The Ben Shapiro Show - Adam Carolla | The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special Ep. 8

00:00:00.000 You don't really have to be doing anything until you're 30.

00:00:05.000 Like, I know in your Doogie Houser world, you have to graduate with honors at 16, otherwise there's going to be an issue, but...

00:00:21.000 Well, hey and welcome.

00:00:22.000 It is today's Sunday special with Adam Carolla.

00:00:24.000 We're going to jump in in just a second.

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00:01:38.000 Well,

00:01:39.000 Adam Carolla, thanks for joining me on Sunday Special.

00:01:41.000 My pleasure.

00:01:42.000 It is a pleasure to see the founder and creator of the pirate community.

00:01:47.000 I mean, so Adam Carolla, for those who don't know, created essentially the podcast medium.

00:01:51.000 I mean, it was really Adam who, well, you did.

00:01:53.000 I mean, there are other podcasts out there, but Adam's the guy who actually made podcasts a thing where people could support themselves and have a living doing it.

00:02:01.000 Yeah, maybe.

00:02:02.000 Yeah, there were others, but yeah, I was probably the first one sort of independently to figure out a way to do it without maybe a parent company like NPR or ESPN or something like that.

00:02:11.000 I want to talk about exactly how you came to do that.

00:02:13.000 I want to start by talking a little bit about your upbringing because you're a really eclectic dude.

00:02:17.000 I mean, you have the podcast, you're making a documentary now with Dennis Prager about bias on college campuses.

00:02:22.000 You didn't go to college.

00:02:24.000 You aren't really overtly conservative.

00:02:26.000 You're more just a common sense guy.

00:02:28.000 Yes.

00:02:30.000 So where did you come from?

00:02:31.000 I mean, you're now listened to by a million people per episode, right?

00:02:36.000 I mean, it's a huge number.

00:02:37.000 I was squeezed out of a bar rag.

00:02:39.000 That's where I came from.

00:02:41.000 And I grew up in North Hollywood, California, which, you know, has the word Hollywood in it, but couldn't be any further than Hollywood.

00:02:48.000 It was like from Hollywood, like every once in a while I'd be like,

00:02:51.000 I saw Robert Urich in the parking lot of the Quigley's.

00:02:54.000 Oh my God.

00:02:56.000 You know, and like, there's like weird things like that, but really no celebrities.

00:03:02.000 I grew up food stamps and welfare and a kind of disjointed family where we got stuff for free from my grandparents and the man.

00:03:17.000 And I kind of quickly, I got a quick,

00:03:20.000 Let's

00:03:36.000 Yeah.

00:03:52.000 Nobody had a job and nobody had any money.

00:03:55.000 We lived in a house versus an apartment because my grandparents sort of took pity on their daughter and let us squat in this house.

00:04:04.000 Now, like, the first thing I figured out is the reason the house was always a mess and the reason it was always falling apart and disheveled and everything else is because there was no ownership.

00:04:12.000 Like, and she shouldn't have been living in a house.

00:04:15.000 We should have been in an apartment somewhere or in a van.

00:04:19.000 So, we lived in this house and the house just kind of came undone.

00:04:23.000 Because, again, you hand somebody something for free and it just starts coming undone.

00:04:29.000 And then it was like food stamps and welfare and whatever free, like literally spaghetti night at the church, go to the church, like whatever we could get free lunch programs at the school with the tickets and the breakfast programs, like all the programs, all the freebies, all the whatever.

00:04:47.000 And I just kind of remember thinking like,

00:04:51.000 I felt like my family was sort of hobbled because they got just enough to get by and not be really motivated.

00:04:59.000 So they just kind of existed.

00:05:01.000 What about your white privilege?

00:05:03.000 I mean, I assume that got you through.

00:05:04.000 What time is it?

00:05:05.000 Because I'm still, they keep saying, they still, look, it's insane, because what's insane with me is I do think there is a kind of a weird, there is a kind of a prejudice, or like an assumed prejudice, when people go, well, Adam, come on, you're well spoken, you're a white guy, you drive a nice car, you went to college.

00:05:27.000 Like, I would say, like I will say to people,

00:05:31.000 I went to North Hollywood High, I graduated North Hollywood High, I started cleaning carpets up the street, literally A and B carpet cleaning, and then I got into construction.

00:05:41.000 When I say got into construction, I showed up on a job site and pulled ivy off the side of a house in Silver Lake and dragged it up to the dumpster.

00:05:49.000 I dug ditches.

00:05:50.000 I literally dug ditches.

00:05:51.000 I picked up garbage, and that's all I did.

00:05:54.000 And they'd go, well, what'd you do after college?

00:05:58.000 You're not listening.

00:05:59.000 No college.

00:06:01.000 No SATs.

00:06:03.000 I never took an algebra class.

00:06:04.000 I took high school math. 0.99

00:06:07.000 Dumb I was. 0.92

00:06:09.000 I looked at my transcript the other day. 0.96

00:06:10.000 I came in at North Hollywood High, out of my graduating class of 570, I came in 497.

00:06:20.000 And I know 30 of those kids moved to Phoenix, or died, or like both.

00:06:25.000 Like that, literally like almost out of 500 kids, I came up 497.

00:06:30.000 So I was a horrible student.

00:06:34.000 And even when I tried, I was a horrible student.

00:06:36.000 And

00:06:37.000 Then I just got pushed out into the world and just sort of had to make do.

00:06:41.000 And in terms of the white privilege, I worked this notion of like, hey, these are jobs Americans won't do.

00:06:52.000 When I did carpet cleaning, which is the lowest form of manual labor, like literally get into a van, drive to a Colony Kitchen or Tony Roma's or whatever in the middle of the night and just get the steamer out and steam the entire wand and clean the entire restaurant and then go back at four in the morning, drop the van off and go home and get paid six bucks an hour.

00:07:18.000 I did that originally with

00:07:22.000 Chris Bohm, white guy.

00:07:24.000 Ray Oldhoffer, super white guy.

00:07:28.000 Todd Oyler.

00:07:29.000 Jewish guy, Willy Maldonado, like Italian and or Jewish guy, and Adam Carolla.

00:07:37.000 Those were the five white folks that worked for A&B Carpet in the 80s when we were cleaning carpet.

00:07:44.000 And then later on, when I got to a construction site, there were Latin guys and then there was me and other white guys.

00:07:51.000 We were just poor.

00:07:53.000 The thing is like,

00:07:54.000 Whenever someone goes like, who's gonna pick your lettuce?

00:07:57.000 Or who's gonna dig that ditch?

00:07:58.000 Or who's gonna clean your carpets? 0.94

00:07:59.000 Or who's gonna bust those trays? 0.95

00:08:00.000 Like, four people.

00:08:02.000 I knew a lot of four people.

00:08:04.000 So where did you get the work ethic from?

00:08:06.000 Because it sounds like your mom wasn't big into it.

00:08:09.000 And yet, you're somebody who was working hard basically from the time that you left high school.

00:08:13.000 And I know you were into football when you were in high school as well.

00:08:16.000 Yeah, I learned my work ethic from sports, probably football, which was a really hard

00:08:22.000 Taxing's sort of hot.

00:08:24.000 You know, like I learned, football will teach you discomfort and how to kind of tolerate discomfort because when you're in the San Fernando Valley and you're running, you're doing two-a-days in early September and it's brutal outside and they think water's bad for you, like, just rinse, don't, you don't, literally, like, spit it out, you'll cramp up, like, I'm depleted.

00:08:48.000 We're good to go.

00:09:07.000 There was no path intellectually to get paid.

00:09:11.000 So if I was gonna get paid, it was gonna be because there was a stack of drywall over there, and you needed that stack of drywall moved over there, and that's how I got paid.

00:09:22.000 And literally digging ditches and just demoing out stucco and hauling garbage.

00:09:30.000 That's all I did.

00:09:31.000 I had jobs.

00:09:33.000 Where I just get dropped off at the Pier 1 Imports now on Wilshire in Santa Monica.

00:09:40.000 We built it a million years ago.

00:09:42.000 And there's just a huge pile of dirt, like size of two minivans, and they gave me a shovel and a wheelbarrow, and they're like, the dumpster's over there.

00:09:52.000 And they're like, however long it takes you to get that into that, then you can leave.

00:09:57.000 And I was just alone, just like all day, just scoop, you know, one load at a time, like counting my steps and trying not to go insane.

00:10:03.000 But anyway.

00:10:04.000 As someone who once picked up an object, this sounds terrible to me.

00:10:07.000 Yes.

00:10:08.000 I could definitely, this would not be in the Shapiro wheelhouse.

00:10:10.000 In 1996, Ben Shapiro picked up a feather duster and handed it to one of his squires, but that's still counted.

00:10:19.000 Yeah, they have some manual labor in the Jewish community right there.

00:10:22.000 Oh yeah, yeah, it was funny because there are no Jews on the construction site ever, which always is something that is funny because when I did construction, 1.00

00:10:37.000 All throughout the San Fernando Valley.

00:10:39.000 I'd be in Chatsworth, Canoga Park, Simi Valley, blah, blah, blah.

00:10:43.000 No one ever said to me, you're Jewish, right?

00:10:46.000 Because I could go either way.

00:10:47.000 I got Adam.

00:10:48.000 Right.

00:10:48.000 I got the Jewfro.

00:10:50.000 I would complain a lot.

00:10:51.000 You know, they're like, what?

00:10:53.000 That guy.

00:10:53.000 But no one, it was, I was definitely Italian or just a non-Jew.

00:10:59.000 When I got out of construction and got into writing comedy, it was like, well, you're Jewish, you know, right?

00:11:05.000 And I'm like, no, I'm not Jewish.

00:11:06.000 And they're like, I've never, I was never mistaken for a Jew on a construction site.

00:11:10.000 And I've never mistaken for a goyim in a writer's room. 1.00

00:11:15.000 It just, just goes to show you, like you tell people,

00:11:18.000 You know, you tell people, hey, don't stereotype.

00:11:20.000 Well, they're just playing the odd.

00:11:22.000 Zero Jews on a construction site.

00:11:25.000 Zero, you know, Goyim with this hair in a writer's room. 0.98

00:11:31.000 It's like they're trying to save time.

00:11:34.000 I learned how to work hard, like work in construction.

00:11:37.000 And it was like, but I also learned, like, I don't want to get paid by the hour because

00:11:45.000 I remember having these fantasies where I was going, well, you're getting $8 an hour now.

00:11:52.000 And your job, your plan is to see if you can work 50, maybe 60 hours a week and pay your bills with your roommates and your apartments and stuff like that.

00:11:59.000 But I was like, even if you got paid, I'd probably think of some princely sum like $18 an hour or $22 an hour.

00:12:06.000 Even if you got paid, let's just say $25 an hour,

00:12:12.000 It still would be by the hour.

00:12:15.000 You would still have to be here on this job site that you don't want to be on.

00:12:20.000 So I started thinking early.

00:12:24.000 Maybe the by the hour way isn't the way to go.

00:12:29.000 And so how did you get from doing that to comedy?

00:12:32.000 I mean, that's a pretty radical shift from, as you say, being the person who is schlepping wheelbarrows full of dirt places to being in writer's rooms on comedy.

00:12:42.000 How did you actually do that?

00:12:45.000 I sat down in my apartment when I was like 22

00:12:51.000 And I'd been doing labor for, you know, like labor and carpentry for maybe three years and I was driving like a beat up old mini pickup truck with like no headrests and stuff and like I didn't have insurance and I wasn't, construction is very like day labor kind of stuff.

00:13:10.000 Like it's like,

00:13:12.000 You don't get paid on Christmas.

00:13:14.000 If it rains, you don't go to work.

00:13:16.000 You don't get paid that day.

00:13:17.000 Literally, if you rolled your ankle playing basketball on a Sunday and you couldn't go in, they wouldn't care, but you don't get paid.

00:13:26.000 You wouldn't have to call anyone and go, I'm not gonna be here.

00:13:29.000 They'd just be like, don't be here.

00:13:30.000 Just don't get paid.

00:13:31.000 We won't pay you.

00:13:32.000 If you left at lunchtime and did half a day, you just have 34 hours on your time card.

00:13:40.000 And I was like,

00:13:41.000 Huh. 0.99

00:13:42.000 That sucks. 0.98

00:13:43.000 Like, how are you going to own a house? 0.99

00:13:45.000 How are you going to pay mortgage?

00:13:46.000 How are you even going to get credit?

00:13:48.000 I didn't have credit or anything.

00:13:50.000 Like, everything was kind of under the table or whatever it was.

00:13:52.000 It was like catch as catch can.

00:13:55.000 And I was just like, it's gonna be a long, uncomfortable life.

00:14:00.000 And your family's not in the equation in terms of like, no one's gonna leave you a business, or your grandfather's collection of Duesenbergs will be all yours.

00:14:09.000 You'll be able to sell them at auction and live comfortably.

00:14:13.000 No one had anything, no one's gonna help.

00:14:15.000 So I was like 22, 23, I was in my apartment with no air conditioning in North Hollywood, my three roommates in a one bedroom, and I was like,

00:14:24.000 All right, so what's the plan?

00:14:26.000 What could possibly be the plan?

00:14:29.000 And one plan was like, well, get your contractor's license and get a better truck and maybe get a crew or something like that.

00:14:37.000 I was just like, yeah, but that's still tough and it's a lot of work and you get your tools ripped off and it's just, it's a tough life and you don't get paid that much.

00:14:49.000 And so I was like, all right, so what else do you do?

00:14:53.000 And I was like,

00:15:24.000 You are good at comedy.

00:15:25.000 Now, I don't even know what that means.

00:15:27.000 It just means I was good at comedy like people are good with their hands, but you still have to learn a skill, a trade.

00:15:35.000 You know, otherwise being just good with your hands does not mean you can read plans and build a house.

00:15:41.000 So I was like, okay, so what's the plan?

00:15:46.000 And the plan was you're 22,

00:15:50.000 You don't really have to be doing anything until you're 30, in my world.

00:15:56.000 Like, I know in your Doogie Howser world, you have to graduate with honors at 16, otherwise there's gonna be an issue.

00:16:04.000 But for me, I was like,

00:16:07.000 When you're 30, you must become a man.

00:16:11.000 That was my bar mitzvah. 0.84

00:16:13.000 I was like, I think you can screw around. 0.99

00:16:16.000 No one really thinks you're a loser when you're screwing around in your 20s. 0.96

00:16:19.000 But at 30, I want to be doing something. 0.63

00:16:22.000 But my goal was

00:16:24.000 Don't put the pressure on yourself.

00:16:27.000 You have like eight years to figure out this thing called comedy, and don't even put the pressure on yourself, which is when you're, you know, 30, you gotta be on TV, you have to have your own show, or you have to be syndicated radio host, or, I didn't have any of that.

00:16:45.000 I just had, right now you're making money off your back.

00:16:51.000 Could you make money off of your ideas or something that involves some air conditioning?

00:16:57.000 Like, I just wanted some air conditioning.

00:16:59.000 When it gets hot and you just eat, you sit on a pile of drywall and it's like, it gets brutal.

00:17:05.000 I've lived out here my entire life.

00:17:06.000 I gotcha, yeah.

00:17:08.000 I was just like, I would be happy working for a greeting card company if we were in a room and there were three people pitching funny Father's Day cards and I could come up with some funny ideas.

00:17:21.000 That was about it.

00:17:25.000 I didn't have the bar too high, but I needed to be doing something that had dental insurance or something.

00:17:31.000 And so I just said, well, what do you got to do?

00:17:34.000 And somebody said, well, take a groundlings class and you could go to the groundlings and like learn how to do improvisational comedy and get up on stage and do group comedy and sketches and like write stuff down and stuff like that.

00:17:49.000 I was like, okay.

00:17:51.000 So here I was,

00:17:55.000 Like literally with no car insurance and no medical or dental insurance or anything, just living hand to mouth.

00:18:05.000 But I paid like $275 for a groundlings class, you know, and I was like going out on Sunday nights and just doing open mics and waiting in line and stuff like that. 0.95

00:18:16.000 And everyone in my world was kind of like, are you nuts? 0.96

00:18:19.000 Like, what are you paying for? 0.98

00:18:21.000 And like, we're going out Sunday night or whatever.

00:18:24.000 We're getting some beers.

00:18:25.000 We're going to the park, you know, whatever.

00:18:26.000 And I'd be like, I'm going to go wait in line.

00:18:29.000 I think so.

00:18:41.000 I have to do this thing over here.

00:18:44.000 But I still have to work full-time in this very different world, which is construction.

00:18:50.000 And so how did you get from doing, you know, three-minute comedy sets to then doing what you're doing now?

00:18:55.000 Because that's a pretty large jump.

00:18:56.000 There are a lot of folks in LA who are in line with you.

00:18:59.000 Yeah.

00:19:00.000 Who are now probably managing Coffee Bean.

00:19:03.000 Yeah.

00:19:03.000 Who are now doing exactly what you're doing.

00:19:05.000 No, I know, and I curse those people.

00:19:07.000 And the reason I curse them is because many nights I would go out and it's like, hey, we're cutting it off at 40 people.

00:19:17.000 Or 40 or 50 people would show up and they'd go, only 18 are getting up on stage.

00:19:22.000 So put your name in a hat.

00:19:23.000 The guy would pull the name out and I wouldn't make it.

00:19:27.000 And I realized,

00:19:28.000 If you are doing something and you shouldn't be doing it, you're possibly preventing other people who should be doing it from doing it.

00:19:37.000 So it's like, I didn't get up on stage that night because the guy who's managing the coffee bean did get up on stage.

00:19:44.000 I was plugging around for like eight years and I was doing stand-up and I was doing sketch and I was doing little acting and I was doing little writing and I was having little bits and pieces of miniature success.

00:20:02.000 I'd also at that time got into teaching boxing for a living because, not for a living, I taught morning classes at a place called Bodies in Motion.

00:20:16.000 I teach like the 7 a.m.

00:20:18.000 class or the 6.30 a.m.

00:20:19.000 class and it's getting like 20 bucks a class or something.

00:20:22.000 But it was boxing was just another story, something I was into and blah, blah, blah.

00:20:26.000 But it was part of me kind of going,

00:20:30.000 As you get to 30 and as the comedy dream isn't really coming to fruition, doing something where you're on your feet, where you're interacting with people, where you're talking to people, construction would be lonely.

00:20:46.000 You'd just go there and you'd work alone a lot of times, just be sitting in some half-finished house in Simi Valley just putting in molding.

00:20:55.000 I don't know.

00:21:05.000 When I was teaching my boxing classes, you'd get these 20 people, and you get to conduct and lead.

00:21:13.000 I taught comedy traffic school for the same reason.

00:21:16.000 I don't care about traffic school, but I want to be on my feet, I want to be telling jokes, and I want to be whatever.

00:21:21.000 So I was doing all these things, and so I would teach boxing in the morning, and then I would go do my carpentry.

00:21:30.000 At that point, I just worked for myself, like I said.

00:21:33.000 Clients and I just build cabinets or whatever.

00:21:36.000 I was kind of getting by.

00:21:38.000 And I was driving my truck over the hill with somebody's entertainment unit in the back.

00:21:45.000 And it was a very, it was kind of a haunting thing.

00:21:50.000 And I'll tell you why.

00:21:51.000 Because, just to come full circle here.

00:21:56.000 So I'm driving over the hill and I'm going to a woman named Marjorie Grossman's house.

00:22:01.000 Probably Jewish. 0.97

00:22:03.000 And she is writing for Seinfeld.

00:22:06.000 She has a job writing for Seinfeld and she heard about me and she just bought her first house on the west side and putting in, I'm going to build her an entertainment unit, blah, blah, blah.

00:22:17.000 And so I literally called from her house as I'm driving over the hill.

00:22:22.000 I'm listening to KROQ Radio, I'm listening to Kevin and Bean, I'm listening to Jimmy the Sports Guy, who's now Jimmy Kimmel, back then like Third Banana on The Morning Show, getting into an argument with Michael the Maintenance Man, and next thing you know we're going to have a boxing match between Michael the Maintenance Man and Jimmy the Sports Guy.

00:22:46.000 I didn't know either one of them, obviously.

00:22:48.000 I'm like a person just listening to the radio, you know?

00:22:52.000 And I get to Marjorie Grossman's house, and I'm like, could I use your phone?

00:22:56.000 And I'm calling KROQ going, hey, I'm a boxing trainer, because they put it out.

00:23:00.000 They're like, we need trainers.

00:23:01.000 We need a venue.

00:23:02.000 We need equipment.

00:23:03.000 And I'm like, I could train.

00:23:06.000 Now, it's so funny, because everyone assumes I wanted to train Jimmy.

00:23:11.000 But I didn't, because Jimmy had just got to the radio station.

00:23:15.000 He was there like for three or four weeks.

00:23:17.000 Michael, the maintenance man, had been there for a number of years.

00:23:19.000 It was kind of a fixed year.

00:23:21.000 Also, Michael was black, and I was just playing the odds like we did on the construction site in the writer's room.

00:23:28.000 I was just gonna...

00:23:29.000 They give me the brother.

00:23:31.000 I bet he's got a little more ability in that ring.

00:23:34.000 And so I didn't want to train.

00:23:36.000 I'll take either one of them.

00:23:37.000 But I it wasn't like I was just calling from Marjorie's house going, I'll hold, you know, and like like leaving a message.

00:23:45.000 Hey, this is Frank Murphy, producer of The Morning Show.

00:23:48.000 This never called back like 100 minutes.

00:23:51.000 I'd be.

00:23:52.000 And I remember also I was talking to Marjorie and she's like, yeah, I write for Seinfeld.

00:23:57.000 How does it work?

00:23:58.000 He's like, well, we get into a big room, you know, and we order some Chinese food.

00:24:02.000 I'm like, who pays for the Chinese food?

00:24:04.000 He's like, I don't know, but you don't have to pay for it.

00:24:07.000 I'm like, no.

00:24:08.000 Like, someone else pays for the Chinese food?

00:24:11.000 Yeah.

00:24:12.000 Or we could get Italian every day.

00:24:14.000 Like, yeah.

00:24:16.000 Because on the construction side, it was always like, oh, who owes the lunch truck money?

00:24:20.000 You know, so it's like, yeah, we just start spitballing ideas and then we have a big dry erase board.

00:24:27.000 I'm like, and you're getting like thousands of dollars a week for eating Chinese food and spitballing ideas.

00:24:36.000 And I was like, oh, and I remember thinking like, you got it made, you

00:24:43.000 So I was building her thing, and I kept calling KROQ, and they kept not answering.

00:24:49.000 And then, like, the next day, I would hear them again on the radio, like, hey, we're looking for trainers.

00:24:57.000 And they'd interview, like, a trainer on the phone, like, hey, we got a trainer on the phone.

00:25:01.000 And I'd be like, no, no, no, it's me.

00:25:03.000 I'll be the trainer.

00:25:04.000 I'll be the trainer.

00:25:05.000 And at some point, I realized I need to show up at KROQ, because nobody's

00:25:11.000 I didn't have a cell phone.

00:25:13.000 I had to go use Marjorie Grossman's phone.

00:25:16.000 And I had to go to the building.

00:25:19.000 I found out where the building was in Burbank, and I showed up before my class at like 6 a.m.

00:25:27.000 And I got into the lobby, but the building was closed.

00:25:31.000 Like, I couldn't go up the elevator to K-Rock or whatever.

00:25:34.000 And I was like, they're like, yeah, the elevators don't start going until seven or something.

00:25:39.000 So I went and taught my class.

00:25:41.000 And the next day, I got a guy named Tree, who, good name, man.

00:25:47.000 Last name Roundtree, nickname Tree.

00:25:50.000 That's a boxing coach.

00:25:52.000 So I got tree to cover my class and I went back at 7 and I got up the elevator to the 9th floor where KROQ was, like commercial building.

00:26:01.000 But KROQ was locked.

00:26:03.000 Like KROQ didn't open until 9 for business.

00:26:07.000 So now I'm just standing in the halls of the 9th floor of a commercial building in Burbank by the elevators and I'm like,

00:26:14.000 That they don't show up till nine the morning shows on but they're like tucked away in the corner and it'd be like you and I sitting here and someone just standing out in the lobby who couldn't get up here so I just stood there like I was like where should I go what should I do and I stood there and some guy came up the elevator

00:26:35.000 And he clearly like had like a hand truck or something.

00:26:38.000 He had business, like he was dropping off some stuff and he was walking around this back hall to like go in what is now I know is the back door of KROQ with the keypad or whatever.

00:26:48.000 And I was like following him, like, are you going into KROQ?

00:26:51.000 And he's like, yeah, you know, I'm filling the vending machine or something.

00:26:55.000 And I was like, could you tell him there's a boxing coach waiting by the elevators?

00:27:01.000 And I'll just wait by the elevators.

00:27:02.000 Just go tell anyone in there there's a boxing coach.

00:27:06.000 And he's like, yeah, all right.

00:27:07.000 And he just went in.

00:27:08.000 And I just stood by the elevator for like 20 minutes or something.

00:27:12.000 And at some point, Jimmy just came down the hall, same direction the guy went.

00:27:20.000 And he just kind of walked up to me.

00:27:21.000 I was probably doing the morning show.

00:27:23.000 He's probably in the middle of doing the show.

00:27:25.000 And he's like, are you the boxing coach?

00:27:27.000 And I said, yeah.

00:27:28.000 And he said, OK.

00:27:30.000 And I was like,

00:27:31.000 I could be your boxing coach.

00:27:32.000 And he's like, yeah, okay.

00:27:34.000 I was like, okay.

00:27:35.000 And he's like, when do you want to start?

00:27:38.000 And he's like, I don't know, today?

00:27:40.000 Later today?

00:27:41.000 After I'm done?

00:27:42.000 And I'm like, yeah, yeah, let's start.

00:27:44.000 How about noon at Bodies in Motion in Pasadena?

00:27:47.000 I'm like, okay, I'll meet you at the parking lot.

00:27:50.000 And I just stood there in the parking structure and he pulled up in a beat up RX-7.

00:27:55.000 It was really beat on and I was like,

00:27:57.000 My Zuzu Trooper's nicer than this guy's RX-7.

00:28:00.000 I remember thinking, hmm, what if I want in on this?

00:28:04.000 But I was like, I got three weeks to train this guy, and all I want to do is pick his brain about how he got into radio and how he got into comedy.

00:28:15.000 Now, he's

00:28:17.000 Not high up the food chain at K-Rock.

00:28:20.000 Right.

00:28:20.000 So he kind of does some writing, does some producing, does some editing, and does his sports bit, but he's not Kevin Irvine or Frank Murphy, the producer.

00:28:30.000 So he's not going to be able to march in there and go, hey fellas,

00:28:34.000 New plan.

00:28:47.000 for the show.

00:29:08.000 Now we're kind of done, you know?"

00:29:10.000 And I was like, yeah, well, what could I do, you know?

00:29:13.000 And he said, he said, well, what do you, what do you do?

00:29:16.000 Like, what do you want to do?

00:29:17.000 And I was like, I don't really know.

00:29:19.000 And I said, well, what I do is, is I, I hang out a crack wise, fast on my feet, and I just kind of roll with it.

00:29:27.000 And he said,

00:29:29.000 Yeah, Kevin and Bean, that's their job.

00:29:32.000 They don't need you doing that.

00:29:34.000 So I was like, well, what could I do?

00:29:36.000 And he said, come up with a character and you could call in like Monday morning and it's probably never going to work and they'll never want to hear it again.

00:29:43.000 But that's the only shot you got.

00:29:45.000 And I was like, I don't really do characters.

00:29:47.000 And he's like, well,

00:29:48.000 Come up with something.

00:29:49.000 Well, we'll get to that in one second.

00:29:52.000 First, I want to say thanks to our sponsors over at Policy Genius.

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00:31:00.000 Okay, so what character did you end up coming up with for Kay Rock?

00:31:03.000 I remember I had the weekend and I was like, the gay movie reviewer, you know?

00:31:08.000 And I was like, I don't know.

00:31:10.000 Like, I don't think I could do that.

00:31:12.000 Like, I'm not, I never did characters.

00:31:14.000 So I was like, wait a minute.

00:31:17.000 I started thinking like, I always had this thought of sort of go for what you know, like, what do you know?

00:31:21.000 And I was like, well, I know Carpentry really well.

00:31:24.000 And then I was like,

00:31:27.000 Okay.

00:31:28.000 I've always talked about how every shop teacher I ever had was horrible.

00:31:34.000 Ironically, they loved wood, but they hated kids.

00:31:40.000 My shop teachers at Walter Reed Elementary looked at the shop as their shop, and we were bothering them.

00:31:47.000 Like, what are you doing in my shop?

00:31:48.000 Get away from my table saw.

00:31:50.000 It's not yours, old man. 0.98

00:31:51.000 You're here to teach us how to use the table saw.

00:31:54.000 Get away from my drill index.

00:31:55.000 That's my idea.

00:31:56.000 See Walter Reed, I'd go back.

00:31:57.000 I went to middle school there, too.

00:31:58.000 And Mr. Gage, and Mr. Martin, and Mr. Schapanzi, Mr. Walters.

00:32:04.000 I was like a shop teacher.

00:32:07.000 A shop teacher who taught remedial wood at Louis Pasteur Middle School in Monrovia.

00:32:14.000 And his name was Mr. Birch.

00:32:17.000 Because birch is a kind of wood, and I played Pop Warner football with a guy named Bircham.

00:32:22.000 And I just thought, that's a cool name.

00:32:23.000 It also smells like wood, you know?

00:32:26.000 But then I was like, why would Mr. Bircham call K-Rock in the morning?

00:32:33.000 I was looking, I was approaching it like I was a groundling, you know? 0.97

00:32:35.000 I was like, what is his motivation for calling K-Rock?

00:32:40.000 And his motivation would always be,

00:32:42.000 that he was injured in the shop over the weekend.

00:32:46.000 He wasn't coming in Monday morning to school, because I'd call it like 7.15. 0.95

00:32:51.000 And I'd say, I know all these kids listen to your crappy music, like they love smashing dumplings and nervosa and all your crappy hippie music.

00:33:04.000 And they're listening now on their clock radios, like their alarm clock radios. 0.97

00:33:08.000 So I was like, let me yell at them.

00:33:10.000 And I would get on the phone and I would go, now listen to me!

00:33:13.000 You're going to get Mr. Hensley.

00:33:15.000 He's going to come in there with a sweater vest from HOMAC.

00:33:18.000 He's going to substitute. 0.97

00:33:20.000 So I'd make some gay jokes about him. 1.00

00:33:22.000 And I'd go, nobody's doing anything. 0.94

00:33:24.000 He's going to fire up the Duquesne projector.

00:33:27.000 We're putting blood on the bandsaw on.

00:33:29.000 You guys are all going to ride out the rest of the class.

00:33:31.000 Just put your head on the desk.

00:33:33.000 Nobody's touching any tools or anything.

00:33:35.000 And I would go, except for Brad Higginstar.

00:33:38.000 There was always one student they liked.

00:33:40.000 You know what I mean?

00:33:41.000 Brad, listen to me.

00:33:43.000 We're good to go.

00:34:05.000 Okay, Brad, take the dado set up and put it on.

00:34:08.000 Move the Biesemeyer fence, set up the dado on the table saw, and I just start getting into this crazy nailing schedule on sheer wall and stuff like that.

00:34:17.000 And the character was huge.

00:34:20.000 Because everyone thought he's actually a guy.

00:34:25.000 And so they used to start, they'd have me come in,

00:34:32.000 The studio and like people call up and go like, I want to make a playhouse for my kid or something like that.

00:34:39.000 I'd go.

00:34:40.000 Treated bottom plate, two by four, 16 on center, that's your layout.

00:34:44.000 Double top plate, you know, use a 16 penny sinker, but don't use sinkers when you're cheer walling, use like a 10 penny ring shank, because a sinker's vinyl code's gonna come out.

00:34:56.000 Or you could nail it off with eight penny sinkers, make sure it's struck one, you know, CDX, half inch, good one side, put the label out if you're getting inspected.

00:35:04.000 And I, and then they go like, how does he know

00:35:09.000 What this stuff is, you know?

00:35:11.000 And so people were sort of intrigued that this guy was like funny, but he also, every time someone called in, they'd go like, a roofer came to the house and he said that some of the metal on it, drip edge?

00:35:28.000 No, no.

00:35:29.000 Weep screed?

00:35:30.000 Yeah, weep screed. 1.00

00:35:31.000 Like, they'd be like, well, wait a minute, how'd you know what he said?

00:35:34.000 Because I'm picturing myself on a roof and weep screed.

00:35:38.000 So it caught on.

00:35:40.000 I got signed by William Morris.

00:35:44.000 I became this sort of local celebrity.

00:35:47.000 I immediately got offers and stuff like that.

00:35:51.000 I got a manager and just the bittersweet, weird circle this is then about two years into it, maybe even a year and a half into it, stuff happened immediately.

00:36:03.000 Once I got on KROQ, it just happened fast.

00:36:06.000 I get this call from my manager and he's like, hey, I got a call from Marjorie Grossman's

00:36:13.000 Brother.

00:36:14.000 And I said, what?

00:36:16.000 Why?

00:36:17.000 And he said, because he's, he's getting, he's taking, getting her affairs in order or whatever.

00:36:22.000 And I said, what happened?

00:36:23.000 Oh, she died of like ovarian cancer a few months ago.

00:36:26.000 I was like, oh really?

00:36:28.000 Yeah.

00:36:28.000 And her brother is going through all her stuff and her brother wants to know why there's a check for $1,200 to Adam Parola.

00:36:36.000 Because her brother knew who Adam Carolla was.

00:36:39.000 She wrote me a check for Adam Carolla, the comedian, but she wrote a check to Adam Carolla, the carpenter, and I remember it was like, literally yesterday, I was envying her life.

00:36:51.000 I was like, oh God, you got a new house, you got entertainment, you're working, and then she just died like that, and now I've got my manager, and Willie Morris, and blah, blah, blah, and I was like,

00:37:05.000 God, life's pretty interesting tapestry.

00:37:08.000 Yeah, so you ended up obviously becoming huge on radio, and then eventually you decided to launch a pirate ship of your own.

00:37:13.000 And so we can fast forward to that.

00:37:16.000 Yeah, we're fast forwarding.

00:37:17.000 Yeah, exactly.

00:37:17.000 So how did that come about?

00:37:19.000 How did you decide, you know, I'm done with radio, I'm not doing terrestrial anymore, now I want to do this podcasting thing that nobody had really tried successfully to that point, but you spotted a market before there even was a market, and now the rest of us get to make a living in it.

00:37:30.000 Yeah, where's my vig?

00:37:32.000 Come on, can't I at least wet my feet?

00:37:34.000 I'm not asking, I'm not the government, but 10% is kind of a standard tithing.

00:37:41.000 We, all right, I never thought of, I've never thought about anything in advance other than move forward.

00:37:52.000 Like, I'm kind of like,

00:37:54.000 You know, I've always kind of looked at it as like, hey, we're in the middle of the ocean.

00:37:59.000 Look toward the horizon or look toward wherever you think land is and just start swimming.

00:38:05.000 And then, like, somebody would keep saying, like, where are you going or what island you're shooting for?

00:38:10.000 And I'm going, I don't know.

00:38:12.000 I'm just I'm just going that way.

00:38:14.000 And they'd go, well, how do you know there's and I'm like, well, the alternative is just kind of treading water.

00:38:19.000 We're good to go. 0.98

00:38:29.000 In radio, that I would get thrown off of radio for saying something stupid and then I'd go get another job somewhere else. 0.90

00:38:40.000 It was like, well, I'll get cut for this team for getting into it with the coach, but I'm a good ball player and I'll just get picked up by this other team.

00:38:48.000 But I didn't know the league was going to collapse.

00:38:51.000 And what happened

00:38:53.000 We're good to go.

00:39:17.000 There was no more work.

00:39:19.000 And I had this, I had two young kids and a pretty good lifestyle in terms of like mortgage and a warehouse and you know, a couple of cars.

00:39:30.000 And like, I had a kind of big monthly nut and no job.

00:39:35.000 And I was getting paid for like nine months to the end of my contract.

00:39:42.000 So I was just like,

00:39:45.000 I did not believe in podcasting per se because there wasn't any model for podcasting in terms of revenue generation.

00:39:54.000 So my thing was like, look, after all the work that I did

00:40:01.000 Which would literally be like, go to that apartment, get on the roof, and scrape the tar paper off it.

00:40:06.000 I was like, that's work.

00:40:09.000 Talking is something you do with a friend at lunch that is one of the most enjoyable endeavors.

00:40:15.000 Like, what's better than you having lunch with a guy you just love to talk to?

00:40:21.000 You know, like you and I, we love Dennis Prager.

00:40:24.000 Going out to dinner with Dennis Prager, that's two hours of talk, but that's, you'd pay for that.

00:40:30.000 So I was like,

00:40:31.000 I never want to look at talking as a job.

00:40:35.000 I also have built this audience over the years and I don't want to have my tether come unmoored and float out somewhere and then come back and see if I can get them gathered up and into the tent again.

00:40:53.000 Well, I knew we had many millions of minutes of streaming every month, but the radio station and their sort of infinite wisdom was like, they'd come in and they'd go, you guys are number five in Los Angeles.

00:41:03.000 You got to get into the top three.

00:41:05.000 Oh, and you had 19 million minutes of streaming last month.

00:41:08.000 I'd go, well, that's good for something, right?

00:41:09.000 And they'd go, no, it's not.

00:41:10.000 And then they'd leave.

00:41:12.000 But I kept going literally like 19 million minutes of streaming in a month.

00:41:17.000 I'd go,

00:41:18.000 It's gotta be something, right?

00:41:20.000 So that thought, as well as getting paid for 10 months to stay home, essentially, I was just like, well, let's start podcasting.

00:41:29.000 And it really has changed everything.

00:41:31.000 I mean, everybody, I had Joe Rogan in here a few weeks ago and we were talking about you and he was crediting you as the guy who kind of realized that there was another continent out there that nobody else knew was out there.

00:41:40.000 And obviously that's happened for

00:41:41.000 For a huge number of us.

00:41:42.000 It's also created an enormous amount of liberty in the space because being on radio, you did radio a lot longer than I did, but I did radio too.

00:41:50.000 There's always this fear that you're going to say the one thing and then the one thing will get you fired and it will finish your career.

00:41:55.000 And for you it's a lot harder because you're in comedy.

00:41:58.000 And now, I mean, I was going to ask you this from the beginning.

00:42:01.000 How do you do comedy in an era of political correctness?

00:42:03.000 Because it seems like everybody is getting slaughtered right now.

00:42:07.000 Every comedian.

00:42:08.000 Yeah.

00:42:08.000 You know, it's kind of interesting, but I do feel like they...

00:42:34.000 Do you?

00:42:48.000 I don't apologize, I don't care.

00:42:51.000 Attacking me is not gonna be satisfying for you.

00:42:56.000 There needs to be every, I was just talking about this on my podcast, which is, I used to fight in the street a fair bit.

00:43:06.000 Not a lot, but I definitely had some street fights.

00:43:10.000 And I knew how to fight.

00:43:11.000 And I was just like, I don't know, 22, and I was like, I would fight.

00:43:15.000 And I always knew

00:43:18.000 I wasn't a mean person and I would not pick a fight with anybody.

00:43:22.000 But I knew if somebody wanted to fight, I knew exactly how to get them out into the street with me to fight.

00:43:29.000 Like, we want to leave this party and we will go fight.

00:43:33.000 I would tell them

00:43:36.000 I don't want trouble.

00:43:54.000 Well, this is a bad day for you.

00:43:55.000 And I'd go, OK, well, I guess we got to fight.

00:43:57.000 And we'd go fight. 0.97

00:43:59.000 And I'd beat him up.

00:43:59.000 But all I had to do was take a step or two backwards, and they took too big step forward.

00:44:06.000 If you step forward, they don't step forward.

00:44:09.000 They realize it's no fun going after Adam Carolla.

00:44:15.000 It's much better getting this guy fired, or that guy fired, or this guy.

00:44:19.000 The people issue the long-winded sort of

00:44:22.000 Crafted by their publicists, apologies and all.

00:44:25.000 It's like it's so much better.

00:44:26.000 And really all you do is you just kind of tell them to shove off a couple of times and they just kind of go like, all right, he's no good.

00:44:34.000 Like he's no good because he doesn't issue these long-winded apologies.

00:44:39.000 So there's like that.

00:44:42.000 And I'm also just, at a certain point, you will be who you are.

00:44:48.000 Like, no, Howard Stern can say whatever he wants whenever he wants, and no one ever demands that Howard Stern apologize, because Howard Stern is Howard Stern.

00:44:56.000 Or it's my Snoop Dogg can smoke weed wherever he wants.

00:45:00.000 So if I went into like an AIDS hospice, I couldn't spark up.

00:45:06.000 Snoop Dogg could fire up a hookah pipe in the middle of an AIDS hospice and they'd be like, that's no, that's fine. 0.52

00:45:12.000 He's Snoop Dogg.

00:45:13.000 You know what I mean?

00:45:13.000 Like he literally can smoke pot wherever he wants because he's Snoop Dogg.

00:45:17.000 So once you establish yourself as I'm the person who says things that offend people,

00:45:24.000 They sort of leave you alone.

00:45:25.000 You, we've said, I've said a couple times on the show, you're not ostensibly political.

00:45:29.000 You found yourself in this sort of circle where you have friends on the left, obviously, like you're still good friends with Jimmy Kimmel, but then you're also very good friends with Dennis Prager.

00:45:37.000 You and I are friendly.

00:45:38.000 So why is it, do you think, that you've been embraced by the right when you're really sort of, you consider yourself sort of an apolitical dude?

00:45:45.000 Well, you know, it's weird.

00:45:47.000 People say, oh, you're conservative, you're right-wing, or whatever.

00:45:49.000 I said, well, go back and listen to Loveline, the non-political radio show from 1997, where I'd go, look, family, education, people shouldn't be having kids who can't afford kids.

00:46:03.000 Families need to stay together.

00:46:05.000 They need to raise these kids.

00:46:06.000 They need to have these crazy right-wing 1.00

00:46:09.000 Notions now that no one ever thought of as political.

00:46:16.000 That was political like wash the whites with the whites and the colors with the colors.

00:46:21.000 Like it was just that's how you do laundry.

00:46:24.000 Like this is how you become successful.

00:46:26.000 You stay together.

00:46:28.000 You raise your kids.

00:46:29.000 You don't buy things you can't pay for.

00:46:31.000 You don't rely on the government.

00:46:33.000 The government's not going to do a good job taking care of you.

00:46:35.000 You have to do it yourself.

00:46:37.000 Delayed gratification.

00:46:38.000 Whatever.

00:46:39.000 All the stuff I learned through, quite frankly, this little microcosm called North Hollywood High is a very interesting combination of different

00:46:54.000 I don't

00:47:17.000 And they're like their family stayed together and they were in student council and they did well in their schoolwork and stuff like that.

00:47:23.000 And then there was like white trash dudes like me from literally right next to the high school in North Hollywood, my buddy Ray and Chris and stuff like that.

00:47:32.000 And then we had some Mexican guys who were like from a little deeper from the valley and some black guys who were like bust in from South Central because I played football with all those guys. 0.94

00:47:41.000 And at a certain point,

00:47:43.000 When North Harvard High was done, I say done because like my friends, some of them didn't graduate or they just moved on or they wandered off and had jobs.

00:47:52.000 The Jewish kids like went off to UCLA and Stanford and Cal. 0.98

00:47:58.000 The black kids just went back to the hood and the white trash and the Mexican guys hung out and got jobs digging ditches. 1.00

00:48:06.000 And so I was like, hmm, what's the through line here? 1.00

00:48:10.000 And it's like, well, all my friends, their parents were divorced.

00:48:15.000 They were living in apartments.

00:48:17.000 They weren't into education.

00:48:18.000 They were hands-off.

00:48:20.000 We were just sort of warehouse.

00:48:22.000 Nobody was doing homework or whatever.

00:48:24.000 So I put together this composite very quickly of what works and what doesn't work just based on this Petri dish called North Hollywood High and how these folks went off to be successful and we went off to toil in the sun.

00:48:41.000 So I understood that and I always preached it.

00:48:45.000 And no one ever accused me of being political for many of the notions I had about just sort of self-reliance, you know?

00:48:54.000 My mom got welfare and food stamps, and she was a mess, and the house was a mess, and we barely got by, and it was a bad life, and she was like hobbled by it, and she doesn't know, she's not... 0.91

00:49:05.000 You know, she doesn't have spina bifida, and she's not a moron. 1.00

00:49:08.000 She just never knew what she could do. 0.79

00:49:11.000 Just like I never knew what I could do until the radio station fired me.

00:49:14.000 Like, I needed to be pushed out, and if the radio station... I would have worked there for a thousand years.

00:49:19.000 So, all of a sudden, these things have become political stances, which is... it's kind of confusing to me, and I'm not really into arguing about, you know, who does a better job.

00:49:32.000 Like, look,

00:49:34.000 It's also a weird world where you can't speak logically to people.

00:49:38.000 I've had a million... Some of the stuff I get thrown back in my face is like, look, if something happens to me and my wife, I'd like a mom and a dad, a male and a female, to raise my kids, because we both offer very different things.

00:49:53.000 But, that being said, I will take the lesbian couple or the gay couple who's doing a little better, who has a better minivan that's a little newer and a little safer, who lives in a better part of town with a better school system, I will take them over the heterosexual couple if they're marginally better. 0.99

00:50:14.000 If everything is exactly the same,

00:50:17.000 This is weird.

00:50:36.000 I wonder this out loud all the time, and I'm going to pose this question to you because I believe I have to be intellectually honest.

00:50:46.000 One of the biggest problems I got into is when somebody said to me, who's funnier, men or women?

00:50:51.000 I didn't think I was allowed to say they're both exactly the same.

00:50:54.000 I had to answer the question.

00:50:56.000 I said men are funnier because they're trying to get laid. 0.88

00:50:58.000 But so they've evolved that way.

00:51:01.000 Think about all that.

00:51:03.000 All we've put into getting laid.

00:51:05.000 But also, I said that being said, I know plenty of women that are funnier than every guy I went to high school with. 1.00

00:51:11.000 But if you're just going to ask me, I'll go with men. 0.99

00:51:15.000 And I got a ton of crap for that. 0.97

00:51:16.000 But here's what I don't get. 0.98

00:51:17.000 Every time I say to somebody, look,

00:51:21.000 All things being equal, I'll take the heterosexual couple. 0.96

00:51:25.000 Now, if the gay couple's doing a little better, and their tax returns and lives in a safe neighborhood, I'll take the gay couple. 0.99

00:51:32.000 And then they go, alright, so you're saying... 0.99

00:51:36.000 The heterosexual couple could be strung out on meth, and they could, the woman is, she's a full-time prostitute. 0.99

00:51:43.000 He's pimping her out. 0.84

00:51:45.000 They're cooking up, they're making meth in their bathtub of their apartment, which by the way, is in a very dangerous part of town.

00:51:52.000 And the gay couple, that's David Geffen, and he's out on a yacht in San Francisco.

00:51:58.000 You would take, and I said, no.

00:52:03.000 I think I was insanely clear.

00:52:05.000 I said, all things are the same.

00:52:08.000 All things are the same, I would take this.

00:52:10.000 But if the other couple, then they go, well, that's a flawed premise because you can't make everything the same.

00:52:15.000 And I'm like, just make them have the same job, live in the same neighborhood.

00:52:21.000 I don't know, some may think one guy likes Jeopardy, the other likes Desperate Housewives or something, but just make everything the same, would you?

00:52:28.000 They're like, no. 1.00

00:52:31.000 Are these people stupid? 1.00

00:52:33.000 When they say to me, so you would take this couple that raises rabies-infested raccoons in their camper, in their double wide, over David Gama. 1.00

00:52:46.000 No!

00:52:47.000 But why did you say that? 0.94

00:52:49.000 Why would you say- like, are they insane? 0.97

00:52:52.000 Are they intellectually dishonest? 0.99

00:52:53.000 Are they lying?

00:52:54.000 Like, I can't- and where do they expect me to go?

00:52:57.000 Right.

00:52:57.000 Oh, you caught me.

00:52:58.000 Like, I said the same.

00:53:00.000 Everything's gotta be the same.

00:53:01.000 I do think that they're looking for a world in which- they need an answer.

00:53:06.000 And the answer is always going to be that it's their political viewpoint or you have a character flaw.

00:53:11.000 And so if you do not repeat their political viewpoint, then it must be that you have a character flaw. 0.85

00:53:16.000 And that character flaw means that secretly, even though you've already said this stuff, secretly you do believe that the rabies-infested double-eyed with the heterosexual couple is better than David Geffen because your secret motivation is that you like gay people worse than you like straight people. 0.91

00:53:29.000 You like straight people more than you like gay people. 0.99

00:53:31.000 And so even if you say all things being equal, deep down in your heart, you know secretly that what this is really coming from is animus for gay people.

00:53:38.000 I think that's really what it is.

00:53:39.000 Because having spoken with more people on the left than anybody that I know in my lifetime, it seems to me that when people are being intellectually dishonest that way, and you see it with Cathy Newman and Jordan Peterson, for example, where Jordan Peterson is talking about earnings and Cathy Newman is suddenly just recasting everything that he's saying, she knows what he's saying.

00:53:58.000 It's just that she doesn't believe that that's really his motivation in saying it.

00:54:01.000 It's them attempting to read your heart, I think.

00:54:03.000 Right, right.

00:54:04.000 So if you're comfortable,

00:54:06.000 It goes back to what you were saying earlier.

00:54:07.000 If you're comfortable in who you are, it's hard for them to come back at you because they want to say that you're homophobic or you're racist or something.

00:54:12.000 You say, well, I'm not that.

00:54:13.000 And they don't have any place to go from there.

00:54:15.000 For them, that's the only place that they can go.

00:54:18.000 Because if they acknowledge that you have a, like, I'm sure Jimmy doesn't say that to you.

00:54:22.000 You said the same thing because Jimmy knows you're a good guy, right?

00:54:24.000 It's people who don't know you're a good guy and who think you're a bad guy who are going to attribute that motivation to you.

00:54:27.000 And Jimmy's as left as it comes, right?

00:54:29.000 Yeah.

00:54:30.000 I mean, he has old-fashioned values as well, which don't necessarily come out on stage.

00:54:39.000 He definitely is a family man.

00:54:40.000 He's super loyal.

00:54:42.000 He has basic old-school, traditional... I don't know what's political, what's not political anymore, but he's very family-oriented.

00:54:55.000 He's more religious than I am, and

00:54:59.000 I got everyone beat, because I'm like at a zero.

00:55:01.000 I don't know if I got them beat in the wrong direction, but anyway.

00:55:04.000 We'll find out later.

00:55:05.000 And he's very loyal and he's very honest.

00:55:09.000 He has all the qualities that you would want, that the grandparents would want their kids to date.

00:55:15.000 No, the only point that I'm making is that he's politically different than you are, but he's not attributing these bad motivations to you, so I would say that typically, and the same thing is true, you know, for people who I deal with.

00:55:23.000 I have friends who are on the political left, and if they don't spend their days misaligning, you know, misattributing character to me, then I know that they're a decent person.

00:55:31.000 Like, it seems to me that it's always been about decency.

00:55:34.000 Yeah, well, it's also, I think part of the, I mean, part of the problem, I mean, I have this, I've always had this sort of theory, which is like, all roads lead to narcissism.

00:55:45.000 And if you can hop on the line on Twitter and say, what happened to Cecil the Lion is a tragedy and it should never happen again and it's not going to happen on my watch or something, then you get to just send out to the heavens that you're a virtuous person.

00:56:03.000 And the way to

00:56:07.000 So there's two ways.

00:56:08.000 If I make $50,000 a year, there's two ways I can get a raise.

00:56:11.000 One way is work harder and make $75,000 next year.

00:56:14.000 The next way is

00:56:24.000 Push you down from 50 to 25 and thus I just got a raise in my mind.

00:56:29.000 Now it's a horrible math and it's not a way to get yourself any further down the road.

00:56:36.000 But if my personality, if my virtue is a seven and yours is a seven, if I can knock you down to a three or minus two, then guess who gets to be at the top of virtue mountain?

00:56:49.000 And that'll be me.

00:56:50.000 So I think a lot of it is narcissism

00:56:54.000 That's

00:57:13.000 It's fine to be upset about kids on the border, but then go down to the border or write a check to one of the many charitable institutions that are helping those kids on the border.

00:57:23.000 But you don't need to send it.

00:57:25.000 I don't need to know how you feel about what's going on at the border or Cecil Line or anything else.

00:57:30.000 And I was like, my last tweet, I think my wife got mad about this, but my last tweet was, I told everyone, don't do it in your kid's sink, but you can whiz in your sink if you're tall enough.

00:57:43.000 Sorry, Ben.

00:57:46.000 One of the great time savers of life is like brushing your teeth and whizzing in your sink.

00:57:50.000 And somebody tweeted me, it turns out you can save millions of gallons of water and they're showing this thing where it's like there's a sink where it's like you pee into it and you wash your hands and it washes the whatever.

00:58:03.000 I tweeted back, yes, I'm a hero.

00:58:07.000 And then somebody tweeted back, yeah, but you don't wash your hands, so it wouldn't work.

00:58:12.000 And I was like, true.

00:58:13.000 So my tweet, now I'm coming across like a hero on Ben Shapiro's show, but I mean, my tweet was a self-deprecating, not here's what we should do at the border and things need to change.

00:58:27.000 I think a lot of it

00:58:30.000 I think almost all roads lead to narcissism in almost every department, and this is why we're hearing so much of this.

00:58:39.000 And then also, it was considered sort of gauche to put your opinions out all the time for everyone to read.

00:58:45.000 You're virtuous.

00:58:46.000 I mean, again, if you're making fun of yourself for whizzing in the sink,

00:58:49.000 Fine.

00:58:50.000 Zero.

00:58:51.000 Well, it's always a pleasure to have Adam Carolla here again, the godfather of podcasting and also a man with a great many tips about where you should whiz.

00:58:59.000 So you get the information and the company from Adam Carolla.

00:59:02.000 We'll get you an Apple box and you can join the crowd.

00:59:04.000 Perfect.

00:59:05.000 Thank you so much.

00:59:06.000 It's always what I've been looking for.

00:59:07.000 We'll see you next time.

00:59:10.000 Adam, thanks so much for stopping by.

00:59:12.000 I appreciate it.

00:59:18.000 The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special is produced by Jonathan Hay, Executive Producer Jeremy Boring, Associate Producers Mathis Glover and Austin Stevens, edited by Alex Zingaro, audio is mixed by Mike Karamina, hair and makeup is by Jeswa Alvera, and title graphics by Cynthia Angulo.

00:59:32.000 The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special is a Daily Wire Forward Publishing production.

00:59:36.000 Copyright Forward Publishing 2018.

The Ben Shapiro Show - July 01, 2018

Adam Carolla | The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special Ep. 8

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