Louis and Buffalo. Honestly, they never send me the other ones.

[Lee Syatt]

And then you worked with me in St. Louis.

[Josh Potter]

Yep. And that third weekend it opened, that was.

[Lee Syatt]

You know, listen, you've all heard me fart on different platforms. I'm not going to sit here with a fart like a soldier. I'm too old, and whatever comes out, so be it. And if you're sitting close to me, that's life happens. I've inhaled a couple great farts myself. I didn't have some bad ones. What we talking about fart.

[Unidentified Guest]

St. Louis.

[Lee Syatt]

St. Louis? Yeah, St. Louis. I got on stage that Thursday night, and I'm on stage, Lee, and I'm just smelling fart after fart after fart. I don't care, because I do the same thing. Once you're on a fart row, why stop? But it was in that area, so. And I kept looking at each of them, trying to figure out who was dropping these bombs. Like they were bombed.

[Josh Potter]

Like you could tell where they were coming from.

[Lee Syatt]

I'm like, jesus. So, boom, it's Friday night, I go up there for the first show, and I'm smelling bombs again. What the is this? And it's like, every 15 minutes, just a new one.

[Josh Potter]

Yeah, it's like, refreshing, refreshing.

[Lee Syatt]

And then Friday night, I smelt it. I couldn't figure out. It was in my nose. I went there Saturday, and Saturday I started walking people. People were walking Saturday early.

[Josh Potter]

From the smell. Yeah.

[Lee Syatt]

So, yeah, I thought it was me.

[Josh Potter]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Lee Syatt]

Your heart breaks on stage.

[Josh Potter]

That's right. Yeah.

[Lee Syatt]

Get up. And next thing you know, afterward, I go, bro, what the. And they're like, every time you flush the toilet upstairs. They didn't know that when they rented the place, so it's like.

[Josh Potter]

There was, like, construction going on or something, too. And so it was like all the plumbing was all fucked up. There was, like, something I kept backing up, but it was. It's in a mall, like a new edition of a mall at the time, so they're doing all this new shit and everything. And so, yeah, every time someone flushed the toilet, we'd get like a out event or some, you know, like, right into the showroom.

[Lee Syatt]

How are you adjusting to LA so far?

[Josh Potter]

I like it. I mean, I'm keeping my head clean and I'm working hard, you know.

[Lee Syatt]

Where you live?

[Josh Potter]

I live in East Hollywood. You know, I miss Buffalo in a lot of ways, but also they're those same things. I go like, I. I need to do something else, too.

[Lee Syatt]

You know what I mean?

[Josh Potter]

I gotta see something else and live somewhere else, experience new things. And so I love it, living here so far. The sun's nice, you know, it's. It's. I don't drive anymore. I sold my car when I moved here, and I just said, I'm not driving when I go to la. And it's been. Been easier than I ever expected. And it's kind of a weight lifted off me. I don't know if you remember, I had, like, all these, like, driving mishaps and, like, arrests and, like, that from driving, because I was, you know, driving all over the place and I kept getting tickets here and there and I was. I was poor, so I wouldn't pay this one or I would like let it lapse or whatever. So driving was always dicey for me. Gave me, like terrible anxiety. And so I'm happy that I don't have to do that anymore. Plus I'm going blind, so I probably shouldn't drive anyway, you know. So far so good. It's kick staying in there, you know, it's. I probably should get new glasses soon, but other than that, it's been. It's fine. You know, I'm blind in this eye, but other than I still got this one going.

[Lee Syatt]

Is it a degenerative disease?

[Josh Potter]

It is, yeah. But I've done things to slow it down.

[Lee Syatt]

Okay.

[Josh Potter]

So, I mean, I'm sure when I'm like middle aged or whatever, when people's eyes start going again, I'm probably going to have like some hiccups. But hopefully whatever is in place there is good enough to withstand some of that, you know?

[Lee Syatt]

I mean, they tell you all this shit about fucking reefer if you smoke. Remember that was the first excuse?

[Josh Potter]

Yeah. Oh, God. That's why I smoke a ton of it. Just to be sure.

[Lee Syatt]

I smoke refill all the time. I can't wait for that doctor to tell me I have glaucoma. I'm gonna smack them so hard. Like, I've been preparing for glaucoma since I was like 18, so I would never have it.

[Josh Potter]

No, the one that the glaucoma is, not the one that you. I mean, everyone gets like a cataract at some point. I feel like, you know, I have one I don't even bother taking out of it because it's like I can't see out of that eye anyway, so who gives a shit? Cataract anyway, you know. But yeah, I mean, that St. Louis weekend, I remember it was the super bowl too. And I remember being like, oh, the Super Bowl's tomorrow. Me and the MC were gonna drive 12 hours after that show on Saturday night. So we dropped you off and then we just drove to Buffalo after. That's right now.

[Lee Syatt]

Where'd you drop me off? The air.

[Josh Potter]

That hotel. Because we went that night. Like it was like the Late Show Saturday. And then we just drove home after the Late show and. Because I remember. Yeah, I was like, oh, I'm so. Because they were like.

[Lee Syatt]

That's right. You and the manager or something.

[Josh Potter]

Me and Kyle. The mc. Kyle mc.

[Lee Syatt]

So you guys got in the car after the show and I remember telling you to stop after like five hours.

[Josh Potter]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I drove straight. He fell asleep, like, right away. He's like, I'll sleep now and then I'll wake up and drive the second half so we can get home by like one o', clock, take a nap, watch the Super Bowl. And I ended up. He ended up waking up at like 9am and I'm like, I'm good, dude. I'll just finish it. And I did. I just drove because I wanted to see that. I wanted to see that Super Bowl.

[Unidentified Guest]

Well, wasn't there a time you were telling me when we first met that, like, there was a time you, like, went back and forth from Cleveland to Buffalo?

[Josh Potter]

Oh, when I lived there and when I did those shows, like, with you, I had all these shows lined up before I moved because it was like a. The whole thing of me getting that job offer to me moving was seven days. I had to decide if I want to go and I had to be there in seven days to like, launch the show. So it was all very quick. And I had all these shows booked in Buffalo, including the one I did with you. And so I was just. I had my apartment in Buffalo still. And then I got like. I was just sleeping in my Jeep in Cleveland and then like, waking up and like, taking a shower at like, the gym and then going into work at 3am to do morning radio and then driving back, like on the weekends to sleep in my apartment in Buffalo and like, do the shows, basically. So, yeah, that was like. I think I drove to Cleave from Cleveland to Buffalo the morning of that show and then slept in my apartment that just had a mattress in it and then woke up with my cousin and drove back to. To Cleveland and just went back to, like, work.

[Lee Syatt]

People really never know. And if you look back at those times, you're like, was I fucking crazy?

[Josh Potter]

Yeah.

[Lee Syatt]

Like, what would make you drive and sleep in your fucking car? It's a love.

[Josh Potter]

Yeah.

[Lee Syatt]

It's a passion. What would make. What would make it okay? Like, if you went to the normal college educated person and told that to. What would they say to you?

[Josh Potter]

It makes me sad that some people don't have that at all. There's nothing they would do that for. You know, There's a lot of people in the world that have nothing that makes them feel that way. That makes me kind of sad for them. But they probably think I'm crazy for saying that.

[Lee Syatt]

But it was really weird because before the age of 28. Nothing was worth living and dying for. And somehow another I got locked up. And I ended up, you know, getting exposed to more comedy and seeing dice. And then I'm like, I want to do stand up. You know, like, what are we talking about?

[Unidentified Guest]

Living and dying for something.

[Josh Potter]

Yeah, like sleeping in your car and shit.

[Lee Syatt]

I went from. I went from. I went from loving cocaine. Like, that was my only passion. Like, I liked sex, I liked girls. I liked Szechuan beef, I liked pork egg rolls, you know, but there was nothing that. Everything was like, I liked music. I love music, but I love cocaine. Comedy swept me off my feet. And it was like, at first. Listen, it's like anything else. You're making 320 a week. Let's say you're making 350 a week. You're clearing 1,400amonth. You got your apartment, you got your car payment, you got food, and you put away 200amonth if you're lucky. You're not living at the Taj Mahal. You're living in a basement. From time to time, you catch a rat. You know, shit like that. I come to you and I go, listen, I want you to come work for me. The only problem is a straight commission. This happens in life. But I go, my regular guys, I got a guy that's a half a retard, and he walks out of here with two GS a week. Can you imagine what you would do? I mean, the first week you're fucking skeptical as fuck. Yeah, you're petrified. You're losing money by the hour. But then it's like, by Wednesday, you get like 300. You're like, okay, so I made what I made last week. Thursday, Friday, you take a chance. The first week you make 800. You're like, okay, then you make a thousand. The second week. Then now you're actually making two grand consistently, you know, Are you gonna fall in love with that job?

[Josh Potter]

No.

[Lee Syatt]

Yes, you are.

[Josh Potter]

Well, yeah. Yeah.

[Lee Syatt]

I was like, do you love doing it? I was giving you 300 a week, and all of a sudden I gave you 800 a week, and all of a sudden now you're making 1200 a week. So you're making 4, 800amonth. You have a wife and a kid.

[Josh Potter]

Oh, okay.

[Lee Syatt]

Your wife is in shock because you've been an idiot all your life, you know? What are you doing? Well, I'm selling plumbing supplies on the phone. So what do you do now? You go to the library. If you're a fucking normal person. And you find that the in and outs are selling because it seems like sales is in your future because you were making 350 at the fucking video store. Now you're doing this, you're getting better every month. So now you read about sales to know the psychology about sales.

[Josh Potter]

Sure.

[Lee Syatt]

And now you're all in. Now you just took your family from a fucking one tax bracket to the other and you rose them again because you got into what you were doing. And you're going to have bad months. There's going to be a month that you just don't. Nobody wants to buy fucking glasses.

[Josh Potter]

Yeah.

[Lee Syatt]

So you're fucked. Same thing as with comedy. Same thing as with anything else you get into. You're always skeptical at first. Then you get a little bit of success. And now you go, if I got a little bit of success with that shitty effort, can you imagine if I fucking jumped into head first into this thing?

[Josh Potter]

Yeah.

[Lee Syatt]

And that's when you see the results of everything. And that's when.

[Joey Diaz]

I got a gig.

[Lee Syatt]

For you in Buffalo. And you're like, I'll take it. But you didn't call Trailways before you fucking left. And there's a four hour delay in Albany from 2:30 in the morning to 6:30 in the morning. Good luck. And they closed the bus station and there's nothing to eat for three miles. And when there is a fucking Popeye's chicken, but there ain't no fucking savory characters hanging out there. And on top of that, all you have is $6 anyway to get you to Buffalo. Hell yeah, you're gonna get to the fucking condo. Hopefully there'll be fucking. The comic before left cereal in there. And then when you go in that night, you'll get a draw after your first show to make the following week.

[Josh Potter]

Yep.

[Lee Syatt]

That takes love. Yeah, that takes love.

[Josh Potter]

I'm always like smiling when you were describing that versus sales thing, the sales thing, I'm like, oh, no, I don't want that job.

[Joey Diaz]

I'm letting people know at home. Of course I'm comparing it to apples and peaches.

[Josh Potter]

Of course.

[Lee Syatt]

All the same.

[Unidentified Guest]

Yeah, but like the, the thing for me and I, I, I love doing stand up.

[Joey Diaz]

I keep talking, I just gotta.

[Unidentified Guest]

Sure, I'm, I'm nowhere near you guys. But I can't, I can't imagine like sleeping in my car one night a month or one night a week because I'm on the road in between like San Francisco and la. I could do that. But there's people who like, I couldn't imagine living in my car on a regular basis.

[Josh Potter]

Well, it wasn't for me. I was lucky. I mean, I. It wasn't a regular basis. It was like probably a couple weeks here and there.

[Unidentified Guest]

Okay.

[Josh Potter]

Because I just didn't have an apartment there and I couldn't afford to have a hotel every night. So I would just, you know, I worked in an office and I got a gym membership and I just would shower at the gym. And then I had a cool car, a big enough car that it didn't even matter. And then also my father at the time was working for a business. Like he worked in a, in a, for a restaurant inside of a hotel chain.

[Unidentified Guest]

Okay.

[Josh Potter]

Kind of thing. I won't say which one, but then like, he would give me like a discount on a room. So I'd have one like here and there. Okay.

[Unidentified Guest]

Yeah.

[Josh Potter]

It would be like for like three weeks. It was like three weeks. I guess, like that. I. Because I also couldn't just afford to buy another apartment out of nowhere yet. You know what I mean? I had one in Buffalo, but yeah. So it was like, it wasn't like I was living in my car for like a six months time or something like that, or like a year.

[Unidentified Guest]

Okay.

[Josh Potter]

I mean, it's still tough, but it was that stretch. Yeah. And then, I mean, when I lived in, in Cleveland, I, I, when I found an apartment, I just like slept on. I just was like, I never really moved into it. I just kind of slept on the ground and.

[Unidentified Guest]

Right. Because like, I've had my first couple experiences with condos in the last few months and that's nothing fancy, but I, like, I could do it. It's not, that's not how I would like to live, but like, I could do it. But the end.

[Josh Potter]

I don't understand. I, like, maybe because I came up in comedy in this past decade, the condo situations have never been unsafe. There's never been a condo that I've been in where I've been like, this is worse than my apartment because I've just lived, I guess, in squalor myself. So I've always got into the condos going, like, what's everyone complaining about? You know, like, this is kind of nice. Yeah. So I mean, like, that's the thing that, like, I'm starting to learn living in LA is like, I'm starting to grow up a little bit more in terms of just like my own lifestyle choices. You know what I mean? Like, you were describing the unsavory characters at the Popeyes. I was just that Guy like I was the unsavory character at the Popeyes 99.

[Lee Syatt]

It's a Monday morning. I just got paid by Rod Leide.

[Josh Potter]

Yeah.

[Lee Syatt]

Some staff member saved me 30 bucks or 20 by giving me a ride to the bus station downtown.

[Josh Potter]

Nice.

[Lee Syatt]

I'm fucking ecstatic. I don't know, somewhere, wherever he dropped me off, there was a McDonald's. You know, in those days, I traveled light. I had, like, my bag. And then I went and I got the fucking egg sandwich with the potato and the fucking juice that's in McDonald's. Used to give you a little orange juice.

[Josh Potter]

Yeah.

[Lee Syatt]

And I'll never forget, like, whatever that combo cost. I gave her the 20. She gives me the bag. I fucking. You know, I'm walking back to the bus station. And to be honest, it's a nice day in Buffalo. The sun's out, and I'm like, if I gotta sit on the bus for seven and a half hours, I might as well grab some sun. And I just finished the egg sandwich. I put the egg container in the bag, the potato holder in the bag, and I'm about to fold it. I'm sipping the Coke. Cause I always. I was a fat fuck. So I get an orange juice and a Coke and two apple pies for a dollar. What the fuck? Throw them in there. You're on the road, you're trying to eat for $80.

[Josh Potter]

Give yourself a treat.

[Lee Syatt]

That's a buffet.

[Josh Potter]

Yeah, yeah.

[Lee Syatt]

And I'm about to draw the thing, and I see this black kid running towards me. I'm like, what the fuck? And he goes, yo, brother, take a look. And he had a gold chain in his hand. And you could see the bracelets were broken, like, where they were connected. And he's looking back like, he's like, man, either buy it or whatever. And I'm like, is it gold? And he goes, man, does a pick. Cotton. Like, he said something like that to me, like something off color. And I go, all right. And he goes, give me 50 bucks. Because it was a thick, cold chain. And I was like, dog. I took out the 16 and change I had from the Mickey D's, the fort, whatever.

[Josh Potter]

Yeah, yeah.

[Lee Syatt]

Like, well, this is what I got. I mean, I gave him the exact whatever that lady gave me with the receipt. And he goes, done. He ran off. And I get in the fucking thing. I get in the car, I get in the bus, I take it to Manhattan to Port Authority. And then the whole thing. I'm looking at this, and I'm like, I got beat. I got Beat. This is a beat move.

[Josh Potter]

Because it's not real.

[Lee Syatt]

It's not. I thought in my head, first place I get off the bus, I go to a pawn shop. Guy weighs it. He's like, I could do 680 or something. It's gold.

[Josh Potter]

Holy.

[Lee Syatt]

He goes, but it's a nice chain, man. Why are you getting rid of it? Like, I don't know. He goes, For 20 bucks, I'll put brackets on it for you. I go, go ahead. And I kept the chain for a while, and then I ended up selling it somewhere.

[Josh Potter]

That's wild.

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah.

[Josh Potter]

That guy just wanted crack real bad.

[Lee Syatt]

He just ripped the fucking chain off somebody's neck. Oh, my God.

[Josh Potter]

Damn.

[Lee Syatt]

Only in Buffalo. Yeah, right.

[Josh Potter]

That's wild. By that bus station downtown.

[Lee Syatt]

They don't play.

[Josh Potter]

No.

[Lee Syatt]

Let me tell you. Live over there, I used to take the buses. I knew all that. You know, I was involved in a little romance in Syracuse.

[Josh Potter]

Oh, you went up and down that bus to that syracuse.

[Lee Syatt]

Buffalo. The 90 that was in Albany had the. The comedy room at the bus station.

[Josh Potter]

Is that. That's not the one.

[Lee Syatt]

This is nine.

[Josh Potter]

That's not. Comedy works.

[Lee Syatt]

Right? This is 97 guys.

[Unidentified Guest]

They have room at the bus station.

[Lee Syatt]

Yeah.

[Josh Potter]

That's crazy.

[Unidentified Guest]

So you didn't even get a hotel? You just came in, did the show and left?

[Lee Syatt]

Did they put you up? No, it was a New York comic room booked by a guy named Roger Paul.

[Unidentified Guest]

Okay.

[Lee Syatt]

And you would. It was for New York guys.

[Josh Potter]

Yeah, because that's a quick one.

[Lee Syatt]

You took the train to Albany. You got off. It was the audience of hell. Missing teeth, you know, arrows in their head, a fucking handcuff on their wrists.

[Unidentified Guest]

Waiting for the bus.

[Lee Syatt]

Fucking just great people here.

[Josh Potter]

That New York to Buffalo bus ride is. I've done that a bunch. Mega bus ride.

[Joey Diaz]

A full circuit.

[Josh Potter]

Yeah.

[Lee Syatt]

Because if you take Syracuse, Buff.

[Joey Diaz]

Buff.

[Lee Syatt]

Syracuse, Buff. Albany, Buff. Rochester, there's always something. That's where I met the girl that straight up told me to my face, this is why I love. Listen, going on the road makes you a great comic. But you want me to tell you something? 30% of the reason why you go on the road, you go on the road. He has to do drugs and to do whatever. And Lee doesn't do drugs where he would go on the road to eat at Chinese buffets or whatever he does.

[Josh Potter]

He told me about barbecue before.

[Unidentified Guest]

I'm like, fuck, he's going to North Carolina. He's not gonna get barbecue.

[Lee Syatt]

What were we talking about?

[Unidentified Guest]

The road's great.

[Lee Syatt]

You learn a lot the road's great.

[Josh Potter]

It's only a third of it.

[Lee Syatt]

The other thing about the road is the people you meet and the relationships you make. And you learn about the universe. You learn about you being hungry. You know, you put yourself in all these positions as a comic to get yourself out of this hole, which you should be doing as a human being, which is going out of your comfort zone, you know, and you just get to meet the weird people, especially on a bus, you know, when you. I could. I know for a fact, without exaggeration, there was 20 times when I was on, I had to wait for the next bus. And there was a three hour gap. And you got $4 in your pocket, but you got a joint, you got a Walkman. You got Christina Aguilera's new fucking cd. You don't like it, but you shoplifted it at some fucking truck station. You know what I'm saying? I'm in the night still like singing.

[Josh Potter]

Yeah, I'm a genie in a bottle.

[Lee Syatt]

You know, I remember being in that song Slaps. Yeah. I remember being in Saginaw, Michigan, and staying in a hotel for 20 hours a night and hearing people getting prostituted and walking across the street because the. It wouldn't be. It was like a Friday, Saturday, and then a Friday, Saturday in the same area. I don't know where to go. So. So you go downtown where you rent by the room and you go to the bathroom and there's a condom on the floor because you have to share. You have to share the bathroom with the. Oh, yeah.

[Unidentified Guest]

It's like a boarding house.

[Lee Syatt]

Yeah. You know, I did it all. There's no story you could come.

[Josh Potter]

Right, right, right.

[Lee Syatt]

But the best ever was when I got on the bus with this girl and I'm like, oh, my God. She sat right next to me. Like, I had the window seat and she slid next to me. And it was just me and her. And I'm like, oh, my God, this girl's at fucking 12. And I just was like, I'm not gonna say a word. And she's like, hi, so what's your name? Oh, my God. Talking to me and papa da bottom. What do you do? What are you gonna be doing? And I think I was going to Rochester maybe. You're gonna know when I tell you.

[Josh Potter]

Yeah, yeah.

[Lee Syatt]

So I said, what are you doing? She goes, well, this has been embarrassing. She goes, I'm an exotic dancer. And I go, okay, so you're going to wherever to dance? And she goes, well, I have to be honest with you, Where I dance, they do a health inspection, and I've got a disease. I've got like, vd. So the prescription won't came, and I'll have it for the next week. But if I go to this town, they don't check for a health dance.

[Josh Potter]

That's like stripping laws, eh?

[Lee Syatt]

Yeah, they had, like, some type of stripping law. She had something that she couldn't dance because it was contagious.

[Josh Potter]

Huh.

[Lee Syatt]

But she's like that. Shit.

[Josh Potter]

I don't know what I. I wish I knew the laws.

[Lee Syatt]

It was either rock municipalities.

[Josh Potter]

It was probably.

[Lee Syatt]

It was.

[Joey Diaz]

It was between Buffalo, Rochester.

[Josh Potter]

Because there were those two comedy cafes. Right. Or two comic cafes. The one in Buffalo. And then there was that one in Rochester, that Joe T. Guy. Do you remember?

[Lee Syatt]

There was a. The only club I remember in Rochester was a club that was built on cocaine.

[Josh Potter]

Yeah.

[Lee Syatt]

From the minute I walked in there, the owner had you in an attic.

[Josh Potter]

I think that's what I'm talking about.

[Lee Syatt]

And it was. It was just. I enjoyed doing it.

[Josh Potter]

Yeah.

[Lee Syatt]

I was a junkie, so I enjoyed being there, but to be honest with you, no, I didn't enjoy being there.

[Josh Potter]

Right, right, right.

[Lee Syatt]

It was all over the place. It was like going to the club in Kansas City. It was like. Even Miami wasn't that bad. Wow. Because the staff was pretty light. You know, there's clubs you go to. The whole staff's on drugs.

[Josh Potter]

Yeah.

[Lee Syatt]

Most Kansas City, the whole staff's on drugs. The management's running around. This is their life. This is their part of their addiction.

[Josh Potter]

It's part of the thing that attracted.

[Lee Syatt]

Me to this crazy. Well, I'm happy, man, that you're out here, and I'm happy you're making moves.

[Josh Potter]

I'm trying, like you say, put the pieces together.

[Lee Syatt]

The pieces together. There's something I wanted to talk to you about. You guys been ready. You were in radio for a long time. I've been doing this for a long time. Listen, when. When I started this podcast, you know, nobody knew what direction we were going with this thing. We just came on here, we told comedy stories. We told whatever. For me, it was opening up about my life as being vulnerable. Telling the story about mugging a hooker and lighting a wig on fire. And then, you know, things came out. And about four months ago, something happened that devastated me. That was the last nail in the nail of many coffins. They fired a kid off a Saturday Night Live because something he said in episode 280 of some episode that somebody dug up.

[Josh Potter]

Yeah.

[Lee Syatt]

And he lost his Job and whatever and everything happens for a reason. That kid will be a lot better off. He'll put it together. It ain't no prize being on Saturday Night Live, so.

[Josh Potter]

You know, Shane's so funny too. He's a great stand up.

[Lee Syatt]

In the last two weeks, I got a message. I got a message about six months ago from somebody telling me something about sin. Karen, you know, I got introduced by sin, by another musician who knew sin from somebody else. And sin made the headlines this last week for sleeping with underage girls. You know, I know that he's taken down his website, he's taken down his Facebook page. You know, my heart goes out to the victims of this horrible thing. I have a daughter. I would never wish it for her. And my heart also goes out to sin because God knows what he was thinking. We got to say a prayer for him. Whether they're true or not, who the fuck knows? You know, as soon as I heard the story, I thought about Paris Hilton on David Letterman telling the story on how she remembers sneaking out of the window when she was 15 and going to discos. When you're 15 and you sneak out of a club, you're not sneaking out of a club to meet boys that are 16. Do you know what I'm saying?

[Josh Potter]

Yeah, no, totally.

[Lee Syatt]

Like when the d. When the. And it all starts at the doorman. The doorman knows you're 16, but yeah, you're hot pussy to the musicians or the band or to who's ever in there. So again, my heart goes out to both families. You know, sin for whatever he did that he takes care of his problem. And to the family of the girls in San Antonio, wherever else they had. If you're offended that I had sit on, my apologies go to you. And you guys know that I don't really come up with apologies. Let's let the air clear and then we'll get to that. Number two, something else happened last week that really got me thinking. Our friend Brad Williams, who also has a podcast. I've done the degenerates with him. I've always. I always knew Brad was a freak. Let's not get carried away. Those little midgets, they got like, don't get confused. You see a midget know that he's got a black dick. Midgets have been known for having two foot dicks. It's not a curse from God. It's just giving a midget. If you're a lady and you want a big dick and you don't want to cross the line and you don't want your property value to go down on your pussy. Let me tell you something, find yourself a nice looking midget because that guy's got dick for days. He's gonna be taking that snake out of his pants like a hose. You know what I'm saying? So I know Brad personally. I've heard through the grapevine he could wrap his dick around your neck and choke you with it. So don't, don't ever feel mad for digits. Midgets. Those motherfuckers are packing heat between their legs. It's up to you whether you want those little fucked up fingers on you squeezing your tits while that three foot dick is fucking. Anyway. Oh, my point being that I don't, I don't know what happened with Brad Williams. I know he went on a podcast six years ago and told the story about him and Carlos and they came up with an apology. Was I there? Do I know? I don't need to be there to know. I saw it. I saw women putting themselves in bad positions. I saw women come up to me and say, if you introduce me to such and such, I'll suck his dick. I'll suck your dick. It was a point where you feel bad for humanity. You know what I'm saying? You feel bad for humanity. Brad's on the shit end of the stick right now. Again, my heart goes out to him. My heart goes out to this poor girl who got by a midget in the dark. Because that's got to be a nightmare open. You know, you ever wake up next to somebody ugly, that's one thing.

[Joey Diaz]

But waking up to Oopa Loompa and all of a sudden you're like, what.

[Lee Syatt]

The is going on here? And I love Brad. I. I'm on degenerates with him. I'm worried they're gonna take a more degenerates or something. Well, I mean, you know, I'm really worried about this, but this is just to let you know that this is why I'm open with you people. I don't give a fuck at this point in my life. Listen, if you hear something, if you didn't hear from me, it didn't happen. If that did happen, I'll tell you my side of the fucking story. Just so you fucking know. As any as all you people know is I'm not a me too. I mean, I love looking at your titties, but I'm not a me too. I love looking at your ass. I love women. I love you to death. I mean, last night there Was a point at the Comedy Store. I had five beautiful women around me and at one time did I think of fuck one of them. I had Felicia, I had fucking Annie Lederman, I had fucking Kate Quigley, I had light skinned sister waitress at the Comedy Store and that new little cute one. And we were talking about something, you know what I'm saying? Doesn't mean you're a me too, right? It just means you're talking to people.

[Josh Potter]

Well, that's comedy also.

[Lee Syatt]

That's the great thing. The Comedy Store's my family. But you know what, man? I'm just. I'm happy that I was always very vulnerable with you guys. From day one when I learned that what you guys wanted to hear was truth. Truth from the heart. Like people telling you stories, people letting you know that it's okay to be human. I'm sick and tired of listening to podcasts where they're above us. Ain't nobody fucking exact motherfuckers. We're all the same and we all go through the same struggles. This guy drove 18 hours between. It's weird because when you booked Buffalo in the old days, Buffalo had the funny bone. She wouldn't book you in Buffalo unless she could get you at the Cleveland improv first. So when you called her, you got four weeks of work, you got Cleveland and it was back to back. She was cool about it, right? Sara Nai, the cunt that she was, she was cool about it at that time. I've heard that Sarah Nai was a dirty little Asian bitch, mixed good looking but evil as fuck. And when she got power, she really started torturing motherfuckers. I'll never forget her I ever see. I'll throw a thousand chopsticks at her.

[Joey Diaz]

She's a dirty bitch.

[Lee Syatt]

I'll beat her with chopsticks. I swear to God. She was cruel. She was very mean to you. Very mean to you, Lee. Very mean.

[Josh Potter]

Yeah, Lee, if you would have.

[Lee Syatt]

If you're a comic, you. What did I tell you? What my pet peeve is? My pet peeve about comedians is fucking with their dream. That's my pet peeve with a comedian. When comedians hit me up, hey, I want to be in your podcast. I don't string them along right. You're in no danger. Go jump off a bridge and get back to me. You know what I'm saying?

[Joey Diaz]

Some guy called me a couple weeks ago.

[Lee Syatt]

Hi, my friend was on Rogan's podcast. Do you think I could be on your podcast? Do I know you?

[Josh Potter]

Christ.

[Lee Syatt]

Well, I was in the army and you love. Yeah, but that. Nothing to do. I know you've been doing comedy six months. Why you bothering me for? You know, go back to the army, do two, ten more years of comedy, and then get back to me. What do you want from me? I can't help you out. Yeah, I'm working with guys up here that I see busting their asses. When I put you in that chair, it's because I know you're busting your ass out there every night where the lead tells me, Ryan Sickler tells me, I'm listening. And then I see you. You know, I'm not putting people in here to come in here and try to pull the wall over there. I don't want. There's a thousand of those people out there trying to pull the wall over for sure.

[Josh Potter]

For sure.

[Lee Syatt]

Thousands of people that look at, look at over here, look at over here, but nothing's happening.

[Josh Potter]

And it's the people that are buying.

[Lee Syatt]

It, and you're buying it, but they ain't doing nothing. This kind of right, right. I know motherfuckers that leave their house at 6 o', clock, don't walk back until 1 and got to go to a job at 6am in the morning, and at 5 o' clock, they e push ups and they're back waiting online. You know, I know a chick that does four open mics. The bitch can't drive because she has seizures and she, you know, takes a fucking Uber everywhere. Yeah, from. Remember the other night you had to send me money for an Uber. Who do you think I was trying to help out? I didn't have money for a fucking Uber. So I said, come up to the office. I'll give you a few bucks. How can I not? You know, she called me a day, can you wait two weeks till I pay you back? I go, listen, don't worry about the fucking money. The girl called me, she was fucking stuck. Yeah, her credit card. And she's like, I don't know you. You know, I don't know how you. If you could help me. I said, hold on, let me send an Uber for you. You're not gonna. In fact, forget that. Do you have any money? She goes, I'm flat broke. I haven't eaten all day. I said, meet me at the office. I got a high. I gave her 50 bucks. In fact, I still owe you 20 bucks for that Uberly. So.

[Josh Potter]

Yeah, that's the. That's amazing.

[Lee Syatt]

I didn't. I remember last night.

[Josh Potter]

I mean, I've been in those spots where it's like you got to call up a buddy or somebody.

[Joey Diaz]

We all cousin.

[Lee Syatt]

It's like I did it to 20 people. So now when people call me to the comics that I see at the store, I tell people there's a thousand people. I pull aside and go, listen, you need something, you come see me. I don't want you sucking dick. I don't want you doing nothing you don't need to do. You know, if you're gonna suck a dick for five, you'll suck my dick for three. Wholesale. I'll give you. I'll give you seven. No. You know what I'm saying?

[Josh Potter]

Yeah, exactly.

[Lee Syatt]

You gotta let these people know that they need help, man.

[Josh Potter]

That's great.

[Lee Syatt]

That's why I'm happy the Comedy Store is putting funds together. I'm not saying give a comic two grand a month. I'm here to spoil you.

[Josh Potter]

No, of course.

[Lee Syatt]

But I'm gonna get you out of a fucking bind. If I know that you're working. If you're just trying to work me for drug money.

[Josh Potter]

Yeah.

[Lee Syatt]

In fact, last night, I bought somebody drugs.

[Josh Potter]

Well, that's just straight to the.

[Lee Syatt]

Oh. Oh, Jesus.

[Josh Potter]

You can't worry about emotive one.

[Lee Syatt]

I give you a lot of respect. It's Martin Luther King week.

[Unidentified Guest]

Thank you.

[Lee Syatt]

I didn't want to fart you.

[Unidentified Guest]

What do you mean you bought someone drugs?

[Lee Syatt]

There was a drug dealer last night that I knew for 20 years. I went up to him, I said, do you have anything? He goes, yeah. I go, Bob, I put 60 bucks in his pocket. I go, go over there and give that girl a jibo. She came up to me when I got off stage and hugged me. She goes, what? Oh, my God. It was such a present.

[Josh Potter]

Yeah. That's wild. Everybody at the. At the store has been, like, super nice, too. Like, I'm not.

[Lee Syatt]

It's a love.

[Josh Potter]

Yeah. It's amazing.

[Lee Syatt]

You know, last night. I can't tell you it. Last night, my. I almost crashed my car driving to the store from the anxiety I had. When Ali Wong is supposed to go up at 9:15, you have a problem. That schedule ran from 9:15 to 11:30. Each of those guys, if you saw them individually, you would have to pay $35 or more for sure. It went from her to Ron White to d' Aaliyah to Anthony Jeselnik to Rogan to myself to Donnell Rawling to Jeff Ross.

[Josh Potter]

That's crazy.

[Lee Syatt]

That's where it went.

[Josh Potter]

That's crazy.

[Lee Syatt]

It ended up. It mixed up, and I had to bring up Ally and we started dancing on stage. Next thing you know, I was like doing like the fast banquet and I'm like, oh my God, Ally. So I. I tweeted this morning and thanked her for coming out. You got any dates or anything coming up anywhere anybody could find?

[Josh Potter]

Yeah, I'm gonna be this weekend at the Dead Crow Comedy Club in Wilmington, North Carolina. And then next weekend I'm gonna be at the comedy connection, the 31st and the first in Rhode island province. Yeah.

[Lee Syatt]

You're headlining?

[Josh Potter]

Yep, both places.

[Lee Syatt]

Good for you, brother.

[Josh Potter]

Thank you.

[Lee Syatt]

You got a website and everything?

[Josh Potter]

I'm just doing it all on Instagram, dude. I don't even have a website. People are finding me though and buying tickets and so I know that I gotta get it. I just bad at money and putting together. I'm gonna be doing one soon on your mom's house network. I'm working on all the other ones though. Dr. Drew Honeydew. Your mom's house. And gonna be starting mine pretty soon as well.

[Lee Syatt]

Hopefully, like I told you. Tell Dr. Drew I'll do the podcast. But he brings up Lana, turn. I gotta break his glasses.

[Josh Potter]

Oh, yeah, we've mentioned it.

[Lee Syatt]

You know what I'm saying?

[Josh Potter]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

Want to thank you guys for being.

[Lee Syatt]

Part of a great fucking family.

[Joey Diaz]

Don't forget Friday night. No, Saturday night there's a few tickets left.

[Lee Syatt]

Atlanta at the Tabernacle. They might be solo tickets. I don't know what the fuck they are. Do what you need to do. And February 13th, 14th and 15th, Valentine's Day. I will be at the Tempe Improv. Tickets are going quick and we're gonna have a great time. Valentine's Day. Bring a condom and bring a condom night to the fucking thing. If you bring a condom, I'll give you a free edible. Oh, Jesus. Something like that. But you gotta eat it with. You gotta. I don't know, you gotta.

[Unidentified Guest]

You're gonna come home with 800 condoms?

[Lee Syatt]

Yeah, I don't want no condoms. I don't need condoms. It's condom night. We'll give them out to fucking junkies or ex comics that want to stuff things in their asshole. Anyway, I love you guys with all my heart.

[Joey Diaz]

Real quick, let me talk to you about two of my favorite fucking companies. First of all, I can't tell you.

[Lee Syatt]

How excited I am with Butcher Blockchain.

[Joey Diaz]

I really fucking was Butcher Box.

[Lee Syatt]

You know, I see these people on Jenny Craig eating that Malouk food and shit. But when I went to my brother in law's in Kentucky, I saw he had A freezer. And he had, he would go somewhere where they would send you steaks pre ordered. He buys them for the fucking every six months, he said, he goes, I won't buy them deeper. I buy enough to what I know, I save a little money and I just buy a half a cow and he gets steaks, ribeyes, a meatloaf, he gets a meatloaf. Cow doesn't have a meatloaf. You know, he gets sirloin. Sirloin. He gets different parts of it. And I, when my agent called me about this, I went on their website and I read what they had and I said, send me a box. And hey, the proof is in the fucking pudding. So I'm very in front of very, very impressed with Butcherbox. I mean, like I said earlier, they ship frozen and vacuum sealed food so it arrives at your door fresh as a fucking daisy. Butcher Box is a subscription service that sends you 9 to 11 pounds of high quality, humanely raised meat every month. Do you understand me? I'm talking about free range chicken, Heritage pork, wild caught salmon. Or you could pick one of their curated collections and let Butcherbox do all the work for you. You can customize every order with healthy, high quality meats like grass fed beef. You understand me? Free range chicken, the heritage pork. I myself had the salmon last night. It was fucking delicious. My wife made a little lemon sauce, she made some little red potatoes with it and it rocked my fucking world. I will let you know how the steak is in a few days. I have Lee come over and pick up a few things. What I want you to do is this, right now. Just go to Butcherbox, see what they have to offer, okay? Put together a package, give them a chance. Columbus did. Listen, this is what you get from the church.

[Joey Diaz]

If you go through us.

[Lee Syatt]

We're going to give you free wings, free chicken wings for the life of your subscription. That's three pounds of wings in every box forever. Think about that. Every month you're going to have three pounds of wings in there. You hire some of your neighbors to come over and cut them up. I don't like cutting up fucking wings. You fucking bread them, you get yourself a nice wok. My girlfriend from Buffalo used to walk them. Yeah, that's how you do them. Then you shake them up nice. But let me tell you something, everybody likes a great wing. What are you gonna do for the Super Bowl? What are you gonna give out hummus? You fuck? I come to your Super Bowl, I hear nobody in Kansas City eats hummus. And well, San Francisco, everybody. All those fucking half a fruitcake. But listen to me. The big game is around the corner. These savages, they're gonna be tearing through your refrigerator. Forget that stuff. How are you gonna feed these people? With a bowl of potato chips? A fucking veggie plate? I gotta sit there and smell that broccoli?

[Joey Diaz]

I think it's my fucking feet. Well, forget about it. It's Butcherbox. So right now. Right now, Butcherbox no special offer is free wings for the life of your subscription. That's three pounds of wings and every box forever. Plus you get 20 bucks off your first box and free shipping in the lower 48. Just go to butcherbox.com church and use promo code Church at checkout. The other company. I love them.

[Lee Syatt]

Why? Because they save you time, they save you money and they just save you headaches. What are you going to do with a resume? Look at it through a crystal ball? Forget about that. That's a ZipRecruiter comes in.

[Joey Diaz]

It's a new year. It's the year of the pig of your Chinese. The perfect opportunity to take your business to the next level by hiring the right people. But finding qualified candidates is a challenge. Half these people are fucking stupid. Not ZipRecruiter.com Church makes it very easy. You're like Joey.

[Lee Syatt]

Why? Why?

[Joey Diaz]

ZipRecruiter sends your job to a hundred of the web's leading job boards.

[Lee Syatt]

But they don't stop there. With their powerful matching technology, ZipRecruiter scans.

[Joey Diaz]

Through thousands of resumes to find people with the right experience and invite them to apply to your job.

[Lee Syatt]

As application comes in, ZipRecruiter analyzes each one and spotlights the top candidates so you never, ever, ever, ever miss a great match.

[Joey Diaz]

ZipRecruiter is so effective, let me tell you something that 4 out of 5 employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day.

[Lee Syatt]

That's time. That's saving you money. That's saving you the number one thing.

[Joey Diaz]

Aggravation.

[Lee Syatt]

Do me a favor, let's cut this out. Grab a pen.

[Joey Diaz]

You're going to go to an exclusive web address. Ziprecruiter.com church ziprecruiter. You ready? Zip z I p recruiter. R e c r u I dash e r dot com church for another of you stupid people. C dash h u r c h that's ziprecruiter.com church zipRecruiter. The smartest way to hire. I want to welcome Butcherbox. I want to give a shout out to zip recruiter.

[Lee Syatt]

But most importantly, I want to thank.

[Joey Diaz]

You fucking savages for having my back.

[Lee Syatt]

I will see you Saturday night.

[Joey Diaz]

Ready to fucking rock in Atlanta.

[Lee Syatt]

I'm ready to rip somebody's heart out. I did two spots last night in.

[Joey Diaz]

The store, just getting fucking fired up.

[Lee Syatt]

The one joke ate the bag of dicks, but the other one's on point. You're going to love it, I promise you this.

[Joey Diaz]

I love you motherfuckers, with all my heart.

[Lee Syatt]

Remember, the song of the day, out.

[Joey Diaz]

Of respect for Buffalo, is you and.

[Lee Syatt]

I. I could have shown up with what's the other one he did, but.

[Josh Potter]

No freak and all that.

[Lee Syatt]

Nah, fuck that shit. It's either UI or 69 times. You ever hear 69 times? He did it on Letterman.

[Josh Potter]

I haven't seen the Letterman.

[Lee Syatt]

And he kept doing 69 times. And when he sat down, Letterman looked at Rick James and said, is that off your Christmas albums?

[Joey Diaz]

I love you, motherfucker. Stay black. Give it a whirl. I'll see you motherfuckers in Atlanta Saturday night.

[Lee Syatt]

Or in Tempe, Valentine's Day weekend.

[Joey Diaz]

Kick that fucking mule, Lee.