The Adam and Dr. Drew Show - #2064 - Daughters of the American Revolution

Episode Date: December 19, 2025

Adam and Dr. Drew start the show with Drew reminiscing about the “nepo babies” who grew up in Malibu in the ’70s and ’80s and how many of them ended up as famous actors. Adam contrasts that world with how poor families think about work, explaining that when you’re scrambling to pay bills, you don’t fantasize about becoming a doctor or lawyer—you grab whatever job is available. He also reflects on his own unremarkable family lineage and why he’s never had much to brag about there.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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and board certified physician and addiction medicine specialist Dr. Drew Pinsky. You're listening to The Adam and Dr. Drew Show. Yeah, get it on. I got there on a month to get on the Badoo do. Yeah, but da'abadoo. Hey, I have a big for you. Mm. You ready for this?

Uh-huh. Okay. So I've been thinking a lot about, you know, why the millennial generation, what the world looks like to them. And I've just, these are not fully formed ideas, so I need your help on them. Mm-hmm. I was watching, say, the Charlie Sheen documentary, and during that, I watched all these Malibu kids, and I'm like, oh, I knew those kids when I was 17. Those are rich kids from Malibu. It's not the same kind of rich that we think of as Malibu now, but that was upper middle class in those days.

These were rich kids. And who else? I heard somebody else. Sean Penn was in this group. And in any event, I started thinking about. Listen, they were all out there. Roblo was out there, Emilio Estevez. I mean, the pens, there's three Penn brothers.

They're all in show business. And then there's three Estevez brothers. And so there's a group of people that you've heard of that were out there. And so I watched the movie Jay Kelly, which is this new Clooney movie with Adam Sandler. And it's sort of tilting at this issue that I'm trying to bring up here, which is that people who came from middle and really upper middle class backgrounds, when they thought about career choices, these were. their choices. Doctor, lawyer, maybe accountant, actor. And if kids, the ones that really wanted to throw in became actors, you know, and when you look at these guys that became successful actors, they just were nepo, nepo babies, but we're throwing in the way people were doing it in the 70s as opposed

to, nepo, I'm sorry, nepo, whatever. Is it nepo? I don't even know. Well, well, what's the word nepotism? Nepotism, nepo. Then we have our answer. Fair enough. But think about, but think about it this way, all of it is the history of technology in the sense that when people in the first half of the 20th century got famous, it's because they stood in front of this new technology called celluloid film. And all those people either came off the stage or off vaudeville. And they had talent, skills. They were trained professionals. And someone said, hey, we have this new thing. Do it here. Do it in front of this camera. And they're like, okay, well, I'll create a tramp character, you know,

doing in front of the camera. It's fine. I did that in London theater. And, oh, yes. You know, I, I, what's the, who's the guy's house that you, that you bought? Oh. Hans Conry.

I think he was from the theater in New York. I'm pretty sure, actually, they brought him on. I said, do your stuff in front of the camera here. And then they became famous and wealthy, but they didn't seek it in the way the latter half of the 20th century, people went out to go after that.

Much in the way that today, the technology just shifted. But again, and when people are just sort of becoming popular, they're doing it with this thing in our hands, the phone. And so there, and the Jay Kelly thing was sort of tilting at the fact that that era is just done. It's over, which it is, but that they are feeling very empty because they sought it out and thought it was going to be a solution to their problems, and it was not.

And it's the most narcissistic that generally succeeded. And plenty of them went into medicine, too, and they're the source of all the excesses of the medical system today, people that are narcissistic and dark triad and stuff, they're going to tell you how to do, you know, you have to take this because I said so. That's a dark triad thing. So it's just interesting to sort of look at all these things through the prism of history and who now has ended up in these positions and then what that must look like to the millennial generation, you know, who has, they don't have the same options as all.

That's very different from their perspective. You wouldn't become a doctor, really, if you really were a super, motivator, ambitious, you'd become, it's a wrong of business. You'd do, you know, Wall Street, whatever. There were different options for them. Well, I just curious in your thoughts. Did I frame that in a way that makes sense? Yeah, I think. It's interesting to think about it in the sweep of the 20th century. They had, you know, they may not have grown up rich, but they grew up with the option to explore what they wanted to do as adults. They could throw in. They could throw in, And you couldn't.

Well, no. Yes, that's true. So poor people, they don't really sit around and fantasize about being doctors or lawyers or movie actors. They basically think about jobs. And not only jobs, most of the discussion is hourly rate. Like we'd have discussions. Like, what would you do for $10 an hour? For $10 an hour?

I would clean out latrines at concerts, you know, and things like, you, literally, we had the conversation in a, in a carpet cleaning van once. Like, what would you do for 10 bucks an hour? And most every thought was an hourly wage. Forget about, you know, cop, fireman school teacher. That, that was a bridge too far. Yeah. It was hourly wage stuff.

And, you know, it was like a lot of, it's poor person thinking, you know, but I, I, I, I remember being on job side. I remember there was a young carpenter, young-ish. You know, maybe he was a year or two older than me, but he was young. He's getting $15 an hour. Ooh, big money in a days. I remember like sitting around and go 15 an hour, 80, 120, oh. Whoa, 120 a day.

It's going to make $600 a week. I can live by myself. Yeah, it was crazy. So you get very caught up in an hourly wage type. everything is hourly wage. And by the way, whatever, benefits, time off, paid vacation, sick days, medical, dental. That's all a British shoe fart. That all exists somewhere.

That starts with the cop and the firemen and the school teacher, but we're not worked our way to that. We're not even close to that. We're in the hourly. And it kind of starts off with like, well, Mrs. Cravitz will give you $5 an hour to come to her house and help her clean her garage or whatever. and that's like, that's all it ever was. I mean, you know, McDonald's. You're getting $3.10 an hour. You work seven hours today.

You made $22. You know, that's just how it worked, right? And so you get really into that mindset of poverty and hourly wage with no perks and no benefits. And then at some point, so those guys grew up with the luxury. to dream and that they had time. So obviously whenever... I'm going to add another wrinkle to it too. Yeah.

Which is there's an immigrant thing here too in that my dad came from the Depression, they, you know, part of the diaspora from Ukraine, and they were scared shitless all the time. And for me, as the progeny of all that great immigration history, which was highly traumatic for them, me not getting a profession, was. Panicsville. How the fuck? What? You have to... And he used to say this. He used to go, once it's in here, they can't take it away from me. He pointed his head.

You have to. You have... Then you go do what you want. But you have to have a profession first. And that was an immigrant thing. Yeah, you know, it's interesting because I was thinking about my kids today who are like, you know, it's somewhere between Jack and squat in terms of what they're up to. They're up to

enjoying themselves, you know, kicking around, figuring out what they want to do. I don't really care, but it is, it's weird to, you know, what they're doing is they're enjoying themselves, is what they're doing. Well, that's a millennial thing. And they're sort of thinking about what they might like to do one of these days, but it has to be enjoyable. It's not going to be just work.

But anyway, how many generations of Quarola's here in this country? Well, I guess my dad's parents would have come. come here from Italy. Okay. But my mom is, you know, daughters of the revolution stuff. They've been here forever. As far as I can tell. Now, understand my grandmother claimed to be a daughter of the revolution or whatever it is.

There's some organization where if you're great, great, great, whatever, signed the declaration of something, then you would be a daughter. of the thing of the, you know, it's some designation that my grandmother was trying to give herself, although my mother would not recognize it. And it was a perfect scenario because my grandmother would go, you know, I'm a daughter of the revolution. You can look it up, Andrew, but there's some, they don't have meetings or anything, but there's some designation if you're here and somebody signed the declaration. It's the D-A-R.

The D-A-R, it's called. Yeah, the D-A-R. And then she'd give that speech about it, which is... I just love that your mother wouldn't let her have it. Well, the thing that was funny about it is my grandmother was a supreme narcissist, but she hated this country and always talked shit about this country. But if it meant a little glory to her for being a daughter of the revolution, then she would accept that title, even though she wanted nothing to do with the founding fathers

and slavery and Jim Crow and atrocities. So it's like you're essentially talking shit about the country and also claiming the mantle of being a daughter of the revolution. But that, again, that was just something she could brag about. But then we would get in the car and drive home from my grandma's house and my mom would give me a whole speech about why she's not a daughter of the revolution, which I don't know what my mom knew either. I think my mom was just doing what my mom does. Your mom is very interested in withholding. That was sort of her thing, is withholding. And so she has to withhold anything like that from her mother.

Yeah. Well, what it is, what my mom did is she caught somebody bragging. Yeah. And if you ever got caught bragging for my mom, she would just tamp it. She'd throw sand and baking soda on it, like knock it. They'd knock it down. So she was explaining when my grandmother wasn't. Yeah.

But by the way, like my mom, never offered any proof why she wasn't. and she just wasn't. But so evidently, the mom's side of the family's been around for a cajillion years, although we don't know where the grandfather is or was or whatever became of him. He left, you know, when my mother was an infant, I think, or maybe two years old or something. So we've never, I don't know, no one knows what his history is. At all? No.

Oh, that's interesting. I mean, you know, look, one thing with my family I learned is never. ask questions. I just do not ask them about anything. It's too disappointing. It's disappointing, but it would also agitate my mom, which is like a weird thing. Like, I'd say like, you know, do you know anything about, you know, if I said, do you know

anything about your biological father, do you know, and she'd go, oh, I don't know. And then I'd go, I mean, you must know his name, right? Oh, I, you know what, I don't, I can't recall. And then I'd go, but were there like stories about where and she'd go hey she'd go I feel like you're you know she'd get really defensive and really weird she'd get weird mainly it was weird with my mom it wasn't even like anger was just more weirdness not worth it and you just go yeah okay all right I'm just gonna go to teddy Lewis's house and eat I'm gonna leave it I'm gonna race house and eating I would

just leave go eat and then but you learn don't don't don't go poking around asking questions so also I didn't really want to know like my family I just like look I sized everyone up as sort of losers and I just sort of my grandfather's family I knew all about because he told stories and he was sort of happy and a little bit proud of his family and Hungary and so on and so forth so I got all the skinny about him I knew my step-grandfather's brothers and sisters and where they grew up and his dad had a coffee house and Hungary and a little hotel over it and it's a room border. I know a whole story, but I, my mom and dad, I don't know anything because everything

was just like, yeah. So my wife, Susan's family in Czech Republic are very much that way. It's interesting. I have these small sort of Northern European countries and Slavic countries. They're held together by that. I mean, everybody knows everything about family, multiple generations back. back. And they're proud of it. They like it. They think about it. They want to uphold it. Yeah. We don't, we don't do that. Not us. It's not the girls. I don't know.

But best I could tell my, you know, my grandmother sat in South Philly and worked at a factory sewing stuff and the dad died. So it's just like my, my dad didn't talk about his brothers or I mean, Ralph and Mario, they live in South Philly. We didn't, there wasn't anything. I haven't, I don't even know. It's weird. I mean, it's not. It's unique. But my mother did some of that, too, though. I barely can remember how many siblings she had and don't really know much.

Yeah, it's so, it is, it is, it's so different. It's usually when they have something to hide. They're really that way. I don't, I, I, I don't, well, certainly. My mom had a ton to hide. Yeah, my family had nothing to brag about. That would, that would be at, my grandmother's brother committed suicide.

She was happy about that. that. That's about all I got. She's fucking dad died. Good. Brother commits suicide. Good. And here we are. And we got a free house. We got a house in the Valley. Nice.

The Daughters of the American Revolution is a federally charted lineage-based membership service for women who are directly descended from a patriot of the American Revolution. So somebody signed something. I had a name at some point. You know, not John Hancock, but it was just signed. And I don't think it has to sign the declaration. It had to be somebody that fought in the revolution, I think, or was a part of the revolution, so to speak.

I feel like my descendant would have, like, clean the toilet at the Capitol where they signed the Declaration of Independent, like something, like emptied the chamber pots. Yeah, yeah. Something like that. All right. Quick break right back after this. AG1, AG1 is the daily health drink that puts your multivitamin, pre and probiotics, superfood, and antioxidants all in one simple green scoop.

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Streaming Pluto TV for free Stream blockbuster hits like 21 Jump Street, Ted, The Expendables, and so much more on Pluto TV. Stream now, pay never. Just to finish my little diatribe about the celluloid industry, Dick Van Dyke has turned 100, and he was singing Mary Pop and songs and stuff. But I was watching a little brief documentary about him, and I thought, oh, there's another vaudeville graduate.

Essentially, he's doing vaudeville. He's doing clown. He's doing clown in vaudeville and tap dance and whatever, and managed to put that on TV and then film. There it was. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so those guys had, so, like, when I watched the Sheen Dock.

And musicals, too, that was his thing. And, uh, by-bye Birdie, people don't know. And also when I saw, I think it was the Val Kilmer doc, which was very interesting, um, tons and tons and tons of footage of them shooting movies, home movies. As kids. Yeah, I know. Right. And it was shocking to me.

Well. It's interesting. Well, but so here's what I'm talking about. Nobody that I knew could afford any of that stuff. and my family wouldn't have processed the film. Oh, no, wouldn't have paid for that. And then editing the film, editing equipment? What?

Well, yeah, I don't, yeah, you know, that gets a little different. But yeah, I don't know how they did it. But the whole point is I'm always amazed. I'm always amazed when these families, you know, they go, we grew up poor, we didn't have much, we didn't have anything. My dad was a factory worker. And then they show all this footage of them like from the 50s and the 60s. And I'm like, no one in my.

family would have rented a camera, bought a camera, bought the film, had the film developed, and then had a projector and a screen to project the film? Like, there is no footage. You know, you could do a documentary on Adam Crowley. You're not going to find pictures of me at age seven waving at the camera. You're not going to find photographs. My, I just remember my dad when, because I was kind of interested in photography when I was like 12, buying film, that was a big deal. Big deal. Oh, my God. You better, each photograph better be worth it.

But then the other thing, he would not allow me to have them printed because printing was 50 cents a print. But slides were like 12 cents. So everything that I do is in slides. Oh, that's an interesting one because I was about to tell you that the only person in my family that owned a camera, because my dad wouldn't own a camera. Why would he? It would be something.

And also, I mean, what's a camera for? Like, let's really examine the kind of gestalt of a camera. Like, what do you do with a camera? Well, you take pictures of your kids. And you take pictures for your prize sports car. And you take a picture of your model wife. You know what I mean? Or you take a picture of your building a new garage and there's pictures of you.

At very least, you want to remember this. Right. But what would think, okay, let's just break. it down. What would you take pictures of? Well, kids. Kids and family. Family and kids. Okay. All right. That's all. That's not going to happen. Not going to happen. Visiting places. You were somewhere and take a picture yourself. We went to the Grand Canyon. We went to the Eiffel Tower. All right. That's not going to happen. All right. Then events. We're having a big Christmas party and everyone's invited. You know, and we're going to chronicle that. Okay. No. Then there's like ancillary stuff.

like pets, you know, your first dog and all kind of, no, no pets, no. Then there is like your prized Mustang convertible that you've been restoring in the garage to give to the kids. Or any project, any project, any project, any project. Well, no. No. Even my kitchen. You might, you might, no. Remod, right?

Not going to do that. Then there is, so there's travel projects. And then there's just sort of the beauty of nature. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? Like a waterfall or something. There was a lot more of that back in those days, too. Yeah, I'm going to Yosemite, going to take pictures.

Then there was a kind of mechanical side of it. Like, I'm going to chronicle this and chronicle that, you know, or maybe I got an injury and I'm going to chronicle that or the recovery or something. There was no. No way. So why would you, why would you? 12 cents a slide, man. Well, but so here's a thing.

You're not going to do that. So my dad wouldn't have owned a camera. I dad's never owned a camera because what would he do with a camera? Well, I mean, take, well, take pictures for me in my football uniform. My dad, my dad's also sports-related stuff. Had a metal camera that was called a contacts that he got when he was in the Korean War in Japan. Well, listen, as much as you want to, as you want to moan about your dad and his Cadillac and his camera and his beach house, that's still three more things. That came later.

All right, but that's still three things that Pop Scarola's never been near. I have shitty camera and still better than zero. Yeah, no, no, that's the point. We got stuff, but oh, man, you paid. You got to be ground down for having it. And my mother, now, you could also take pictures of me in my football uniform or playing little league baseball or something.

Did they ever see you in your football? I don't know. So that's all gone. That's all off. You got your daughter, take pictures of up. Also, there's the house kind of thing, but there's nothing. And then there's yourself, pictures of you with your arm around, your colleague or something like that.

But my mom didn't want any photographic evidence of her. You know what I mean? So there was no, my mom didn't have a camera. My dad didn't have it. There was Joe pictures. My grandmother was a narcissist. And she had a camera. And she would use it when they went to Europe to just take pictures of stuff.

And then she would come back and have a slideshow where we'd had to sit there and look at pictures of bridges and stuff. in Europe that bored the shit out of us. Now, to be fair to my grandmother, she would take pictures of the grandkids. She would do that. We would dress up as something, you know, put grandpa's coat and hat on or something, and she would take a picture up.

So she did some of that. She had a camera, but was mostly European pictures and then a slideshow, which I never thought about, but she never had a photograph of there. No one had a photograph of anything. Those are rich guys of stuff, printed photograph, black and white, maybe color, no way, no way. Right.

So I made it through my life with, there's almost no photographs of my sister or myself. I mean, my grandma has some slides. Yeah, I only have slides. Oh, that's interesting. See, when I was a kid, slide seemed more exotic or more expensive, so I wasn't doing the map. We had to have the carousel. That was the exotic part. He had to have the slide projector.

My grandmother had the tray that just went straight. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And she preceded the carousel. She dragged everyone over to the house, and we'd have to do European. By the way, not like any of us were ever going to Europe. So you'd just sit there and got to see her on vacation. She would, she worked this system at the VA where she would end up with like five weeks off at the end of the whatever. You know, she worked that system, you know, vacation, take her sick days and put it into whatever.

Of course. And then, you know, literally the books, you know, Europe on $10 a day, you know, and then they were off. But for me, it was cool because when I got older, there was an empty house. We could hang out in. Nice. Yeah. And it had like a color TV, and it was a big deal. Did you have to worry about it getting destroyed by the Chris and Ray's of the world?

I guess, yeah, Ray Annamud in my grandfather's off. He told you. He Anamud? Inside. I've told this. I don't remember this story. He did what? Inside the office.

You remember. In the doors. He did an animal with the hose? Yeah. And who did he share it with? Well, me. I was laying on the. ground.

So it was my fault because I was laying down, drunk. All right, on that happy note. Was that his initial enema that day? That day? You know what I'm saying? No, no, no, we're old-hand. No, no, but was it clear?

Was it clear? I should say, I don't remember. I just remember thinking, wow, grandpa's den. You don't have to clean this up. I, would you think yourself of there, there's no limit? There's no, what is this man capable of? What is this dude capable of? Oh, there was no, there was no limit.

There was no, no. You knew that already. No, no, everyone, everyone understood. There was no limit. I had fun. Tonight, tomorrow night, over Kimmel's Club in Las Vegas, got to I'mcrow.com for all the live shows. What do you got, Drew?

Doctor.com, Dr.rew, at TV. Follow me on X and Instagram. Dr. Drew, D.R. D.D.R. Drew Pinski on Instagram. So, until next time, I'm Crow for Dr. Sane. Mahalo. Joy to the world, Pluto TV is free with all the best movies. The holidays are brutal. So it's from killing school. Stream Pluto TV, string Pluto TV, streaming Pluto TV for free.

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