The Adam and Dr. Drew Show - Classic #1034: My Dad Was A Coward

Episode Date: May 29, 2026

March 18, 2019Adam and Drew open the show continuing their conversation about Macaw’s. Adam then tells Drew about his recent conversation with his dad and Drew responds by talking with Adam about psychopathy. Before they wrap, Adam continues to talk about his dad and then pitches a new web series on planing doors.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Time for another throwback episode. This is March 18th, 2019. And we continue our conversation about McCaus. Adam then talks about a conversation he had with his dad. And we talk about psychopathy, and I'm sure we discuss oppositional defiance disorder. And then Adam keeps talking about his dad. And then we pitch a new web series on planing doors. Yes, yes. There's a lot in that story. You'll see. Enjoy it. March 18, 2019.

Thanks for listening to The Adam and Dr. Drew Show on podcast one. Recorded live at Corolla One Studios with Adam Carolla 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. Got to get on the judge video and get it on, man. Thanks for tuning in. Thanks for telling the rain about you, right? It's right as I'm talking about.

All the, no, no, no, no, no. All right. We're talking about macaws. Yeah. You're talking about cold water. Bruce Gordon's, macaw. He owned bodies in motion. I used to work there.

He had a giant macaw, and it was mean. And the thing about this guy's macaw, is it would do two things. They would crush my stopwatch and it would let out these blood-curdling screams. Right. And we were in the basement of an old town past in. Oh, this is when it was down there.

Yeah. The old one. Like a low ceiling. And that thing would just scream and you'd jump. Where was the boxing ring? There was no boxing ring down there then, right? Yeah. There was down there?

That's what I'm telling you. I remember the, they had bags, but I don't remember a ring down there. I put up all the bags. I built the whole place. And there was a ring. And this bird, it's an interesting study in the sort of tortoise and the hair of life, which is it cracked. It put its beak right through my first stopwatch. And then I got another stopwatch.

And again, look, I was goddamn poor. I mean really poor. And, you know, a $26 item was a big ticket item for me. That was not a lightly thought after. That was an important item. And it was, it's something I needed for my job. You know, I thought that way about tools and about things that had to do with my work, which is I didn't like cheap tools, a junky, bad, you know. That's when your grandmother made sure that your planer was stolen.

Yes. I would get good stuff to do a good job. And I always appreciated it. But back in the day, if I spent, you know, $138 for a good Bosch jigsaw, that was a big, big ticket item for me. How much was that planar, by the way? Is it one of those huge ones? The planer that grandma got stolen was a very expensive item.

It was probably in the $400 range. It was one of these things where if you want to hang doors professionally, you could get the Makita. First things first. You can't get a circular saw and trim the door. It's a mess. It's just a mess. You have to plane it. And not only have to plane it, you have to put a bevel on it.

People don't realize that the strike side, the side with the doorknob on it and the butt side, the hinge side, both have a very light bevel on it, especially if in the exterior door, it's an inch and three-quarter stick. If you expand it to a three-foot bank vault door, you don't see their square on the edge. One edge would catch, or if it didn't catch, it would be a huge gap.

Right. Right. Yeah. So when you do an exterior door or an interior door, but you do an inch and three-quarter door, interior is inch and three-eight, you put a little bevel. It's got a little, fine little,

you could tell if you put something square on the floor and sort of put it over it or whatever. This is a little bevel. God, I don't know, four degrees or something. This planer, this planar, you could have a fence on it. You could set the bevel on it. And also it had a blade that was spiral instead of a round blade with like two cutting edge. It wasn't chunk, chunk, chunk, chunk. It was one continuous sort of motion.

and it was just a superior product. It was, and no one else made one. And if you were going to be serious about hanging doors, you needed one of these. Is the German company, did you say? Rockwell made it. And so did Bosch as a German company. There was two, there was, you can find it, Max. I mean, Kalin, there was, Rockwell made this door player,

but it's also made by somebody else. as well. I'll figure it out. Anyway, it was about $450 and it was funny. And it was stolen. And I was literally, you know, they talk about like money making you happier and happiness or whatever it is. Porter Cable was the coming to Rockwell and Porter Cable and make it together, whatever it is. Money doesn't make you happy. But when you don't have money and your Porter Cable slash Rockwell door planer gets stolen, you're in a funk for days. Like I mean, I was. fit to be tied. I was literally depressed. I was like, I've got to hang a door. It's not, it wasn't an item that other people had. Is that it? Yeah, we're looking at it now.

I could not, I could not borrow this from, you know, my buddy who had some tools or whatever. It was a very specific tool. And it came in this big, beautiful box. And that's all I had left was this big beautiful box. Huh. Drew's looking at it now. It's majestic, isn't it? It is.

I can't figure out how you choose it. I don't get Drew on Easton the House. Yeah, Drew, you could just sit there and draw blanks. It's just so crazy to me. Yeah, they'll find. Camelot will find some, oh, there's the box. What? Oh, there it is, yeah.

Yeah, it was an empty box is what I had. Helium box. That's really, that was my whole adolescence, a whole young life there. It's an empty box. That's a different planar down there. Yeah, there a little bit. different. They'll find one of those things moving in action.

That's what I envision. Well, you're looking at the wrong side of it. Okay. Jesus Christ. Anyway, it's a nice item. If you guys are into hanging doors commercially. I think I still have one today. I think I bought another one.

Either way, being poor sucks. Oh, that goddamn macaw. Yeah. That macaw. So tortoise and the hair, Drew. I then got a new stopwatch And I would work with my clients in the ring And I would use the stopwatch

As like a ring counter And I would see that goddamn bird It'd get off its perch And it would start walking toward us And it would drag its feet It would drag It's like claws You know drag drag drag drag

It was just walking Walking walking And I would be up in the ring Like kind of working with somebody and I'd look down and I'd see the McCaw walking. I'd go, okay. Here we go. Here we go.

But he moves like a turtle and it's not much time here. I mean, I got, I do have time. And at some point he'd get up to the ring apron, you know, and he'd get up on the ring. Mm-hmm. And I'd just stare at him and look at me and I go, I still got time because my stopwatch is on the turnbuckle on the pad. I like the other side of the ring. Yeah. He would grab the rope.

had like the vinyl sleeve on it, kind of hanged down a little. He'd reach up. He'd grab the rope, the little vinyl sleeve. He'd pull himself up and he'd get to one. And then you'd go up to the next one the same way. And I'd just look at him going, all right, he's on the ring. And I just kind of like, I'll keep an eye on him.

I'll keep an eye on him. He'd move so slow. And at some point he'd get to the top. But he'd have to walk all the way around to get to mine. I'm like, all right, bugger, I see you now. All right, I don't work with this guy for a minute. And then I'd hear a crunch. And I'd like turn around and look and he mashed it.

This is how Walking Dead works. Yeah, I really, I learned that like, look, go move the stopwatch now. Like, don't wait until he, you know, he moves so slowly. Like, I'll just wait until he gets 10 feet away and then I'll just walk over there and whatever. Eventually, I started bringing the crunch ones as a decoy. Ah. Shrewd, right? Smart, yeah.

Yeah. There it is in action. He's got the wrong tool. That's the wrong tool. What is that? Rockwell, Nate's reading. I don't know what he's... I don't know what he's doing there.

We're watching a guy. He's got a planer. He's not doing a door. Oh, yeah. He's just planing. I guess he's plaining, but he's not doing it. That's a planar, but that's not the door. That's not the same item.

Got it. That's the idea, though. Yeah, the whole thing is you need the fence on it. You ride the fence along the door, and you set the bevel on the fence. Yeah. You feel me, Drew? I do. Then you set the depth with this knob.

I mean, this sort of, I don't know, it's sort of like trying to picture what. The back of it has sort of knob that you turn up with your thumb and you can kind of set the depth. And you always want to go a little light at the beginning. You don't want to get all gougy, you know, take it easy. Sure. You can't go backwards. Right. On the other side of the door, or on the same side of the door, whatever, then you get your template.

You ever wonder how, you ever look at a door, everyone? Everyone, go to your door right now. You ever see like where they have the hinges and the corners are round and they just like they snap them in place? They look like they're just snapped into the wood. Yes. And you kind of go, how they chisel out? Yes. Perfectly.

So perfectly. Yes. Why is it round? The template. It's That's That's got the wrong Is that it there?

No, it's not it It's got the wrong planer And there's no bevel Because you're doing the bottom of the door You re-constituted beings At first, I didn't think it was real I woke up to this blinding light And I was transported to another place

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Uh, Kaelin, just for shits and giggles. Yeah. So if you type in Porter Cable door planer and you hit video, does it just show that? Um. I was typing in Rockwell door planer, and that was the first one that came up that person. Ah, that's right, Porter Cable. Say it works. Anyway, uh, this ain't as on the house, but the way they get those, um, why do they, why they,

why they go from square hinges to round hinges? That I don't know. Why? Is that something to do with the snapping in? Or the tool to create the indentation. The tool. So let's think about it. The mortis for the hinge was always just done with a guy in a chisel.

Now it's done with a trimmer router. A circular. Yeah. A little straight bit, a half inch straight bit. But there's a collar around it that doesn't prevent it from digging into the template. Yeah, yeah. So now this template is put on. It's nailed to the edge of the door.

You fire up this router and you go around the template with it. You hang the bid out the thickness of the hinge. That part goes and cuts. Right. The sleeve is the height of the template. And that just rides along the edge. And, of course, it's going to make a round corner because you couldn't make a square corner with a round device. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. So you just go that thing and then they snap it in. And that's why it fits like it fits. You think, oh, that guy's good with a chisel. It's not that. I figured there was something. Yeah, automated about it.

Right. So that's why they went from the round. And that's kind of why if you see like a high-end house, they'll be square hinges because they're saying kind of like, hey, once they'll still hit it with the template and then they'll square up the corners. You know, they'll use a device sometimes to square it up. Well, they'll just do it by hand. But it just shows it's kind of like.

It's craftsmanship. The round edge hinges are a little, you know. Standard. It's, yeah, yeah. It doesn't make a difference, but I kind of aesthetically suggest that you're just knocking it out. Yeah. Interesting, right? Yeah.

So it's this funny. It's this step toward technology, but you also kind of get rid of it at a high level. Is it? It's weird that we can't find anyone planning a door, right? This was like the sixth video down, too. Most of them, they just show it without it in action. What's wrong with the internet? It's a lot of dudes with mustache is talking to the camera.

Oh, yeah. God willing to be that dude in a few months. All right, this guy's doing nothing. All right. So you try to find footage on the internet of somebody planing a door, and it literally doesn't come up. Most of it's just reviews or selling. without it being in action.

Helen Gorox says it would be a fine planer if you didn't get ripped off by a hobo. Three and a half stars. Helen Gorog. I had a chat with my dad today. Oh, tell. He told me he did the fourth grade three times. Well, I was, we got, I. You and I have a, I have to have a conversation.

that I've been thinking about, and I'm not quite sure how to frame it. And he was in my thinking about it. And essentially, it was thinking, this is going to take three shows. This is a conversation. By the way, that air conditioning is running, doing something weird to my life. Well, we can shut off the air. But it's just weird. It's never done it before.

You know what I mean? I've never had that experience. I don't know. I don't think anyone's monkeyed with anything. Anyway, he figured into my thinking a little bit about. your genetics. I started thinking about your genetics. And this is not meant to be pejorative or diagnostic. Okay. A friend of mine is an expert in psychopathy. What's psychopathy? Psychopathy is a certain genetic disorder of the brain. And it's people that become murderers

are usually have a psychopathic underlying. Oh, like psychopathic. Yeah. Psychopathy. But the term has begun to be used a lot more broadly. about people that I have, well, don't respond to fear. Don't get afraid. Fear doesn't really affect them. May not really have ease and appreciate other people's emotions, like experiencing other people's emotions. And having like low pulse rates, is that familiar? Seeing being hypervigilant but not being fearful.

So yeah, it's interesting because you think if you're hypervigilant. vigilant, you're fearful. Except you're the opposite. You're like turned down. You're like your engine's turned down. And I'm not saying you're a psychopath, but you have some of these qualities. And I started thinking, I think we haven't figured out yet what some of these biological qualities are and all the different things they appear in. You know, in the words, like could they appear in narcissism? Could they appear in psychopathy?

Could they appear in, like some of the things I was just describing are things you hear in people who have autism, right? Mm-hmm. And yet they're sometimes hyper-fearful but have some of the same kinds of biological proclivities. So I don't know, and I presented you to her,

just because you're so unique in your biology. And she goes... Is it to punctuate everything? And a mic slam? I didn't mean to. I got it caught on the cable here. This ain't wild and out. And she goes, oh. He's a pro-social psychopath.

pro social don't tell Lynette any of this shit plays because she'll actually don't worry don't worry don't worry and I don't know that I believe it but I thought it would be interesting conversation sorry pro pro social psychopath she goes she goes it's like Bill Clinton Bill Clinton's a pro social psychopath in her

estimation and in my estimation he's a pro social narcissist right so you see how immediately there's lots of different ways to look at these things my dad I should I should chime in that much a fair bit of today's discussion was him being fearful. He's very fearful.

Interesting. Very scared. Was always scared. Because what I was seeing, I've never really spent time with him, but what I thought I was seeing in all those photographs you did say in the stand-up, not talk about material, was him being, he looked confused to me. He looked kind of confused and addled at anything that was going on around him. Well, he's very fearful. Yeah. He always was very fearful.

Not in a, oh my goodness, I'm going to voice it kind of way. Yeah. So he was telling me today that he just grew up in fear. He grew up on the south side of Philly, and he's basically said there was a black side of town, and there's an Italian side of town, and you had to sort of being an Italian gang, if you're Italian for protection and probably vice versa and he didn't want any part of it and he was just scared I mean the black kids would just beat your ass if you were just sort of out on your own so they had to sort of gang up and travel in groups and blah blah blah did he get in fights or did he

no I think I think my my my dad is one I would say one of the least physically capable people have ever met my life and and I I'm in the handicapped His fear is justified. It's appropriate fear. It's appropriate. He should have been fearful. He could not do anything physical. Yeah.

And he had immense fear about having to do something physical. So he literally just sort of ran to school. Like he was telling me today, he was sort of go from car to car to car, like down this one street, like literally hiding, you know, ducking behind. And then there'd be the 50-yard sprint to the back door to the school. And that was it. So he was very fearful and has no physical prowess at all. Is that why he left the area, came out here, like get away as far as I can kind of thing? I don't think so.

He did you meet your mom out here? Yes. Yeah. I believe. He toured. He was basically scared to death. Yeah. It's essentially physically unable to defend himself or to.

do wood shop or metal shop or whatever. He was basically considered an imbecile and sent to trade school, but because he had no physical ability to weld or put wood together or whatever, he ended up playing the trumpet. In trade school, when playing the trumpet was a job. You know, he could be getting a band and tour and go from town to town. Studio musician. Yeah, but back then, I think it was much more.

like get in this bus and go tour. So he said he did not take any academic classes. He essentially failed the fourth grade a few times. At some point, somebody sort of got hold of him and went, hey, you're not cutting it. You should go to. Same thing. Maybe same stuff you were dealing with. I don't think I have dyslexia.

I actually got tested for dyslexia. I don't have dyslexia. I wonder what it was he was contending with. It's interesting because he was just anxiety. He was contending with something. He grew up in South Philly and like super poor Italian kind of neighborhood. I don't think his parents, you know, his parents were from Italy or whatever. They didn't know anything.

The one's read to him or anything. And he showed up, he got to school. I don't know that he and I. share a comparable or a common genetic thing. I do know we were,

he had a scholastic his relationship with school was my relationship with school and he essentially was, oh, he was the guy with the alcoholic dad who married the alcoholic or became the alcoholic at and abused his kid. Like it wasn't, I don't know if it, I don't know how much is genetic or how much is just, oh, you just did what you just did to me. Right. Like, that's what you did.

Right. I think there's more of that where he got to school. He didn't know how to do anything. And they were like, you're an imbecile and you got to go learn to play the trumpet. Let me make sure I'm clear on what you're saying. So in other words, because his parents didn't say, hey, take some math, take some reading, learn how to read, didn't do anything. He didn't do anything. I think, yes, I think as a child, he didn't learn his way around studying, and then he became this sort of adult. It's kind of weird, he explained to me, his fear. I had it too. It's weird being illiterate and sort of living in modern day society.

You live in a little bit of fear that the game of Scrabble is going to break out. When did he learn to read? I would, I, it's probably learned like I did, like along the way. I would have fear about playing charades. Yeah, yeah. It's actually just write down a profession. I couldn't read it off the little piece of paper, the kids party or something. So he was that way too.

It's a funny story with his school records. I'll tell you in a second. I try to be intentional about what I wear. Usually something comfortable, but, you know, put together. I'm on camera sometimes. lately quince has been my go-to they got everything you need for the spring including 100% European linens shorts shirts starting at just 34 bucks their pants are relaxed and comfortable but still polished enough to wear anywhere and if you're like me you like saving money at quince everything is

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And physically probably should have been. And then couldn't do anything. And then scholastically, end up just kind of puttsing around school and playing the trumpet. He never did take the science classes and the English classes and blah, blah, blah. Essentially couldn't read a write or anything. And then he got out of high school and just went on tour with a big band. He was playing one-night stands, staying in motels. Crazy.

So at a certain point, he ended up in, like, Santa Monica, got off the bus, like when they were on tour and just said, like, I'm staying here in Santa Monica. And said, some neighbor or somebody or somebody said, like, I'll get you signed up for some classes over at Santa Monica Junior College. And I'll send for your records. And he's like, no, don't. Don't do that, you know, and there's like, I'll do it.

And the guy sent for his records and all the records I said, like, you know, history and English, like check, check, check. Because back then somebody just went like, look, I don't know, this guy's an imbecile. I don't want to get into trouble. Just check the boxes and say, went to class. You know, like, we don't, we're in the business of sort of, you know, more like a puppy mill, you know, it's just get them up, get them out, get them out. You know what I mean?

Like, it's not going to be a doctor. It's not our fault. Right. You know what I mean? So we don't want to get in trouble. So just check all those boxes saying he went everywhere and then just that's what his record said. So the guy was like, well, look at you. You did pretty good, you know.

Wow. You know, sign you up. He told me handed in a paper once at junior college. And the guy said, I liked your paper. What is your first language? Oh, ha, ha, ha. Oh, my God. That's hysterical.

prompted this this uh sharing uh you know he just he knows he's going to die pretty soon and i think he just kind of went like i don't know let me should get the record straight yeah just get you know get a little stuff off my chest get a little talk in you know he's not a bad guy just you know did you share anything back yeah i i i uh we talk about things i i was just mostly listening and i was kind of thinking about what a sort of how insane it was that he found my mom and that I thought he should be married like the two least competent people on the planet you know what I mean did you question that at all or I I just I just I just can't leave I just the notion look being being a kid of my mom is pretty bad I can't imagine being married to her I just couldn't

imagine. But as you said, she kind of held it together through her 20s. And then you said it was like a Bugs Bunny cartoon. Well, of a sudden one hair goes, do you, yo, yon, yon, y'all, and the whole thing falls apart. It was like when Jim Ignatowski had his first hit

off of joint. Right, right. Oh, we got to, we may have a porter cable planar. Uh-oh. It's doing a fence. He's got the fence. That is? He's setting the He's no

Sending the depth He's pushing it through He's planing on an old piece of wood He's got the fence going there I don't know why he's using it on him I don't know what he's doing with it That's good But you can't finish the rest of the gate

You got a fence on there All right How's that going to work? It's not going to work That's weird Is that beveled? No, it's a door planar And he's doing a flat piece of fence

Internet It's a little disappointing A little disappointing A little disappointing Maybe I should put out my own Oh you know it would be off the chart successful Me and my own series of Porter Cable Doorplaining video series

People would love to watch that Oh my God Brought to you by Ace on the House I'll get on it right now Oh man I'm going to be like today's subject Masonite slab doors And chicks are going to start getting moist And guys are going to start tearing up

You know I'm going to blow up the end internet. With Masonite slab doors. Well, we could do a raised panel. Yeah? I'm not saying it's got to be old Masonite. Okay.

Yeah. I'll do holocor. I'll do solid core. I'll do like a timely solid core, like a two-hour burn rating. Oh, man. I hope you're writing this down, Matt. I mean, yeah. Yeah, like one of those ones with a pneumatic closer to stop the fire from going from your garage.

Like a hotel room door? Yeah. Oh, that's a whole new series, commercial series. Oh, man. I'm going to be the darling of this town. I know this town well. They will toast me when I'm done with my porter cable. Sorry. Go ahead.

Toast a true car. That's right. Cars have stories. But you can't put a price on those stories. I'm Ann Carroll to Dr. Bruce. Hey, Mahala. At first, I didn't think it was real. I woke up to this blinding light, and I was transported to another.

place. Pluto TV. Then I heard a voice. Come with me if you want to live. There were thousands of movies and shows and they were all free. The truth is ours. It's just so beautiful. On Pluto TV, free streaming of Terminator 2, Fringe Arrow, the 100 NX files may cause excitement, loss of sleep and sudden belief in extraterrestrials. No credit cards or alien encounters necessary. Pluto TV, stream now, pay never.