00:00:30.000When I grew up, you go to the beach, there was a sign that said no, and all it was was fireworks or, you know, no manslaughter.
00:00:41.960The beach sign gets something, it's no Frisbee now, no digging holes, no alcohol, no dogs, like no, no.
00:00:50.220So, you were living in a place where the beach, if you think about the beach and the ocean, it's like, it's a metaphor for freedom.
00:00:58.980It's like, I'm going to the ocean, or they sailed across the ocean to be free, you know, and they landed in Venice Beach or Pismo Beach or whatever.
00:01:07.580It's like, it's literally, it's like a metaphor.
00:01:09.120Well, in California, there's a never-ending list of things you cannot do on the beach, and every year they add one.
00:01:20.140No, I have a couple of kids, and I tell everyone I will be attending their graduation in a U-Haul truck.
00:01:31.680I will pull up in a moving truck, and wave to them during their graduation, and I'm going.
00:01:39.120They just can't admit they were wrong.
00:01:41.080Gay marriage was illegal in Arkansas, it's going to be legal in California, and then one day Arkansas will make it legal, and then they'll look at us.
00:02:18.360But I wasn't talking about their locals, I was talking about our community on Locals.
00:02:24.320You mean the one where you get phenomenal behind-the-scenes content when you...
00:02:28.640Where you get to ask incredible guests like Jordan Peterson, Brett Weinstein, Bill Burr, Sam Harris, Adam Carolla, Heather Hying, and others your questions?
00:02:44.100Not just that, you can get supporter-only benefits like trigonometry mugs, monthly calls with other top supporters, and even a regular meal with me and Francis.
00:02:53.700You also get phenomenal behind-the-scenes footage of our trip to America, where we met a whole host of incredible guests and gave ourselves terminal indigestion.
00:03:05.740We're also starting to do monthly giveaways for locals only.
00:03:09.040The first one will be signed copies of Andrew Doyle's new book.
00:03:12.220Plus, you get access to an incredible community of like-minded people who share memes, have fun conversations, and most importantly, you get to make new friends.
00:03:24.960You can support us with as little as $7 or about £5 a month, or give us more for the higher-tier benefits.
00:04:49.100Like everyone else took it in the ninth grade.
00:04:50.780I was taking math, took high school math.
00:04:53.480You know, I grew up in a sort of blue-collar, kind of semi-depressed, you know, divorce, you know, sort of some welfare, some food stamps, you know, just a little sort of impoverished to some degree.
00:05:06.760And so I got out of high school and I just went to work, you know, and I just, you know, I got a job just as a laborer, you know, just working on construction sites, just kind of using my back, you know, moving stuff, digging holes, you know, cleaning stuff.
00:05:21.460And it was sort of relegated to a pretty, you know, blue-collar kind of just, you know, grunt work kind of labor on a construction site.
00:05:31.180I mean, what I did, you know, everyone who comes here from Mexico or some other place who doesn't speak the language and doesn't have the proper identification, they work on a construction site as a laborer, you know.
00:05:46.200So that's kind of what you do, that's the lowest kind of rung on the socioeconomic ladder and that's, I was no different.
00:05:52.920I was just born here, but I just went to work.
00:05:55.960And I, you know, I worked my way up and I became a carpenter at some point and bought some tools and a truck and learned the skill of carpentry.
00:06:07.740And then at some point I was just like, man, this is hard and it doesn't pay well and it's kind of, I don't like the guys I work with and it's not very interesting or stimulating or anything.
00:06:19.900And so I made the conscious decision to try to see if I could, like, make my way into comedy somehow because it was only two sort of tangible assets that I had.
00:06:33.860I almost said gift, but I was, you know, funny and I was good with my hands.
00:06:40.500Those were like my two things and I couldn't read very well, I couldn't write, I wasn't going to work, I wasn't going to be an attorney or anything.
00:06:47.440But I was like, I think you could try doing comedy.
00:06:50.560So then I just started training in comedy in my kind of early 20s and I couldn't quit my day job.
00:06:59.120I'd just work all day and then at night I'd go take a comedy class, an improv class, acting class, something like that.
00:07:06.040And I'd just work all day, have an apartment with a couple of roommates and at night go out and try to learn comedy.
00:07:15.700Sorry, Francis, let me just finish this quick point.
00:07:17.460So the thing I really love about what you do is the way you talk about it, it comes from that blue collar place of like the real world, right?
00:07:27.040And that's what I think makes you so interesting and so interesting to listen to and funny as well because you're talking from a real space that a lot of people connect with.
00:07:36.820And we've traveled around the country, we've been all over the place, east coast, west coast, south, you know, everywhere.
00:07:41.840And I have a feeling that you'd have quite a unique insight into this because we've loved the trip.
00:07:48.500We're so inspired by the United States.
00:07:51.500There's so many amazing things going on.
00:07:53.820And yet so many people that we talk to are afraid, they're, you know, they're angry, they're politically very, you know, it's a divided time in this country.
00:08:04.320You know, the middle is no longer an attractive place to be, you know, people used to kind of strive to get to the middle, like middle class.
00:08:18.500You know, I got a home, you know, I got 14 more years on the mortgage and I own it, you know, free and clear.
00:08:25.720And yeah, it's not much, but it's mine.
00:08:28.200It's like a lot of like, you know, we got two cars.
00:08:31.320I got to work on one of them all the time, but we got two cars and, you know, I'm taking care of my kids and I'm feeding my family.
00:08:38.760You know, it's like a kind of a pride in sort of that middle world.
00:08:44.260And then at some point we decided there was some nobility on, in the ultra rich and or the, she's a mother of 14 and doesn't have a pot to piss in, but she's got her pride.
00:09:00.160Like, it's this weird, we got into this weird kind of class thing and everyone had to kind of pick a side.
00:09:08.480Like, oh, you want to be Elon Musk or you want to move into a project in Chicago?
00:09:13.520Like, and, and we kind of just, you know, the middle is like, you know, but maybe it was like more like, like, like, you know, the worst thing you could say about somebody's art standup routine painting or something is go like, eh, it's okay.
00:09:38.800You know, there's a sort of middle is not sexy and it's just kind of like, we, we, we almost like the metaphor we think of is like, if you'd like to go to the beach and you'd like to not get pummeled by the waves, then stay on the beach or swim beyond the breakers where it's calm.
00:09:58.960The middle is just you getting sand up your ass.
00:10:03.600But what's interesting about you talking about the middle is you found fame with a character called Mr. Burcham, who in many ways was an epitome of the middle.
00:10:11.780He was a guy in the middle who was getting put upon by everybody and he was just very frustrated.
00:10:18.420Yeah, the, I, I came upon that, that guy, uh, Burcham, um, I think you must pronounce it a little bit, but I'm not going to hold you, hold you to.
00:12:38.440And so then I came up with the woodshop teacher, Mr. Burcham.
00:12:42.260And it just became a, like an overnight sensation.
00:12:45.000Isn't that the problem with the way America is in a way that you were asked that you wanted to go on the radio and you had something to give.
00:12:54.820But people just thought because you had like a blue collar job that suddenly like you didn't have anything to say.
00:13:01.780When actually the reality is, is because you've experienced this, you have far more of a connection with a regular audience than people who went to an Ivy League university or college.
00:13:12.280And, you know, had come up just doing improv and not having to worry about money.
00:13:16.460Yeah, I had a real kind of base, a foundation.
00:13:22.200And I, and I knew who those guys were, the blue collar and the teachers.
00:13:27.780And, and I, I had this base and, and I had this base of knowledge because I was a carpenter.
00:13:32.840So my character, the thing that made the character really intriguing is he was funny, but he also knew the subject so well that people kept thinking, I know this guy's a comedian, but I also know he's a woodworker and a, maybe, maybe he's a, maybe, maybe he teaches woodshop.
00:13:54.140I, I, I taught, let's see, I taught remedial wood at Louis Pasteur Middle School in Monrovia.
00:14:04.060Everything was made up, you know, and then Mr. Burcham was the guy.
00:14:08.300And, and so it's like people would say things and I, I would take some phone calls sometimes and like some woman, I remember she called up, she goes, oh, it's my husband's birthday and I want to, he's got a table saw and I want to give him a big deluxe fence.
00:14:34.020And then everyone would go, how do you know all the, the stuff?
00:14:37.100And I'd go, I didn't say it on the air, but I lived that life and then I just brought it all into, into comedy.
00:14:45.300And Adam, one of the things that we have in the UK is like, it often feels like most of the people who are on air, who are talking about stuff,
00:14:52.660most of the comedians, most of the media personalities, they're not really that connected to ordinary people.
00:14:58.220And it explains a lot of the political situations we've seen in recent years.
00:15:03.600You, you're on the radio all the time.
00:15:47.360And, and by the way, if you don't hurt anyone or you pay your taxes, then you'll get left alone.
00:15:52.680And then everyone will, everything will be copacetic.
00:15:55.520And recently, we started down this path where we wanted the government to get more involved with things, which never really has a good ending.
00:16:07.760But somehow we decided they needed to be doing more about like, with your kids, you know, the schools, the meals, the, who's taking care of kids.
00:16:18.000It's like, I was like, you take care of your kids.
00:17:26.120And then I sort of saw her atrophy because it's like this person that could have won out and did something was told to stay home and wait for that check.
00:17:40.580You know, we had a sort of front row seat to this sort of lethargy.
00:17:44.300Yeah, and you know, you are a penultimate interview in the year.
00:17:47.460The only one we've got left is Bill Burr tomorrow.
00:17:49.880But everyone we've spoken to and every place we've been, and we've been, like I said, in New York, in Washington, in Virginia, in Nashville, in Austin, and now in L.A., California is supposed to be the most liberal place in this country, right, from what I understand.
00:18:05.520And yet I feel more restricted here than I have in any of the other places we've been.
00:18:10.360Like you get off the airport, masks, masks, masks, masks, masks.
00:18:14.620You get in the taxi, masks, masks, masks.
00:18:27.340How is it that the most liberal place, I mean, liberal means freedom, the liberal place in this country, and that's the impression that we get as visitors.
00:19:03.720And he came to Venice Beach, California in the 60s because he wanted to build cars.
00:19:09.960Now, obviously, everyone is leaving California now to go to Texas because they want to do something, and they want the government to leave them alone, you know.
00:19:20.440It is a kind of a – we – California is very blue.
00:20:42.380And so it's essentially – California is just sort of like if you took beavers and you put them on top of the Empire State Building, they'd go, we've got to find some wood.
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00:23:28.600And what I've seen just driving about in the short time that I've been here, I found genuinely shocking.
00:23:33.540Well, so there's another thing, which is sort of the beginning of the end of a civilization, which is California has very intense rules for people who pay taxes and play by the rules.
00:23:51.020I mean, insane amount of regulation, red tape.
00:23:55.860But conversely, if you do not want to pay taxes or you can then construct yourself a shelter on the side of the freeway and you will be left alone.
00:24:10.900We have some of the most stringent building codes and they're up your ass every step of the way.
00:24:17.600So if you own a home and you want to build a gazebo in your backyard, that's a two-year permit situation there.
00:24:25.860But if you'd like to not pay taxes or property taxes and just build a plywood home in the park, you will be left alone.
00:24:35.720And that's why we have over-regulated for those who are playing by the rules and almost zero regulation for anyone who wants to just slam drugs and live in the street.
00:24:49.880What's the philosophy behind that from the powers that be?
00:24:52.620I, I, there's a, there's a kind of a weird system, which is like, you have money, you can afford a home.
00:25:01.660You know, that homeless person is sort of noble and needs our help and we're going to punch up.
00:25:07.980We're not going to punch down and leave them alone.
00:25:10.520And I, I chronicled this in a, a book I wrote a few years ago, which is, I started noticing, there's a street, it's called Forest Lawn Drive and it goes by the cemetery and it's three miles from here.
00:26:40.720If they're undercutting the flower store up the street, who has to pay insurance and, and all the expenses that are incurred with running a business in Los Angeles, those people operate with impunity.
00:26:52.980And our government is handing out tickets to the soccer mom who's driving her kid to school.
00:27:00.020I noticed that about 10 years ago and I was like, something's broken here.
00:27:04.660You either have to bust both people or you got to let the soccer mom go too.
00:27:09.720And so we start, that's the path, that's a progressive path.
00:27:14.700I don't know what, I don't know what's considered compassionate about letting people just sort of die in the streets or sell their goods in the streets or all cash under the tail.
00:27:36.340We don't know what, I, I, I went out on a boat with a guy who ran the Staples Center, which is now, I don't know, the crypto center or whatever it is.
00:27:46.840And I said to him, I, I walked out of a Lakers game a couple of years ago with my son.
00:27:53.100There's besieged with people with makeshift hot dog carts and propane tanks just selling street food.
00:28:00.460But I said, it was all on your property.
00:28:04.420It wasn't, it was right by, right, there's the door.
00:28:06.800And as you walk out of the venue, it's like a bang into a guy that, he pulled out his phone and he showed me a picture of one of those carts with a giant cockroach cooking on it.
00:29:09.940It just means if he, he as the taxpayer who runs the Staples Center, if he goes to the city council and says, I want you to get these people off of my whatever, they'll go after him.
00:29:22.020Like, that's, I mean, we did the same with COVID.
00:29:25.360It's like, that's, that's just where we're at.
00:31:50.880You'd expect people to start voting not only with their feet, but also in the voting booth or not.
00:31:55.680Well, you know, it's kind of a weird thing.
00:31:58.860And so, you know, I guess it depends on how ensconced you are in a way of doing things.
00:32:07.320Like, you know, we had a, tried to do a recall on our, Gavin Newsom, the governor, you know, he won by a landslide.
00:32:15.760And my mom, who's, I talked to my mom about it, and about six months ago when this whole thing was going on, she's a lifelong kind of Californian and progressive.
00:34:20.640But then when, when change happens, when you bottom out and I go, okay, so you have to bottom out.
00:34:28.540Like, yeah, that's when the change happens.
00:34:30.580So it's like, we're, we got a teenage daughter and we removed all of the nail polish remover from her bedroom because she's huffing it in a sock.
00:35:55.600So, you know, and we look at it almost like historically.
00:36:01.520Like, like if, if, if there were two drinking fountains for black Americans and white Americans and California would certainly be the first place to outlaw that, you know.
00:36:11.480And we go, because we set the trends, you know.
00:36:14.520And historically, it's like, yeah, we do.
00:36:18.340We've kind of set the trends and we're progressive.
00:45:25.860I had so many people telling me what to do and what not to do and so much misreporting and so much everything that I was just like, whatever goodwill I had with the, you know, with this group or that, you know, I've lived in this country my whole life.
00:45:40.580The CDC was like, yeah, whatever they tell you to do, you do it, you know, because they're the, they're the experts.
00:45:45.200They don't have an agenda other than your health, the nation's health or whatever it is.
00:45:50.180And I, honestly, that's how people felt about CNN a few years ago.
00:46:38.100But that is a terrifying place for America to be in because if you no longer have faith in the institutions, doesn't that really say you've got no, you don't really have faith in America itself?
00:46:48.040I think you shift it to, you know, you get back to sort of God guts and guns.
00:46:54.420Like, I'm no longer listening to what the FBI experts have to say about Hunter Biden's laptop, you know what I mean?
00:47:01.940The 51 security experts signed off to say it was, it was fake Russian propaganda.
00:47:08.220It's like, all right, so these guys are experts or Fauci or CDC or, you know, infectious disease, like experts, like, or Twitter or Facebook.
00:47:18.360Like, you're pulling off doctors who disagree with you, you're putting on doctors who do agree with you.
00:47:25.040I think people are just going to have a different relationship with experts, so to speak, or even the FBI or the institutions.
00:47:33.360And, yeah, it's definitely going to erode some of your relationship with the government if you hear the FBI or the CIA or the CDC or Dr. Fauci or the vice president says, and you go, sure it did.
00:47:52.520Yeah, yeah, and then you end up going, well, let's go over to Substack and see what these guys have to say about monkeypox, because I don't believe what the president is saying about monkeypox, you know what I mean?
00:48:06.540Or Don Lemon on CNN, like, all right, let me go on.
00:48:11.500So it's going to force people to then go into these alternative places and find information, which then the mainstream will label as dangerous misinformation.
00:48:25.820It's like dangerous misinformation who was right about most of COVID as the dust settles.
00:48:42.400I think, you know, ultimately, people have to understand that politics used to be a very small, boring part of our culture that nobody really wanted to talk about at a dinner party.
00:49:39.260There was no – there wasn't much room in our conversation for politics because it was considered sort of boring and stuff old guys talked about.
00:53:11.420I was like, because it is a very true statement, but it also wouldn't be true inside of a college campus.
00:53:18.800There's many female professors now and female CEOs and stuff like that.
00:53:23.360And I thought, a progressive couple, a couple that was more modern, more progressive, and more of all these things we talked about, would never own a motorcycle.
00:54:39.960It was, everything's a launching pad for me.
00:54:43.380But I did kind of get a lot of questions and went, it was like, it's kind of the difference between going out and doing stand-up and kind of going, here's what I'm talking about.
00:54:59.400Versus somebody in the room going, talk about, and then they yell something out, you know.
00:55:04.220And now it's like it's a little different dynamic.
00:55:08.260And you're kind of going, I wasn't planning on talking about that.
00:55:11.520But now you're sort of challenged, like, how do I make this interesting, funny, unique, and what have you, given it wasn't something I was planning on talking about.
00:55:21.280And I found it to be kind of interesting that way.
00:55:24.860Adam, do you feel constrained in your comedy more than you did 10, 20 years ago?
00:55:28.840Could you get away with more stuff before than you could now?
00:55:31.860Well, you know, I think it's all about sort of how you position yourself and, you know, if you, I say horrible things all day, but no one ever asks me to apologize because I've sort of positioned myself as someone who doesn't apologize.
00:55:51.620So if you kind of position yourself in a certain way, then you can avoid a lot of this stuff.
00:55:59.300Now, I don't know that it's going to help your career that much, per se, but for me, I've always just kind of felt like, well, I'm a comedian, so I have some license to say whatever I want to say whenever I want to say it.
00:56:16.080Now, we've kind of changed the rules of that recently, but I never changed my mind on that rule, which is I get to say what I want to say because I'm a comedian.
00:56:48.180I do mean most of the things I joke about, but they're jokes, so I get to say what I want, and my feeling is like, you know, I'm a carpenter.
00:56:59.400I can go back to swinging a hammer if I have to.
00:57:02.980I have a trade I could fall back on, and I would never want to compromise what I want to say.
00:57:10.060I just, I feel like that's a Faustian deal with the devil.
00:57:15.340Like, it's just, and why, why would you ever want to alter or even trim what you have to say?
00:57:24.300And I get there's certain language and there's certain sign of the times and, you know, that kind of stuff.
00:58:19.340We're going to ask you a couple of questions for our supporters, only from our supporters.
00:58:22.940But before we do, the last question for the main interview is always the same, which is, what's the one thing we're not talking about as a society that you think we really should be?
00:58:31.140Well, we're not talking about dads and the importance of dads.
00:58:34.800I think, you know, we sit around and we kind of chase problems.
00:58:38.140Like, what's going on with all this street crime?
00:58:41.440What's going on with failing school systems?
00:58:44.340You know, what's going on with all the substance abuse or, you know, homelessness or suicides?
00:59:13.380And my feeling is, like, maybe there's a third choice, which is, like, where are their dads and what roles do they play in their life and what the hell happened?