#60 - Joey Diaz, Ari Shaffir

Joey "CoCo" Diaz (born José Antonio Díaz; February 19, 1963) is a Cuban-American stand-up comedian, actor , podcaster, and author renowned for his raw, autobiographical storytelling style that draws from his tumultuous life experiences. Born in Havana , Cuba , he immigrated to the United States at age three and was raised in North Bergen, New Jersey, where he navigated a challenging upbringing marked by family loss and legal troubles, including a period of incarceration in the late 1980s . Diaz began his comedy career in 1988 while serving time in a Denver correctional facility, where he performed stand-up routines during movie breaks to entertain fellow inmates, eventually transitioning to professional stages after his release. His breakthrough in acting came with supporting roles in major films, including Spider-Man 2 (2004), The Longest Yard (2005), Taxi (2004), Grudge Match (2013) alongside Sylvester Stallone and Robert De Niro, and The Many Saints of Newark (2021) as Buddha Bonpensiero in the Sopranos prequel. On television, he has appeared in series such as My Name Is Earl , The Mentalist , Eastbound & Down , Children's Hospital , and General Hospital , often playing characters that leverage his distinctive gravelly voice and intense persona. Diaz released his first one-hour stand-up special, Sociably Unacceptable , in 2016, and his comedy has been featured on platforms like This Is Not Happening . As a podcaster, Diaz has built a massive following through unfiltered discussions of personal anecdotes, addiction recovery, and life lessons; he co-hosted The Church of What's Happening Now from 2012 to 2016, revived it as The New Testament in 2024, and currently hosts Uncle Joey's Joint and The Check-In with co-host Lee Syatt. He is a frequent guest on The Joe Rogan Experience , appearing over 40 times since 2009, which has amplified his cult status in comedy circles. In 2022, Diaz published his memoir Tremendous: The Life of a Comedy Savage , a New York Times bestseller that chronicles his path from street crime and substance abuse to sobriety and stardom. Married to Terrie Clark since 2007, he is a father and continues touring with shows like his 2026 performance 62 & Still Slinging at Seminole Hard Rock Tampa. José Antonio Díaz was born on February 19, 1963, in Havana , Cuba , to a Cuban father and a mother of Spanish descent. His father died when he was three years old, leaving the family in difficult circumstances under the early years of the Castro regime. At the age of three, in 1966, Díaz immigrated to the United States with his mother, initially settling on the Upper West Side of Manhattan , New York City . The family later relocated to North Bergen, New Jersey , where Díaz spent much of his formative years. Díaz was raised in a strict Catholic household by his single mother, who worked as a hairdresser and later owned and operated a bar along with a numbers racket to support the family. His upbringing was marked by a blend of Cuban cultural traditions and the challenges of adapting to American life in a working-class neighborhood. He attended McKinley School and North Bergen High School , where he began navigating the cultural shifts of his new environment, including exposure to diverse influences from school peers and the local community. Early on, Díaz took on odd jobs such as working as a dishwasher and a delivery boy to contribute to the household . In 1979, when Díaz was 16, his mother died of a heart attack, an event that plunged him into profound emotional turmoil. Following her death, he lived with relatives while grappling with the loss and the instability it brought to his life. This period of grief and upheaval profoundly shaped his early worldview, highlighting the hardships of his immigrant roots and family dynamics. Following the death of his mother at age 16, Diaz dropped out of high school and descended into a period of escalating personal troubles in New Jersey.

Ari Shaffir (born February 12, 1974) is an American stand-up comedian, podcaster, actor, writer, and producer recognized for his provocative humor that frequently examines taboo subjects, personal vices, and societal hypocrisies through a skeptical lens. After growing up in an Orthodox Jewish family and studying at a yeshiva in Israel, Shaffir graduated from the University of Maryland with a degree in English and moved to Los Angeles to launch his comedy career, initially working as a doorman at The Comedy Store. He gained prominence through stand-up specials such as Passive Aggressive (2013), Double Negative (2017), Jew (2022), and America's Sweetheart (2024), alongside hosting the storytelling series This Is Not Happening on Comedy Central. From 2011 to 2023, Shaffir produced and hosted Ari Shaffir's Skeptic Tank , a podcast featuring interviews with experts and individuals to probe human motivations, pseudoscience, and experiential narratives. Shaffir's unapologetic approach has sparked controversies, including a 2020 video on social media deriding the death of Kobe Bryant, which prompted backlash from celebrities and fans but was upheld by Shaffir as emblematic of his boundary-pushing style unbound by public mourning rituals. Ari Shaffir was born in New York City to parents of Romanian Jewish descent, with his father, Nat Shaffir (born Nathan Spitzer in 1936), a Holocaust survivor who lost 32 family members and emigrated to Israel before settling in the United States in 1961. The family initially adhered to Conservative Jewish practices during his infancy and early years in Greensboro, North Carolina . At around age nine, the Shaffirs relocated to Silver Spring, Maryland , where they adopted Orthodox Jewish observance, transitioning from a more lenient approach to stricter adherence to halakha (Jewish law). This move immersed Shaffir in a Modern Orthodox environment, characterized by daily Torah study , Shabbat observance, and communal isolation from non-religious influences to preserve piety. The Orthodox framework emphasized ritual discipline and ethical rigor, fostering a worldview centered on divine covenant and moral absolutism , though it also highlighted tensions with broader American secular culture evident in Maryland's diverse suburbs. Shaffir grew up in an Orthodox Jewish family in Kemp Mill, Maryland, part of Montgomery County, after earlier relocations from New York City and Greensboro, North Carolina . He attended Jewish day schools and Hebrew academy during his formative years, immersing him in religious observance and community traditions. He completed high school in nearby Rockville, where exposure to broader social dynamics began introducing tensions between his insulated upbringing and external influences. Following high school, Shaffir studied briefly at Yeshiva University , adhering to strict religious study, before transferring during his sophomore year to the University of Maryland, College Park . There, he earned a bachelor's degree in English literature in 1999, shifting focus to arts courses including screenwriting . This transition marked a pivotal departure from religious orthodoxy, as the secular campus environment—characterized by diverse ideologies and personal experimentation, such as marijuana use—clashed sharply with his prior god-fearing lifestyle, prompting initial doubts about inherited doctrines. At the university, Shaffir engaged with prevailing campus subcultures, including leftist-leaning activism and intellectual debates, but these encounters fueled rather than reinforced dogmatic adherence. Assigned initially to political science coursework, he observed ideological rigidities akin to those in his religious background, leading him to question unchallenged assumptions across spectrums.