Moments

There are moments in life you'll never forget. For some it may be when they lost their virginity or their high school graduation. I have all of those memories too, but it's fascinating to look at the "little" moments that lead up to the big moments are what really change your life. Before I jump ahead of myself, let me tell you how one of those little moments ended up changing my life.

It was 2011 and I was 22 years old, about to be 23 in a little less than a month. I was living what was supposed to be my dream. I had graduated college the previous December and moved out to Los Angeles to become an editor. No one tells you as you're going through school what it's really going to be like when you start your career. At least they didn't tell me. All I heard was, "if you work hard in school you'll get a good job, make good money, and you'll be happy." The reality of my situation was a little different. I took the first apartment I looked at because for my first week in LA I was living in a shitty hotel in the Russian area of Hollywood. The apartment I lived in was essentially the parking lot of a liquor store. Nothing breaks your spirit like opening up your gate at 7am to the sight of a drunk homeless man, pants around his knees, pissing on a dumpster. This isn't the moment I was talking about earlier, but it is one I'll never forget. He had a bush that only a homeless man drunkenly peeing on a dumpster could have. It was 3 or 4 different colors and it looked like that disaster of a lawn every town has that never gets mowed. All I could see was the urine dripping from where I'm hoping his penis was, to the concrete 20 feet from where I parked my car. From there I would go to my job, which was less editing and more putting together furniture and scraping old labels off of camera cases with Goo Gone and an Ikea butter knife. 

I don't want to sound ungrateful. The people at my first job saved my life. They gave me a job right out of college, and even kept me around for the summer when the show was on hiatus so that I could pay my bills. When a show is on hiatus, theres almost no work to do. That meant I was sitting in an office that used to be a storage closet with the lead assistant editor pretending to be doing something, anything on the computer. Ari Shaffir had Kyle Kinane on his podcast recently talking about his first album, "Life of The Party." In that album he has a line where he's talking about working at a dead end job and he "dares the Internet not to bore him for another day." I remember listening to that line in that office. I laughed, but I would also get depressed because I knew I wasn't happy with the way my life was going. I was so broke that I applied to Best Buy, Dominos and Pizza Hut to work nights and weekends. I never even got an interview. I honestly didn't know what to do with myself.

One day sitting in that office, I decided to write on a Joey Diaz' Facebook wall. To be honest, I'm not sure what made me do it. I listened to his podcast religiously, and I could lie and say I was listening to him as I wrote it. What's more likely is that I was on Facebook and was just bored and just stupid enough that I didn't think it through. I searched his page today but couldn't find my original post. I think it said something along the lines of, "I want to work for a comedian, but I don't want to come off as creepy. Do you have any advice?" What I did find was our first interaction:

I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw that he had responded. After the excitement wore off I remember wondering how in the world I was going to respond to that. I never imagined that he would respond, much less actually want to hear my ideas. This is my response:

I almost had a panic attack when I read that this morning, about 90 minutes ago. From that note, just over four years ago, my entire life has changed. 

When we first started hanging out, we didn't do any work for the first month or so. The first time I went to his house I showed him how to upload a picture to Twitter on his laptop and he called me an "unadulterated genius." To me, if that was all we ever did, I would have been happy. Luckily, that's not where the story ends. Joey gave me $100 a week to edit videos of him driving around and beeping at people or making fun of people at Target into "Mad Flavor's World." That led to an album, "It's Either You, Or The Priest" which we recorded in one take on a rented Zoom recorder. From there we shot a documentary, "Where I Got My Balls From." Joey put it out to his Facebook and Twitter friends that he wanted to shoot a documentary. He got $2,500 on Pay Pal and Felipe Esparza donated another $500. With $3,000, a rented a camera, and a loaf of banana bread we flew to New York. We shot everything in one day, with no crew and no real plan, but we made it work.

We started The Church on September 02, of 2012. I argued with Joey and told him we could get two microphones but I didn't want to talk on the podcast. He wouldn't take no for an answer. Looking back on it, I'm not sure why. Ive never been a comic, I'm a shy person who doesn't like talking a lot in normal situations, and I personally hate my voice. In a town full of funny comedians there were plenty of other people he could have had co-host. Luckily, he chose me. Its been almost three years of the most fun I've ever had. I get to eat edibles and be a part of amazing conversations. It probably won't hit me how amazing this time is until I'm much older.

This is why I decided to write this post today. Everything I just told you about has led to another crazy adventure. On the nights of September 18th and 19th Joey is finally shooting a special! I couldn't be happier for him. He's funnier than he's ever been, he has a beautiful family, and now he gets to show what all of his hard work has been for. I'm not a comedian and I can't begin to imagine what it's like to shoot a special. But, I imagine it is one of the moments in their career that they'll never forget. I'm lucky enough to be a part of it, and I want as many people who love Joey as much as I do to be there too. Joey is going to be at the South Point Casino September 18th and 19th shooting one show a night.  If you live anywhere near Las Vegas or have never been and have been thinking of coming, now is the time. You can get tickets to the shows here: http://southpointcasino.ticketforce.com/eventperformances.asp?evt=48 If you're looking for a hotel room call the South Point at 866-796-7111 and ask for a room and show package and they'll give you a discount.

Without Joey I don't know where my life would be. When he responded to my Facebook post my life completely changed and I'll never forget it. There's no way I can ever repay him for what he's done for me. My hope for this special is that he has opportunity to show who he really is and how funny he really is. I hope you can come and spend the night with us!