Giving yourself a shot: The return of Dean Delray

Summary

The Church of What's Happening Now: The New Testament

Episode: "Giving Yourself a Shot: The Return of Dean Delray"

Release Date: April 8, 2025

Hosts: Joey "Coco" Diaz and Lee Syatt

Guest: Dean Delray

---

Overview

In this lively episode of The Church of What's Happening Now: The New Testament, hosts Joey "Coco" Diaz and Lee Syatt welcome back comedian Dean Delray to the studio after nearly five years. The conversation spans a wide array of topics, including personal growth, the evolution of the comedy scene, challenges in the entertainment industry, and humorous anecdotes from their experiences in New York and Los Angeles.

---

Key Discussions

Dean Delray's Return and Personal Journey

Dean Delray marks his return to the podcast with reflections on his time away and the growth he's experienced both personally and professionally. He shares insights into his latest comedy special, filmed uniquely in a Tennessee cave, and discusses the challenges of breaking into the comedy scene.

• Notable Quote:

  "We shot the special. Marcus killed it. Bill produced it, financed it. It looks insane. And it's the best thing I've ever done in my life."
  (17:19) — Dean Delray

The Changing Landscape of Comedy and Entertainment

Joey and Dean delve into how the comedy industry has transformed over the years, especially with the rise of digital platforms. They compare the traditional paths of comedians to the new avenues available today, emphasizing the importance of self-production and leveraging platforms like Patreon and Venmo TV.

• Notable Quote:

  "We control our own destiny. If you want to put a half-hour special up, put a half-hour special."
  (80:18) — Joey Diaz

Personal Struggles and Overcoming Adversity

Joey Diaz opens up about his past struggles with substance abuse and how comedy became his refuge post-incarceration and divorce. He emphasizes the importance of giving oneself a chance despite setbacks, using his own life as a testament to resilience.

• Notable Quote:

  "I got into comedy when I was in the worst spot of my life. Out of prison, fucking divorced. It was fucking horrible."
  (93:20) — Joey Diaz

Anecdotes from the Road

The trio shares numerous humorous and outrageous stories from their tours, including chaotic experiences with transportation, unexpected encounters with celebrities, and the unpredictable nature of performing live.

• Notable Quote:

  "We went to tacos. I went to tacos. 86. 1986, which. They're open in New York. Crazy, right?"
  (30:17) — Dean Delray

Reflections on Aging and Career Evolution

As the conversation progresses, Joey and Dean reflect on aging within the high-energy world of comedy and entertainment. They discuss the physical and mental toll of constant touring, the desire for stability, and the inevitability of change as they navigate their careers in their 50s.

• Notable Quote:

  "When you're 50, you go out and chase some 20-year-old hoe and you crash it, you crash a car and you go back to doing blow."
  (11:04) — Joey Diaz

---

Insights and Takeaways

1. Self-Production is Key: The entertainment industry has evolved, offering creators more control over their content. Platforms like Patreon and upcoming services like Venmo TV empower comedians to produce and distribute their work independently.

2. Resilience Through Adversity: Personal struggles, whether with substance abuse or life-changing events, can fuel creativity and drive success in unexpected ways.

3. Humor as a Coping Mechanism: Engaging in comedy provides not only a career path but also a therapeutic outlet for dealing with life's challenges.

4. The Importance of Mentorship and Community: Building strong relationships within the industry, as seen with Joey and Dean's interactions, can lead to collaborative success and mutual growth.

5. Adaptability is Crucial: Navigating the rapidly changing landscape of entertainment requires flexibility and a willingness to embrace new methods of content creation and distribution.

---

Conclusions

This episode highlights the enduring nature of friendship and collaboration in the face of personal and professional challenges. Dean Delray's return serves as a reminder of the transformative power of comedy and the importance of taking risks. Joey Diaz and Lee Syatt effectively blend humor with candid discussions, offering listeners both laughs and meaningful insights into the life of entertainers.

---

Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Joey Diaz: "You're gonna re-evaluate your relationship and then you move on."
  (10:09)

• Dean Delray: "Once you go to the hospital three times and you're 60, you're certified old, your body takes a different turn."
  (12:21)

• Joey Diaz: "Nobody ever pulls up to an open mic in a Lamborghini. You know what I'm saying? Nobody pulls up to an open mic in a Cadillac, an Escalante, whatever the fuck."
  (93:35)

• Lee Syatt: "I think it's great for self-made people. We are controlling our own destiny."
  (80:16)

---

Final Thoughts

The Church of What's Happening Now: The New Testament continues to deliver engaging and authentic conversations that resonate with listeners. This episode, featuring Dean Delray's return, encapsulates the essence of overcoming adversity, the evolution of comedy, and the unbreakable bonds formed through shared experiences.

Transcript

[Joey Diaz]

What's happening you bad motherfuckers? Uncle Joe here and Lisa at. Welcome to the church New Testament. What's up you savages? Uncle Joey here. It's Tuesday 8th April, the year is moving fast. Cocksuckers. What's up Lisa?

[Lee Syatt]

Yeah, I'm good dude. Happy to see you.

[Joey Diaz]

Happy to see you. You're looking good. You had good news last week.

[Lee Syatt]

Yeah, dude, it's like getting into the clubs in New York. It's like my first experience trying to get past at places and it's been a little bit of a grind, like a lot of a grind. But I got a good news from Broadway Comedy Club so I'm excited. I'll be there a lot this month and I'm just, I'm, I'm love, it's, I'm a broken record here but I just love being in New York, doing a stand up in New York. I'm having a blast.

[Joey Diaz]

Good for you. You sound like that song, remember that song in the 70s? I love new York.

[Lee Syatt]

I do.

[Joey Diaz]

That's you. You. I never want to leave New York. And then as you say in New York, you get hit the head with a stick from behind.

[Lee Syatt]

Dude, every day.

[Joey Diaz]

Me too. I just got an email yesterday.

[Lee Syatt]

Have I got mugged?

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah, they got the over and under. Oh, you should put that you one day take the mugging. It's going to be family. They're not going to beat you up.

[Lee Syatt]

What do you mean?

[Joey Diaz]

Just take cash in your wallet, give them a picture of your girlfriend, whatever. Hold on to the wall.

[Lee Syatt]

Do people still put pictures in their wallet? Do you have pictures in your wallet? Yeah, yeah, I don't, I don't. I've never met anyone who, other than you who has pictures in the wallet.

[Joey Diaz]

A picture of my daughter on her first communion is like nine years old.

[Lee Syatt]

You got that? But now you have the. Dude, the weightlifting.

[Joey Diaz]

Yes, yes, yes, that's.

[Lee Syatt]

I forgot. Dude. That's good. That's changed now since the phone. I bet you're like one of the few people I bet who still has that old school.

[Joey Diaz]

If the phone goes up to 2300 I'm going back to a can and a string. You know what I'm saying? 2300 is what they're saying. This is just giving people an excuse to raise prices now. Oh, all you gotta do is mention tariffs already they're starting. Tariffs, tariffs. Everybody was buying cars this week like a motherfucker because that's it. And now your parts. If you thought your parts took long during the Pandemic. Forget about fucking now. Especially if you got a. You know.

[Lee Syatt]

Thank God I'm not buying shit. No, not a thing. And I. That's. It's the only time I've been happy to not have investments. I'm the only Jew without investments. And I'm thrilled about.

[Joey Diaz]

Everybody's like, I lost $2 million. Bitch, if I lost $2 million, I'd be burning down the town.

[Dean Delray]

All right.

[Joey Diaz]

You didn't lose $2 million. Oh, I lost 8 million. No, you didn't. If you're saying it like that, I don't believe you. If you're saying it like, as you throw your wife out the window, she comes home with, I just got a new Range Rover. What? I just lost 8 million fucking dollars. That's. That's what I want to see. Don't just tell me I lost 3 million.

[Lee Syatt]

Yeah, but you're right. The new. The iPhones are going to be expensive as fuck.

[Joey Diaz]

Everything.

[Lee Syatt]

They're already expensive. 1400amonth. Dude, I have that mint. That mint mobile that. That sponsors us. I got so sick of, even before the tariffs, paying 100amonth for a cell phone. A hundred a month. And mint is 15 bucks a month. And it's the same thing.

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah, but you call people when you get another country. That's the problem with that. You call somebody and they're like, no, Bulgaria. Mint. Mint. Mint. Got. God damn it.

[Lee Syatt]

Oh, my God.

[Joey Diaz]

How.

[Lee Syatt]

You didn't.

[Joey Diaz]

I didn't do shit. I'm feeling a lot better.

[Lee Syatt]

You seem like you're feeling better.

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah, I'm feeling a lot better. I started smoking again, not guerrilla style, just because. Listen, let me explain something to you. I don't like not having an appetite. I had the control to go, you know what? I'm not gonna eat that. But the worst thing is when you have to eat and you're not hungry. I feel like death. I feel as it's going down, I'm like, why am I doing this? I'm not hungry.

[Lee Syatt]

And you can't. You're not hungry without weed. Fuck.

[Joey Diaz]

And the edibles. Listen, let's be as honest as we can with everybody. I think I'm coming to the end. I'm coming to the end. I'm gonna have. I'm just waiting for something to happen with heroin. Like, what do you. Something. Something they put in a gummy, like.

[Lee Syatt]

An improvement in heroin.

[Joey Diaz]

Something like heroin gummies. Something. Because that's my next level. Look, I smoked weed after five weeks of not smoking. I thought I was gonna see the devil. It was okay, right? It was okay. And then I've been eating. You know, I throw down 800, a thousand milligrams. Those ABXs I'm expecting to eat the kitchen.

[Lee Syatt]

Right.

[Joey Diaz]

The other night I ate three little donuts. The tiny white ones. Because they're disgusting too. Now you don't like those. They're all fucking disgusting. Listen, donuts are done. There's no donuts on the east coast. No more Dunkin Donuts. Blows. We up. When we left LA and we didn't bring a franchise of Yum Yum donuts with us, we should have brought a Mexican with us. Those are Mexican made donuts.

[Lee Syatt]

Oh, they're good.

[Joey Diaz]

Delicious Yum Yum donuts.

[Lee Syatt]

Well, because they make them fresh at the store.

[Joey Diaz]

At the store.

[Lee Syatt]

Dunkin Donuts, dude, especially. I see them in the city all the time. Oh my God. I haven't. Have you seen what's at McDonald's now?

[Joey Diaz]

No.

[Lee Syatt]

Krispy Kreme is at McDonald's. They're just trying to kill us now. They deliver in the city. They have Krispy Kreme at every McDonald's just in the back of like a U Haul truck. They bring it already made.

[Joey Diaz]

Last time I had Krispy Kreme, it tasted like dick. Okay.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

When we. Dean Delray, when you're coming out of fucking Irvine or Ontario, is it? You're pulling out of there. It's 11:30. There ain't nothing to do. And there's a fucking Krispy Kreme. Krispy Kreme. And I go in there and get a dozen for the drive home of the. Just the regular donuts with the glazed. The glazed. Oh my God.

[Dean Delray]

Oh yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

Me and Marilyn Martinez, whoever was in the car were like, dibs. Four it. I'm getting four fucking donuts. That's how good they were. Warm out of the fucking box, dude.

[Lee Syatt]

It's my favorite part about doing Mohegan Sun. If anyone asks, I'll do a free spot of Mohegan sun because they have one of the ones that. With the conveyor belt and. And that gets hot. Oh, that's amazing. But when it's. When it's like room temperature, it tastes like cardboard.

[Joey Diaz]

I saw a Cinnabon the other day.

[Lee Syatt]

Oh, I still like those.

[Joey Diaz]

I haven't had a Cinnabon in 15 years. I was like, mercy, you want to go inside the Cinnabon? And she's like, hell no. Really? Yeah. No, it's like that shit tastes like ass now. But what else they destroyed in New Jersey What? The apple turnover. It does not exist in New Jersey. It tastes like dick. I bought three or four of them just to try them out. I think I threw away all four.

[Lee Syatt]

Fuck.

[Dean Delray]

So.

[Lee Syatt]

But what about Carvel? Carvel, you don't go to just Carvel.

[Joey Diaz]

Get a little ice cream every once in a while. I go in there now and I get a little cone. But the problem is, you got kids working with Carvel and they don't know the spirit of Carvel. Every time you go in there, they just fuck it up. A bunch of kids with acne just fucking it up. There's one by my house that's a drive through. You have to. If you want something original, you have to go in the daytime when the owner's there, she's my age, and she'll make a fucking egg cream that'll make your head blow up. If you tell her thin, she'll make it like milk. Whatever. You tell her, she's dope on it. The kids that work there at night, they're like, they're 17, bro. They have no responsibility. It's, you know, whatever. They pay 12 bucks an hour. They don't care. The fucking pineapple has shit in it.

[Lee Syatt]

Oh, no.

[Joey Diaz]

You have to take the pineapple and move it around every hour on the hour, right? These kids just. It just sits there, dude.

[Lee Syatt]

If you're high, if you have 800 milligrams in you and they stuff doesn't taste good, there's a problem.

[Joey Diaz]

A lot of shit don't taste good. Wait till you get older. You're gonna go, wow, I used to eat 22 of those. Now I eat one of them and I want to shoot myself. Your taste buds change.

[Lee Syatt]

And I know it's a. You're half joking around, but, like, do you get the munchies on heroin? Like, when you were doing heroin, did you get the munchies? Or are you just taking heroin because you want to be fucked up?

[Joey Diaz]

I want to be fucked up, okay? Nobody takes heroin and thinks about the munchies, Lee.

[Lee Syatt]

Well, you said you want to be able to eat.

[Joey Diaz]

That's why if you don't want to go on ozempic, just do heroin. You'll never eat.

[Lee Syatt]

You'll be asleep the whole time.

[Joey Diaz]

You'll never eat. You'll sleep, get up, shoot, snort whatever the you want. But I'm just waiting for heroin gummies right now. That's it. I'm done with the THC. I moved to a different level. 50 years. I'm a doctor. I got a doctorate in THC. What do you want from me?

[Lee Syatt]

So, but do you think. And I know you don't. You probably don't keep up on heroin, but I would imagine now, because they were making edible gummies in their kitchen and in California, like, yeah, but that. Listen, you don't think they're making heroin gummies.

[Joey Diaz]

They probably are. I need to do it from a legit chemist, somebody who went to Yale. I don't want to do it with Nicky's uncle.

[Lee Syatt]

No.

[Joey Diaz]

You know, he went to jail. And he knows how to make. I don't want to do that, okay? I want to make it legit. I want them to get China White. That shit that makes you fucking play Jimi Hendrix music when you don't even know how to play the guitar. You do a line of China White, you're in here playing like Jimi Hendricks. You don't even know. You're in here going like fucking Jose Feliciano with no eyes and shit.

[Lee Syatt]

Holy shit.

[Joey Diaz]

Is Jose Feliciano still alive? He's still alive. Mind as a bat. He's got to be 80 because he sang Chico and the man song.

[Lee Syatt]

Damn.

[Joey Diaz]

And that was 77. So that's 23 and 25. 48, right? No, 58. No, 53. What am I thinking?

[Lee Syatt]

20. He said so many numbers. I don't know.

[Joey Diaz]

What.

[Lee Syatt]

When was the last. What was the last time? Like, you were, like, completely sober for, like, a week.

[Joey Diaz]

1988.

[Lee Syatt]

And you don't. What, like, what goes through your mind when you're completely, like. You just hate it. It's just boring boredom.

[Joey Diaz]

Nothing. It's bad enough my mother died. When your mom or your dad dies, when your mom dies, the rest of your life, it's like eating food with no salt on it. That's the best way I could tell people. When your mom dies, that's what life becomes. No salt.

[Lee Syatt]

Right.

[Joey Diaz]

And then when you stop smoking, I mean, there's positive things to it. I don't want to say I had a good time the last five weeks.

[Lee Syatt]

Yeah, it seems like it.

[Joey Diaz]

Things started coming out like, you know, the comedy writing was horrible. The getting loose on stage was horrible. But I liked where my mind went.

[Lee Syatt]

What was the difference?

[Joey Diaz]

Clarity. A little bit of clarity. I had a lot of noise in my head ending the year, last year. A lot of shit. You know? And sometimes, believe it or not, that's what makes you sick, really. Thinking too much about shit. And listen, I know comedians that go on the road and they don't even worry about the material. And here I am at home going I'm going to cancel that gig because I only got 20 minutes. Just, you know, there's so many things that I worry about that I shouldn't worry about, and the shit I should worry about, I don't worry about.

[Lee Syatt]

Do you think that's what was fucking with your stomach? The worry?

[Joey Diaz]

No, just my daughter's getting older, I'm getting old. Listen, I didn't have a middle life crisis. What I did was had a kid. You know what I'm saying? When you're 50, you go out and chase some 20 year old hoe and you crash it, you crash a car and you go back to doing blow and you cash in your 401k, and then when you're 58, you go back to your wife begging, you know, sorry, like a fucking animal. I didn't go through that. I had a child instead of 50, so I knew at some point it was gonna catch up. And I thought during the pandemic I'd have to deal with shit, but I did. But it was different after I got out of the hospital the third time. I was like, what the, you know, I'm certified old. That's it. Once you go to the hospital three times and you're 60, you're certified old, your body takes a different turn. And I have to accept that. I got to accept that. And you have to accept a lot of things that you're like, fuck, I'm not gonna work, that I'm not gonna go out and buy Jordache jeans and get a tattoo on my hand and you know, I'm not gonna do that shit, you know?

[Lee Syatt]

Right.

[Joey Diaz]

I'm just not gonna do that and get a Corvette to prove something, but I gotta do something.

[Lee Syatt]

I don't know if heroin gummies is the way to go.

[Joey Diaz]

Listen, you're talking to me about serious shit? Of course I'm talking about talking about heroin shit. That's something in the future that's eventually gonna be fucking made somewhere.

[Lee Syatt]

So what do you. Are you talking like you want to have like a midlife crisis sort of.

[Joey Diaz]

No, no, no, no, no. But I was just thinking about the fucking big question with me the last four years. Has it was, what the fuck happened.

[Lee Syatt]

Over the last 30 years?

[Joey Diaz]

Over the last, what happened those 23 years in LA, right? How did I go to LA with a fucking horrible drug problem and leave there with a kid and a wife? You know what I'm saying? Like, it's just very hard for me to comprehend, you know, the other day somebody came up to me and they were like, I saw you in this. And I'm like, I never did that. And I was wrong. I did do that show.

[Lee Syatt]

Oh, really?

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah, like, you know, like just little shit that I'm like, wow, I forgot a bunch of shit. And I just want to know.

[Lee Syatt]

Well, I think. I think that happens. I feel like that happens a lot in life. Like, you know, thinking about, like, going. Looking back at a lot of the church clips that people are posting. I was 23 or something, and now, like, I think life just happens fast. But then, yeah, for you, like, you. You focus so much on just, like, what's in front of you that, like, you don't seem like you go back in your head and, like, ruminate over, like, the past a lot. Like, you just are really focused or at least war on. Just, like, just.

[Joey Diaz]

You have to always go back every once in a while and figure out where you went wrong, what you could do to do better, what you should have done, what you'll do the next time. You know, that's just a part of life. That's just not.

[Lee Syatt]

You do that. It didn't. I. That just.

[Joey Diaz]

Don't sit there and go, I shouldn't have robbed that gas station. Okay? I did it. I'm happy we moved on.

[Lee Syatt]

Okay?

[Joey Diaz]

But there's little moves, like, you think about little things that you did that just fucking drive you crazy. Something you said when you were out one night. You know you shouldn't have said it. You're like, what the fuck was I fucking thinking? You know?

[Lee Syatt]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

When you're on stage, you say something, you're like, where'd that come from? You ever have that? You go on stage and you're in the middle 20 minutes, you're having a great set, then you just decide to just fucking say something.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

And nobody catches it.

[Lee Syatt]

Only you. But it drives you nuts.

[Joey Diaz]

Only you. Nobody catches it. People just go, what the fuck are these? You know, whatever. That's it. But you know you said it. And when you walk out of there, you're like, thank God George or Lee or Nick didn't say Joey. What the fuck came out of your mouth just then?

[Lee Syatt]

Right?

[Joey Diaz]

So I think about that shit. I shit in a bathroom. That in my house. I put that there purposely. I put that there purposely.

[Lee Syatt]

The bathroom?

[Dean Delray]

No.

[Joey Diaz]

Oh, I didn't build the fucking house, genius.

[Lee Syatt]

So what are you telling. What do you put there?

[Joey Diaz]

I put on the wall June 8th. Not wrote it out, but when I went to do this gig in New Orleans, they gave me a plaque. The House of Blue. I don't know what it was. They gave me, like, a plaque. June 8, New Orleans. I hang that in my bathroom for a reason.

[Lee Syatt]

Why is that?

[Joey Diaz]

Because I bombed so fucking bad that night, and I want to see that thing every fucking day and go, what the fuck was I thinking? And then I bombed. And the majority of people, African Americans, and what did I do? Start doing African American jokes in front of these poor people. And then I had to walk out in front of all of them. And they all started hugging me and talking to me. And I'm like, oh, my God. Who's gonna stab me over that black joke?

[Lee Syatt]

I can't believe you kept the plaque.

[Joey Diaz]

This is what I. What was I gonna do, smash it.

[Lee Syatt]

If I bomb that hard? Yeah. Like, you don't bring home a lot of shit. Like. Like, you're not really, like, a sentimental person. Like, I'm. I'm surprised if you just. Knowing you. If you bomb that bad, I could just see you being pissed and, like, throwing it away in the hotel.

[Joey Diaz]

I brought it home to remind me that that can't ever happen again.

[Dean Delray]

Fuck.

[Joey Diaz]

That cannot fucking happen again in your life or in your next life or in the life after that. You cannot let something like that happen. And it wasn't like an intentional bombing. It was a bombing when you're prepared. But you're overconfident. You just came from the store on a Thursday night, right? And you think you're Johnny Bananas. And you fly in and you go up there, and it's your body language. Something about your body language. This motherfucker's coming out like he's James Bond. This is not gonna work for this motherfucker. And they refused. And that's the way life is sometimes.

[Lee Syatt]

And what does that do for you?

[Joey Diaz]

Just remembering it, not to do it again? Lee.

[Lee Syatt]

Fuck.

[Joey Diaz]

And you and I both know I'm stupid because it's gonna happen again, right? But in your mind that sits there, that it can't happen again. A bombing like that cannot happen again.

[Lee Syatt]

Did you. Because at the beginning, did you, like, try to forget your bombs? Like, forget they happened and.

[Joey Diaz]

No, you go home to cry it out, dog. I've always gone home after my bombs and go. Even when you have, like, three shows and you do two of them and the middle one, bombs, you still go home and think about the middle one. Of course, you don't think about the two that people went off. You brought a girl up on stage, she took a tit out. They don't remember that. They remember that bomb so you remember that bomb. And I would go home on coke. So I'd be sitting there, this is not going to happen again. I cannot bomb. I try to listen to the jokes. In those days, I would. I would stop after the first show. I would tape my first show and go, this is worthless. I'm not doing this shit.

[Lee Syatt]

You know, it's amazing. But it's cool. It's cool to, like, use that as motivation and, like, to think about that. You still do that and, like, it still gets to you.

[Joey Diaz]

It has to. This is what I was saying before the podcast, that as a comedian, as a lawyer, whatever you're doing in life, you have to work yourself up. And then you work yourself up and you think, I made it. But no, no, now it's a different type of work that you have to do now. It's counterintelligence. It's this, it's that. It's just so many fucking things. And you're like, when does it end? When do I stop struggling? You don't. You don't. You know, you don't. You know, Jay Z sits there with black people jumping up and down around him. They're smoking blunts all day. At the end of the day, eventually he's gonna have to go back to work and he has to cut 12 songs on or whatever. And it's just. I don't even know what my point was. Hit me already.

[Lee Syatt]

Do you think me too? But do you think I was. As you were talking about that, I was thinking, like, what you started this with and, like, how, like, the goal of the, like, the last little bit has been to, like, figure out what happened. And maybe when, like, things were going crazy in la, you just. You thought you could, but you really couldn't look back at everything. So you. In four years, you did 30, 20, whatever, years of looking back.

[Joey Diaz]

Well, just to keep that in line with you, there's a line the Godfather, that I think about every two days, and it's as fucking real as it is. Whenever I. And I wrote it in my notebooks, it's written in a lot of my motivational stuff. And this is a fucking horrible saying. It's misogynistic, but it's true. Women and children can make mistakes, men cannot make mistakes, and we make them. But if that's in the back of your mind a lot. And listen, it's in the back of my mind, I still make fucking mistakes. But think about that line. Women and kids can make mistakes. Men can't make mistakes. That'll fucking Kill you forever.

[Lee Syatt]

Why do you think men can't. Like, what do you think? What do you think that meant?

[Joey Diaz]

You know what that means? That when a man is a man. Listen, when you're 19, you think you're a man, but you're a fucking moron, okay? And guess What? When you're 25 and you think you're still a man, you're a fucking idiot. And then when you're 32, you think you're really a gangster, and you're still a fucking idiot. It's like there's a certain time, like when you're 44, that you see the field a lot better. That's what happened to me. Once I got to 40, I started seeing the field and where this fucking game was going and what we need to do to keep this fucking march alive, okay? And that's it. That's it. Is how we going to keep this drive alive? With it. With the Giants, we're down three points, there's three minutes on the fucking clock, and we got to keep this drive alive.

[Lee Syatt]

And now you're in your, whatever, 20th year in the league, and you've. And you've seen everything. And before, when you're a rookie, you have no idea what's going on. It does seem like life's coming at you really fast when you're young.

[Joey Diaz]

No idea. No idea. But along the way, we think we got it, and you really don't got it. You try the best you can to compose it, and you're chuckling and jiving. You know what I'm saying? And it's like what I said. You become a professional. In your mind, you're an amateur until you become a professional. But it has to click in your coconut first before you could go on to the next thing. So we're done with the fucking nirvana hour here?

[Lee Syatt]

Absolutely.

[Joey Diaz]

All right, what did I say? I was thinking about? I have never in all my fucking life since I started this podcast been hit up so much about this fucking captain of police in North Bergen with.

[Lee Syatt]

Shit on his desk.

[Joey Diaz]

I have never been hit up. So much of people going, and then I guess the lieutenant got a DUI in Bergen county somewhere or something like this. I have never in my life been hitting up from so many people. And it's like a combination goof fucking like, Joey, what's going. Like, some people like, joey, what the fuck is happening in North Bergen?

[Lee Syatt]

It seems like an Onion article. Like, it seems like a joke.

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah, like cutting on the onion. And, you know, every three days, a building gets Hit in North Bergen. A dump truck goes into target. It's always something down here. Like, we've never had this bad luck in all our lives. If we did this because Carmine Balzano shot a guy seven times in the back, it was good worthy news. You know what I'm saying, right? Not taking a shit on his fucking desk. And, you know, people keep asking me, what the fuck is going on up there? And the simple thing I can say is this, man, I've been back here for five years. I drive around North Bergen. Parts of it look fucking beautiful. Other parts of it look like it's 19 fucking 55. When my mother has the house down there. Had the house where I grew up. It looks like 1950 fucking 5. Today. I got a call from a friend of mine that lived on the edge of my block, Grace. And we were talking, and she goes, coco, I went to visit a friend of ours, Lisa, who's also from that neighborhood. And she goes, I went, on our block. What the fuck happened? I go, dog, they weren't ready for 2025. North Bergen just was not ready for 2025. They were not ready. Like, right now, half these New Yorkers are dying to move to Jersey. Dying to move to Jersey. You move to North Bergen, it looks like a bomb hit. It looks like a fucking bomb hit it.

[Lee Syatt]

And aren't taxes really high?

[Joey Diaz]

Really fucking high. And they're about to get higher. And the only way I can think about it is like, listen, man, first off, the mayor of North Bergen is like a mob boss, right? Like, I'm not saying he's a mob boss. I'm just saying this so you guys understand. He's hurt. He's down. He got shot. All right? He's like. He's like Vito Corleone. So when you have Vito Corleone shot, you got all your underlings trying to figure it out, and none of them, I don't think any of them really have to fill that void. I really don't. I'm. I look around this town, I go, I don't understand what happened here. I grew up with. This town was fucking straight up gangsters. This town was straight up gangsters, man. My eighth grade teacher was coming on the show next month, I swear to God, he went to fucking jail for murder for 13 years. A 8th grade fucking teacher.

[Lee Syatt]

For before or after he was your teacher?

[Joey Diaz]

During. The fuck is wrong with you? He was the mayor of Weehawken up the town from when we taped. Jesus, you know? So we were raised here by fucking pseudo gangsters and they stole. But everything looked up to date and everything looked great. You know, I look at town surrounding like I went to Jersey City a month ago. Looks like a fucking new city up there. Fucking Jersey City is gorgeous.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

You know, I come up, I get lost sometimes I end up in Hoboken. Gorgeous. And then you come to North Bergen and there's all these Puerto Rican vans and stopping on Kennedy bull. I mean, it's. It's just, you know, I don't know. I don't know what the future is.

[Lee Syatt]

But why did he on the guy's desk?

[Joey Diaz]

I don't know. I'll call him tomorrow. I'll call 911 and ask him, hey, why'd the fucking chief of police shit on the fucking desk? That'll fucking baffle them. Like, they'll sit there like, I don't know. Hold on. We gotta get.

[Lee Syatt]

I said they've gotten a couple calls about it. Yeah, from. Can you imagine? Have you ever wanted to do that to somebody?

[Joey Diaz]

What, shit on their desk?

[Lee Syatt]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

No, but I shit on a kid's box and put it in his drawer in jail. Yeah. I shit in his cheese box, put an American flag on it and fucking. The welfare cheese. And I put it in his drawer and he found it. Like three weeks later, it was a skeleton. We'll be back with Dean Del Rey. Cocksuckers. What's up, beautiful people? This episode is brought to you by the best nicotine pouches you're ever gonna try. Nick. They're top tier. Nick. Pouches are made with natural coconut fiber, which means they're not going to tear your mouth up. And the experience is way better with flavors like strawberry watermelon ice, wintergreen berry lemon ice. They even have an unflavored option that'll get you covered. Listen, I love Nick. I started it with the low batch because, you know, I can't be seeing the devil and jumping up and down. But you take one of these. Look at this coconut fiber. Mmm. Mm, mm, mm. They even got a zero milligram option that's launching soon. That means whether you're looking for a little extra punch or you're trying to reduce the habit altogether, there's something for you. Like I said, this is my favorite. This little berry lemonade. It is tremendous. So it's time to upgrade to nicotine pouches, just like I did right now. Church listeners get 35% off when you order through our link at nickedpouches.comchurch that's nickedpouches.com church for the slower people. Nykdpouches.comchurch nykdpouches.com church use the code up to three times. That's how much Uncle Joey loves you. And don't wait. You get 35% off. Now on nykdpouches.comchurch and check out the Church Bundle with some of my favorite flavors. That's nykdpouches.com church c h u r c h NIC products are only for adults of legal age. Every order is age verified. Don't even think about it. Warning. The product contains nicotine and nicotine is an addictive chemical. Enjoy. Nicked. We're back, bitches. My main man, Dean Delray is in studio. It's been close to four or five fucking years since we did the original church with Dean Del Rey.

[Dean Delray]

I couldn't believe when you said that. You go, I've been out here in Jersey for five years.

[Joey Diaz]

August 19th, it'll be five fucking years, dude.

[Dean Delray]

It hit me like a fucking sledgehammer because I remember specifically exactly how it went down. I was living around the corner from you. I go, right.

[Joey Diaz]

Are you still living there?

[Dean Delray]

No, I move. I had to get out of there because, you know, once Covid was over, I go, holy shit. I'm in the Burbank flight path. During COVID no planes. Then all of a sudden.

[Joey Diaz]

That's right.

[Dean Delray]

Covid ends once in a while. And then after about three months, from 7:10am to 10:00pm every eight minutes. Dude. It was insane. And I was like, that's why Joey's all on the edibles. Because he can just pass out through those planes. Because you were getting that too.

[Joey Diaz]

I never heard him.

[Lee Syatt]

You missile. Where did you live?

[Dean Delray]

You lived in the Valley, right around the corner from.

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah.

[Lee Syatt]

Oh, I didn't hear one plane.

[Joey Diaz]

Me neither.

[Dean Delray]

Oh, my God, dude. Well, also, they said that the. Some snafu went down where the rich people of Pasadena pulled some kind of shaken fake and had Burbank Airport switch the flight pattern. So they're suing them right now. And all of a sudden they used to fly out and then go over Van Nuys, the industrial area, and then head out towards Pasadena. Now it's straight over Studio City and then take a right down fucking. You know, all the way down Ventura Boulevard. It's crazy. All day long now. So anyway, I'm on the. I'm on the couch. And you go, hey, are you home? And I go, yeah, I'm coming by. I go, all right, so I'm out front. Come down. You were Just standing there. Your Subaru. I'm out of here. I'm leaving tomorrow. I go, what? I mean, I was floored.

[Joey Diaz]

Lord, floored, dude.

[Dean Delray]

Like, no one wind was taken out of me. And I go, what do you mean? Yeah, I'm. I'm done. Bought a place in Jersey. I'm out of here. And I. I still will never forget it. Because I was like, wait a minute. This is a guy I see every day of my life. And now he's going to be gone.

[Joey Diaz]

We went to Tacos.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah, we went to tacos.

[Joey Diaz]

Went to tacos.

[Dean Delray]

86. 1986, which. They're open in New York. Crazy, right?

[Joey Diaz]

Are they one of those guys coming out here or they're just going to.

[Dean Delray]

I hope so.

[Joey Diaz]

It's two white guys.

[Dean Delray]

No, I think one of the guys will come out.

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah, I need. I need those out here to show these peasants.

[Dean Delray]

Got to get the flavor.

[Joey Diaz]

Got to get the flavor.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah. But that was it, man. And now here, he's up sitting on the couch just now. And you said five years, and I. I mean, we've. We've hung. You flew in town one time, and then we did the Sony haul together. But other than that, man, you know, text and calls.

[Joey Diaz]

It's crazy how fast it went.

[Dean Delray]

I really can't believe it, actually.

[Joey Diaz]

We could have gone to college.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

We would have been graduating this May. Phi Beta Kappa.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

With two fucking things. Told the comedy world to suck our dicks. Want the bigger and better things.

[Dean Delray]

Sleeping in our own bed.

[Joey Diaz]

When that shit happens, I get so angry.

[Dean Delray]

Oh, man.

[Joey Diaz]

I get so angry when I go, that was five years ago.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

I could have joined the army. I could have been out right now with insurance and benefits and fucking a new haircut. No, I'm wasting my time in South Jersey also.

[Dean Delray]

You could have been dead. Yeah, I. I'm telling this bit right now. I'm at this age where I go to a big party. I just went to one of Jerry Cantrell's from Alice in Chains. I'm looking around the pool, the sun's out. I'm like, oh, I'm at that age now. A couple months ago, yeah, Steve died. You go, I just saw him at Jerry's party. That's the age we're at right now, right?

[Joey Diaz]

No.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah, it's scary. I just saw him. Is going to come out of our mouths a lot in the next couple years.

[Lee Syatt]

Dude, why does everyone over 60 talk about dying all the time?

[Dean Delray]

Because Roundup in the soil all the time. Everything's poisoned, man. It's even 50.

[Lee Syatt]

When you guys start turning 50, all you will talk about is dying.

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah, listen, it's a reality. Yeah.

[Lee Syatt]

But you don't have to talk about it every day.

[Joey Diaz]

The thing, when you, when you're 20, you could wake up and go, I'm going to die, whatever.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

You know, but once. And then you heard 30 and you're like, I'm living like a doctor. Then you hit 40 and you fucked the chick with AIDS and you didn't get it, you know, and then you just start going down the ladder and all of a sudden one day, you know, I'm lucky, but eventually I'm going to fucking die or something.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

And now you start doing preventive shit or whatever. You start going to church. You don't curse, start going to church.

[Dean Delray]

Those guys, man, boy do they find God quick. One bad misdiagnosis, we think it's a stroke. You're like, oh, Jesus in the church.

[Joey Diaz]

When you're 60 or 50, you want to live.

[Dean Delray]

Oh, yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

Who doesn't want to live?

[Dean Delray]

God. Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

But then you start looking like There's a couple 80 year olds that do everything. You know, somebody was telling me other day that their 83 year old still works their father. They do everything. And some 80 year olds can't get out of their fucking wheelchair.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

Or can't get out of their bed. So it's a card you're taking, you know, so instead of taking that card, do something about it. Start getting ready for that age so you won't fucking be a mope. You know, you have to go to the doctor now. And it's so weird to turn to get older.

[Dean Delray]

Oh, dude.

[Joey Diaz]

And you still think you're so fucking invincible and you're really not. You cannot. Like, I went to a New Year's thing and people were doing coke.

[Dean Delray]

Oh my God.

[Joey Diaz]

Okay. I was watching them do coke and I'm like, I couldn't handle.

[Dean Delray]

I couldn't imagine a line of that. Now just your heart alone, you know that that's fucking scary when you're young and you're like, ride it out. You're hitting some Wild Turkey, trying to come down a little bit in the corner. Imagine you're 60 and you do fucking bump and you're hoping it doesn't have any fentanyl. You're asking the guy, this stuff's cool, right? And he's like, yeah, I think so. And you're rolling the dice.

[Joey Diaz]

Can you imagine being 65, doing a lot of coke and dying from fentanyl?

[Dean Delray]

No.

[Joey Diaz]

And you were running a marathon last month and you're like, damn it.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah, I just saw him at Jerry's party. That's going to be the callback of my set this year. Holy shit.

[Joey Diaz]

So insane how you look at that. Like, listen, I'm gonna be honest with you, motherfuckers. On the way up here, there was a little bit of traffic and I'm trying to get around cars and I made the biggest mistake. Yeah. I put on Judas Priest, Hell Bent for Leather, the album. And like song three. I thought I was gonna crash the fucking car because it was just too much going on.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

Guitars and cars and people yelling. And I'm thinking about Alfred when he fucked a hairdresser in Chicago and he busted his o ring and his ass. Did you read his book?

[Dean Delray]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah. Oh, my God.

[Lee Syatt]

Whoa.

[Dean Delray]

What a book.

[Joey Diaz]

Oh my God.

[Dean Delray]

He lays it out there, dog.

[Joey Diaz]

And I always liked him. I didn't care if he was gay.

[Dean Delray]

I don't care.

[Joey Diaz]

I knew he was gay the first time I laid eyes on.

[Dean Delray]

Dude, you and I are from cities. And you saw. Especially San Francisco. I saw guys all day long. The denim with the chaps and. And that hat. When you got that leather hat on, we know what the going. You don't wear that hat unless you're out ass chasing. You know what I mean? That hat. And it didn't bother me ever. I was like, this guy looks badass. He's out there full leather, gay daddy. And he. He's looking at the metal heads going, if you only knew, you know? If you only fucking knew.

[Joey Diaz]

When I. I knew he was gay the first time I saw him, because he had a whip.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah, he had that whip.

[Joey Diaz]

Whip. And he's whipping the floor. I'm like, oh, this guy's a great gay guy. He's a great. He's a great fan. He must be. He must be great at parties.

[Dean Delray]

He's unbelievable. Singer, man.

[Joey Diaz]

He's still out there.

[Dean Delray]

Oh my God. Come on, dude.

[Joey Diaz]

Still out there.

[Dean Delray]

I had him on the podcast, Joey. And I was telling somebody a couple days ago, Brian Slagle, the owner of Metal Blade Records, he has a metal podcast. So I my chose my song was screaming for vengeance. But I was telling this story, I interviewed him and the most professional guy I've ever seen, every couple minutes he uses your name. So you'll be talking. He'll go, you know, Dane, the first time I saw Zeppelin, Dean, he'll use your name. Fully engaged, man. And for two hours, just your name. He. He remembers. He's not punching at all. And this guy's, like, deep in his cr. He could be like, who the fuck is this? I'm on a TV screen. You know what I mean? But no. Killed it.

[Joey Diaz]

Well, that's part of being a singer, that articulation.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

That's why I always said if you're a comic, you got to watch singers. Because they're doing the same thing we're doing. Without music.

[Dean Delray]

Yep.

[Joey Diaz]

They're getting to the fucking audience. And if that's what it takes. But it's just. I don't even know what we're talking about. Besides.

[Dean Delray]

Well, he's my favorite. Like. Okay, I was talking about metal singers. So I love Bon Scott. Of course we know I love Bon Scott. But when you get down into metal, you got Bruce Dickinson, Iron Maiden. Right around that time. Right. 82. Number of the Beast. And then you have Rob. And when you listen to Rob, how fucking crazy he is on that live record, you just go, it's Rob. That's all there is to it. Victim of changes Sinner Green Man Alicia.

[Joey Diaz]

That's a great fucking album.

[Dean Delray]

Unbelievable.

[Joey Diaz]

I still listen to it from time to time. To lose my fucking mind.

[Dean Delray]

Oh. Unleashed in the East.

[Joey Diaz]

It was so intense in the car. I had to switch to the Smiths.

[Dean Delray]

The Smiths.

[Joey Diaz]

I had to switch to the fucking Smiths. I was like. And I'm thinking about you when I'm listening to the Smiths. Yeah. Because there's something a lot of people don't know when you're raised in a city. You know, you just go for a beer. George is going to laugh. You just go for a beer. Then one day you move to Colorado and you move to a college town like Boulder, and they have beer and then they have 3.2. It's like a different alcohol level. You never heard of that?

[Dean Delray]

Oh, now. Yeah, the higher alcohol. Yeah. So lower.

[Joey Diaz]

It's lower than beer.

[Dean Delray]

Oh, wow. Beer.

[Joey Diaz]

Beer 21.

[Dean Delray]

Was it called Near Beer?

[Joey Diaz]

No, no, no. Budweiser made them. All those companies had a 3.2 beer. Wow. And they sell it. They used to be a club called Pogos, an 18 to 21 club. And I remember, Dog, I'm driving, listening to the fucking Smiths. And I'm Dog. You know, again, you don't know what's objective in your memory.

[Dean Delray]

Yep.

[Joey Diaz]

The girl was from Cambridge, Mass. She worked at Abo's Pizza. It was a Bo's Pizza. A driveway. And then downstairs was Pogo's. This chick was so fucking hot. I had just moved to Boulder, I hadn't met Kathy King yet. Within two weeks, I already know where to get a package. I'll never forget this. Like only I could. It was all weed heads. But one of the weed head goes, I did coke last night. Can you get some? He's like, yeah, 50. A fucking half gram. All right. So I'll never forget. I went to the pizza place. She started talking to me. Real cute girl from fucking Cambridge, Mass. Forgot what her name was. First girl, maybe the third girl I met in Boulder. We're talking and I go, what do people do around here? She goes, well, I'll be at Pogo's tonight if you want to join me. I'm like, bitch. I went home, took a shower, and I saw my buddy Ed, like, get me a half gram of coke. I went to that thing. She's surrounded. She's an east coast girl with strength. She's got, like six gorillas around her. And I went in there like Carl hall with that half grand package. That bitch went to go. She was ready to go when she.

[Dean Delray]

Saw that little package, Travolta style. Staying alive.

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah. Split the line, no conversation. Excuse me. You saw that pack, and then you just turn around and start walking, and she walks right behind you. And I dated her for, like three days. Then I don't know what happened. Yeah, like three days, she came over. That was fucking insane. That I still remembered about 3.2 beer. And then this motherfucker goes to a party one night and he takes my weightlifting gloves to Pogos or some shit, and I go, where's my gloves? He goes, I think I left him at Pogo. I was gonna fucking strangle him. My fucking weightlifting gloves. He thought he was Rob Halford.

[Dean Delray]

He's going down there. He's coming in as a dice man. Oh, he's got the gloves. God damn it.

[Joey Diaz]

I don't even wear those gloves out. That's embarrassing.

[Dean Delray]

Dude, I was just in your bathroom, and you got the fucking king on your wall in there. Kelly Leak from Bad News Bears.

[Joey Diaz]

I didn't put that up.

[Dean Delray]

Oh, the artistic director did that guy, man. And that. That movie is just a masterpiece.

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah, that's a great.

[Dean Delray]

Come on, man.

[Joey Diaz]

Then they tried to remake it, right?

[Dean Delray]

Yeah, Billy Bob.

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah, Billy Bob's a bad motherfucker. Oh, I love him, but he's not the bad.

[Dean Delray]

No, he's Sling Blade to me for life.

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah, but he's good on this oil show.

[Dean Delray]

I heard he's got a. He's killing.

[Joey Diaz]

Tell you what else is a good show. Mobland. Mobland with the London people.

[Dean Delray]

I heard that shit's great.

[Joey Diaz]

Helen Myon dog.

[Dean Delray]

Oh, yeah. She's.

[Joey Diaz]

She's the sexiest old lady. You gotta see her in this show.

[Dean Delray]

Oh, she's fire.

[Joey Diaz]

She has a leopard top on.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

A leather skirt. She gives her grandson. The grandson says to her mammy, I wish I had cocaine. And she goes, well. And she goes in her bra last night, she takes it out. I may have a little taste for you right here. Who gives their grandson cocaine?

[Dean Delray]

Granny finger.

[Joey Diaz]

Helen Myron isn't even a bad motherfucker.

[Dean Delray]

Oh, I love her.

[Joey Diaz]

She is. She's past that. Yeah. Like, that's Denzel Washington.

[Dean Delray]

She's legend.

[Joey Diaz]

Helen Myron is up to, like. Because then I watched on 1823. 1923.

[Dean Delray]

Oh, yeah. Yep.

[Joey Diaz]

And she was shooting Motherfuckers last night.

[Dean Delray]

The western one.

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah. Oh, that's a great show.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

In fact, I got the other hour to watch because it was a long one last night, but that's what I'm watching. What are you laughing about over there? Tricky Dicky?

[Lee Syatt]

I don't wanna. I think it's Helen Mirren.

[Joey Diaz]

Who?

[Lee Syatt]

Helen Mirren.

[Joey Diaz]

That's her name, right?

[Lee Syatt]

Not Myron.

[Joey Diaz]

Myron Mirren.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

You know who I'm talking about. She's an old English.

[Dean Delray]

I'll tell you a crazy story, Joey, about her. She was up for an Academy Award about, I don't know, maybe eight, nine years ago for something like the Queen or something. She did some movie I saw and she was fantastic. So every Sunday morning I would go riding with Mike beach, the actor. You know, we did this movie together. So after that we became really tight. We'd ride every Sunday morning. So we went to that Starbucks on Sunset across the street from the Griddle.

[Joey Diaz]

At, like the hamburger placement.

[Dean Delray]

Right, exactly. Right there. So we pull in at like 7 in the morning and we're going to get coffees and then we're going to ride out Sunset to Malibu. And we park and it's Academy Award day. And this car pulls up. She gets out. It's a. Like a limo, like a black car. And she comes walking towards beach. And I. And I. I hit beats like, holy shit. She comes up, she's all gentlemen. I go, you're gonna win tonight. And she goes, well, thank you. And she fucking won. And beach and I were like, hell, yeah, we saw her this morning. You know, amazing story. That's like a Hollywood type of story where you run into people, you know, like, did that happen?

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah, she's A real deal, man.

[Dean Delray]

Oh, my God. I love her.

[Joey Diaz]

I love TV show. I love. What, like now? For, like, two months, there was nothing.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

And now we got something again. I'm excited because now then the mayor of whatever will be back. Mayor What? Oh, that's my movie. Oh, my TV show.

[Dean Delray]

I still haven't watched TV in, like, 16 years.

[Joey Diaz]

Really? You still gave up three shows.

[Dean Delray]

The Wire, Sopranos, Breaking Bad. Those are the shows I've seen.

[Joey Diaz]

I'll tell you what, man, I hear.

[Dean Delray]

It'S great out there.

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah, it's pretty good.

[Dean Delray]

I hear it's good.

[Joey Diaz]

Finally starting to pick up. But I've watched the Wire twice this year.

[Dean Delray]

Oh, man.

[Joey Diaz]

In a year, I've watched the series. It ended. I gave it a week and I gotta go back.

[Dean Delray]

Oh, it's fucking.

[Joey Diaz]

I gotta go back. I don't.

[Dean Delray]

Phenomenal.

[Joey Diaz]

It is some type of show that. Listen, I love the Sopranos. I had the Sopranos on a couple days ago, just laughing my ass off. Yeah, but that Wire, that fucking Michael B. Jordan as a young kid. He's a fucking kid on that.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah. He's dead now, right?

[Joey Diaz]

He's what?

[Dean Delray]

Did he die?

[Joey Diaz]

No, no, no.

[Dean Delray]

Which guy died? Yeah, that's right.

[Joey Diaz]

Black Panther died. Wakambo. Wakambo forever.

[Dean Delray]

God, that's awful.

[Joey Diaz]

That's awful. Because he was great, too. I just watched him as Jackie Robinson.

[Lee Syatt]

Yeah, that was a great movie.

[Joey Diaz]

That's a great fucking movie.

[Dean Delray]

Awful. Dude, that guy's gone, man.

[Joey Diaz]

37 or something. Just a baby, man. The fucking.

[Lee Syatt]

The Wire.

[Joey Diaz]

The Wire is just.

[Dean Delray]

Come on.

[Joey Diaz]

The cops on there, The English black cop. Yeah, he's also. I just saw him in something else. They have a bunch of people from the Wire. Dominic Lombardozzi, the detective with him. Just the gay cop that you see. The captain, the chief. You see him in a gay bar one episode.

[Dean Delray]

The crackhead lady.

[Joey Diaz]

The crackhead lady guy. Bubbles.

[Dean Delray]

Unbelievable. This show did. I remember I went to a meeting.

[Joey Diaz]

Was.

[Dean Delray]

Is it on HBO or Netflix?

[Joey Diaz]

Hbo.

[Dean Delray]

So I go to a meeting, you know, you go like, hbo, right? I go to a meeting. I'm in there trying to pitch this show back in the day. And when you're in the lobby, they're like, oh, if you want some DVDs, go ahead and take them. They got all the box sets there. I just brought down a, like, duffel bag. I'm like, all right, I got the Wire, I got the Sopranos. I just grabbed them all, you know, and just would sit home and watch that on the weekends, on dvd, back when you had the player, you put it in.

[Joey Diaz]

I still got my dvd. Yeah. Cuz I told my wife we have over I don't know how many goddamn movies. Yeah, I got a ton of movies.

[Dean Delray]

Oh my God, I'm on the Criteria channel.

[Lee Syatt]

I have thousands.

[Dean Delray]

Really? Thousands at your place now?

[Lee Syatt]

They're in my mom's place right now. But yeah, I. I would go to like a place and get used DVDs all the time.

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah.

[Lee Syatt]

Newberry comics for people like in dude or Fye.

[Dean Delray]

Amoeba.

[Lee Syatt]

Oh, Amoeba.

[Joey Diaz]

For sure.

[Lee Syatt]

I would go, dude, I went to Amiibo and buy like 12 at a time.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah.

[Lee Syatt]

Because they're like $4.

[Joey Diaz]

I stopped going to Amoeba, guys. Oh yeah? Why? Because the money.

[Dean Delray]

Oh, it's a demon. You go in.

[Lee Syatt]

Oh, it's amazing.

[Joey Diaz]

Spending there is. Is absurd.

[Dean Delray]

And then you buy. You already have.

[Joey Diaz]

You buy.

[Dean Delray]

How about that?

[Joey Diaz]

How about when I cleaned out my office, me and my daughter. My daughter took out 11 albums that were doubles.

[Dean Delray]

Fuck yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

It's like, dad, do you not forget I had so many good albums and still doubles.

[Dean Delray]

That happens to me all the time. I go in, ooh, Saxon denim and leather. I don't think I have this. Fuck yeah, I have this. I fucking obviously own this.

[Joey Diaz]

Crazy about Amoeba, though.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

I was looking for a particular album and I went online. Everybody had it for a hundred bucks.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

I went on Amoeba and it was 6.99. I became a fan after that.

[Dean Delray]

Oh yeah. The owner lives in my building.

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah. That's crazy.

[Dean Delray]

I ran into him. I couldn't even believe.

[Joey Diaz]

Are they still right there?

[Dean Delray]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

On Sunset.

[Dean Delray]

They moved to a new place right next across the street from the theater, the Font.

[Lee Syatt]

I haven't been to it yet, but I know they moved like right around.

[Dean Delray]

When we left in a Frolic Room where you just pound the stoley Collins for $3. Get DUIs. Right. Right across the street from there. What's the theater next to it? Seinfeld sometimes does big runs in there. They do Broadway plays. It's right there on the corner. Park Light is different. One next to the Fonda kind of. You know, I forget what. There's Pep Boys there and then there's that.

[Joey Diaz]

The theater. I know what you.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah, it's a famous theater. Forget they do like plays there. But yeah, man, they moved in there and it's real nice. And the owner lives in my building. He's got the Berkeley one still. San Fran one's gone. I bought. Oh, no, it Might be still there. Yeah, it is still there. He told me. Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

You know, I was this weekend, something happened that I. I would have been excited for.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

25 years ago now, I'm too old to be excited. I saw some of the tape on Is what it is. I'm so critical of myself that when I see somebody, I'm expecting the album.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

But I don't know if you saw Rat got back together.

[Dean Delray]

Who did? Rat. Oh, yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

DiMartino.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah, DeMartini and him. Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

Thing back. And I watched some guy put it on Facebook and then I went to YouTube to find more stuff. I didn't see Back for More.

[Dean Delray]

Right.

[Joey Diaz]

But I saw Round and Round and something else.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

I don't know. DiMartino could still play that fucking guitar.

[Dean Delray]

That guy's a smoker.

[Joey Diaz]

He's a fucking animal. I didn't know they had Carlos. Yeah, they had Carlos for a long time and. But I was just. You know, it's so weird how every summer I go, I'm going to go to a concert, I'm going to go see this, and I'm like, yeah, fuck that. Once I look at the price tag and I'm like, fuck that. And I got to walk.

[Dean Delray]

I got to get you in the sphere. This is going to be your last concert to see the dead you got.

[Joey Diaz]

I want to go, have you been to the Sphere?

[Dean Delray]

Let me just tell you something right now. After you go to the Sphere, you will never go to another show. You're going to go to your local town, whatever fucking venue you got, and you're going to be like, oh, because this thing is like VR goggles on a thousand.

[Joey Diaz]

Did you eat the mushrooms, dude?

[Dean Delray]

I'm doing a bit right now where I'd say I got there with the mushrooms. I. I get in my seat, the band goes on the screens. Come on. And I go, oh, fuck, no. And I put those things away because I know what's coming. It is so radical of a venue. These visuals. I don't care. You got to be a seasoned tripper to be able to handle what's going on with these visuals. I've never seen. First of all, this venue is only like six months a year old, which means they've been working on this for the last five years. I don't know where the. This stuff came from, but they went from way back here. The two screens to your living in the venue. It's like, what the. At one point, I'm watching Dead and Company, and, you know, they've got the San Francisco Bridge. And you're like, whoa, this is crazy. And a satellite flies over your shoulder and you just go like, whoa. Fuck. I mean, two goosebumps. Scary. Amazing. One of the greatest things I've ever seen.

[Joey Diaz]

What did you see perform there?

[Dean Delray]

What's that?

[Joey Diaz]

Who else did you watch perform there?

[Dean Delray]

I saw you two on the Octong Baby record. Unbelievable. So I've gone three times now. Two Dead once. You two. And, man, each time I go, this is unreal.

[Joey Diaz]

And the Dead just got a residency.

[Dean Delray]

There yet they do like 16 shows or, you know, six weeks or whatever. Three a weekend. And I'm telling you, you don't even know the bands on. They are the music to this psychedelic ride. Some of the greatest visuals you will ever see in your life. At one point, they got a giant bear and it's walking and it turns into 100 pieces of acid, the sheet acid, and it's floating across the screen and then the sheet acid just blows up. And the bears are coming at you and you're just going like, what the fuck? I can't even tell you, Joey. I couldn't exaggerate how radical this fucking.

[Joey Diaz]

Venue is after that bear turning into acid.

[Dean Delray]

You have.

[Joey Diaz]

I'm going. Yeah, I'm going to go.

[Dean Delray]

I mean, just a flight in. I'll get us in. You sit in a great seat. The place is not giant and it is insane.

[Joey Diaz]

What's your seat in there?

[Dean Delray]

It holds a lot, but feels small. It holds like 16,000, but it feels small because it's a ball and it's just a wall. It goes straight up the seats like this. And then there's a floor, but I sit in the seats and you just get this whole thing, man, that you can't even. I can't even describe it.

[Lee Syatt]

Does it matter where you sit?

[Dean Delray]

It doesn't matter where you sit as long as you're not on the deck 101 back. Because then there's a hangover that you can't see the visuals. Other than that, though, every seat in the house and then it has something like, you know, 10,000 speakers. There's speakers in your seat. Everything. It sounds like a record, man. It. The sound is the greatest sound I've ever heard. And I'm telling you, I only go to the sphere now. It's.

[Joey Diaz]

It's a lot of people performing there now. A lot of.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah, yeah, they got the Eagles, they got you two. They have Dead and Company. I think it's Backstreet Boys or whatever just announced they're doing like a run There, which would be wild. But what I'm waiting for is, like, tool. I think tool in there will be insane. And then we got to get Gilmore or Roger Waters, one of the two in there. And if we could give them a billion dollars and do one last run. Hate each other, but stay on the sides. The greatest of all time will be Pink Floyd in there of all time. There will be nothing that will come close to it.

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah, because they did all that. They did all that 40 years ago.

[Dean Delray]

They did that when it was. When they were making it. They're in the back making, you know, flying pigs and planes flying. There was no screens. They were making that in the backyard, dog.

[Joey Diaz]

That was. It's crazy how they did that.

[Dean Delray]

They did that.

[Joey Diaz]

They did that with the wall. Because that first song has a plane.

[Dean Delray]

Flying, crashes right into.

[Joey Diaz]

Right into the fucking thing. And I was like. And I did some heavy duty acid for that one. That was. I was 16. I was mentally deranged. I was a mental midget. And I was up, where'd you see that one? At Nassau Coliseum.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah, that's right. Because they only did, like, 14 and 14 shows.

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

First night. And I was fucking. I left there going, what the fuck was that? Creatively? Yeah, creatively when you go somewhere and see something that you go, how did they even think of that?

[Dean Delray]

Yeah, that's how this fear is. When you see it, you go, who the fuck Give them all the awards, the visual awards, the sound awards, the venue award. This is how insane it is, too. I don't even fuck with bad food. They have pizza in there from some place called Pizza Rock in Vegas. So I go, fuck it, let's get a piece of pizza. We're at a concert. I eat this pizza. I'm blown away. I'm like, what is this? Even the pizza is fucking good.

[Joey Diaz]

Everything how far from. Like, it's on the.

[Dean Delray]

It's right. Right behind. It's kind of connected to the Venetian and the wind right there. You can stay at either hotel and you just walk in, easy. You'll love it. No bullshit. You walk in, you sit in your seat. It's perfect climate, temperature, and, you know, the whole thing is a screen. The entire fucking place. So when they. At one point, I'm watching you, too, and they're dismantling Vegas. Whoever does these videos, man, it's insane. They start taking Vegas apart over a song. And by the end of the song, it's just Vegas, desert, and that old Tropicana sitting there. And you feel like you're outside, you're.

[Joey Diaz]

Like, I can't imagine doing ass in there.

[Dean Delray]

Oh, that's what I'm saying.

[Joey Diaz]

Because you're sitting in there going, vegas is falling the apart. Oh, yeah.

[Dean Delray]

You feel like you're seeing it. You're going, oh, my God, we got to get out of here. Oh, man, I can't wait till you see it. So here's what you got to do. You book a gig in Vegas. So you're not just out there, right?

[Joey Diaz]

No, I don't just go nowhere. Yeah, I gotta pick up an envelope.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah, you pick up the envelope. And then the next night we see that man. And it's a glorious one.

[Joey Diaz]

Sunday night.

[Dean Delray]

Yes.

[Joey Diaz]

Saturday or Sunday, we're flying Friday, do the mushrooms. Friday, 100 go Friday night, and then do the show on Sunday.

[Dean Delray]

I would actually take mushrooms with you there because I've been there now three times, so I've got my bearings. But, you know, first couple times I go, I don't want to fuck around in here. This is crazy, you know. Oh, man. I'm telling you, Joey, it was fucking epic. And John Mayer just destroyed. Destroying.

[Joey Diaz]

He's so fucking good.

[Dean Delray]

Fucking nuts. Guy is unbelievable by pussy. Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

That motherfucker has fucked everybody in Hollywood. Everybody. He has destroyed every snatch with that guitar. He just walks in like one of those Latin Mexican guys playing the guitar with a cape on.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah, yeah, Zorro.

[Joey Diaz]

Then he this chick, right? She wrote a song about him. The skinny chick that's dating a football player? Yeah, he her too.

[Dean Delray]

Oh, yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

He banged her in the head with the guitar. He just said, here, take these songs. He in the head with that. With a guitar.

[Dean Delray]

Guy can play. The guy can sing. Holy.

[Joey Diaz]

So you're doing something that I'm very proud of you to do. I know you've been working on it for a while. It's your new special and you got a bunch of symbols surrounding it. I mean, this is just. It's great for you that you're doing this and how seriously you took it and the sets and. You know, there's not a lot of people that work with like you, Dean. There's not a lot of people that are out there working like you. And when a person like you with your attitude has that type of animalism shit, doesn't really bother you.

[Dean Delray]

No.

[Joey Diaz]

Because you're not focused. Like what you said the guy promised you on the Apple show, and then you don't hear nothing the next day. But you're so used to your stuff that that's what happens. The only time you get uncomfortable. Shit like that was. You're not doing the work right. And that's what people don't realize. I know who's bullshitting me when, like, I can't get stuff going because you're not putting in the work right? Don't tell me that you're not getting this. It's like me with stand up, I'm having a hard time, but I can't put the work in. It's so much fucking work.

[Dean Delray]

Oh, my God.

[Joey Diaz]

You know, with so many notebooks. I sit there for hours in the morning and I just write stories and shit like that. I gotta do Ari storytelling show. I'm in no danger.

[Dean Delray]

Oh, my God.

[Joey Diaz]

I don't even have a story for it.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah, yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

You know, nothing has happened exciting the last five years. Oh, fuck do you say, except my daughter hitting a double or something like that.

[Dean Delray]

There's nothing exciting That's a fucking story. Because here's the thing I think is interesting about you right now in this thing, and I try to convey it on stage also is like, this is funny because you're. You've been this tornado your whole life, and now you're like, hey, all this. You know what I mean? I just want to watch these little league dads fight and I'll just have an edible and laugh at it. And then I want to go home to my house.

[Joey Diaz]

That's what I do.

[Dean Delray]

And that is a interesting thing to hear from somebody that achieved such high status in comedy. From the Ashes all the way up to, you know, you and I, you sold out the Chicago theater. You got specials, you got a book, you've been on tv. So it's cool to hear that side of it. Like, get. I just want to do nothing. You know, there's funny. There's something funny about I want to do nothing. And it's so hard to do nothing.

[Joey Diaz]

Talk. I get up in the morning and I try to, like, be like, Johnny CEO, you know?

[Dean Delray]

Like, yeah, Johnny CEO.

[Joey Diaz]

And it just ain't working no more. You know what I'm saying? It just ain't working. I used to wake up, like, with this fucking voice in my head, like, you know, out there and make people suck your dick. Today I go to Facebook, I'm like, I'm not even gonna write it on there. Yeah, because they're way beyond that already. They're still fucking in the woke world.

[Lee Syatt]

Oh, God.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Lee Syatt]

Can you imagine that on Facebook today? That wouldn't set Facebook on fire.

[Joey Diaz]

What's that?

[Lee Syatt]

That post the people on Facebook Are, like, old. Like, I think that. I don't think they could handle that today.

[Joey Diaz]

What's that you saying?

[Lee Syatt]

Like, get ready to have the day suck your dick. Like, all that. I used to say it all the time now.

[Joey Diaz]

And I could say it now, but the only thing they don't let me say on Facebook is, like, I'm in the mood to stab a motherfucker.

[Dean Delray]

Oh, my God.

[Joey Diaz]

Don't write your letters. You can't use violence. What the fuck?

[Dean Delray]

Yeah, you're. You're suspended for two weeks.

[Joey Diaz]

High school. That's what happened to me.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah. Stabbed. Three Puerto Ricans suspended for, like, fucking. Like, fuck. You can't even stab a Puerto Rican.

[Dean Delray]

That's just a saying, man.

[Joey Diaz]

But it's so weird how. Listen, and I've said this for years, I've tried to duck it, Dean. When I went to the Comedy Store and I sat on those stairs and I said goodbye to the building and I rubbed my name on the wall, I knew. I knew that this was gonna taper off because that was my bread and butter. That was the nucleus for the last 23 years. That was home base. That was everything.

[Dean Delray]

That's the cocoon.

[Joey Diaz]

And when I wasn't there for those six years, I improved, but not really. I wasn't doing much. It's not till I went back there in 2014. And then when you're around that. Those type of people, you grow. Oh, yeah.

[Dean Delray]

You gotta rise.

[Joey Diaz]

You grow quick. You got, like, a month. You gotta follow the Lear. You gotta follow this one. Yeah. Once you learn it. Now you got it. And once I got on that plane and I said goodbye to the store, I always knew it was gonna be weird because in my mind, I knew I wasn't in the major leagues anymore. Yeah, I'm in the major leagues in my heart, but in my mind, there's no way, you know, I'm in that level of. People will never understand. Those four years at the Comedy Store, the last four years, for me, incredible. I always looked at the first four years as my college, but it really wasn't. It was the last four years where it became like you had to go up there on your fucking A game. Like, four espressos, fucking two joints, an edible. Like, I had to have a plan to go up there. It was my A game. You didn't know. Yeah. You didn't know what was gonna happen. I still remember getting angry up there. Like, motherfuckers dropping in. You wanna drop in, bitch? I'm gonna make your life a fucking living Nightmare. I'm gonna show you why you gotta work in this bitch. And they would leave. You know, I just saw that Judd Apatow made a comeback three years later after I buried him at that fucking store that night. And then he started going to Largo with all those. Largo, Ian. Yeah, yeah. You know, and yeah, night he went back, he was looking around. I heard he was looking at the lineups, making sure the boys are. The gangsters weren't in here. You don't like that. He don't like following that heat.

[Dean Delray]

Well, it's a different. If it's a different animal. When you were coming up, it was. And when I started there 15 years ago last month, I tell people, you don't understand the hazing and the radicalness and the. And the brutality of. You've got to kick ass. You can't go up and go, where are you from? What do you do for a living? You can't do any of that.

[Joey Diaz]

Are you married?

[Dean Delray]

Listen, somebody pull you aside and go, what the are you doing? Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

It's like.

[Dean Delray]

It's a different, different machine now. And, you know, there's guys like me and Hinchcliffe and Gerard Carmichael and Melissa Villa, Senora Tony Baker. These people. When I started, you know, you're just there till four in the morning. You didn't leave, because if you left, they were like, that guy doesn't want it. Four in the morning.

[Joey Diaz]

In the morning.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

So walk the pink dot.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

Get a sandwich and walk back and then sit there and talk to Eddie Griffin about how he, Bruce Lee, fought 100 samurai the night that he died. And you got to sit there and go, wow, this is interesting shit.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

How many cocktails did Eddie do? Hysterical.

[Dean Delray]

It reminds me of when I stopped music, when you told me that story. Because I thought about it. I talked about it on my podcast yesterday. Two days ago, Genghis Khan announced that they were closing after 40 years.

[Joey Diaz]

No.

[Dean Delray]

40 years, dude. And you and I know it.

[Joey Diaz]

Well done comedy stand up there.

[Dean Delray]

Exactly. Exactly.

[Joey Diaz]

They had a good egg roll for a while.

[Dean Delray]

They had a great pot sticker.

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah. They had a good egg roll for a while.

[Dean Delray]

They got good parking.

[Joey Diaz]

Yes.

[Dean Delray]

And a cool little room on the.

[Joey Diaz]

Side is going out of.

[Dean Delray]

So check this out, Joey. I play music 25 years. And on the last 10 months of those 25 years, I did a kind of a world tour, you know, playing all over America and Europe and stuff. And when I came home, I was like. You know, in my mind, I was like, this is kind of it. You Know, people aren't buying music anymore, they're downloading it. CDs aren't selling, you know, and so I get booked at this gig at Genghis Cohen, and I get in my Dodge Super B, and I put the acoustic guitar in the trunk and I drive up and I walk in and it's packed. And I go, oh, yeah, it's packed. And there's a girl on before me, like a pop girl. And as soon as she's done, the place empties out and I'm next. And I go up there and I'm playing a 10 song set. There's people texting, they're talking, and. And in my mind go, this is it. I'm gonna count down these tunes. And when I'm done, I will not play music ever again. So I was like, on. I was like, burr on that thing. Ten more minutes, blah, blah, blah, blah, seven more minutes. I was like five more songs in my head. Four more songs. And when I got to the last song, I put the guitar in the case, put it in the trunk, drove the Super B out of there and never played music again. Other than the Bon Scott thing once a year. But it's amazing how quick people just forget. They're not like, hey, where you get, you know, a couple weeks ago, when's your next gig? And after that it just. It kind of goes away. And you're selling Harley's in the valley in the 114 degree sun, having some guy go pull the blue one out again. I want to see it in the sun. It's like it's 117 out and your wife ain't gonna let you buy this, you know? Get out of here.

[Joey Diaz]

When I got here, I was looking for a job. Yeah, like during the pandemic.

[Dean Delray]

Yep.

[Joey Diaz]

I was close to get a job at CVS stocking shelves by my house.

[Lee Syatt]

Whoa.

[Dean Delray]

Really? Doing what?

[Joey Diaz]

Stocking shelves.

[Dean Delray]

Whoa.

[Joey Diaz]

I was like. But then I realized nobody would hire me.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah. I couldn't get hired if I wanted.

[Dean Delray]

Thank God for that. Felony, huh?

[Joey Diaz]

No, the felony. And you know, people like, Joey, if you come to work here.

[Dean Delray]

Oh, yeah, you'll get mobbed.

[Joey Diaz]

It's going to be mobbed. We'll make money. But then when you're not here, we're not going to do nothing. So, yeah, it just. It was like.

[Dean Delray]

But also, people are like, aren't you, Joey? Hey, can I get a photo?

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah. That's the reality of it. How can I get a job in a warehouse? People gonna fucking torture me and Shit. This is how crazy.

[Lee Syatt]

Yeah, well, why were you getting a job?

[Joey Diaz]

I just wanted to try the normal life.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah, I tried it.

[Joey Diaz]

It sucks.

[Dean Delray]

It's just like the Godfather when they go, I'm out and they pull me back in because there I was. I did music 25 years and then I go, I'm going to sell Harley's. I need health care. And then the Tarantino people come walking on one day out of nowhere and they go, hey, we need an advisor on this biker film. And next thing you know, I land a role and advising on Hell Ride. And then I start doing movies and then comedy. So it was like, what the fuck? The weirdest way to get into comedy, you know, the. The long way.

[Joey Diaz]

But it's crazy how I was like, you know what? Something's going to happen. Yeah. I'm going to buy into a weed store. Somebody will have a fucking hot dog business. They need a partner or something. Nothing's happened.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

So I'm stuck doing stand up and it's just fucking fine.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

I can't be on planes every weekend anymore. I'm just. That's one thing that the.

[Dean Delray]

The tours that's done, it's worse than ever. The planes.

[Joey Diaz]

The planes are worse than ever. I don't have the patience no more. No, I just don't have the patience.

[Dean Delray]

The animals in there, man, if I.

[Joey Diaz]

Get there and they go, the plane's delayed. I snap like a twig. And then the walking and the switching and they lose your luggage. And you're like, you know what, man? And every once in a while you do get a great flight. Yeah, you do get a great flight.

[Dean Delray]

But no air traffic controller guys anymore. You're like, hey, are we cool to come in right now? You know, a wheel falls off.

[Joey Diaz]

There was something wrong. They were taking diverting people out of Newark. There was a fire at Newark the other night.

[Dean Delray]

Fucking crazy.

[Joey Diaz]

You can see the flames from the fucking highway or some shit. Every time you get on a plane now, now you have to take that insurance. Yeah.

[Dean Delray]

Oh, yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

Your family gets nothing. They get like $5,000. Well, I thought if I died in a plane ride, I got a couple million. Oh, yeah, you get 250,000 or 175,000, a percentage of what you're going to make for the rest of your life. That's the biggest. Look at these people in Minneapolis, the plane that flipped over, they told me the 30 GS to go fuck yourself. Go fuck myself. I'm calling fucking the judge that's getting that poor bastard out of Nicaragua that Trump sent down there by mistake. You see that poor bastard? Oh, yeah, they got him in a prison. I didn't do nothing. We had to do something. Somewhere along the line. You ran a package for the Nicaraguans, you did something for Vale del Norte, whatever that gang's name is. I don't know what the fuck that name is.

[Dean Delray]

Oh, my God.

[Joey Diaz]

Nori. No, the other fucking guy that, you know, Trump just sent back, he iced some people, right? He sent back a bunch of Venezuelan gang members. Well, he took this dude that was like a UPS driver in Minneapolis. The judge told him he's got to be back by Monday. And they're like, listen, that ain't gonna happen. That prison's always like 40 GS deep. By the time they find him, he's been raped already. God knows what's happened to him. You know what I'm saying?

[Dean Delray]

Yeah, we got some crazy times.

[Joey Diaz]

Really? He's staying. Yeah. Because they. It was on 60 Minutes last night about the tattoos.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

And how they found this guy had a flower tattoo over a crowd and he was like my favorite soccer player. And they're like, knock it off. You're a fucking gang member. Cocksucker. How long did it take you to work on the special, Dean?

[Dean Delray]

Well, I was the first half of the material. I was kind of working up to do Conan for my second time and then covet Hit. So it was a chunk about my back. And I was just gonna go like an al magical style, which I really like his style, where you pick a topic and that's the thread of the five minutes. And from there, Burr started touring. We did a Texas tour right around Covid, and Covid was ending. And then from then on, I went on a. Like a two year arena tour with him. And I started working this stuff. And about the last four months of the tour, I was like, two things scared me, you know, I had this weird acid reflux called silent reflux, where I didn't know I have it. It's not like the reflex where you go, God damn, heartburn. It's silent. My voice started, like going away because the acid flies up on your vocal cords and doesn't. It just trashes it. So I went to the doctor and I was like, worried, like, I have no special in 15 years. If I died right now, it would be like, I didn't do comedy, you know, like, yeah, I already did comedy, but I never saw it. So immediately I was like, I gotta get a special going. And I really felt ready. And I remember David telling me, he's like, don't rush it, you know, because once it's out there, if it's a piece of, it's just out there forever. So I really dug into it. I was ready, and at the right time, I ended up interviewing this guy named Todd Mayo. And he owned this cave in Tennessee where they do bluegrass concerts. He has an Emmy Award winning TV show called the Cavern Sessions on pbs. It's like the other show, Austin City Limits, but it's bluegrass. He found this cave. He was just down in the dumps in his life and went cave hiking. Found it. When I wonder if we could do a concert in here. He does Chris Stapleton, his first show. Twelve years later, I'm interviewing him because he wrote a book called the Cavern or the Caveman Chronicles. Mid interview, I go, I gotta shoot my special in there. He goes, man, we've always wanted to do comedy. Let's do it. And a month later, Bill Burr, myself, and Marcus Price, who directed it, flew out there, took a full gamble. No one's ever done comedy in there. We don't know what it sounds like, we don't know what it's going to be. And it's an hour and a half outside of Nashville, which at the time, if I knew that, I would have been nervous too, because it's in the no man's land and these fans got to come out there. But they came out, two shows sold out. We shot the special. Marcus killed it. Bill produced it, financed it. It's self financed and it looks insane. And it's the best thing I've ever done in my life. I absolutely love it. I don't care if it's one of those ones. You could trash it with your comments. And I'd be like, yeah, it's not for you. It's just. I love it, you know? So, yeah, we got it. We shopped it. I was like, here we go. We're gonna shop it. And they're gonna be like, what the. The Million Dollar Special. No one called us back. No Netflix. We couldn't even get him to look at a one minute clip. And this thing's phenomenal. Like, if I was Ted or whoever the head guy is over there and somebody said, you might want to look at this, I'd go, I don't care what it is, just buy that. Because they're going to click on it with just the look of it. The look of it, just the look of it. Everybody that sees, they go, what the. And, you know, nobody's really Done a special that looks like this. It's. We're in a cave underground. It looks like Mars. It's insane. And at one point, a bat flew over. I was like, oh, a bat, you know, like in the cave. It's a real cave. It's not a Hollywood lot. People are in there, and there's one door in, one door out. Anything goes down, you're done. And then we had all these cabins there and yerks and tents and people flew out and state camped out there, partied for the weekend and came into the show. It was goddamn magic, man.

[Joey Diaz]

And now it comes out on Patreon.

[Dean Delray]

When it's on Patreon right now for 10 days. And I put it on there really for my Patreon is that really helped me through Covid, man. Without the Patreon, I would have been on the streets. Gave it to them last night. We watched it together. And now you can buy it on my Patreon for 10 bucks. You know, it's self financed, so anything helps. And then I drop it. The day we hit Austin, April 17, the Paramount Theater. I'm dropping it on YouTube for everybody for free. And all I ask is just to share it or just watch it, man. You know, it. It's pretty insane, the look of it. And. And I love the jokes. The thread is great. I was ready. I was definitely ready. You know, you, man, I. God damn, I was. I put you on the front. The. The intro has all these photos, the people that helped me in my career. And if you stop it, it's kind of cool. You can stop it like a slot machine and see who comes up. Like Joey San Francisco, when it was fogged out and I had to headline for you while your flight was stuck.

[Joey Diaz]

Oh, that's right.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah, that comes up then. You and I in the Comedy Store hallway the last week before you left. Boom. Photo in there. I put everybody in there. That really meant a lot to me in my life and my career. And then I dedicated to my mom who passed away a couple years ago, who didn't get to see this, unfortunately. But you know Marcus Price, who did the recent Keith Robinson special? He directed the out of this thing and he's in a cave. He doesn't know. It's not like a. We're all in a cave. Like, what do you do? I think he just get a crane and fly it, you know, we had a crane crane in there. It was flying over the people. It looks cool, man. You saw some of it, right?

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah. It's really crazy how I don't know what's going on with the special world anymore. Yeah, some they buy. Some people go on YouTube.

[Dean Delray]

Yep.

[Joey Diaz]

It's.

[Dean Delray]

I mean, they didn't buy like Joe Liss, but these guys are inspiring to me, you know, like a Sam Morrell or, you know, Tim Dillon. All these guys that put them on and they blew up. Shane. You know, these guys put them on, then they blew up and then people buy it. And it reminds me exactly of the music business right now. The music business just sits back and they look around like this guy has 10 million followers and these three songs are 1 billion streams. Give them a deal. So now it's almost like they're kind of laying back and they're waiting and if something blows up, then they come at you and then that's when you grab all the money, you know, because you go, I already made this. So you got to, you know, come with something because I already got it going on right now. Now I am not delusional. And I tell people this a million times because people just go like, yeah, you just put your special up, man. You get like 3 million views and you're selling out theaters. That's if you're like, you know, say like on Rogan Weekly and you're getting people sharing it and you're getting the viral thing. This thing could easily just do 5,000 views. But in my heart, I'm fine with that because I made a special that I love and that's all I cared about, you know, I love this thing. That's it, man. You know, either get clicks or you don't. It's not going to make you stop.

[Joey Diaz]

You know, it's not going to fucking. At least people get to see you. That's the number one thing about a special. It's a shame that HBO doesn't really put a lot of specials on anymore. Right. If they do, it's somebody older.

[Dean Delray]

Yep.

[Joey Diaz]

Now, you know, it's just everything has changed so much. But it's also changed that we have the power.

[Dean Delray]

It's great.

[Joey Diaz]

We control our own destiny.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

If you want to put a half hour special up, put a half hour special.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah, yeah. YouTube. And then there's this new Venmo TV coming out that I've been reading Heavy Duty on. I think it's just going to get better and better for self made people. So Venmo, what they want to do is you have your platform, they do Venmo tv. There's no algorithm, so you're not battling like, oh, nobody saw mine Because I wasn't in the algorithm. It's just straight up your own TV channel. You have it hooked up to your Venmo and people just tip you or whatever, and everybody with Venmo can just watch this shit. They're going to have, like a TV channel, dude, it's going to be crazy. I think that it could take off because, you know, like, a PayPal did a PayPal TV. You know, everybody has PayPal. So you're on PayPal, and you go, oh, look at this. That's special. I'm gonna watch that. It's kind of a wild world, you know, that we're about to probably venture into.

[Lee Syatt]

But they also. I've seen a lot of comics, like, get their old specials bought, right, like, later on. So, like, maybe they don't buy this one, but the next time they'll buy both, right?

[Dean Delray]

When they blow up, like Shane Gillis or something. Yeah, they license it and then you really got it because you still own it, right? And then you can do whatever you want, constantly. Chop it up, put it out, make clips, sell it to a different market, put it on the hotels, the. The airplanes, anything, you know, when do.

[Lee Syatt]

You think you were ready? Like, because you said you're 15. Like, do you think you're ready at 10 to do a special? Or, like, when do you think you.

[Dean Delray]

Were ready to do another special?

[Lee Syatt]

When did you know, like, to do this one?

[Dean Delray]

Oh, no, about. About a year ago. I was like, I'm ready. I had done this material in an arena all around America opening for Bill, and that's a tough, tough gig when you're opening for one of the biggest comics in America, hands down, and he's a Slayer, and you're coming out stone cold, no host, and you're doing 20 in an arena, you know, and people are just looking at you like, where's Bill? And now you got to get it going. It is the fucking truth.

[Lee Syatt]

Yeah.

[Dean Delray]

18,000 garden. You just did the Garden. It's so fucking electric when you walk on. Yeah, dude, I got goosebumps right now. You walk on, you're like, I'm fucking right where, you know, some of the greatest of all time happened. You saw concerts there, you know, like, Zeppelin played here six, seven, five nights or whatever. And you're in that dressing room, you see all the photos, and you're like, all right, I gotta get this. You know, it is. So you really figure it out right away, is this material working? And once you see it's working, you're like, it's time to shoot this and move on, you know?

[Lee Syatt]

Did it change at all going from, like, doing it in. In an arena to doing it in a club?

[Dean Delray]

No, no, just, like, in the arena. Like, somebody told me when I first started doing arenas, they go. The tip is go slow.

[Joey Diaz]

Go slow.

[Dean Delray]

That's it. And I was up there after a while. I was almost kind of cocky after a while because I was like, oh, another one of these. Because once you're inside, they're all kind of the same. It's driving up to it. You're like, fuck, we're in an arena. But once you're in it, you're like, oh, yeah, where are we?

[Joey Diaz]

You know, if you go up there and do my style, it's the nightmare.

[Dean Delray]

Oh, yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

Because all you hear is a person yelling to the microphone.

[Dean Delray]

Right.

[Joey Diaz]

Because I'll go on a rant.

[Dean Delray]

Right, right.

[Joey Diaz]

And those rants don't work that well in an arena. At least Bill has them tipped.

[Dean Delray]

Right.

[Joey Diaz]

But a fast rant, you just hear. It's like fucking listening to, you know? Yeah.

[Dean Delray]

You got the egg.

[Joey Diaz]

So you have to do the joke. Let it magnify and come back.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

And hold your faith and do it again. And it's hard to learn. But that's why you do the theaters. That's why there's an evolution, you know, Nobody goes from. Well, I did. I went from fucking 18,000 seats to 60 last Wednesday.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

And I died a slow death. Like, I just died. Everything that came out of my mouth was horrible that night, but I'm like. I couldn't make. Like I just came from the Garden.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

And here I am in a back room at a fucking sandwich place, you.

[Dean Delray]

Know, dude, the same thing happened to me. I did the Garden, and the next morning, I did the Cellar brunch show and ate the biggest dick of all time.

[Joey Diaz]

You just came out of this fucking Garden, dude. You're good. You're good for a month.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

If you bomb within that month, it don't matter, because when you walk off, you bomb tonight. You really. I just did the guard. Yeah.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

Check yourself.

[Dean Delray]

I meant to bomb.

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah. 99 problems and ain't one.

[Dean Delray]

Was that your first time doing the Garden?

[Joey Diaz]

Second. Whoa.

[Dean Delray]

Who'd you do it with? Rogan?

[Joey Diaz]

Tony Hinchcliffe.

[Dean Delray]

Oh, Tony.

[Joey Diaz]

And killed Tom.

[Dean Delray]

Oh, that's right. Oh, that's out today, man. Everybody. It's on Netflix today. The New York just came out.

[Lee Syatt]

No, not that new. It's a new episode.

[Dean Delray]

Oh, kill Tony.

[Lee Syatt]

Yeah.

[Dean Delray]

Oh, I thought it was the. The Garden thing that they put.

[Lee Syatt]

No, they just recorded it. Yeah.

[Dean Delray]

Oh, wow.

[Lee Syatt]

Last night. Two nights ago, I guess.

[Dean Delray]

Oh, wow.

[Joey Diaz]

Oh, yeah, yeah. The one with Shane and all those guys.

[Lee Syatt]

I think Rogan's on it.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's out today.

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah, that's. That's amazing, huh? Kill Tony, the Belly Room, and now they're on Netflix, dude.

[Dean Delray]

I look at a lot of people from the store and I look at the success they've had, and all of them crazy hard workers. There's not one person that blew in there, and they're like, that fucking guy was, like, here two weeks and he did Arena. No, man. It's like, grind, grind, grind.

[Joey Diaz]

Had a situation a couple weeks ago. These guys know about it. A friend of mine wanted me to put her podcast up, and it was a really weird conversation, and I did it for her because I have history with her, and she's a wackadoo. And two hours later, she goes, I want you to take it down. You know? And then I heard from her, like, that night, like, at 10:00, and she was saying that she really wants to do a podcast, but she thought about it and she just destroyed herself. Like, you know, when you're talking to somebody. I've seen people do this all the time. Like, you know, I wanted to be this, but this just. They just put all the negatives in it.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

You know, and I said, okay, whatever you want to do, you know, it's up to your choice. I really don't give a fuck what she does. But I thought about it for two days, how people don't see themselves growing. But I thought about how when I did comedy all those years, I thought I was just gonna die a bum. Okay, I was just doing comedy instead of doing criminal activities. Whatever. My point is. But then you're running in this circle. You're in a circle, and everybody in that circle is poor. You're all struggling. This guy's got two roommates. This guy's mother sends him money. And then in my world, it was like, Josh Wolf living in an apartment, eating turkey burgers. He gets a half million dollar deal. And then, you know, I saw Ralphie May in a studio apartment, and six months later, he's in a fucking house with a pound of weed on the fucking living room table.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

You know, I still remember Joe when he was on newsradio, right? And he had the NSX or something like that. He sold the Scirocco to the skinny kid at the store and bought an nsx.

[Dean Delray]

Oh, and accurate, you know? Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

Like, you see. So when you see people, like when you grow up in North Bergen and you hang out with 10 guys. Yeah. One of them. One of them might hit Eureka, gone to the Stark Market, whatever the fuck they did. But unless you see it, you don't believe in it.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

And that's how I. Cause this isn't the problem. I wasn't just pointing her out. I pointed even people in LA that come to you and they go, I really want to write a script and I just need your help. And you're like, whatever you need. And then a week later they talk themselves out of it. Yeah, just talk themselves out of it. And you're like, you want to like, talk them back into it, but you're worried about, I got a daughter. I ain't got time to convince you to get your life together. But it's so weird how unless you see people grow around you, that's when you start believing it. Like Josh Wolf, Ralphie May, Bobby Lee. You had all these fucking people blowing up around you. Crazy, you know, and all of a sudden you're like, here I am in a one bedroom studio eating fucking ugach for breakfast. And then one day something just happens. And now you're at least. Like. There was a time I had to call my wife every day and go, can you put $20 in the bank account? Oh, yeah, I would have like four from the night before. So now I got 24. I could actually take 20 out and buy a bag of weed.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

You know, I never thought I would be out of that. This was at 40, I was still calling my wife every day, can you put 20 on my books? Joey, you know we don't have money for the rent. I know, I know, I'm going on the road. All this shit. But not even that. I'm not even talking about that. I'm talking about having good sets. When people put you on a special or Comedy Central or whatever, it just switches. But unless people see other people growing, it's tough for them to believe that they're going to grow. And that night, and like I said, I just pointed her out because her attitude went from hero to zero in four hours.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

Like, it's not for me. I want to work behind the scenes. What? You know, and I just, all right, good luck. Whatever you want to do, I'm here. And I. For two days, it really like, wow, how people got. I know. Listen, I'm gonna be honest with you. I know so many comics that were so much funnier than I was.

[Dean Delray]

Oh, Man.

[Joey Diaz]

And then they went a different route. They got scared. They did this, they did that. It's so many. I saw so many people talk themselves out of a career in L. A. They were close because you never know how close you are.

[Dean Delray]

You don't.

[Joey Diaz]

But like the words of my girl, Cheryl Crow, why quit before the miracle happens? Yeah, let the fucking miracle happen. You know, it's a fucking miracle for me to have more than $200 in my checking account. That was a miracle.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah, man.

[Joey Diaz]

Because if I got 300 for a gig, I bought an eight ball. Yeah, okay.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

An eight ball.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

So it's a fucking miracle. And people don't. It's really hard to make people believe that. You have to get into the slot. It's like you're in LA doing open mics, then one day somebody says, come to the improv with me. You go, the book of likes you. They make you do sets in the front.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

You just moved into the chamber.

[Dean Delray]

Totally.

[Joey Diaz]

Now, it could be a chamber of a fucking machine gun with 1800 rounds.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

Or it could be a chamber with six bullets. You know, you decide. And you don't know.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

And you don't know. And you get into that, and the next thing you know, you book a national commercial. And now it's no big deal booking a national commercial, but people can't fuck with you because they know you got a chance. Now, I don't want this motherfucker to blow up and then he won't talk to me.

[Dean Delray]

He's in the machine.

[Joey Diaz]

So, yeah, you're in the machine now. And then you might book a one line role in a movie, and then it just keeps going and going, but you're in the fucking rotation. You jerk off.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

Don't give up now. No, now is not the time to give up. And even if you're not in the rotation, get into the rotation, then quit.

[Dean Delray]

Yep.

[Joey Diaz]

You know, it's so weird. Jiu Jitsu, people quit after their first blue belt. Than anything, people just want to get a blue belt, then they don't show up no more. Yeah, they just. It's just so weird how people don't see themselves. And to me, it's like a fucking shock because I didn't see it either. But I think when I got off the coke, I started to see it. And I know if I ever had an opportunity to do it, it's now. And it worked. So I think people should really give themselves a fucking shot, you know, and go, I got this. And if I don't I die doing it. It doesn't matter. Doesn't matter no more.

[Dean Delray]

Nope.

[Lee Syatt]

Doesn't.

[Joey Diaz]

You're going to be broke anyway. You can't. You're not going to buy a car. I mean, it's just what we're going into, the next five years is going to be horrible for everybody.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah. So do what you do it.

[Joey Diaz]

Who gives a fuck?

[Dean Delray]

That's what I said.

[Joey Diaz]

I got into comedy when I was in the worst spot of my life. Out of prison, fucking divorced. It was fucking horrible. It was horrible. But I wouldn't have wanted. You know, it's like I told Lee, nobody ever pulls up to a open mic in a Lamborghini.

[Dean Delray]

No.

[Joey Diaz]

You know what I'm saying? Nobody pulls up to an open mic in a Cadillac, an Escalante, whatever the fuck.

[Dean Delray]

Even playing full field at an open mic. Even playing field. We're all in.

[Joey Diaz]

You know, it's like people who work for an hourly wage. That's great. But you're telling me you got no fucking balls. Take a chance. Columbus did. Because guess what? On the first, we're all fucking even.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

Whether I'm the number one salesman, number ten. We're all even, bitch. So I got another chance at the first of the month. And I love that. I love that we could throw away a month in your life. Fuck it, I'm smoking dope. I'm getting herpes. I'm not fucking sleeping this month. And then you come back, you take your herpes medication and you're fucking back. That's what this whole thing is about, man. And as old guys, we gotta explain it to these young. Yeah, that. We've seen it. Yeah, man, you know, I've seen it.

[Dean Delray]

I've seen it.

[Joey Diaz]

People fucking hit a home run right in front of my fucking eyes. Oh. And go, holy shit. We were just.

[Dean Delray]

That parking lot at the store is a fucking plane, you know, like, it's like, here comes this car. Like, whoa, someone got a deal.

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah. I still remember beating. I still remember riding a one man show with this fucking loser. And I would meet him at that hamburger place in Burbank.

[Dean Delray]

Oh, yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

Where people bring all their cars on Friday nights.

[Dean Delray]

Oh, yeah, Big Bob. Bob's big boy.

[Joey Diaz]

Big Bob. Is that out of business yet?

[Dean Delray]

No, fuck no.

[Joey Diaz]

That burger, fucking. That gives you hemorrhoids.

[Dean Delray]

Oh, man.

[Joey Diaz]

That burger sits next to the fucking Starbucks Red, man.

[Dean Delray]

And I used to go there. Yeah, yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

Right next to a Starbucks chili burger. And I was in there one day. What the fuck was I going to tell you? God, Damn it. I forget now.

[Dean Delray]

Cars pulling in.

[Joey Diaz]

No, no. Oh, I know what the fuck it was. I'm sitting there, I'm writing a one man show with a guy.

[Dean Delray]

Oh, yeah, the loser.

[Joey Diaz]

I forgot what the fuck I was gonna say. God damn it. Damn it. Those edibles are good. Oh, I'm writing a one man show with a stiff.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

And as I'm walking out of here, Joey, what are you doing here? And I turn around and Billy Gardell.

[Dean Delray]

Oh, wow.

[Joey Diaz]

And I go, billy, what's going on? How you doing? We start talking and he's telling me how he's thinking of moving back to Pittsburgh, that the funny bones just offered him a deal. And it was horrible money. And I was about to tell him that they had called me too and the money was God awful. And I had to call him back and go, I'll do those weeks, but I'm not doing Sunday. Then we're going to prorate it. Yeah. And they were like, well, you have to do Sunday. And I'm like, listen, this deal is not going to work.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

But I still have Billy Gardell telling me this. And a year later he's on a CBS show and now he's the host of a fucking. Wasn't he hosting. He's had two shows on cbs.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

That are in fucking recurring. Whatever the fuck that's called syndication.

[Dean Delray]

Right.

[Joey Diaz]

And he's touring now. You know, he does a little. He's going to be here somewhere.

[Dean Delray]

I see him at Flappers.

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah, I know he's Flappers. He's a funny motherfucker. Oh, man, I still remember seeing him.

[Dean Delray]

He lost a lot of weight. Yeah, he looks killer.

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah. I still remember seeing. And he was a killer comic. Yeah.

[Dean Delray]

He's one of the nicest dudes.

[Joey Diaz]

Nicest dudes.

[Dean Delray]

He'll come up and go, God damn, that fucking joke's strong.

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah, you know, Good dude. He's a very good dude. He's an old school comic.

[Dean Delray]

Yep.

[Joey Diaz]

And I still remember him going, I don't know if this is going to work out, motherfucker. You got a billboard on CBS and shit now. And you, you know. And I remember those things. Yeah. Ali Wong.

[Dean Delray]

Oh, man, I tell the story all the time.

[Joey Diaz]

You know, half of the Whitney. Well, no, I didn't know Whitney before the operation.

[Dean Delray]

Ali Wong's incredible. What a superstar.

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah, I don't remember. I didn't meet her. I didn't meet until after she had the TV show. But you see all these people and you see them make the explosion. Now you're like, okay, that could happen to me.

[Dean Delray]

There's been a lot of explosions out of the store.

[Joey Diaz]

A lot.

[Dean Delray]

It is nuts.

[Joey Diaz]

The chick on Saturday Night Live.

[Dean Delray]

Oh, yeah. Melissa.

[Joey Diaz]

No, no.

[Dean Delray]

Oh, oh, punky, punky. Dude, Barten entered snl. Great story, great story. I bumped into that black Leslie Jones also. Yeah, Leslie Jones, Melissa. Three SNL people, you know. Crazy. I love it.

[Joey Diaz]

Crazy.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

And I remember meeting the dude, the black dude from Forrest Gump.

[Dean Delray]

Forrest Gump. Oh, yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

Michael T. Oh, okay. Michael T. Williamson did the pilot for Miami Vice. And years ago we did a new Law and Order mock up show. Oh, wow. I got a call from an acting coach and she goes, keep this under the fucking wraps. Law and Order wants to do something else. It was called Law and Order Judges Circle or something. And they just wanted to use a couple actors. And she used me. It was me. The kid that's always on, he was on our podcast. He's a guitar player that came from the. He came from Northern California and he was Joe Bonamasso's student. I forget what his name is. I see him a lot on Twitter.

[Dean Delray]

Richie Kotzen.

[Joey Diaz]

Huh?

[Dean Delray]

Richie Kotzen.

[Joey Diaz]

No, no, no. It was him and Michael T. Williamson.

[Dean Delray]

Oh, wow.

[Joey Diaz]

And during the breaks, I would talk to Michael T. Williamson, and he goes, I saw you at the store one night. Good stuff. And we started talking and he goes, I used to hang out at the store a lot before I got Miami Vice. Cause he was on the pilot of Miami Vice. And he goes, I used to see Trudy. Trudy was on Miami Vice.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah, that's right.

[Joey Diaz]

She was a waitress at the store.

[Dean Delray]

Wow.

[Joey Diaz]

She was a fucking waitress. He used to see it. And he was. I go, where is she today? And he goes, she owns a clothing store in Compton, or, you know, down there.

[Dean Delray]

That place is a fucking. Has churned out the stars.

[Joey Diaz]

What's that? The store.

[Dean Delray]

The store. It is crazy. In the last 20 years, since I started 50, I'm 50, 16 years in now, I just look at the people and go, like, wow, you know, Ari Burr. I mean, Burr, of course, he's, you know. Right. But I'm just saying, like, you know, when you really look at, like these guys that became these giant killers in there working all that material, you know, and then Gerard Carmichael and. And who else was somebody else fucking shot their special.

[Joey Diaz]

There is so many. So many shit that came out of that. Yeah, I tell people all the time. I told Lee a couple weeks ago on this podcast, I don't really care about shit. Like, I didn't do nothing in comedy, but I held my own on Tuesdays and Thursday nights the last four years.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

And that meant more to me than anything in the world. Those are the best lineups you're gonna see. And we were right there. And you know, they were always just being around that you knew you had to be on top of your game. There was no fucking. And that's all I ever gave a fuck about. No matter how this ended, I came out of Comedy Store Marine.

[Dean Delray]

Yep.

[Joey Diaz]

And that's all I ever gave a fuck about. And here we are.

[Dean Delray]

You get that name on the wall, and sometimes you're rolling down Sunset and you turn the corner and you see your name on the marquee. It is awesome.

[Joey Diaz]

I wouldn't even look. I would just shake my head and pull in the parking spot.

[Dean Delray]

It was awesome.

[Joey Diaz]

The first time they put your name up there, you come all over yourself.

[Dean Delray]

I sent it to my mom as you're leaving.

[Joey Diaz]

They're putting the name up the night before.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah, they're putting it up. Yeah. I'm not there.

[Joey Diaz]

And then you get there, it's a different name.

[Dean Delray]

Oh, yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

They just put that up because then somebody called in to pop in and you come down there. Watch this. Barry Sobel. Any dates, brother?

[Dean Delray]

Huh?

[Joey Diaz]

Any dates?

[Dean Delray]

Yeah. Let's see. This comes out tomorrow. So I will be with you at Moon Tower 17 and 18th and Lee at the Paramount Theater. Then I go to the Vegas seller for seven shows, May 12th through like the 16th. And then my. One of my favorite new clubs in America, the Comedy Fort in Fort Collins, Colorado. I was telling you about it. It is amazing. The owner's great. I'm there in June, so. Yeah, you know. And then the special once again comes out. April 17th on YouTube. Free. Go to my website, dindel ray.com. all the tour dates, everything. The Patreon.

[Joey Diaz]

Thank you.

[Dean Delray]

Oh, God, I love you, man.

[Joey Diaz]

Lee. What do you got? Sucker? Look at the shape of this beauty.

[Lee Syatt]

I got a look, I.

[Dean Delray]

Busy week.

[Lee Syatt]

Yeah, I meant the Broadway comedy club. Tuesday and Thursday. I'm with you on Wednesday in dojo of death.

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dean Delray]

Dojo of death.

[Joey Diaz]

And then I got May something. May 17th at Philadelphia. That's sold out. NJ packers sold out. Now we got tickets going on sale for August something at Parks, right? August 15th where? Parks Casino, Philadelphia. Oh yeah, that's my.

[Lee Syatt]

Oh yeah.

[Dean Delray]

Weren't you telling me you're gonna do like a run there?

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've done two shows.

[Dean Delray]

Oh, that's cool, man.

[Joey Diaz]

I got one more next Month, and then I love the place. So where are you gonna be again, Lee?

[Lee Syatt]

Broadway on Tuesday and Thursday. And with you at the dojo on Wednesday.

[Dean Delray]

Lee got cooked. What'd you give him?

[Joey Diaz]

What didn't I give him?

[Dean Delray]

He's got some swearing going on.

[Joey Diaz]

Oh, yeah, it was that last.

[Dean Delray]

Lee and I rode the bus over. Man, that was wild.

[Joey Diaz]

Wait till you have to ride the bus home with him and carry him. No, you have to sit on your lap.

[Dean Delray]

I'm going Uber. I gotta go to this stand.

[Joey Diaz]

It's good to see you, brother. Congratulations again. You're my brother. I miss you, too. And just being here right now brings me back to those last couple of weeks in LA.

[Dean Delray]

That time you get. I smoked the 24 karat at Snake Bite, and I was drooling and you were talking, and I just came out like, joe Montana is the best. Just. I was running down the stories with Lee on the bus ride over here. That family brawl at the Gotham with the tables.

[Joey Diaz]

Oh, my God. What about the time we saw the guy with the pirate driving? The guy driving?

[Dean Delray]

Oh, yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

And we were right next to him.

[Dean Delray]

Oh, my.

[Joey Diaz]

And the guy looked at us.

[Dean Delray]

That was the funniest. Dude, you're a pirate. Look at you.

[Joey Diaz]

Let me tell you something. There's nothing like a comedy ride.

[Dean Delray]

Oh, my God.

[Joey Diaz]

And you have to go to a gig and there's traffic. Me and Lee had to go to San Diego one night. Oh. We could not stop laughing. We had to pull over.

[Dean Delray]

Oh, yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

I was laughing so hard my head was ringing. That's when I was telling Lee about how you have to come in a woman's mouth and then punch her in the stomach, and then she comes and then you make her suck it up with a straw. And he was like, how do you do that? I'd never done that in my life. I'm just pulling his leg. So wait a second. You come in that stomach and then. Why do you punch him? To get it out. And then what? Then you make him suck it up with the straw. He was, like, baffled. He had never heard that at Jew Summerway Camp.

[Lee Syatt]

Also, and I could be wrong, isn't this also the ride where you told me that you were pregnant?

[Joey Diaz]

What's that?

[Lee Syatt]

Is it also the ride that you told me that. That Mercy was coming?

[Joey Diaz]

I don't remember.

[Lee Syatt]

I think it was that same ride, like, you told me those two stories.

[Joey Diaz]

I don't know. That's when we went to San. That went to Harrah's in San Diego.

[Dean Delray]

Oh, yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

We were Fucking late. We were fucked up. We took like 2000mg on the ride down.

[Dean Delray]

Oh, fuck.

[Joey Diaz]

We got down. The guy's like, the show's starting. No, it's not.

[Dean Delray]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

We're eating first.

[Dean Delray]

We're gonna sit down for a minute.

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah, they can wait all they want. The guy brought me lobster bisque in a rush out of like a Chinese container. I'm like, I'm not getting on that stage. I'm fucked up, Jack. He's like, what do you mean? I'm fucked up. So you better get some food out of here. Lee was eating right out of the container. Yeah, they gave him like steak or something.

[Lee Syatt]

Oh man, I don't think I had an iPhone yet. Maybe or dude or something. Didn't work. And we kept getting lost and kept getting lost.

[Joey Diaz]

Yeah, we kept getting lost.

[Lee Syatt]

You had to get out of the car at one point because I think you had to puke or something.

[Joey Diaz]

You what?

[Lee Syatt]

Didn't you have to puke?

[Joey Diaz]

Oh yeah, I was, bro. We ate like everything. Oh my God.

[Dean Delray]

And you're driving and we're driving and doing 90.

[Joey Diaz]

90. You know that San Diego traffic.

[Dean Delray]

Oh no, the worst. I did it last Thursday. I did a one nighter at La Jolla. Oh, you know it's seven hour drive down. You can just go to SF if you wanted.

[Joey Diaz]

I'm done. That, that drive always used to get me and people never understood. It doesn't work.

[Dean Delray]

It is not.

[Joey Diaz]

It doesn't work.

[Dean Delray]

I like the train doesn't work. I got the train doesn't work.

[Joey Diaz]

It's too long.

[Dean Delray]

It's fine.

[Joey Diaz]

When you drive back in an hour and 30.

[Dean Delray]

Isn't that nuts?

[Joey Diaz]

It takes you 40 hours to get. It takes you four. You leave at 2 o'clock. You're not getting there till six. Nope, forget it.

[Dean Delray]

I leave at 10.

[Joey Diaz]

Now I'm not doing it. I'm not fucking doing it.

[Dean Delray]

Crazy.

[Joey Diaz]

It was always horrible. That was the worst drive in America. How does a one and a half hour, bro? I even made it back on that one. I was doing coke.

[Dean Delray]

Oh yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

My drug dealer used to close at one. I made it back on an hour 20. Oh yeah, that's 90 from Irvine all the way to Hollywood.

[Dean Delray]

I did an hour 43 minutes Thursday night and no problem, bro.

[Joey Diaz]

On the way down. It's four hours. Oh, easily, easily every time. Easily. No. Well, I don't even like that San Diego that much. There's nothing down there for me.

[Dean Delray]

I love that club, boy.

[Joey Diaz]

I like the club. I like the beach. I like the sushi. But after that, put me in the car four hours for this. I could just go to Sushi's Eye. Whatever the. By my house. The one next to the Comedy Store. Sushi, Zen, whatever the it is.

[Dean Delray]

Oh, yeah.

[Joey Diaz]

I love you. Cocksucker. Stay black. We'll be back next week. Don't forget to watch Dean Del Rey special. And don't forget to, I don't know, keep it alive. Cocksucker. Stay black. We love you. It.