Podcast Summary: "Passed Out in a Prison Cell"

The Church of What’s Happening Now: The New Testament
Host: Joey Coco Diaz w/ Lee Syatt
Date: November 4, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode brings Joey Diaz and Lee Syatt together live from NYC for their signature blend of comedy, storytelling, and hard-won wisdom. The pair reminisce about Halloween, reflect on the importance of listening, explore jail stories and lessons from the past, and provide advice (both explicit and implicit) about the path of a stand-up comic. The episode moves fluidly between the past and present, spinning tales about growing up, the evolution of entertainment, and navigating comedy’s cutthroat scene, all with Joey’s trademark brashness and warmth.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Halloween Experiences and Family Moments

• Joey and Lee open with banter about Halloween and recent weekend stand-up competitions.
• Joey emphasizes valuing time with family over performative participation (dressing up, etc.), highlighting what his daughter, Mercy, really values: his presence.
  • Joey: “Mercy don’t give a fuck if I dressed up or not, as long as I was at the party with her and she got to drive back in the car with me.” (02:04)

2. The Joy and Nostalgia of Baseball & the Gift of Listening

• Baseball’s resurgence in their lives provides a segue into a theme: how our relationship with media and senses (particularly listening) has changed.
• Joey mourns the passing of a ‘listening era’ and laments how phones have ruined true listening:
  • Joey: “We have completely lost the gift of listening in the last 30, 40 years.” (07:22)
• He reminisces about listening to albums, absorbing music with full attention, and how visual media (MTV) and digital distraction have altered our brains.

3. Life Lessons from New Jersey: Learning by Watching and Listening

• Joey tells a formative story: being paid as a teenager to ‘watch a wall’ in his neighborhood and learning the value of silence and discretion the hard way.
• He recounts nearly getting caught in a drug raid and realizing too late the importance of heeding the advice of elders, even when the reasons aren’t spelled out:
  • Joey: “…they would tell you, hey, don’t go over there… three weeks later, something bad would happen… I don’t have to tell you why…” (13:51)
• The story pivots to jail: the consequences of not listening and not taking responsibility, how prison forces self-reflection, and the power of learning from others’ experience.
  • Joey: “I didn’t get locked up for fucking getting involved in that drug thing. I got locked up for not claiming responsibility… I didn’t listen to them… I didn’t know how to do that…” (16:09)

4. The Lost Art of Listening

• Joey riffs on how sensory priorities have shifted from listening to looking; phones have made us less aware, less present, and less safe.
• He contrasts the past—when keeping quiet and listening were survival skills—with today’s compulsive need to broadcast and consume visually.
• Lee and Joey both note how returning to listening (ditching the phone, e.g. at the doctor’s office) provides unexpected satisfaction and a sense of being “involved” (20:11).

5. Absurdity of Modern Life: Phones, Junk Emails, CVS, and Community

• A playful detour: Joey’s love/hate relationship with phones, digital overload, and the only texts that make him happy—CVS coupons.
  • Joey: “Listen, the text message from CVS makes my dick hard. It’s always good news…” (22:23)
• Anecdotes about neighborhood cats behind CVS, the adjacent head shop, and Joey’s fascination with local “whorehouses,” all painted with comic flair.

6. Stand-Up Comedy Hustle: Pandering, Power, and the Ladder

• Joey discusses the grind of the stand-up world—from ‘black rooms’ in Denver to pandering to bookers—and how not getting discouraged or beaten by gatekeepers is essential.
  • Joey: “She wasn’t going to beat me. I was going to beat her. I was going to get a lot farther in this than she was…” (55:06)
• The value of creating your own market and the difference between different city circuits (LA vs. NYC vs. Denver).
• Joey encourages Lee to analyze gigs for their real worth and warns against waiting for approval from the ‘top’ club.

7. The Evolution of Style: Clean vs. Dirty Comedy, Connection, and Heart

• They debate what it means to be "dirty" or "edgy," with Lee questioning the limits and public perception.
• Joey insists style, heart, and audience connection matter more than shock value alone.
  • Joey: “You could be as dirty as you want, but your heart has to come out somewhere there… so the audience knows that you’re just fucking around…” (98:09)
• Both share how learning and adapting comes from hard experience, bombing in unfamiliar rooms, and relentless self-examination.

8. Nostalgia and the Changing Entertainment Landscape

• Joey reflects on the uniqueness and irreplaceability of certain times, places, and groups in entertainment and life.
• Comparison of “the old cloth” vs. now—an ethos of keeping your mouth shut and learning by watching/living.

9. Life’s Unexpected Turns: From Prison Cells to Softball Fields

• Joey’s emotional recollection: sitting in a prison cell at his lowest, unable to imagine a future beyond the dark moment, and the reality years later—watching his daughter’s softball game, living a wholly different life.
  • Joey: “When I was in the cell… I never saw this baseball diamond. I never saw myself having a daughter… I never saw any of this…” (41:00)
• How moments of hopelessness can precede unexpected happiness, though such outcomes are invisible from the pit.

10. Comedy Career, Gigs, and the Hustle

• Insight into how to grind in comedy via open mics, running/selling out your own rooms, finding alternative spaces, and not accepting unpaid spots when clubs are charging audiences.
  • Joey: “Everybody in that room should be getting something… $10, when you’re a young comic, $10 goes a long way…” (84:50)
• Tales of ‘combat zone’ gigs in Montana and Wyoming and learning lessons from mentors who hustled creatively.
• Joey details an old-school comic who built local scenes, organized shows, and created a community newspaper—an example of hustling outside traditional circuits.

11. Future Plans and Absurdist Visions

• Final segment veers into a hilariously vulgar, unfiltered riff about Lee’s upcoming bachelor party—Joey's imagination running wild with pranks, “kidnapping,” and debauchery, delivered for maximum comedic effect.
  • Joey: “Who gets a lap dance at a bachelor party? What are you, 10? … you know, the black chick’s going to fart in your mouth. We’re going to put a sex ball in…” (105:16)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the end of the World Series:
  • “When it ended, it was like the ending of The Sopranos. Really? It ended like the Sopranos.”
    —Joey (02:33)
• On the lost art of listening:
  • “We have completely lost the gift of listening in the last 30, 40 years.”
    —Joey (07:22)
• On youthful arrogance:
  • “There’s a certain age we hit that we think we’ll fucking know it all. It starts at like 12 and a half. The first time we jerk off and something comes out, forget about it. That’s it. I’m running things from now.”
    —Joey (32:11)
• On learning the hard way:
  • "I got locked up for not claiming responsibility. ...I didn't know how to do that."
    —Joey (16:09)
• On nostalgia and change:
  • “These things will never happen again. How many times you go eat at a place for four or five years, then you come back... and you’re like, it ain’t the same.”
    —Joey (29:56)
• On stand-up’s grind:
  • “You don’t quit. You create your own market. And freaks meet freaks.”
    —Joey (53:03)
• On not waiting for permission:
  • “Getting on stage is the end all be all. Not you being here every night waiting with your mouth open. I’ll do 10 seconds, you know what I’m saying?”
    —Joey (58:58)
• On style and connection in comedy:
  • “You could be as dirty as you want, but your heart has to come out somewhere there so the audience knows you’re just fucking around…”
    —Joey (98:09)
• On future optimism from dark times:
  • “In your darkest moment, you don’t even see what you could become.”
    —Joey (41:00)
• On the phone as a toxic (but addictive) girlfriend:
  • “This is the girlfriend that fucking lies, cheats on you, steals from you, but when she does deliver, she puts her long tongue up your asshole ...You going to get rid of that?”
    —Joey (20:28)

Important Timestamps (Approximate)

• 02:00 — Joey & Lee recap Halloween and family priorities.
• 07:22 — Joey’s treatise on the lost gift of listening.
• 12:18 — “Watching the wall” and learning by listening.
• 16:09 — Joey’s story of jail, responsibility, and learning to listen.
• 20:11 — On putting down the phone and ‘involvement’ in the present.
• 22:23 — Joey’s delight in CVS texts and local cats.
• 31:00 — Joey’s reflection on aging, health, and generational changes.
• 41:00 — Joey’s emotional prison-to-softball-field arc.
• 55:06 — Standing your ground with bookers, hustling for gigs.
• 75:36 — The realities of going up cold and “eating a bag of dicks” on stage.
• 84:50 — The ethics and economics of gigging in small rooms.
• 105:16 — The (fictitious, comic) plan for Lee’s bachelor party.

Episode Tone & Vibe

Raw, unapologetic, and unscripted. Joey mixes hard-earned wisdom with the profane, the hilarious, and the brutally honest. Lee’s contribs keep things grounded, with the warmth of friendship and gentle self-deprecation.

This episode is a ride through Joey’s philosophies on life and comedy, his sharp takes on generational shifts, and the continual challenges and joys of the stand-up hustle. Whether or not you’ve ever “passed out in a prison cell,” you’ll leave feeling entertained—and maybe reflecting on what advice you wish you’d listened to along the way.