Farewell, To The Church Of What’s Happening Now

Thank you for being apart of my journey.

To Joey Diaz, Lee, and The Church Family:

I came to the Church family late, but I made it to the party nonetheless.

After becoming a fan of JRE, I stumbled upon one of the most raw and hilarious comics, Joey “Coco” Diaz. It was refreshing to hear somebody who had “made it”, but still had a foot on the ground, be honest in telling their story. Joey made me feel like if he “made it” despite the mistakes he made along the way, then I could do it too.

…But not without putting in the work.

Somewhere within all of the crazy stories that I heard from Joey Diaz, it is how he put in the work that resonated with me the most. No matter what he went through in his life, he never disrespected comedy by not putting his heart and soul into it. And that shows from the level he reached in his career.

What’s most impressive is how he reached the heights that he did in such an honest way, joking about all of the insecurities and the f*ck ups in his life. Joe Diaz feels like a person who just happens to be one of the funniest people alive, rather than a comic. That’s also why his podcast, The Church Of What’s Happening Now was so successful.

The Church is where we all gathered around the campfire to hear Uncle Joey tell us stories and motivate us to overcome the challenges in our lives (The campfire usually happened to be green leaves rolled up in white paper). It didn’t even matter who the guest was, because Uncle Joey was going to make us laugh regardless. And those laughs usually came with a lesson.

Tuning in to The Church, laughs are guaranteed because Joey is naturally a funny ass guy, but it’s the lessons in all of his stories that kept us coming back. The way that he used his life as a way to motivate us is what separated the Church from all other podcasts.

Sometimes it’s not the advice that you get, but who you get it from. And sometimes we need to hear it from Uncle Joey because he’s probably been through it, and he’s not going to sugarcoat anything. He knows what it’s like to be a dirt bag and a good guy, so we trust him to give us the truth with no judgement.