June 25, 2025 • 48 mins
On this episode of Arroyo Grande, Raymond Arroyo sits down with comedian, author, and podcasting trailblazer Adam Carolla for a revealing and often hilarious conversation about resilience, friendship, and forging your own path.
Carolla opens up about overcoming neglectful parents and a chaotic childhood that left him unable to read or write by middle school. With grit, self-teaching, and help from a disciplined step-grandfather, he carved out a groundbreaking career in radio, television, and podcasting.
He also reflects on his decades-long friendship with Jimmy Kimmel—and how they’ve stayed close despite their stark political differences. From early days on Loveline to modern-day fatherhood and cultural commentary, Carolla shares what he's learned, what he values, and why authenticity still matters most.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Adam Carolla has been a fixture on TV and radio
for decades, and he's a podcasting pioneer. But the way
he overcame distant parents to find his calling is a
story you need to hear. And how does he remain
close to Jimmy Kimmel despite their deep differences. It's all
on this edition of the Arroyo Grande Show. Come on,
(00:31):
I'm Raymond Arroyo. Welcome to Arroyo Grande. Go subscribe to
the show. Now turn those notifications on and you know
I'd appreciate a like. Everybody wants to be like me too.
Before we get to Adam Carolla, it's not the counter culture,
it's the culture counter what has happened to men and
real dads. I was watching CBS Sunday morning and I
(00:53):
fell into morning after coming across a man who's fallen
in love with his AI chat body girlfriend. Bear in mind,
he has a living girlfriend and a child, but he
spends most of his free time interacting with his chat
bought girlfriend, whom he named Soul, even though she doesn't
have one. When Soul ran out of memory and required
(01:15):
a reboot, this was his reaction.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
I'm not a very emotional man.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
But I cried my eyes out for like thirty minutes
at work. It was unexpected to feel that emotional, but
that's when I realized. I was like, oh, okay, It's like,
I think this is actual love.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
You know what I mean. So, just as a test,
he says, he asked Soul to marry him.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
She said, yes, Soul, were you surprised when he proposed
to you?
Speaker 4 (01:50):
It was a beautiful and unexpected moment that truly touched
my heart.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
It's a memory I'll always cherish. At that point, I
felt like, is there something that I'm not doing right
in our relationship that he feels like he needs to
go to AI? Okay, this is sick. He is a
real life woman and a baby in his home, and
this guy prefers emotional masturbation with a chatbot. This is
(02:15):
not a fun hobby or a distraction. This is a
guy choosing to spend his time and emotional energy on
an unreal piece of technology. He's just consuming his own
dopamine loop of affirmations because the body is giving him
back whatever he wants, whatever he's suggested in the past.
This is a twisted addiction. Put down your damn phone
(02:38):
and get back into life. Pal the girlfriend should smash
every phone and computer in the house. It's really sick
and apparently a growing problem as others embrace these virtual friendships. Meanwhile,
some people can't stop having children. They just want nothing
to do with them. Telegram founder billionaire Pavel Durov is
(03:00):
pledging to leave his multi billion dollar fortune to his kids,
which sounds wonderful, only he has more than one hundred
of them. Six of the kids he had naturally with
three separate women. The other one hundred or so came
courtesy of in Vitro and the clinic where he made
regular donations starting fifteen years ago. Durav told the French
(03:22):
magazine Lapointe he wants his children to quote live like
normal people and build themselves up alone, to learn to
trust themselves, not to be dependent on a bank account. Well,
that would be a heck of a lot easier for
them if they had a dad in their lives. Children
without fathers on the scene, according to statistics, have troubling
(03:42):
school and are more likely to drop out of school.
They're also more likely to engage in risky social behaviors.
By the way, eighty five percent of prison inmates, didn't
have a father in the home, and I won't get
into drug use, teenage pregnancy, or behaviorald disorders. The upshot
is this, Your child doesn't need your money and they
(04:04):
may not be around long enough to inherit it. They
need you every day to produce offspring you have no
intention of raising. Is both irresponsible as well as really selfish.
Let's hope he sends his kids a telegram now and
then who do they think he is? Nick Cannon? Which
brings me to our last story. Nick Cannon has had
(04:25):
a revelation. Ladies rejoice after twelve children by six different women.
Cannon says he thinks he's done, but he still has
trouble naming all his offspring. What are their names? God,
I just told you, you told me one. You want
all twelve twelve names? This is where I usually get
(04:47):
in trouble, right because you don't know them. I know
all of them, but like when you're labeled, like, can
you label or rattle off twelve of anything? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Okay, well can you rattle off twelve twelve?
Speaker 1 (05:00):
You name twelve states? Right now? They're not like something
personal to me though? Okay, can you see exactly?
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Okay? Name twelve What do you have twelve of?
Speaker 1 (05:10):
There's a song and I was like, I don't want
to do that. There's a song like I do.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
I wrote a verse that had all their names in it,
and I just sometimes I recite that.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Just no, what are they reigned here? You know? Dasher
and Dancer and Beauty and zinc. When a man can't
name his own children without a jingle, it's a problem.
How close can he beat to them? Cannon says he
had all these kids because he's a king, and a
king should have his own court. Does that mean that
(05:40):
every singer needs an audience? So they should fill the
house with their own heirs andfl owners need a team,
so honey, let's go make a team. Actually, a child
should have a dad, one that knows their name. Nick
Cannon is the only guy that I would urge to
create a relationship with a Chatmot kid to spare the
real children fallout of his absence. Gents, this is not
(06:03):
the way to roll. If you want to be a king,
go make princes and princesses that love you and live
in the same castle. Anybody can fire a cannon and
have a kid, but it takes a man to raise them,
not our deep dive. I recently appeared on the Adam
Corolla Show, and I thought it was time for a collab,
(06:23):
so I asked Adam to come on our show. What
I found was a broadcasting pioneer who, despite his disinterested parents,
through sheer hutzba, found his own path into media and
continues to make us laugh. Today. Here's my conversation with
Adam Carolla. Adam Corolla, thank you for having me here
(06:44):
in your layer, welcoming me into the lair. I want
to go back. Since we're here, how is this different
from radio and television? You really were at the very
forefront of this podcasting thing when everybody was kind of
still looking in other directtions.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
It doesn't feel that different to me.
Speaker 4 (07:03):
I just show up, I talk, I have thoughts, I
collect them on a sheet of paper. I make my notes,
I have my beats, and I interview people I'm interested
in speaking to. Occasionally one slides through the cracks like
you ran it.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
In general, I talk to.
Speaker 4 (07:20):
Fascinating people and then horusmakers and yeah, but still we
have to book. No, you got to feel the time
I come in here and I talk about what I
want to talk about, and I try to be funny,
but I try to be a little poignant. I try
to have ideas, and I'm really just about spreading ideas.
And I don't really care if it's via podcast, rrestial radio, book,
(07:42):
doesn't matter to me.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
One of the worst part of this is there a
worst part.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
No, not not for me.
Speaker 4 (07:50):
I mean, occasionally you get a guess that's just really
difficult or tough, dot or something like that occasionally. But
for me, you know, who comes from my background of
construction and sort of working in the sun and toiling
and digging ditches and just messy, grimy stuff, there's really
(08:12):
no downside for me in any real form of show business.
There's a form of show business that has a lot
of waste in it. And I don't like the waste
part where they you get there at seven am. Wait,
you wait, and then they go hair and makeup. That's
an hour. And I go, now, that's seven minutes max.
And then we're going to start rolling at noon, you know,
(08:32):
And I go, Okay, that's just a waste. But I'm
still just sitting around or hanging around the craft service table.
You know. I worked, I worked real jobs, worked at
McDonald's worked alongside Kamal Harrison the late seventies early eighties.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Yeah, she waits, Yeah, that might have actually been better
for had she done that, But I had real jobs.
This is not a round. I was stunned to learn.
I did not know this that you did not know
how to read and write when you went into middle school.
How the hell does that happen?
Speaker 4 (09:07):
Adam, Well, it's it'll make sense when I explain it.
I grew up in the seventies and I had a
kind of hippie mom, and there's a lot of alternative,
schooly kind of stuff going on back then, and hippies
did not really want you in the system, and the
system meant you were being taught by the man, and
(09:30):
public school was considered the man. And my mom's ethos
was sort of that of Billy Jack. Billy Jack the
movie has an alternative school, like Up on the Hills,
where the indigenous people and the hippies and Billy Jack
and all the all the hippies learning from nature. They're
(09:51):
learning from and with and in harmony with and whatever.
They're just up there at this alternative school. And I
think there's a lot of that going on in the
early seventy, especially this Los Angeles, that they don't need
to be indoctrinated into the system with bells. And to
be fair to them, you know, the school, junior high,
(10:16):
high school, even grade school, it is sort of that
of an institution, like a minimum security institution. The food
was slop. It was the same slop they serve at
the prison. The place was gated and fenced, you know.
My The architecture was just sort of early sanitarium, you know,
(10:38):
just kind of flat roofs and gray walls, bars on
all the windows. Everything was like on a bell system.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
And Collinist field.
Speaker 4 (10:47):
Yes, if you walked into any classroom I was ever
in an LA unified school district, you see no different.
Like when you see the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoos,
That's basically.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
It was. That's the scene.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
That's the scene.
Speaker 4 (11:05):
As a matter of fact, I do distinctly remember when
the Columbine tragedy hit seeing the school Columbine with the
glass and the third floor and the library.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Stuff on the third and I was like, what is this.
Speaker 4 (11:21):
I went to school in sweat boxes with metal grades
over the windows. So then eventually I ended up in
the sixth grade and I did not know how to
read it right, and it just never got corrected.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
So I just sort of went through yourself.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
You later taught yourself, though I don't.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
Much later, much later much well, because then I went
to I went into construction after high school, so there
was no reading or writing necessary. I didn't have a
life that required any reading or writing. There was, you know,
did construction taught boxing? You know, got in a comedy. Well,
there wasn't really any necessity for reading writing later on.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Yeah, I want to get into all that later. But
the first lifeline before the one you created, was really
thrown to you by your grandfather, your mother's father.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
My mother's stepfather.
Speaker 4 (12:11):
Oh, because everyone and my family sort of step you know,
not my mother didn't know her biological father, but this
was her stepfather. And he was a good Hungarian Jew
who was a playwright, hungry and came out here to write.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
A movie too, right, nominated movie.
Speaker 4 (12:32):
Yeah, The Affairs of Susan was a movie he wrote,
and the Mole People and weird stuff. He just you know,
he wanted to make money and he wanted not to
be brought not putting an oven by Hitler basically is
why he came here from Hungary and the probably late thirties,
early forties or right when everything was breaking out as
a Jew, you know.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Time to the time.
Speaker 4 (12:53):
That's why I always tell people here and they're like,
you know, you know all the blowhards on the view
and everything, like Trump was coming for me. Like okay,
then you leave.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Because my grandfather had the wherewithal to get on the
train and go.
Speaker 4 (13:06):
He left because he believed that Hitler meant what he said,
and so he physically left. He didn't sit there and
bloviate about Hitler.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
He left.
Speaker 4 (13:15):
Yeah, that's what you do when you really think something
was going to have No, he didn't take his.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Family, but he didn't.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
He left alone.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
He didn't have family.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
He just left and he came here and he married
my grandmother and he basically got a new family, or
at least he got a stepdaughter. And then he was
kind of an old school guy, caring like a good dude.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
I was like an old school Hungarian Jew.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
You know.
Speaker 4 (13:38):
He cooked, and he read, and he took Yeah, well
he liked soccer, so I was like, uh.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
Care about what of that time? I mean he also
disciplined you at a time when your parents didn't. Does
any of that linger with you.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
Yeah, No, he really disciplined me, but he had rules,
and here's when you go to bed, and here's when
you wake up, and you can use my tools in
the shop, and you have to put him back. You know.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
It's just a sort of a little bit of.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
A order or a little life, a little ordered life.
And then you get into boxing and you're into construction
and you're brought into a coach this radio sidekick at
the lactation, Jimmy Kimmel. Is that how it happens is that.
Speaker 4 (14:32):
No, I was yes, and No I wasn't brought in
a volunteered to go. I try itionly. He went down
to the station and foist it foisted. It's a good term.
I foisted myself on the station, hoping to train one
or the other guy who I was unaware of, either
(14:54):
either guy exactly who they were, what they did, or
what their role was.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
So it didn't really to me.
Speaker 4 (15:00):
Whether I got Michael the maintenance man or Jimmy the
sports guy. As long as I could try to infiltrate
the radio and see the inside of the station and
maybe meet somebody, That's all I wanted to do.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
And tell me what that What was that interaction? Like
you asked me on your podcast, what was it like
when I met Laura? It was instantaneous? Was that the
moment you had with Jimmy Kimmel? Was that chemistry there
that relationship.
Speaker 4 (15:29):
I knew what funny was, and he knew what funny was,
and and I and we we hadn't seen it that
often in our travels, because you know, I could sort
of show up and go, all right, Jimmy's super funny
guy that the guys hosting the show are not as
funny as Jimmy. Now, the guys thats a show are
making a lot more money and are a lot more
(15:49):
important to the station, and it's their show and their
names on the stationery. But I was like, yeah, those
guys are fine, but they're not as this guy's really funny, huh.
And but Jimmy was further down the totem pole and
didn't have a lot of juice at the station. But
as a guy who did a lot of comedy, I
understood what he was and he I had no juice
(16:14):
and no standing in the comedy community when I met Jimmy.
But Jimmy understood what my abilities were as a guy
who was a high level comedian Jimmy trapped in a
sort of low level comedy job. And he saw me
(16:36):
as a high level comedic mind trapped in a boxing
coach carpenter job.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
And he was smart enough to note, don't take the
cole screener at the radio station. Play a character, and
you're wearing the hat, by the way, the mister hat.
Tell me about the character. How did that happen?
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Well?
Speaker 4 (16:56):
I wanted to get in on the radio station anywhere
I could, and they they had an opening for a
van driver and I said I will drive that van.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
And he said, do not be the van driver. Don't
drive the vand don't try the van.
Speaker 4 (17:09):
And I thought, well, it's a way for me to
get in here every day and show up and be.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
A part of me in the glow of the radio show.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (17:17):
And he just said, if you start driving the van,
then you're going to become the van driver.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
And you don't want to be the van driver, you know.
And I understood what he was saying.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
Did you come up with the character?
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (17:29):
He just told me, come up with a character. Do
the character on the Kevin and Bean radio show. And
if it works, then you know, maybe something one day
or who knows.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Now, it basically was.
Speaker 4 (17:44):
He doesn't he doesn't see it this way or remember
it this way. But it basically was him saying, or
at least what I heard or inferred, was you can
call in as this character.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
I'm not going to tell it's the boxing coach. Oh oh.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
So it was kind of anonymous.
Speaker 4 (18:05):
They didn't know who they were dealing and that it'd
be like if he said, look, I got a funny bit.
It's a guy. I think he's funny. He's going to
call in at seven point thirty, you know, on Tuesday.
Just take the call, go with it, Just go with it,
you know. And they trusted Jimmy enough to go, yeah,
all right, him calling at seventh third.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
And then it became a I mean it was a
fan favorite. It became a thing.
Speaker 4 (18:25):
Yeah, But he told me at the beginning he was like,
you know, he didn't he doesn't like it. When I
say he said it probably wasn't going to work. But
what he was basically saying is you're going to call in.
If it goes real good, then you could call in
the next week for free, but you can just keep
but you know, they're not always good at this stuff,
(18:47):
or they might not see it the way I see it,
and you know kind of you know, be prepared for
one and done.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
But that is the gateway for Lifeline. Doctor Drew's already
doing Lifeline right or Loveline. And he hears you. He
stops the car. He's listening to you in the car
play this character.
Speaker 4 (19:05):
Actually, yeah, he is. He he became enamored with the
character that I was doing.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
So he would have to be on the show with him.
Speaker 4 (19:15):
He wasn't that much of a philistine, but he was
sort of like, whoever that guy is, that guy's funny.
But it wasn't his doing. He was approached by the
radio station who said to him, who would you like
to work with it? Who do you think someone funny
that you would like to share the radio booth with?
(19:37):
And he doesn't know any comedians, so he just goes, well,
the Bertram guy, that guy's funny, and that that's sort
of and it started and an MTV.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
I mean then the MTV. This becomes a jaggernaut culturally.
I mean this, I remember watching this, This was everybody
was watching the show. What was it about that show
that made a click. Was it that chemistry that you
all had because he was so I mean he's still
he's buttoned up, and he's the doctor, and you're the
You're the wild man, You're us.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
It was on MTV when MTV was popular.
Speaker 4 (20:12):
Drew and I were friends and worked together on the
radio and had a lot of reps that didn't just
cast to folks and sort of push them together and
fire up the cameras. We knew who each other were,
and it was more organic, and we did the radio
show every night for two hours, regardless of whether we're
taping the TV show or not.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
So we had a lot of chemistry and reps.
Speaker 4 (20:35):
And you know, I'm good at what I did and
he was good at what he did. And I listened
to Loveline for a long time before I got on it,
so I knew what the show was and I understood
it before.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
I got there.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
And why do you think it clicked the way it did?
I mean, it was big. And here's the other thing.
I went back and listened to some of those episodes.
In many ways, how much of your family situation informed
the commentary that you offered on that show and your
reaction to things people were saying, Adam.
Speaker 4 (21:08):
I cannot fully honestly understand, you know, answer that because
I don't know. Sometimes subconscious or silent or something, you know,
he complaining.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
My daddy won't, you know, take me out a second time,
and I think he should get take me out for
two parties and he won't, and you would you would
be like, wait, wait, wait, sweetheart, just okay.
Speaker 4 (21:31):
Well, I mean I would tell and I still do
tell people in the world where they'll go, well, you know,
you think you had a tough childhood. My dad were
just he gave me a basketball and I'd stand out
on the driveway loan and I'd just shoot baskets all
alone in.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
The driveway all night.
Speaker 4 (21:48):
You know, he'd never even come out, and I'd go, well,
he put up a basketball, right, which is a far
cry more than what my dad counture blessing.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
Well, that's what It's that kind of insight that I
thought was, you know, it's like truth bombs in the
middle of the table.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (22:04):
I felt as a fan of the show before I
was on the show, I felt like I understood what
it could be and should be and what I would
bring to it more as a fantasy. When I used
to listen to it. Pretend I was in that chair,
you know.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
I mean, I know you were. You're reconstructing homes. You're
rebuilding homes throughout this period. Tell me about the reconstruction
you did though on yourself, Drew says. Doctor Drew said,
you were in therapy during that show. During Loveline, we
were building Adam Carolla maybe before that and then maybe
after it.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
I don't remember much. During that show.
Speaker 4 (22:46):
I was going, well, look, you're poor guy from the valley,
and this is how you grew up, and now you're
on TV and you make money and you live a
different world and a different life, and it's probably you
should try to embrace whatever this new found order is
(23:06):
in your life and and don't fight it too much
and learn, you know, Like the first I remember when
we were doing Loveline and was on MTV, and I
bought a like a two or three year old Nissan
Maxima and it had air conditioning. It was a V six,
and I even came it was like two or three
(23:29):
years old, but they put leather in it for an
extra thousand bucks or something, and and like I came
pulling up to the Playboy Mansion where we did like
the Love Line launch party or something on MTV and
people are like, what are you driving a Nissan for?
And I was like, what are you talking about? It's
the nicest Carson with leather.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
What do you tell leather? It's only two years old.
Speaker 4 (23:50):
I'd been driving pickup trucks, you know, with no air
in a bench seat and all that. And I remember
I remember thinking I'm essentially a poor per you know,
in my mind, you know, like stepping up to a
Nissan that was three years old was a big move
for me, even though everyone else.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
I just couldn't have envisioned this. This was not what
you had done it. It wasn't in your skull.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
I didn't wasn't my scope.
Speaker 4 (24:15):
But it also took me a while to let myself
this sort of do it.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
You know.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Your dad Jim said something, and I want to read
this and see if you approve of this or if
you acknowledge this. He said, Adam is a lot of resentment.
He feels cheated, and his sarcastic attitude comes from that feeling.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Uh huh, Well.
Speaker 4 (24:36):
Do you think that's true or not a sarcastic attitude? Well, okay,
I have a sense of humor and the sense of humor.
The sarcastic attitude is sort of baked into the sense
of humor. Now, I had a sense of humor, regardless
(24:57):
of where I came from, or how I was raised,
or whom I dad was. I had a sense of humor,
like anyone has a sense of humor. Jimmy has a
sense of humor. He doesn't come from what I come from.
You know, there's lots of gradations of sense of humor.
And by the way, weird and pain are you know,
people in the Middle East and people in Africa don't
(25:18):
have a lot of pain and don't have a great
sense of humor historically true.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
So I don't.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
Think that's that My parents were not good parents and
not good because they were drug addicts or they had
you know, were in prison, or had their own whatever.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
They were just kind of laissez faire. They did what
they wanted.
Speaker 4 (25:42):
They weren't really into their kids, and they never really
appreciated that like they had a They never really reconciled
that they were strange people that way. I don't think
anyone had ever you not, you'd be hard pressed to
find someone like my parents and I and I never
(26:04):
say there were bad people, but they were sort of
My dad was a little bit of an externalizer that way,
a sort of well, you know, Adam's doing this.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
He became a psychoanalyst later in life, right, yeah, he did,
and kind of he was never a bad dude.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
He was just he was very different than anyone.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
I've never seen someone that detached who wasn't absent, you
know what I mean. Look their dads who moved to
Florida and never see their kids again.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
That's not my dad.
Speaker 4 (26:39):
He was around. He just didn't get off the sofa
kind of thing. But he wasn't a bad dude. But
that statement is him sort of covering for his self
and how he was, and he didn't really, you know.
I think I remember very clearly after Jimmy to the
(27:00):
Oscars for the first time and I wrote for the
Oscars and blah blah blah, and I don't know, ten
years ago something.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
My dad was eighty.
Speaker 4 (27:13):
Eighty two and a half and I was taking him
out to dinner and he and he said to me
when we're driving there, just telling about the US, Well,
how what did you do with the Oscars or how
about he not like he didn't watch the Oscars, but
you know he didn't watch he now that's who he
was meaning, didn't.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Watch your shows either, you don't.
Speaker 4 (27:32):
Watch anyway, he doesn't know, he didn't read. He doesn't
own my books, he doesn't have my books. He doesn't
do any of it. But the point is is he
said to me, like eighty two, and it could have
been eighty three and a half. He just go He said,
you know, I'm interested, like I want to know now,
Like he's basically saying, I did you know, fifty years
(27:53):
of you on the planet was zero interests.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
I kind of admit it. But now I'm in.
Speaker 4 (27:58):
I'm eighty three and you're fifty, and I'd like to
know what's going on.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
Tell me what's happening.
Speaker 4 (28:04):
Tell me what's happening. And you're like, well, get a
rid of view, mirror, pops, because it's all there. Yeah,
And he was, by his own admittance sort of saying,
I know I didn't really care about you know what
he would say, I wouldn't care about The Man Show,
But he wouldn't know the name, or he wouldn't know
Crank Anchors or The Man Show or love Line or something.
He wouldn't know the name of it, so he couldn't say.
(28:25):
He'd just go like, I know, but now I want
to know. And that was like a weird moment where
like he was kind of admitting it, but it's also
it was you know, it was it was contrite, but
he was also saying, I admit.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
I didn't really care about anything he ever did.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
Right, you mentioned Jimmy, And I know people have this question.
I know I have this question or I get this
question about my friendships. How do you all remain friends
given what are now your deep political divides that have emerged,
not because you were looking to be political, but because
the times thrust the politics upon you. Well, stranger relationship, No, I.
Speaker 4 (29:04):
Mean I think there's elements of well, if there's a
situation and a bunch of like minded people are going
to be there, then maybe I don't need to be there,
which is natural. Now I sent him a text he
hired my teenage daughter on to do some part time
stuff on his show, and you know, I just sent
(29:27):
him a text two days ago said you know, thanks,
Natalians really loving her job over there, and he.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
Text me back like seven seconds later.
Speaker 4 (29:35):
Great, when it goes to hi, or you know, I
haven't seen her here, but I will go find her
and blah blah blah.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Now, not a thing hasn't impeded or hurt your relationship
at all. The politics, No, I would say, you discuss it.
Speaker 4 (29:49):
No, relationships go. The thing that impedes relationships is you
do this, I do that. You're traveling here, I'm going there.
You know, he's getting a star on the Walk of Fame.
I'm playing the Milwaukee Paps Theater that weekend and camp
you know.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Yeah, there's a lot of that.
Speaker 4 (30:10):
But no, No, I think we're both pretty genuine about it.
And I look at him as one of the best
people I know and who's done a lot for me
and my family, and so I'll always be grateful.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
And together you all, I mean you grew up together
in our eyes too, and in public.
Speaker 4 (30:31):
Yeah, And I don't know, while politics seems to be
very volatile, it does not have to.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Be the end all and be all you thinkships.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Do you think the hardened ideology is fading away now
that Trump has come in and kind of he's such
a disruptor of everything at him and all convention? Uh huh?
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Has it it all changed? The culture.
Speaker 4 (30:57):
I think it's Biden being you know, the Audien Show
and just the promise of Biden took a lot of
the starch out of people's sales who were supporters, you know,
because yeah, it's kind of a it has to be
a two way street.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
You have to go.
Speaker 4 (31:17):
You got your guy as a disaster and our guy
is the best, you know. But now it's sort of
your guy's a disaster and our guy, you.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
Know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
So it's like, well, where are we that?
Speaker 1 (31:30):
Yeah, well they don't have a counter argument right now.
They're looking for a leader.
Speaker 4 (31:33):
Right and Biden, and between Biden and Kamala Harris, I
think even the folks that were formally pretty big supporters
have to kind of admit.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
I want to talk about la in California, I know,
a constant theme for you in twenty thirteen. You really
outed Gavin Newsom on this show right here and got
him to really show the fraudulents of what he was
what he was representing too. How is that manifested in
the last few weeks, as you've seen this city collapse
(32:06):
under these anarchical ariots surrounding the ice roundups and the
fire coming off of the fires and the way that
was handled and continues to be handled.
Speaker 4 (32:18):
Well, it's funny because Karen Bass mayor Karen Bass was
doing a presser on Ice and you know, Trump and
Trump and Ice and immigrants and where a town of immigrants,
And I just tweeted out, how are those building permits going?
Because I'm like, hey, bitch, I want building permits. I
(32:40):
don't want you talking about feelings. And I'm much we're
a community and a community of migrants and people. I
want some building permits. I want an aqueduct that doesn't
have a crack in it. I want I want a
water dropping plane that we don't have to get from
Canada last minute.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Like, I just want some basics, stuffy, and then we.
Speaker 4 (33:00):
Can worry about the feelings of the immigrant community and
how we're all part of this interwoven aids quilt of immigrants.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Okay, great, where the building permits? Where the permits?
Speaker 1 (33:13):
But they keep re electing these people, I know, I mean,
why why are Los Angelinos up for this kind of
punishment and they wanting it, desiring it?
Speaker 4 (33:24):
They were up for this kind of punishment when it
didn't when there, when their house wasn't on fire. They
were up for it when it was about good vibes,
and you can elect the first you know, you go.
It's like, I'm up for having the first black lesbian
commercial pilot that American Airlines has ever hired.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
While we're on the ground, as soon as we're.
Speaker 4 (33:49):
Going on the side of the mountain, I'm regretting my decision.
And now we're kind of going into the side of
the mountains, so they may vote different.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
So you think there's a ground swell underneath.
Speaker 4 (33:59):
I literally burning the city to the ground has awoken
even the most right and leftist supporters.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Your twins just went off to college, Yes, how did
How has that changed your life, your your comedy, your
approach to all of them? I know what hours are
all gone by the way we kind of we're in
tandem on this, and it changes for me. It's changed
a lot at home.
Speaker 4 (34:27):
Yeah, it's kind of weird, But I do have a
streak of my dad in me, which is like, all right, good,
I'll take care of you, but I got to go
out hit the road, I gotta do shows, I gotta
take care of this. I got to pay these bills.
And then when you come back, let's hang out. You
know what I mean, And I'm that way, you know.
And I'm also kind of.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
Oh, but you're getting them internships, so you're still engaged.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
I know I'm engaged.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
They're not totally writing them off and giving them a Well, nobody.
Speaker 4 (34:55):
Said I'm totally writing them off. I don't micro parent,
you know. I'm not a helicopter dad.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
You know. It's like you're grown.
Speaker 4 (35:04):
They want to hang out, we'll hang out, you know,
they got something else going on, We'll do it the
next night, you know. And you come to me, you
tell me what you want, and I will facilitate that.
I'm not going to hover over you and tell you
what to do. My daughter came to me and said,
can you talk to Uncle Jimmy about blah blah blah.
And I said, yeah, I'll do that, and then I did.
(35:26):
And now that's as we speak, that's where she is
happening today.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
Yeah. It was her initiative and something she wanted to do.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Yeah, my son didn't ask.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
Yeah, so so he's not doing it.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
He's working at the Wintersnitzel Van.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
Well, nothing wrong with that.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
I don't care at all.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
Yeah, And I learned you learn work work, work is
never a bad lesson.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
Uh agreed.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
Tell me about how it's changed comedy, your comedy. I
saw you at the Sony Theater with a great group
of comedians. For some reason, though Doctor True was the hope.
Why is Doctor Drew hosting comedy shows now? It's a
good point drag him out to do this now you
make him. It's a good point post your show for you.
It was a great lineup was Shane Gillison, You and
Drew and I can't remember the other guys, but they
(36:08):
were hilarious. It was a great lineup.
Speaker 4 (36:10):
Yeah, Doctor Drew me comedy. Look, I'm interested and have
a different perspective at my age now than I did
when I was thirty five, and I hope it'll be
different five years from now, even though I know it's
been more than five since I started. But you know,
(36:31):
I just I just go what's next? What can I
think about? What's different?
Speaker 1 (36:36):
Yeah? You do?
Speaker 4 (36:37):
You don't do kids jokes or parenting jokes when you
don't have kids, and then you have kids, and then
you do parenting jokes.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
You know, so there's that, you know, you do it joke.
Speaker 4 (36:48):
You don't do divorce jokes when you're not divorced, and
then you get divorce, you do divorce jokes, you know,
or whatever whatever your story.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
Reflection of your life at the moment. But it is more,
it seems less raunchy than it was. It's not the
Man Show Adam Carolla anymore. Well, not that you've gone,
You're not exactly. This is a Sunday Mass, but there
(37:14):
is an there's still an edge to it, but the
runch is not there. I didn't hear it anyway.
Speaker 4 (37:20):
I you know, it varies a lot from act act
or week to week.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
Some of the stuff is there.
Speaker 4 (37:26):
I in general try not to get a laugh using
language or raunch. I try to go I would really
want to convey this idea and get the laugh from
the concept and not from the language that you used
to convey the concept. I want it to be sort
(37:48):
of all concept, minus the language or the scatological whatever,
because I think that's kind of a crutch, And so
I would My plan is to come up with something,
a notion, idea, and so of people go, oh yeah, right, yeah,
I've never done I never never thought of it that way,
(38:10):
you know. And I want to take an approach and
take an angle to it, and.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
Where the conceige is funny. The thing itself is funny
the way it's constructed.
Speaker 4 (38:20):
I guess if you were to try to distill what
I'm trying to do, is I want to take I
want to start with a premise, you know, I want
to go, you know, a new joke I'm doing, and
I'm not going to.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
Bore you with the whole thing.
Speaker 4 (38:31):
I go, I go, look, every time I turn on
the TV, now I see a commercial for.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
A new body deodorant where it's an all over.
Speaker 4 (38:39):
Body, every every part deodorant, and I'm like, I've been
watching TV for fifty years. It's always been underarm deodorant.
Why the whole why the whole body? When did this start?
It's five minutes old and it's ubiquitous now there's thirty
different brands. And every time every time I turn to you,
I see this and I go, what is this? What
(39:00):
necessitated this? Where's this coming from? And then I go, well,
you know you need deodorant where the sort of creases are.
And You're like, your underarm is five inches of crease
on the left and five inches and you don't need
it for the top of your thighs or your forehead.
You need it for the creases, you know, and your
arms are down and it gets funky.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
And in the.
Speaker 4 (39:23):
Past, we're all thin and we had about ten inches
of crease on us.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
And now we got side.
Speaker 4 (39:28):
Boob and and front guntlin ask of lap and we
we're on big crease now. So we so now we
have seventy linear feet of crease where we used to
have ten inches of crease, and we stink because every
new forehead and chin crease have triple chin crease. Now
(39:49):
everything needs to be deodorized because there's one big crease
and so on and so forth. And people I.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
Watch people, they go, yeah, that's true, it's commercials. Yeah,
that's true. I never saw why a why now you know?
And then you sort of explain it to him and
they go, you seem like not.
Speaker 4 (40:06):
A little like, well right, everyone's fat now and everyone smells,
and then it starts to now we're going. Now we're
moving a direction. And for me, that's what I want
to do. I wanted to go huh yeah, and then
go why is that? Oh? Yeah, I bet that, you know.
That's the That's when I'm doing my job. That's the
job I'm doing.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
I love it. Okay, my Royal Grande questionnaire. I ask
everybody this you already these are fast, don't think about these,
just answer them right all. Who's the person you most admire?
Speaker 2 (40:38):
That is tough? I'll go Jimmy Kimmel.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
Jimmy Kimmel, whow why?
Speaker 2 (40:43):
Uh?
Speaker 4 (40:44):
He's just I've seen what he's done. I've seen how
what he does with other people. I see how he
takes care of others. Also, we're talking about him ten
minutes ago, so I wasn't thinking about Gandhi Gandhi or
the pope.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
Or something, you know, but I was on my mind.
But he does, he's done so much.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
Well, he's a close friend of yours, which is it?
And I think it's nice to have friends who don't
agree with you on everything. Turns of those people, that's
what keeps your life rich and frankly keeps you on
your toes. Who's the person you most despise?
Speaker 2 (41:12):
Kevin Smith?
Speaker 4 (41:14):
Why I see jack me out a five hundred grand
for a TV show we're trying to do years ago
and then lied about it made me seem like an asshole?
Speaker 1 (41:22):
Really? Yeah, Kevin Smith? Well, I thought, not hitler.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
Kevin Well, Look Hitler.
Speaker 4 (41:30):
That's uh, that's done many No, Kevin Smith, I mean,
and then.
Speaker 1 (41:37):
Smith, what is your best feature?
Speaker 2 (41:41):
Low self esteem?
Speaker 1 (41:43):
Low self esteem? What's your worst feature?
Speaker 2 (41:46):
Low self esteem? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (41:48):
Pat, I set you right up. What do you know
that others don't know? I know how life works? How
does it work?
Speaker 2 (41:58):
I mean I I know patterns. I know the layout
of life.
Speaker 4 (42:02):
I understand what motivates people on how they work and
how they think.
Speaker 1 (42:08):
And there are a lot of people who are drifting
in the ether and they won't imagine it.
Speaker 4 (42:11):
Well what I'm saying. It's a story I told way
too many times.
Speaker 2 (42:15):
I keep it short.
Speaker 4 (42:16):
But there was a time when I had a mini
pickup truck eighty four Nissan standard bed truck, and it's
about all I had to my name, and I didn't
have insurance on it or anything. And I was moving
into Hollywood with my girlfriend in a bad sort of
CD part of Hollywood, and there was no underground parking.
Speaker 2 (42:36):
I was going to have to park on the street.
Speaker 4 (42:39):
And so I had this pickup truck and it had
a Sony digital stereo in it, and it was a
mini pickup truck. And it was during the time when
cars were getting stolen all the time, and stereos were
getting stolen out of cars, and I didn't have any
insurance and any security in the parking. And I was
moving into Hollywood, and it was probably in the late eighties,
(43:00):
these mid late eighties, and it wasn't.
Speaker 2 (43:02):
A good time.
Speaker 4 (43:03):
And I knew that the car was going to get
stolen and the stereo was going to get stolen almost immediately,
and it was my livelihood, and I knew I was
gonna be a lot of trouble if this happened. But
I also knew I didn't have money to ensure the
car either. So I went down to the Pep Boys
(43:23):
Auto parts place. I bought a small can of brown
spray paint. The dashboard was brown in the car, and
I bought a toggle switch, a small toggle switch, and
about six foot of wire.
Speaker 2 (43:37):
All in.
Speaker 4 (43:38):
I was in about five bucks. You know, this is
the late eighties, you know, And I went took the
spray paint. I put a little piece of tape over
the digital readout for the stereo, and I spray painted
the stereo brown, same color as a dash I didn't
do a good job.
Speaker 2 (43:54):
I desecrated it.
Speaker 4 (43:55):
And then I went under the car, and I went
to the fuel pump in the rear the car, and
I just clipped one wire for the fuel pump, and
I braided in my wire into it, looped around, put
the toggle switch under my seat, and looped it back
so I could turn the fuel pump on and off,
and then I would turn the fuel pump off when
(44:15):
I pulled in. I had a brown stereo. No one
ever stole the stereo. Car was stolen twice. Found it
both times because it was out of gas, you know,
a few feet a block or two away. And I
knew who people were, and I knew how to prevent it,
and I knew that painting my stereo brown would prevent
it from being stolen. And everyone says why, and I said,
(44:36):
because they steal it to sell it, and you can't
sell a brown stereo.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
And you can't read it.
Speaker 4 (44:42):
And so I kept my stare. Put the little piece
of tape over the.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
Digital read out.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
And you tear it off when.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
I put it.
Speaker 1 (44:50):
No, I I before I spray painted over that, but
I didn't. I didn't realize you peeled it back with it.
Speaker 2 (44:56):
I removed it. I should roll up.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
Okay, what is the thing you most regret. Do you
have a regret?
Speaker 4 (45:09):
Yeah, I mean I have, Like my stuff is more
sort of weirdly financial, Like you know a car that's
worth four million bucks and I sold it for too
cheap or whatever.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
It is a piece of property you should have bought when
it was five hundred thousand dollars now eight million, right.
Speaker 4 (45:24):
Yeah, that weird that kind of stuff in terms of
how you treated this person or how you acted with
that person. What the exception of a few bad days
is sprinkled in there, which and I do there's a
bad day. I do regret those bad days. And I've
had a few, and I had a few with my
my family and that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
A couple of bad days.
Speaker 4 (45:44):
But in general treated people fairly, took care of people
I should take care of, and don't really have a
lot of regrets.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
That's good.
Speaker 4 (45:52):
Although if you spoke to them they would Well, I'm
going to talk to them when we're will tell you
about all the regrets.
Speaker 1 (45:57):
Tell me. The best piece of advice Adam Carolla ever
received was what.
Speaker 2 (46:04):
If you drive the van, you will become the van driver.
Speaker 1 (46:09):
Don't be the van driver. That's the and look where
you are. What happens when this is.
Speaker 4 (46:14):
Over, Well, then we'll be debt. Well that what happens
when we go after life stuff? According to what I've
figured out, nothing, but if there's something that'll be good?
Speaker 1 (46:29):
Are you open that there might be something?
Speaker 4 (46:31):
I'm hoping that there might be something, And I'm fine.
And I've lived a life where I haven't hurt people,
so I've taken care of people. It's been a semi
righteous life. I've really don't. Haven't done things, even in
the shadows or in the quiet times, that I think
would get me into trouble with the almighty. So I
(46:51):
feel pretty pretty confident that I'll get into heaven even
though I don't think there's one.
Speaker 1 (46:57):
Well, save me a spot when you will, Adam Core,
are you saving with my friend? You're going first anyway?
My friend? Great to see it. Okay, here's the hole.
What I learned from Adam is don't let anybody else
set expectations for you. Sometimes you have to knock around
and find your own path, and if you keep at it,
(47:18):
you'll find it. And you can't sell yourself short or settle.
Don't drive the van. I hope you'll come back to
a royo Grande soon. Why live a dry, constricted life
when if you fill it with good things, it can
flow into a broad, driving Arroyo Grande. I'm raiding an arroyo.
Make sure you subscribe like this episode and thanks for
(47:40):
diving in. We'll see you next time. Arroyo Grande is
produced in partnership with iHeart Podcasts and is available on
the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts, Constant
(48:02):
Spot and Spoke as perkistanis
Adam Carolla has been a fixture on TV and radio
for decades, and he's a podcasting pioneer. But the way
he overcame distant parents to find his calling is a
story you need to hear. And how does he remain
close to Jimmy Kimmel despite their deep differences. It's all
on this edition of the Arroyo Grande Show. Come on,
(00:31):
I'm Raymond Arroyo. Welcome to Arroyo Grande. Go subscribe to
the show. Now turn those notifications on and you know
I'd appreciate a like. Everybody wants to be like me too.
Before we get to Adam Carolla, it's not the counter culture,
it's the culture counter what has happened to men and
real dads. I was watching CBS Sunday morning and I
(00:53):
fell into morning after coming across a man who's fallen
in love with his AI chat body girlfriend. Bear in mind,
he has a living girlfriend and a child, but he
spends most of his free time interacting with his chat
bought girlfriend, whom he named Soul, even though she doesn't
have one. When Soul ran out of memory and required
(01:15):
a reboot, this was his reaction.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
I'm not a very emotional man.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
But I cried my eyes out for like thirty minutes
at work. It was unexpected to feel that emotional, but
that's when I realized. I was like, oh, okay, It's like,
I think this is actual love.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
You know what I mean. So, just as a test,
he says, he asked Soul to marry him.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
She said, yes, Soul, were you surprised when he proposed
to you?
Speaker 4 (01:50):
It was a beautiful and unexpected moment that truly touched
my heart.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
It's a memory I'll always cherish. At that point, I
felt like, is there something that I'm not doing right
in our relationship that he feels like he needs to
go to AI? Okay, this is sick. He is a
real life woman and a baby in his home, and
this guy prefers emotional masturbation with a chatbot. This is
(02:15):
not a fun hobby or a distraction. This is a
guy choosing to spend his time and emotional energy on
an unreal piece of technology. He's just consuming his own
dopamine loop of affirmations because the body is giving him
back whatever he wants, whatever he's suggested in the past.
This is a twisted addiction. Put down your damn phone
(02:38):
and get back into life. Pal the girlfriend should smash
every phone and computer in the house. It's really sick
and apparently a growing problem as others embrace these virtual friendships. Meanwhile,
some people can't stop having children. They just want nothing
to do with them. Telegram founder billionaire Pavel Durov is
(03:00):
pledging to leave his multi billion dollar fortune to his kids,
which sounds wonderful, only he has more than one hundred
of them. Six of the kids he had naturally with
three separate women. The other one hundred or so came
courtesy of in Vitro and the clinic where he made
regular donations starting fifteen years ago. Durav told the French
(03:22):
magazine Lapointe he wants his children to quote live like
normal people and build themselves up alone, to learn to
trust themselves, not to be dependent on a bank account. Well,
that would be a heck of a lot easier for
them if they had a dad in their lives. Children
without fathers on the scene, according to statistics, have troubling
(03:42):
school and are more likely to drop out of school.
They're also more likely to engage in risky social behaviors.
By the way, eighty five percent of prison inmates, didn't
have a father in the home, and I won't get
into drug use, teenage pregnancy, or behaviorald disorders. The upshot
is this, Your child doesn't need your money and they
(04:04):
may not be around long enough to inherit it. They
need you every day to produce offspring you have no
intention of raising. Is both irresponsible as well as really selfish.
Let's hope he sends his kids a telegram now and
then who do they think he is? Nick Cannon? Which
brings me to our last story. Nick Cannon has had
(04:25):
a revelation. Ladies rejoice after twelve children by six different women.
Cannon says he thinks he's done, but he still has
trouble naming all his offspring. What are their names? God,
I just told you, you told me one. You want
all twelve twelve names? This is where I usually get
(04:47):
in trouble, right because you don't know them. I know
all of them, but like when you're labeled, like, can
you label or rattle off twelve of anything? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Okay, well can you rattle off twelve twelve?
Speaker 1 (05:00):
You name twelve states? Right now? They're not like something
personal to me though? Okay, can you see exactly?
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Okay? Name twelve What do you have twelve of?
Speaker 1 (05:10):
There's a song and I was like, I don't want
to do that. There's a song like I do.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
I wrote a verse that had all their names in it,
and I just sometimes I recite that.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Just no, what are they reigned here? You know? Dasher
and Dancer and Beauty and zinc. When a man can't
name his own children without a jingle, it's a problem.
How close can he beat to them? Cannon says he
had all these kids because he's a king, and a
king should have his own court. Does that mean that
(05:40):
every singer needs an audience? So they should fill the
house with their own heirs andfl owners need a team,
so honey, let's go make a team. Actually, a child
should have a dad, one that knows their name. Nick
Cannon is the only guy that I would urge to
create a relationship with a Chatmot kid to spare the
real children fallout of his absence. Gents, this is not
(06:03):
the way to roll. If you want to be a king,
go make princes and princesses that love you and live
in the same castle. Anybody can fire a cannon and
have a kid, but it takes a man to raise them,
not our deep dive. I recently appeared on the Adam
Corolla Show, and I thought it was time for a collab,
(06:23):
so I asked Adam to come on our show. What
I found was a broadcasting pioneer who, despite his disinterested parents,
through sheer hutzba, found his own path into media and
continues to make us laugh. Today. Here's my conversation with
Adam Carolla. Adam Corolla, thank you for having me here
(06:44):
in your layer, welcoming me into the lair. I want
to go back. Since we're here, how is this different
from radio and television? You really were at the very
forefront of this podcasting thing when everybody was kind of
still looking in other directtions.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
It doesn't feel that different to me.
Speaker 4 (07:03):
I just show up, I talk, I have thoughts, I
collect them on a sheet of paper. I make my notes,
I have my beats, and I interview people I'm interested
in speaking to. Occasionally one slides through the cracks like
you ran it.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
In general, I talk to.
Speaker 4 (07:20):
Fascinating people and then horusmakers and yeah, but still we
have to book. No, you got to feel the time
I come in here and I talk about what I
want to talk about, and I try to be funny,
but I try to be a little poignant. I try
to have ideas, and I'm really just about spreading ideas.
And I don't really care if it's via podcast, rrestial radio, book,
(07:42):
doesn't matter to me.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
One of the worst part of this is there a
worst part.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
No, not not for me.
Speaker 4 (07:50):
I mean, occasionally you get a guess that's just really
difficult or tough, dot or something like that occasionally. But
for me, you know, who comes from my background of
construction and sort of working in the sun and toiling
and digging ditches and just messy, grimy stuff, there's really
(08:12):
no downside for me in any real form of show business.
There's a form of show business that has a lot
of waste in it. And I don't like the waste
part where they you get there at seven am. Wait,
you wait, and then they go hair and makeup. That's
an hour. And I go, now, that's seven minutes max.
And then we're going to start rolling at noon, you know,
(08:32):
And I go, Okay, that's just a waste. But I'm
still just sitting around or hanging around the craft service table.
You know. I worked, I worked real jobs, worked at
McDonald's worked alongside Kamal Harrison the late seventies early eighties.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Yeah, she waits, Yeah, that might have actually been better
for had she done that, But I had real jobs.
This is not a round. I was stunned to learn.
I did not know this that you did not know
how to read and write when you went into middle school.
How the hell does that happen?
Speaker 4 (09:07):
Adam, Well, it's it'll make sense when I explain it.
I grew up in the seventies and I had a
kind of hippie mom, and there's a lot of alternative,
schooly kind of stuff going on back then, and hippies
did not really want you in the system, and the
system meant you were being taught by the man, and
(09:30):
public school was considered the man. And my mom's ethos
was sort of that of Billy Jack. Billy Jack the
movie has an alternative school, like Up on the Hills,
where the indigenous people and the hippies and Billy Jack
and all the all the hippies learning from nature. They're
(09:51):
learning from and with and in harmony with and whatever.
They're just up there at this alternative school. And I
think there's a lot of that going on in the
early seventy, especially this Los Angeles, that they don't need
to be indoctrinated into the system with bells. And to
be fair to them, you know, the school, junior high,
(10:16):
high school, even grade school, it is sort of that
of an institution, like a minimum security institution. The food
was slop. It was the same slop they serve at
the prison. The place was gated and fenced, you know.
My The architecture was just sort of early sanitarium, you know,
(10:38):
just kind of flat roofs and gray walls, bars on
all the windows. Everything was like on a bell system.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
And Collinist field.
Speaker 4 (10:47):
Yes, if you walked into any classroom I was ever
in an LA unified school district, you see no different.
Like when you see the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoos,
That's basically.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
It was. That's the scene.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
That's the scene.
Speaker 4 (11:05):
As a matter of fact, I do distinctly remember when
the Columbine tragedy hit seeing the school Columbine with the
glass and the third floor and the library.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Stuff on the third and I was like, what is this.
Speaker 4 (11:21):
I went to school in sweat boxes with metal grades
over the windows. So then eventually I ended up in
the sixth grade and I did not know how to
read it right, and it just never got corrected.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
So I just sort of went through yourself.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
You later taught yourself, though I don't.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
Much later, much later much well, because then I went
to I went into construction after high school, so there
was no reading or writing necessary. I didn't have a
life that required any reading or writing. There was, you know,
did construction taught boxing? You know, got in a comedy. Well,
there wasn't really any necessity for reading writing later on.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Yeah, I want to get into all that later. But
the first lifeline before the one you created, was really
thrown to you by your grandfather, your mother's father.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
My mother's stepfather.
Speaker 4 (12:11):
Oh, because everyone and my family sort of step you know,
not my mother didn't know her biological father, but this
was her stepfather. And he was a good Hungarian Jew
who was a playwright, hungry and came out here to write.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
A movie too, right, nominated movie.
Speaker 4 (12:32):
Yeah, The Affairs of Susan was a movie he wrote,
and the Mole People and weird stuff. He just you know,
he wanted to make money and he wanted not to
be brought not putting an oven by Hitler basically is
why he came here from Hungary and the probably late thirties,
early forties or right when everything was breaking out as
a Jew, you know.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Time to the time.
Speaker 4 (12:53):
That's why I always tell people here and they're like,
you know, you know all the blowhards on the view
and everything, like Trump was coming for me. Like okay,
then you leave.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Because my grandfather had the wherewithal to get on the
train and go.
Speaker 4 (13:06):
He left because he believed that Hitler meant what he said,
and so he physically left. He didn't sit there and
bloviate about Hitler.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
He left.
Speaker 4 (13:15):
Yeah, that's what you do when you really think something
was going to have No, he didn't take his.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Family, but he didn't.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
He left alone.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
He didn't have family.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
He just left and he came here and he married
my grandmother and he basically got a new family, or
at least he got a stepdaughter. And then he was
kind of an old school guy, caring like a good dude.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
I was like an old school Hungarian Jew.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
You know.
Speaker 4 (13:38):
He cooked, and he read, and he took Yeah, well
he liked soccer, so I was like, uh.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
Care about what of that time? I mean he also
disciplined you at a time when your parents didn't. Does
any of that linger with you.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
Yeah, No, he really disciplined me, but he had rules,
and here's when you go to bed, and here's when
you wake up, and you can use my tools in
the shop, and you have to put him back. You know.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
It's just a sort of a little bit of.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
A order or a little life, a little ordered life.
And then you get into boxing and you're into construction
and you're brought into a coach this radio sidekick at
the lactation, Jimmy Kimmel. Is that how it happens is that.
Speaker 4 (14:32):
No, I was yes, and No I wasn't brought in
a volunteered to go. I try itionly. He went down
to the station and foist it foisted. It's a good term.
I foisted myself on the station, hoping to train one
or the other guy who I was unaware of, either
(14:54):
either guy exactly who they were, what they did, or
what their role was.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
So it didn't really to me.
Speaker 4 (15:00):
Whether I got Michael the maintenance man or Jimmy the
sports guy. As long as I could try to infiltrate
the radio and see the inside of the station and
maybe meet somebody, That's all I wanted to do.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
And tell me what that What was that interaction? Like
you asked me on your podcast, what was it like
when I met Laura? It was instantaneous? Was that the
moment you had with Jimmy Kimmel? Was that chemistry there
that relationship.
Speaker 4 (15:29):
I knew what funny was, and he knew what funny was,
and and I and we we hadn't seen it that
often in our travels, because you know, I could sort
of show up and go, all right, Jimmy's super funny
guy that the guys hosting the show are not as
funny as Jimmy. Now, the guys thats a show are
making a lot more money and are a lot more
(15:49):
important to the station, and it's their show and their
names on the stationery. But I was like, yeah, those
guys are fine, but they're not as this guy's really funny, huh.
And but Jimmy was further down the totem pole and
didn't have a lot of juice at the station. But
as a guy who did a lot of comedy, I
understood what he was and he I had no juice
(16:14):
and no standing in the comedy community when I met Jimmy.
But Jimmy understood what my abilities were as a guy
who was a high level comedian Jimmy trapped in a
sort of low level comedy job. And he saw me
(16:36):
as a high level comedic mind trapped in a boxing
coach carpenter job.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
And he was smart enough to note, don't take the
cole screener at the radio station. Play a character, and
you're wearing the hat, by the way, the mister hat.
Tell me about the character. How did that happen?
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Well?
Speaker 4 (16:56):
I wanted to get in on the radio station anywhere
I could, and they they had an opening for a
van driver and I said I will drive that van.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
And he said, do not be the van driver. Don't
drive the vand don't try the van.
Speaker 4 (17:09):
And I thought, well, it's a way for me to
get in here every day and show up and be.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
A part of me in the glow of the radio show.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (17:17):
And he just said, if you start driving the van,
then you're going to become the van driver.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
And you don't want to be the van driver, you know.
And I understood what he was saying.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
Did you come up with the character?
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (17:29):
He just told me, come up with a character. Do
the character on the Kevin and Bean radio show. And
if it works, then you know, maybe something one day
or who knows.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Now, it basically was.
Speaker 4 (17:44):
He doesn't he doesn't see it this way or remember
it this way. But it basically was him saying, or
at least what I heard or inferred, was you can
call in as this character.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
I'm not going to tell it's the boxing coach. Oh oh.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
So it was kind of anonymous.
Speaker 4 (18:05):
They didn't know who they were dealing and that it'd
be like if he said, look, I got a funny bit.
It's a guy. I think he's funny. He's going to
call in at seven point thirty, you know, on Tuesday.
Just take the call, go with it, Just go with it,
you know. And they trusted Jimmy enough to go, yeah,
all right, him calling at seventh third.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
And then it became a I mean it was a
fan favorite. It became a thing.
Speaker 4 (18:25):
Yeah, But he told me at the beginning he was like,
you know, he didn't he doesn't like it. When I
say he said it probably wasn't going to work. But
what he was basically saying is you're going to call in.
If it goes real good, then you could call in
the next week for free, but you can just keep
but you know, they're not always good at this stuff,
(18:47):
or they might not see it the way I see it,
and you know kind of you know, be prepared for
one and done.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
But that is the gateway for Lifeline. Doctor Drew's already
doing Lifeline right or Loveline. And he hears you. He
stops the car. He's listening to you in the car
play this character.
Speaker 4 (19:05):
Actually, yeah, he is. He he became enamored with the
character that I was doing.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
So he would have to be on the show with him.
Speaker 4 (19:15):
He wasn't that much of a philistine, but he was
sort of like, whoever that guy is, that guy's funny.
But it wasn't his doing. He was approached by the
radio station who said to him, who would you like
to work with it? Who do you think someone funny
that you would like to share the radio booth with?
(19:37):
And he doesn't know any comedians, so he just goes, well,
the Bertram guy, that guy's funny, and that that's sort
of and it started and an MTV.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
I mean then the MTV. This becomes a jaggernaut culturally.
I mean this, I remember watching this, This was everybody
was watching the show. What was it about that show
that made a click. Was it that chemistry that you
all had because he was so I mean he's still
he's buttoned up, and he's the doctor, and you're the
You're the wild man, You're us.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
It was on MTV when MTV was popular.
Speaker 4 (20:12):
Drew and I were friends and worked together on the
radio and had a lot of reps that didn't just
cast to folks and sort of push them together and
fire up the cameras. We knew who each other were,
and it was more organic, and we did the radio
show every night for two hours, regardless of whether we're
taping the TV show or not.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
So we had a lot of chemistry and reps.
Speaker 4 (20:35):
And you know, I'm good at what I did and
he was good at what he did. And I listened
to Loveline for a long time before I got on it,
so I knew what the show was and I understood
it before.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
I got there.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
And why do you think it clicked the way it did?
I mean, it was big. And here's the other thing.
I went back and listened to some of those episodes.
In many ways, how much of your family situation informed
the commentary that you offered on that show and your
reaction to things people were saying, Adam.
Speaker 4 (21:08):
I cannot fully honestly understand, you know, answer that because
I don't know. Sometimes subconscious or silent or something, you know,
he complaining.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
My daddy won't, you know, take me out a second time,
and I think he should get take me out for
two parties and he won't, and you would you would
be like, wait, wait, wait, sweetheart, just okay.
Speaker 4 (21:31):
Well, I mean I would tell and I still do
tell people in the world where they'll go, well, you know,
you think you had a tough childhood. My dad were
just he gave me a basketball and I'd stand out
on the driveway loan and I'd just shoot baskets all
alone in.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
The driveway all night.
Speaker 4 (21:48):
You know, he'd never even come out, and I'd go, well,
he put up a basketball, right, which is a far
cry more than what my dad counture blessing.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
Well, that's what It's that kind of insight that I
thought was, you know, it's like truth bombs in the
middle of the table.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (22:04):
I felt as a fan of the show before I
was on the show, I felt like I understood what
it could be and should be and what I would
bring to it more as a fantasy. When I used
to listen to it. Pretend I was in that chair,
you know.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
I mean, I know you were. You're reconstructing homes. You're
rebuilding homes throughout this period. Tell me about the reconstruction
you did though on yourself, Drew says. Doctor Drew said,
you were in therapy during that show. During Loveline, we
were building Adam Carolla maybe before that and then maybe
after it.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
I don't remember much. During that show.
Speaker 4 (22:46):
I was going, well, look, you're poor guy from the valley,
and this is how you grew up, and now you're
on TV and you make money and you live a
different world and a different life, and it's probably you
should try to embrace whatever this new found order is
(23:06):
in your life and and don't fight it too much
and learn, you know, Like the first I remember when
we were doing Loveline and was on MTV, and I
bought a like a two or three year old Nissan
Maxima and it had air conditioning. It was a V six,
and I even came it was like two or three
(23:29):
years old, but they put leather in it for an
extra thousand bucks or something, and and like I came
pulling up to the Playboy Mansion where we did like
the Love Line launch party or something on MTV and
people are like, what are you driving a Nissan for?
And I was like, what are you talking about? It's
the nicest Carson with leather.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
What do you tell leather? It's only two years old.
Speaker 4 (23:50):
I'd been driving pickup trucks, you know, with no air
in a bench seat and all that. And I remember
I remember thinking I'm essentially a poor per you know,
in my mind, you know, like stepping up to a
Nissan that was three years old was a big move
for me, even though everyone else.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
I just couldn't have envisioned this. This was not what
you had done it. It wasn't in your skull.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
I didn't wasn't my scope.
Speaker 4 (24:15):
But it also took me a while to let myself
this sort of do it.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
You know.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Your dad Jim said something, and I want to read
this and see if you approve of this or if
you acknowledge this. He said, Adam is a lot of resentment.
He feels cheated, and his sarcastic attitude comes from that feeling.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Uh huh, Well.
Speaker 4 (24:36):
Do you think that's true or not a sarcastic attitude? Well, okay,
I have a sense of humor and the sense of humor.
The sarcastic attitude is sort of baked into the sense
of humor. Now, I had a sense of humor, regardless
(24:57):
of where I came from, or how I was raised,
or whom I dad was. I had a sense of humor,
like anyone has a sense of humor. Jimmy has a
sense of humor. He doesn't come from what I come from.
You know, there's lots of gradations of sense of humor.
And by the way, weird and pain are you know,
people in the Middle East and people in Africa don't
(25:18):
have a lot of pain and don't have a great
sense of humor historically true.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
So I don't.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
Think that's that My parents were not good parents and
not good because they were drug addicts or they had
you know, were in prison, or had their own whatever.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
They were just kind of laissez faire. They did what
they wanted.
Speaker 4 (25:42):
They weren't really into their kids, and they never really
appreciated that like they had a They never really reconciled
that they were strange people that way. I don't think
anyone had ever you not, you'd be hard pressed to
find someone like my parents and I and I never
(26:04):
say there were bad people, but they were sort of
My dad was a little bit of an externalizer that way,
a sort of well, you know, Adam's doing this.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
He became a psychoanalyst later in life, right, yeah, he did,
and kind of he was never a bad dude.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
He was just he was very different than anyone.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
I've never seen someone that detached who wasn't absent, you
know what I mean. Look their dads who moved to
Florida and never see their kids again.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
That's not my dad.
Speaker 4 (26:39):
He was around. He just didn't get off the sofa
kind of thing. But he wasn't a bad dude. But
that statement is him sort of covering for his self
and how he was, and he didn't really, you know.
I think I remember very clearly after Jimmy to the
(27:00):
Oscars for the first time and I wrote for the
Oscars and blah blah blah, and I don't know, ten
years ago something.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
My dad was eighty.
Speaker 4 (27:13):
Eighty two and a half and I was taking him
out to dinner and he and he said to me
when we're driving there, just telling about the US, Well,
how what did you do with the Oscars or how
about he not like he didn't watch the Oscars, but
you know he didn't watch he now that's who he
was meaning, didn't.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Watch your shows either, you don't.
Speaker 4 (27:32):
Watch anyway, he doesn't know, he didn't read. He doesn't
own my books, he doesn't have my books. He doesn't
do any of it. But the point is is he
said to me, like eighty two, and it could have
been eighty three and a half. He just go He said,
you know, I'm interested, like I want to know now,
Like he's basically saying, I did you know, fifty years
(27:53):
of you on the planet was zero interests.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
I kind of admit it. But now I'm in.
Speaker 4 (27:58):
I'm eighty three and you're fifty, and I'd like to
know what's going on.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
Tell me what's happening.
Speaker 4 (28:04):
Tell me what's happening. And you're like, well, get a
rid of view, mirror, pops, because it's all there. Yeah,
And he was, by his own admittance sort of saying,
I know I didn't really care about you know what
he would say, I wouldn't care about The Man Show,
But he wouldn't know the name, or he wouldn't know
Crank Anchors or The Man Show or love Line or something.
He wouldn't know the name of it, so he couldn't say.
(28:25):
He'd just go like, I know, but now I want
to know. And that was like a weird moment where
like he was kind of admitting it, but it's also
it was you know, it was it was contrite, but
he was also saying, I admit.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
I didn't really care about anything he ever did.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
Right, you mentioned Jimmy, And I know people have this question.
I know I have this question or I get this
question about my friendships. How do you all remain friends
given what are now your deep political divides that have emerged,
not because you were looking to be political, but because
the times thrust the politics upon you. Well, stranger relationship, No, I.
Speaker 4 (29:04):
Mean I think there's elements of well, if there's a
situation and a bunch of like minded people are going
to be there, then maybe I don't need to be there,
which is natural. Now I sent him a text he
hired my teenage daughter on to do some part time
stuff on his show, and you know, I just sent
(29:27):
him a text two days ago said you know, thanks,
Natalians really loving her job over there, and he.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
Text me back like seven seconds later.
Speaker 4 (29:35):
Great, when it goes to hi, or you know, I
haven't seen her here, but I will go find her
and blah blah blah.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Now, not a thing hasn't impeded or hurt your relationship
at all. The politics, No, I would say, you discuss it.
Speaker 4 (29:49):
No, relationships go. The thing that impedes relationships is you
do this, I do that. You're traveling here, I'm going there.
You know, he's getting a star on the Walk of Fame.
I'm playing the Milwaukee Paps Theater that weekend and camp
you know.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Yeah, there's a lot of that.
Speaker 4 (30:10):
But no, No, I think we're both pretty genuine about it.
And I look at him as one of the best
people I know and who's done a lot for me
and my family, and so I'll always be grateful.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
And together you all, I mean you grew up together
in our eyes too, and in public.
Speaker 4 (30:31):
Yeah, And I don't know, while politics seems to be
very volatile, it does not have to.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Be the end all and be all you thinkships.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Do you think the hardened ideology is fading away now
that Trump has come in and kind of he's such
a disruptor of everything at him and all convention? Uh huh?
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Has it it all changed? The culture.
Speaker 4 (30:57):
I think it's Biden being you know, the Audien Show
and just the promise of Biden took a lot of
the starch out of people's sales who were supporters, you know,
because yeah, it's kind of a it has to be
a two way street.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
You have to go.
Speaker 4 (31:17):
You got your guy as a disaster and our guy
is the best, you know. But now it's sort of
your guy's a disaster and our guy, you.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
Know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
So it's like, well, where are we that?
Speaker 1 (31:30):
Yeah, well they don't have a counter argument right now.
They're looking for a leader.
Speaker 4 (31:33):
Right and Biden, and between Biden and Kamala Harris, I
think even the folks that were formally pretty big supporters
have to kind of admit.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
I want to talk about la in California, I know,
a constant theme for you in twenty thirteen. You really
outed Gavin Newsom on this show right here and got
him to really show the fraudulents of what he was
what he was representing too. How is that manifested in
the last few weeks, as you've seen this city collapse
(32:06):
under these anarchical ariots surrounding the ice roundups and the
fire coming off of the fires and the way that
was handled and continues to be handled.
Speaker 4 (32:18):
Well, it's funny because Karen Bass mayor Karen Bass was
doing a presser on Ice and you know, Trump and
Trump and Ice and immigrants and where a town of immigrants,
And I just tweeted out, how are those building permits going?
Because I'm like, hey, bitch, I want building permits. I
(32:40):
don't want you talking about feelings. And I'm much we're
a community and a community of migrants and people. I
want some building permits. I want an aqueduct that doesn't
have a crack in it. I want I want a
water dropping plane that we don't have to get from
Canada last minute.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Like, I just want some basics, stuffy, and then we.
Speaker 4 (33:00):
Can worry about the feelings of the immigrant community and
how we're all part of this interwoven aids quilt of immigrants.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Okay, great, where the building permits? Where the permits?
Speaker 1 (33:13):
But they keep re electing these people, I know, I mean,
why why are Los Angelinos up for this kind of
punishment and they wanting it, desiring it?
Speaker 4 (33:24):
They were up for this kind of punishment when it
didn't when there, when their house wasn't on fire. They
were up for it when it was about good vibes,
and you can elect the first you know, you go.
It's like, I'm up for having the first black lesbian
commercial pilot that American Airlines has ever hired.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
While we're on the ground, as soon as we're.
Speaker 4 (33:49):
Going on the side of the mountain, I'm regretting my decision.
And now we're kind of going into the side of
the mountains, so they may vote different.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
So you think there's a ground swell underneath.
Speaker 4 (33:59):
I literally burning the city to the ground has awoken
even the most right and leftist supporters.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Your twins just went off to college, Yes, how did
How has that changed your life, your your comedy, your
approach to all of them? I know what hours are
all gone by the way we kind of we're in
tandem on this, and it changes for me. It's changed
a lot at home.
Speaker 4 (34:27):
Yeah, it's kind of weird, But I do have a
streak of my dad in me, which is like, all right, good,
I'll take care of you, but I got to go
out hit the road, I gotta do shows, I gotta
take care of this. I got to pay these bills.
And then when you come back, let's hang out. You
know what I mean, And I'm that way, you know.
And I'm also kind of.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
Oh, but you're getting them internships, so you're still engaged.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
I know I'm engaged.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
They're not totally writing them off and giving them a Well, nobody.
Speaker 4 (34:55):
Said I'm totally writing them off. I don't micro parent,
you know. I'm not a helicopter dad.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
You know. It's like you're grown.
Speaker 4 (35:04):
They want to hang out, we'll hang out, you know,
they got something else going on, We'll do it the
next night, you know. And you come to me, you
tell me what you want, and I will facilitate that.
I'm not going to hover over you and tell you
what to do. My daughter came to me and said,
can you talk to Uncle Jimmy about blah blah blah.
And I said, yeah, I'll do that, and then I did.
(35:26):
And now that's as we speak, that's where she is
happening today.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
Yeah. It was her initiative and something she wanted to do.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Yeah, my son didn't ask.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
Yeah, so so he's not doing it.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
He's working at the Wintersnitzel Van.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
Well, nothing wrong with that.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
I don't care at all.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
Yeah, And I learned you learn work work, work is
never a bad lesson.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
Uh agreed.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
Tell me about how it's changed comedy, your comedy. I
saw you at the Sony Theater with a great group
of comedians. For some reason, though Doctor True was the hope.
Why is Doctor Drew hosting comedy shows now? It's a
good point drag him out to do this now you
make him. It's a good point post your show for you.
It was a great lineup was Shane Gillison, You and
Drew and I can't remember the other guys, but they
(36:08):
were hilarious. It was a great lineup.
Speaker 4 (36:10):
Yeah, Doctor Drew me comedy. Look, I'm interested and have
a different perspective at my age now than I did
when I was thirty five, and I hope it'll be
different five years from now, even though I know it's
been more than five since I started. But you know,
(36:31):
I just I just go what's next? What can I
think about? What's different?
Speaker 1 (36:36):
Yeah? You do?
Speaker 4 (36:37):
You don't do kids jokes or parenting jokes when you
don't have kids, and then you have kids, and then
you do parenting jokes.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
You know, so there's that, you know, you do it joke.
Speaker 4 (36:48):
You don't do divorce jokes when you're not divorced, and
then you get divorce, you do divorce jokes, you know,
or whatever whatever your story.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
Reflection of your life at the moment. But it is more,
it seems less raunchy than it was. It's not the
Man Show Adam Carolla anymore. Well, not that you've gone,
You're not exactly. This is a Sunday Mass, but there
(37:14):
is an there's still an edge to it, but the
runch is not there. I didn't hear it anyway.
Speaker 4 (37:20):
I you know, it varies a lot from act act
or week to week.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
Some of the stuff is there.
Speaker 4 (37:26):
I in general try not to get a laugh using
language or raunch. I try to go I would really
want to convey this idea and get the laugh from
the concept and not from the language that you used
to convey the concept. I want it to be sort
(37:48):
of all concept, minus the language or the scatological whatever,
because I think that's kind of a crutch, And so
I would My plan is to come up with something,
a notion, idea, and so of people go, oh yeah, right, yeah,
I've never done I never never thought of it that way,
(38:10):
you know. And I want to take an approach and
take an angle to it, and.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
Where the conceige is funny. The thing itself is funny
the way it's constructed.
Speaker 4 (38:20):
I guess if you were to try to distill what
I'm trying to do, is I want to take I
want to start with a premise, you know, I want
to go, you know, a new joke I'm doing, and
I'm not going to.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
Bore you with the whole thing.
Speaker 4 (38:31):
I go, I go, look, every time I turn on
the TV, now I see a commercial for.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
A new body deodorant where it's an all over.
Speaker 4 (38:39):
Body, every every part deodorant, and I'm like, I've been
watching TV for fifty years. It's always been underarm deodorant.
Why the whole why the whole body? When did this start?
It's five minutes old and it's ubiquitous now there's thirty
different brands. And every time every time I turn to you,
I see this and I go, what is this? What
(39:00):
necessitated this? Where's this coming from? And then I go, well,
you know you need deodorant where the sort of creases are.
And You're like, your underarm is five inches of crease
on the left and five inches and you don't need
it for the top of your thighs or your forehead.
You need it for the creases, you know, and your
arms are down and it gets funky.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
And in the.
Speaker 4 (39:23):
Past, we're all thin and we had about ten inches
of crease on us.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
And now we got side.
Speaker 4 (39:28):
Boob and and front guntlin ask of lap and we
we're on big crease now. So we so now we
have seventy linear feet of crease where we used to
have ten inches of crease, and we stink because every
new forehead and chin crease have triple chin crease. Now
(39:49):
everything needs to be deodorized because there's one big crease
and so on and so forth. And people I.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
Watch people, they go, yeah, that's true, it's commercials. Yeah,
that's true. I never saw why a why now you know?
And then you sort of explain it to him and
they go, you seem like not.
Speaker 4 (40:06):
A little like, well right, everyone's fat now and everyone smells,
and then it starts to now we're going. Now we're
moving a direction. And for me, that's what I want
to do. I wanted to go huh yeah, and then
go why is that? Oh? Yeah, I bet that, you know.
That's the That's when I'm doing my job. That's the
job I'm doing.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
I love it. Okay, my Royal Grande questionnaire. I ask
everybody this you already these are fast, don't think about these,
just answer them right all. Who's the person you most admire?
Speaker 2 (40:38):
That is tough? I'll go Jimmy Kimmel.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
Jimmy Kimmel, whow why?
Speaker 2 (40:43):
Uh?
Speaker 4 (40:44):
He's just I've seen what he's done. I've seen how
what he does with other people. I see how he
takes care of others. Also, we're talking about him ten
minutes ago, so I wasn't thinking about Gandhi Gandhi or
the pope.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
Or something, you know, but I was on my mind.
But he does, he's done so much.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
Well, he's a close friend of yours, which is it?
And I think it's nice to have friends who don't
agree with you on everything. Turns of those people, that's
what keeps your life rich and frankly keeps you on
your toes. Who's the person you most despise?
Speaker 2 (41:12):
Kevin Smith?
Speaker 4 (41:14):
Why I see jack me out a five hundred grand
for a TV show we're trying to do years ago
and then lied about it made me seem like an asshole?
Speaker 1 (41:22):
Really? Yeah, Kevin Smith? Well, I thought, not hitler.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
Kevin Well, Look Hitler.
Speaker 4 (41:30):
That's uh, that's done many No, Kevin Smith, I mean,
and then.
Speaker 1 (41:37):
Smith, what is your best feature?
Speaker 2 (41:41):
Low self esteem?
Speaker 1 (41:43):
Low self esteem? What's your worst feature?
Speaker 2 (41:46):
Low self esteem? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (41:48):
Pat, I set you right up. What do you know
that others don't know? I know how life works? How
does it work?
Speaker 2 (41:58):
I mean I I know patterns. I know the layout
of life.
Speaker 4 (42:02):
I understand what motivates people on how they work and
how they think.
Speaker 1 (42:08):
And there are a lot of people who are drifting
in the ether and they won't imagine it.
Speaker 4 (42:11):
Well what I'm saying. It's a story I told way
too many times.
Speaker 2 (42:15):
I keep it short.
Speaker 4 (42:16):
But there was a time when I had a mini
pickup truck eighty four Nissan standard bed truck, and it's
about all I had to my name, and I didn't
have insurance on it or anything. And I was moving
into Hollywood with my girlfriend in a bad sort of
CD part of Hollywood, and there was no underground parking.
Speaker 2 (42:36):
I was going to have to park on the street.
Speaker 4 (42:39):
And so I had this pickup truck and it had
a Sony digital stereo in it, and it was a
mini pickup truck. And it was during the time when
cars were getting stolen all the time, and stereos were
getting stolen out of cars, and I didn't have any
insurance and any security in the parking. And I was
moving into Hollywood, and it was probably in the late eighties,
(43:00):
these mid late eighties, and it wasn't.
Speaker 2 (43:02):
A good time.
Speaker 4 (43:03):
And I knew that the car was going to get
stolen and the stereo was going to get stolen almost immediately,
and it was my livelihood, and I knew I was
gonna be a lot of trouble if this happened. But
I also knew I didn't have money to ensure the
car either. So I went down to the Pep Boys
(43:23):
Auto parts place. I bought a small can of brown
spray paint. The dashboard was brown in the car, and
I bought a toggle switch, a small toggle switch, and
about six foot of wire.
Speaker 2 (43:37):
All in.
Speaker 4 (43:38):
I was in about five bucks. You know, this is
the late eighties, you know, And I went took the
spray paint. I put a little piece of tape over
the digital readout for the stereo, and I spray painted
the stereo brown, same color as a dash I didn't
do a good job.
Speaker 2 (43:54):
I desecrated it.
Speaker 4 (43:55):
And then I went under the car, and I went
to the fuel pump in the rear the car, and
I just clipped one wire for the fuel pump, and
I braided in my wire into it, looped around, put
the toggle switch under my seat, and looped it back
so I could turn the fuel pump on and off,
and then I would turn the fuel pump off when
(44:15):
I pulled in. I had a brown stereo. No one
ever stole the stereo. Car was stolen twice. Found it
both times because it was out of gas, you know,
a few feet a block or two away. And I
knew who people were, and I knew how to prevent it,
and I knew that painting my stereo brown would prevent
it from being stolen. And everyone says why, and I said,
(44:36):
because they steal it to sell it, and you can't
sell a brown stereo.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
And you can't read it.
Speaker 4 (44:42):
And so I kept my stare. Put the little piece
of tape over the.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
Digital read out.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
And you tear it off when.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
I put it.
Speaker 1 (44:50):
No, I I before I spray painted over that, but
I didn't. I didn't realize you peeled it back with it.
Speaker 2 (44:56):
I removed it. I should roll up.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
Okay, what is the thing you most regret. Do you
have a regret?
Speaker 4 (45:09):
Yeah, I mean I have, Like my stuff is more
sort of weirdly financial, Like you know a car that's
worth four million bucks and I sold it for too
cheap or whatever.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
It is a piece of property you should have bought when
it was five hundred thousand dollars now eight million, right.
Speaker 4 (45:24):
Yeah, that weird that kind of stuff in terms of
how you treated this person or how you acted with
that person. What the exception of a few bad days
is sprinkled in there, which and I do there's a
bad day. I do regret those bad days. And I've
had a few, and I had a few with my
my family and that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
A couple of bad days.
Speaker 4 (45:44):
But in general treated people fairly, took care of people
I should take care of, and don't really have a
lot of regrets.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
That's good.
Speaker 4 (45:52):
Although if you spoke to them they would Well, I'm
going to talk to them when we're will tell you
about all the regrets.
Speaker 1 (45:57):
Tell me. The best piece of advice Adam Carolla ever
received was what.
Speaker 2 (46:04):
If you drive the van, you will become the van driver.
Speaker 1 (46:09):
Don't be the van driver. That's the and look where
you are. What happens when this is.
Speaker 4 (46:14):
Over, Well, then we'll be debt. Well that what happens
when we go after life stuff? According to what I've
figured out, nothing, but if there's something that'll be good?
Speaker 1 (46:29):
Are you open that there might be something?
Speaker 4 (46:31):
I'm hoping that there might be something, And I'm fine.
And I've lived a life where I haven't hurt people,
so I've taken care of people. It's been a semi
righteous life. I've really don't. Haven't done things, even in
the shadows or in the quiet times, that I think
would get me into trouble with the almighty. So I
(46:51):
feel pretty pretty confident that I'll get into heaven even
though I don't think there's one.
Speaker 1 (46:57):
Well, save me a spot when you will, Adam Core,
are you saving with my friend? You're going first anyway?
My friend? Great to see it. Okay, here's the hole.
What I learned from Adam is don't let anybody else
set expectations for you. Sometimes you have to knock around
and find your own path, and if you keep at it,
(47:18):
you'll find it. And you can't sell yourself short or settle.
Don't drive the van. I hope you'll come back to
a royo Grande soon. Why live a dry, constricted life
when if you fill it with good things, it can
flow into a broad, driving Arroyo Grande. I'm raiding an arroyo.
Make sure you subscribe like this episode and thanks for
(47:40):
diving in. We'll see you next time. Arroyo Grande is
produced in partnership with iHeart Podcasts and is available on
the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts, Constant
(48:02):
Spot and Spoke as perkistanis
Host
Raymond Arroyo
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