The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 477: Adam Carolla Has Some Thoughts

Episode Date: March 31, 2026

Adam Carolla sits down with Mike for a wide-ranging, no-holds-barred conversation on comedy, culture, and California. Adam breaks down his no-nonsense approach to making people laugh, building a podcasting empire, and telling the truth as he sees it—whether it's popular or not. The two also take a hard look at the Palisades more than a year after the fire, the growing frustration with California's regulatory maze, and what Adam really thinks about Newsom. Spoiler alert—it ain't good. Oh, you better believe Adam Carolla has some thoughts. Tip o' the hat to our excellent sponsors ZipRecruiter.com/Rowe to post a job for FREE. NetSuite.com/Mike Download their FREE business guide, Demystifying AI MDriveForMen.com Use code ROWE for 20% off your first order. KnobelSpirits.com Spend $100, use code CARL, and get bitters-infused sugar cubes FREE.

My old friend Adam Carolla is standing by to share some thoughts with you, which is why this episode of the way I heard it is called Adam Carolla has some thoughts, Chuck. I thought I'd go just guns blazing with all the literalness I could muster. You really hit it on the head, man. You know, I feel it's in keeping with the tenor of this conversation to speak clearly and to tell the truth and to not obfuscate in any way. It's always fun to talk to Adam. Go ahead.

Well, you never know where it's going to go. But you always know that he's going to be honest with you. He's just always got a truth cam on him. Yeah. He really does always tell the truth. It sure seems that way. It's funny, you know, you look around and you realize all of a sudden that guy's kind of been in my life.

You know, like all the way back on Loveline with Dr. Drew. Right. You know, the first time I came out to L.A. for any length of time. In my car, I just remember listening to these things. in the middle of the night going, yeah. Oh, man, that is a very unusual show, you know, for radio. And then he kind of blew himself up. I think he got fired from K-Rock, maybe it was.

Did he? I don't know. I don't remember that. Yeah, there was all kinds of radio drama. And then he was one of the first guys to podcast, you know. Yeah, that I knew. Yeah. I think he still has the, well, I can't imagine this.

I guess it's true. The most downloads or something. Yeah, it's a Guinness record, something, blah, b'-b-b-b-b-bla. Think about Adam is, you know, I've done his show, I don't know, three or four times, I guess, and he's been on here before remotely. This is the first time he actually came by and sat in our new chairs here at our new table. Sweet. It's really cool.

But it's difficult to know how to introduce the guy, which I'll demonstrate briefly. I mean, what is he? You know, he's a best-selling author. Is he a comedian? I mean... Sure. Yeah, he does stand up. You know, and he's done stand-up shows, too.

Up to thousands. Yeah. Yeah. But he's also an interviewer. and he's a podcaster, and of course he's a great guest. And now I, citizen journalist, raconteur, observer of the human condition? Yes, citizen journalists, for sure. I mean, what he's done over the last year because of the Palisade fires, which is his backyard,

he was personally affected by this, and he called it from the Git. The very first day that he broadcast after those fires, he said, nothing's going to get fixed here, guys. Yep. You know? And he explained exactly why, and like a prophet, he has, he has been correct. Yeah, well, we're 14 months now, T-minus 14 months or so. Yeah. From the fire. Virtually nothing has happened. The government here in Santa Monica and L.A. in general, and California, for that matter, in my own view is paralyzed. Apologies in advance. You know, we're going to talk candidly and maybe a little uncharacteristically about some political issues. But I just think we're at such an extraordinary inflection point in California.

Yeah, they're local issues for you and me. We live in this state and we love this state and we wish it were run better. Yeah. And gosh, how many of my friends, how many people in our industry have just left? I mean, up and left. A lot. Anyway, Adam, I just thought would be an interesting hang because I wanted to talk to him about all that stuff and whatever else is on his mind. And of course, Adam Carolla has some thoughts.

Yes, he does. About virtually anything and everything. So much fun to talk to him. It was great to see him again in person. I think you're going to enjoy every minute of the one hour and 40-some minutes we spent. Give or take. Who cares? Now you don't care anymore, do you?

No, I can't. You know why? Because it doesn't do any good. It doesn't do any good to care. Well, it's true. You do not care that I would like this. That I care, yeah. No, I don't.

You know, I mean, and honestly, if I'm being. totally candid. I don't care if the listener cares either. Because, I mean, no, I say that with love and respect, but look, I mean, how hard is it to stop listening if you don't want to listen anymore? That's so true. Or fast forward. You can always do that. You know, it's just like, look, do you want people to listen to you at double speed? That's an interesting question, man. No, I feel like double speed is too much. It's off putting. What's your limit? Well, it depends. If I'm listening to, say, Ben Shapiro, who talks at double speed anyway, You got to listen to him at half speed, right?

No, just a... You know, I'll tell you what, man. You can get used to virtually anything. And I remember you and I were out just walking. It was around here. And I gave you an airbud. I'm like, here, listen to this, right? Right.

I forget who it was. But I had it at like 1.75. Yeah, yeah. And he were like, dude, what is this, Swahili? Yeah, yeah. Like, what's even happening? And it's like, the truth is, I felt that way at 1.25, and then 1.5. And then, and you just get used to it.

Yeah. So look, if you want to listen to me at double speed, you can do it. I can't stop you, but you'll be cheating yourself out of a rich, well-modulated baritone. Say that three times fast. Anyway, Adam Crowell is the guest. He has some thoughts. We couldn't do this without our amazing sponsor, one of which I'd like to introduce you to right now. So the average employer, the average employer, the average employer, the average.

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The smartest way to So how many books total at this point? Well, you know, technically seven books, but I don't really count the first one. That was just a book me and Dr. Drew wrote a long time ago. I mean, at what point does it come joining me today is Adam Crolla author. Yeah. I mean, seriously, seven is not a, I mean, I wrote one just because everybody said I ought to, but I found it. what's the word, laborious? Or is it soul deadening? Or is it futile?

Well, I mean, it depends because you can look at it from an interesting perspective in the sense that, like, let's say one of my books was an autobiography of, you know, it was myself. And so, sorry. That's so many autobiographies. Yeah. No, there's autobiographical and then there's autobiography. But sorry. Well, I would never write a book about myself unless someone paid me to write a book about myself. Right. But when they do, then you have a book about yourself. And you would never do it before.

But I would never write any of my books if someone didn't pay me. So they come to you. And, you know, they probably should have done this when I was in high school. They just go, we'll give you one quarter of the money up front for the book report. and I'd go, well, I want all the money up front. Okay. And they'd go, no, no, no. If we give you all the money up front, Mr. Corolla, we're never going to get a book report.

And we want a book report. Right. So I'll tell you what, Mr. D-minus, we'll give you one quarter of the money up front to write that report on Levi Strauss. And then once you hand it in, we'll give you another draw. Right. But we're not giving you all of it until you graduate. Right. And until it gets proofread.

And what it essentially does is they, force guys who may not be good at writing books to write a book by incentivizing them. And it's kind of how the human mind works. And it's also how humans are wired. Well, did they give you an advance? Was there any of that? Yeah. Well, what they do is they go, yeah, they go, we will give you, I think the first book. They go, we'll give you a $350,000 advance. And you go, that sounds pretty good. And then you get a check for $71,000. And you go, what happened to my big fat advance? And I go, well, that's just part.

If we give it to you all, imagine giving comedians. You know, I'm like, Arnie Lang, we got a $1 million advance for you and you're getting it all up front. Right. Do you think Artie Lang is going to give you a book? Right. You will never see that book. You will see them in court. Sure.

Years later when you try to wrestle some of your money back. That's been spent, by the way. Was the first one autobiographical? No. The first one was in 50 years, we'll all be chicks, which was just sort of a take on society and life. And then the second one was not Taco Bell material, and that was biographical. That's awesome. A publisher asked me to write, I guess, a memoir, which I just thought was indecent, because you shouldn't do that until you're very old, like, really kind of done.

It seems, because there's just so much opportunity to be so wrong. Arianna Grandes, probably working on her third autobiography right now. Like some people write them at 19, you know. But, I mean, it kind of depends. By the time I got to my mid-50s or early 50s, I guess, when I was asked to write that, I feel like I'd had so many different lives at that point that somebody could get some use out of hearing about starting here. then going there and then ending up here. Sure.

So, but there's still more, there'd be more life to live for sure. Was it like publishers love a look into the world or a world that most people don't know? I know in my TV life, they became besotted with the idea of, you know, okay, we're going into the Amish world, or we're going into the Alaskan Bush people world, or we're going into this world. That's the hook. That's the whole thing. We're going to show you a world that you didn't know, which is very different than an autobiography. But you slapped the two together and maybe you get some, maybe you learn something about comedy and Adam at the same time or construction or whatever it is you're going to riff on. But for me, I was stuck. I wound up writing. I took like 30 short stories about famous people that I had written as mysteries and interrupted them. with like two pages of things that happened to me growing up. So it was like half autobiography, half biography. I thought it was terribly clever, but as it turns out, it's confused a lot of people.

That's got a little Paul Harvey to it. That's what, I mean, he called it the rest of the story. I called mine the way I heard it. Yes. And Chuck, you remember, we got a FedEx here. Oh, yeah. I mean, I hadn't written a book yet, but I was doing a show. and a column called the way I heard it

and it was a FedEx from Paul Harvey Jr. Certified mail. Certified mail from Paul Harvey Jr. Oh, really? This can't be good. This can't be good because I'm literally talking about his dad and the influence he had on me

and how I'm shamelessly taking his idea. He said, my old man is looking down and giving you two thumbs up and I'm giving you this check for your foundation because I love it. Wow. And I felt like such an ass

because I was like, I just expected the absolute worst. I think it's up there. I'm the same way. If anyone says, you know, can we talk after work? I go, oh, God, okay, what is this? He knows I'm banging his wife.

He knows it. He knows it. Yeah, it's always, it's only three guys in the office, so it's not everybody. But if you just go, like, I have a kind of a wiring where someone goes,

Oh, so-and-so was talking about you. I go, I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear it. But why not? Like, why wouldn't it be good or a nice thing? Yeah. You know what I mean? It's such a, somebody is riding, it's such a weird.

I guess we're always trapped in our sort of eight-year-old mind or something. Somebody's riding a long, detailed expose on me. And first thing, okay, I didn't even know. how to describe it. He works for a major newspaper. I can't remember the name. He writes these big, long exposés on like Norm McDonald and guys like that in the past. A lot of like luminary type. So my first impulse is, why are you talking to me? What are you talking to me for? Why would you talk to me? And he's like, well, you're interesting because you do this, you do that, but you're not really this. And you're not really that. And I got to follow you around for days

and write about you. And he goes, well, who could I talk to about you that was sort of interesting? Like, who do you know, that'd be cool, you know? And I said, well, I, you know, I'm kind of friends with Kevin Costner, but I don't know. I don't want to bother him. Like, like, I felt that way about every person, Jimmy Kimmel, Alec Baldwin. I said, these are all guys I know and they're interesting guys and they like me, but I don't want to hassle them, man. They're all so happy to do it and waxed on and very gracious.

But my default setting is like, why are you hassling these guys? And it's like, it's such a weird default set. Well, not weird, but sad. Well, do you feel that way? Like when you get the, when somebody puts the long arm on you, maybe it's a forward for a book or even just a blurb or something, is your like, is your first impression? God, homework.

Yeah, I mean, I try to stave you guys off for as long as I could. I mean, you really did. It's been, like, five years. Oh, I came on your show five, probably five years ago. I'm a big fan. Listen, I am a very soft touch in that I love to do people's stuff. I interview people for essentially a living. I don't always want to talk to everybody.

I'm not interested in every person I interview. And I love being interviewed. And I love the format. And I've always been like a radio guy and a broadcast guy. And so anybody's podcast or anybody, you know, can put the arm on me, I'm always happy to do it. Are you a better host or a better guest? I think I'm a better guest and that the guest is sort of the freestyle. Well, let's see.

And the other parts are compulsory. Yeah. Yeah. Although when you interview enough people, you get pretty good at it. Sure. But it's not, you know, when you're interviewing, you're kind of there to interview and not necessarily. be the life of the party. When did you feel like you were good at it?

And like the difference between coming in with like questions or the comfort, freedom, just to have a conversation. And I don't mean with a comedian either because you guys don't count as a cohort because you just live in a different sort of zip code for that.

But I mean like the real business, there's a scene in a movie called The Big Kahuna. It's Danny DeVito's best work. Right? It's that whole. character riff. And he says this thing to, I said, well, it's not Kevin Spacey, it's whoever the kid is. I remember the movie. They're salesmen and they're like at a convention. And he says, you know,

the last time you talk to somebody, you know, like really had a conversation, ask him about his kids. Not come in with a picture and a gender, an idea. Because once you do that, then you put your hand, that's what he says. He says, you put your hands on it and you guide it. And then it's not the thing. That's a really, and it really struck me at the time because that is our business. And you know, you get six minutes on the news or you get 10 minutes, you're doing a hit with O'Reilly once upon a time. You can't really have a conversation. You have a moment. Yeah. And so, I don't know, like, how do you think about all of that in terms of just being understood? Well, you know, I think there's so many different formats. And I feel like

You have to be a little bit of a decathlete these days. You don't have to be a world champion in long distance running or the javelin or the shot put or the long jump or whatever. But you should be competent in all those. And if you're competent in all of them, they may add up to a gold medal. And so, like, I would do, you know, dancing with the stars. and they'd go, you know, there's no swearing. This is prime time. You know, this is network prime time.

And then you would do terrestrial radio. And there was some, you know, you could say, you know, this guy's a GDA hole. You know, everything was sort of abbreviated with the letters. Right. You know, it's always funny. When you do terrestrial radio, you get, like, I know people who swear a lot. and I go, you shouldn't swear so much. And they go, you know, why the f*** not?

You know, I go, because then when you get in front of people and you don't want to swear, you end up swearing and they go, I can handle my, and at some point they're like in front of the judge. I go, this motherfucker going 80 miles an hour, Your Honor. And I'm like, you can't stop yourself from doing that. D-do-do-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-dum. Never before. Not in my life, anyway.

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It's worth your time. NetSuite.com slash Mike. That's netsuite. net sweet dot com slash mike so when you do terrestrial radio you'll find yourself on the weekends going these gd a holes with their effing you know and your buddies are going what's that the whole word and they're like now i can't i got to have one mode but for me it's like you know you can do a podcast you can get dirty you can go do network tv you can keep it clean and And you can interview someone seriously and have a serious conversation.

You can talk to a comedian. But you need to have like different modalities. And I kind of learned it early with people and partners because I've had a number of partners in my career. I was partnered with Jimmy Kimmel. I was partnered with Dr. Drew. I was partnered with Skip Bedell when we were doing our home improvement, and catch a contractor show. And Skip and Drew and Jimmy are all wildly different.

And when you partner with Jimmy, Jimmy is the alpha. He's going to throw it to commercial. He's going to welcome back from commercial. And so I would sort of step aside a little and go, yeah, go ahead. Throw it to commercial. Take it back. We get paid the same. Talk more than me.

Fine. then when I get partnered with Drew, I'm now the host, and I'm thrown to commercial and bring it back from break and interviewing the guest or whatever. And Drew's become the sidekick. And when I was working with Skip, Skip didn't have any on-camera real experience. So I was kind of setting up and sometimes even literally just moving him away because he was getting his back in front of the camera.

You know, the camera guy couldn't see him and stuff like that. But I realize you can't just have one mode. you have to have, I'll be alpha, I'll be beta, I'll be teacher, I'll be student, you know. And if you can kind of learn who people are and kind of understand who they are, then it's much easier. You can't have like two alphas interview each other. It just becomes kind of cluster FAs, I would say. Well, it's such a different world to this, I mean, I'll call it the host paradigm for lack of a better

host, interview, narrator, raconteur, whatever, then an actor, certainly, than a comedian. Like, back to the book thing for a second. The reason I wanted to riff on that initially, not that I had a plan, but now that I think about it, like, it's hard because once you write the thing down, it's there forever, it's on the shelf and it's between the covers and it, there's no excuse, man. Whatever's between the covers must be exactly what you wanted to say. but the minute you're done, there's a fire in the palisades. And now you give a damn about something else entirely. And now there's, you know, whatever's going on in your life, right?

And so the book, it's like, ah, it's like the snapshot of this moment. But it never goes away. It just sits on the shelf forever and people read it. But it's not who I am anymore. It's not who you are anymore. That's my favorite part about this, like what you do and what you did in podcasting initially. It was so immediate, you know, for better or worse, you did it.

And then you come back the next day and do it again. It's the opposite of writing a book, really. Yeah, I mean, to a certain extent, you know, if you go and look at a autobiography, you go, well, that was me zero to this age. And it doesn't include the Palisades and the Malibu fires because it was, but it's a historical account of at least what I was doing from that year to that year. Sure. And then you're right, it's locked off.

You know, the thing that there's stuff that's interesting about podcasting is if you ever listen to one of your own that's like 15 years old, you can hear him go, oh, I had to come back from this place, and then I drove that way. And then my kids, you know, were three at the time, you know, you're here. hearing a kind of it's a dear diary. I mean, it's an auto, it's an audio diary. Now, if you're doing Paul Harvey's show, then it really isn't. But if you're doing a free flowing conversational podcast, then yeah, you would be talking about COVID or the Malibu fires or how you were affected. You know, I had to flee during the Malibu fires, for instance. And so I would be saying, oh, I had to get up.

at 2 in the morning and take off and went to Burbank and if I heard it or my kids heard it 20 years from now they'd go that's what happened that day or they might say flee dad really you use the word flee like you couldn't leave you couldn't escape you couldn't vacate you couldn't run you fled I evacuated yeah there was a fire about a week before that where I didn't want to go and then at some point could see the flames and decided to go. But yes, I've fled the fire. I think it was like 2 a.m. It was the middle of the night. Well, in a weird way, I may have seen you, sort of. I was here. I landed that day. Oh, you were here. I landed that day. I was filming a thing down south, not far,

on the other side of Venice, and driving up, I mean, like alarms were going off and you could see smoke, but people were still shopping. the strangest thing. And then I went up on the roof here as the sun was going down. Geez, dude, I'll never forget that, man. I will never forget how orange and horrible and apocalyptic it was. And then coming down in the, over there at the Huntley, up in that restaurant, which looks dead in that direction, standing next to a woman who was watching her houseburn who turned and told me that her dog was in it and they wouldn't let her in and just going like this is like happening I mean obviously it's so much bigger than a dog but it was such a little moment and I thought about all my friends who live there and I'm like tomorrow's going to be a crazy day

and I mean has your life even been remotely similar since then is the old days uh yeah I'm pretty resilient my place did not burn down, everything in front of it, and most of the stuff to the right and behind it and stuff, everything kind of around it burnt down. And I think people sometimes use a little hyperbole, like my whole neighborhood burnt down. I was the only one to survive, but it's pretty close to that.

Every single structure in front of me along the ocean is gone, and about 60% of the stuff on the hill I'm on, is gone. It's mostly gone. It could probably be maybe out of 50 structures, 10 survived, let's say, out of 50 or 60 structures. I happen to be one of them. So that was good, but you couldn't go back for six months or what have you. So I was just kind of renting houses and sort of out and about and sleeping on people's guest houses and that kind of stuff. You know, it was a, it was a, it was a, it It was a pretty big inconvenience, but I realized I grew up on a service porch on like a cot mattress and then later moved into a garage and I, you know, with no heat, no air and stuff and had like one bedroom apartments with three roommates and slept on futons and stuff.

I was pretty used to camping out. It'd been a while, but I was always kind of resilient. that way. I was just used to roughen it a little bit. But your camping in those days wasn't the result of a calamity. It was, right? More or less. In fact, I couch

surfed for a couple of years and I remember it like almost romantically. It's kind of fun. Yeah, it's fun. You know, when you're young and you have energy and there's people and you have a crew to sort of be miserable with you. Sure. Is that from our roof chuck?

Yeah. I was a picture from the roof. That is really dramatic. And that wasn't even, I mean, it got worse. Obviously, the darker it gets, the more apocalyptic. Yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah, so my place is just sort of past that wall of flame. It was sort of miraculous that it didn't burn down. But like I said, I'm kind of philosophical and I can handle stuff.

And I was, you know, ready to roll. with whatever it was. On a micro level, I get it. But, you know, I was, I try and stay in my lane. I don't want to make undue trouble. But I've lived in this state for 20, 20-some years. You were born here, right? Yeah.

So, you know, our friend Elaine Kalati was here about six months ago. And we were just texting. It looks like she's going to be running for governor. And I've made it a point. to stay out of overt politics. But this feels different to me, like the fate of the state. It feels so consequential right now, not just for the state, but I mean, I think a lot of the countries looking here

and taking their cue from our elected officials and trying to weigh and measure all of that. And I wonder, like to the extent that I have any influence, I got the little platform here, I find myself wanting to talk about this stuff. And I know, I mean, you've been blogging constantly. You know Elaine. You've been, you're really paying attention to it.

So I guess if there's a question in here, it's like, to what extent are you doing this to change the course of the state's trajectory? Well, yeah, I've been here my whole life and I've seen where it's heading and it's not going in a good direction. and I would say frequently several years ago, I would say, when are we going to change direction and pick a new chart, new course? And then people would say, the number one answer, which is always sort of sad is, well, we haven't bottomed out yet. We got a bottom out. And I said, why do we have to bottom out?

Why can't we just see we're heading to the bottom and not do that? Change course. We got to bottom out. I said, this is like me saying, it's like if I, if you had a teenage son, we're going to teenage son and he'd walked in his room and he found heroin syringes and then he'd got a couple of DUIs and been arrested a few times and you know passed out the overdose yeah let's wait till his flat lines and then we'll get him some help and I'd be like no no a good parent would see what's going on and before the kids heart stops get him into rehab that's what we should be doing and so we're like

sort of spiraling into deep addiction and dark water and people are saying, wait till we flatline. And I'm like, or we could just go into rehab. We should change things now. Now, the fire may have been the bottoming out. Could have very well been that moment of bottoming out. For me, I felt interested in sort of cataloging all the destruction. It was so visually compelling to me to live.

in that neighborhood when everything was just flattened all around me and that you could go down the coast and drive for a mile and just see nothing but devastation. You know, I guess it's like being a war correspondent or something. Like there's a part of it that's very sad, but there's another part that's very visually compelling to just see, you know, what was a $25 million. mansion at the sea and now there's like just one piece of rebar sticking out of the ground and there's a crow sitting on it. Yeah. And you're just kind of looking at it and you're going, this is so visually insane. Do do do do. Dum. The thing I really like about MDrive for men, aside from the fact that their products actually do work and they've racked up thousands of five-star reviews over the last

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at M-Drive for Men.com. That's M-Drivefor-Men.com. Use code, row. Get 20% off your first purchase at M-Drivefor-Men.com. And so I thought, well, I should start sort of capturing it and then also kind of discussing what it would be like to rebuild and the permitting process and things of that nature because I realized that I was pretty intimately familiar with that being a contractor for so many years in the city and sort of having to deal with the city and plan check and bureaucracy

and all of that's coming. And I was very aware of it in a way that most people who were either comedians or commentators or had a vlog or a podcast or something, I didn't know anyone who had an intimate understanding of building and codes and construction. So I was like, I think I should be the guy who talks and knows how to talk, but also understands what these guys are dealing with in terms of a construction, engineering, permitting, and that sort of thing. I think I can take them both.

So it was kind of interesting. I fled to Burbank and then checked into a hotel at literally like four in the morning. And the following day got up to speculation of whether my home was there or not. Nobody knew. It was a lot of footage of everything in front of my house. I could see the news crews, you know, we're on the street. I could see everything in front of me was gone. What did you take with you?

I really just took like socks and underwear. Like I didn't really grab any keepsakes or anything. But to be fair, most of my stuff worth keeping is at my warehouse anyway. This was just sort of beach housey stuff. stuff, you know. So I woke up the next day to rumors that my place was gone. And I was doing the math because the fire was started up on the hill and it ended at the ocean. And my house was on the hill and everything at the ocean was gone. So I did a math, which is everything in between that and the ocean's got to be gone. And I was in between. But literally, the restaurant and the buildings, everything just below where I live are all gone. So I was everything. So I was, you know, I was like, I guess it's gone, but I can't verify it because you can't get back in and something, something. So, but we had a podcast to do. And the winds were so powerful that they toppled over a electrical pole, a telephone pole, and the power was out where my studio was.

and so now I'm like, well, we've, you know, the power's out, everything's a mess, it's helter-skelter, and do I really need to do a podcast like every single day? Like can we just run a best of? I talked to Seth MacFarlane for over an hour, just run that, you know? And I started thinking about it, I go, yeah, but I think people are going to want to hear what, you know, you're in the middle of all this, and they're going to want a little checkup on what's going on. So I just in my hotel room, just kind of moved a table, moved the chair and set the thing and put the mic on the table

and shut the drapes, you know, and somebody with an iPhone kind of thing. We just kind of, and I said, you know what, it's only going to be 10 minutes. I'm just going to check in. Let him know I'm okay. And here's what's going on and blah. And of course, it went an hour.

of me complaining, but it was it was that morning after the fire where I just sort of explained everyone, there's not going to be permits. You think they're going to talk about fast tracking stuff and the city's going to snap in action. None of this is going to happen. There's going to grind everyone to a nub. They're not in the business of handing out permits or fast tracking engineering plan check. I've dealt with this. It's a bureaucracy. They're not going to change. And you think they would under these emergency conditions. They have no intention of doing it, and it's never going to happen. And you people who love these people formally are going to learn to hate these people

when it's time for you to pull a permit. And it was literally like eight hours after the fire. You're talking about people who voted for those particular officials. I'm saying in general, those areas of this part of the city where we're at now, Malibu and Palisades, they like those types. They're progressive blue-leaning type in general. I would say this is, you know, not a lot of them do anything for deer hunting season or do a lot of bass fishing or wear their Oakley plate sunglasses on top of their truck or hats. There's not a lot of ramdouli's parked in the parking lot.

It's an electric car, vote blue kind of go-gavin kind of crows. I said, you guys are going to be in for a real rude awakening because you're going to find out what this city does and how it does not function or perform. And you're going to find out how sort of arrogant and cruel they are because they're not going to be in any hurry to help you. And they're not even going to pretend like they're here to help you. And I don't even know if they want, they don't want you to rebuild as far as I'm concerned. So good luck.

This is what's going to happen. Look forward to this. And, you know, that was 13 and a half months ago. And now everyone's wandering around going, where are the permits? Where are how come no one has a permit? It's like, I told you where they were. You're not getting them. That last guy I told you about Jeff Chilters, who writes that column, coughing and COVID.

Today's column was called, I Told You So. And, you know, he's coming from a point of view as a lawyer who fought mask mandates and a lot of other adjacent things five years ago. And now the evidence demands. verdict. Right. And it's clear. I shared your podcast that day. I thought it was brilliant. And not brilliant. I thought it was smart. I think yeah. I thought it was really smart to do it because I think the initial impulse on a lot of people would have been exactly that. Seth and McFarland's funny. It's great interview. Let's just put it up. I get I'm dealing with stuff. But, you know, back to

the book thing. You know, this is not the guy you are in the books you read. wrote before. Now you've got, now you've, you have an audience and they trust you, man. You've got an enormous amount of permission to be as candid as you want and to share as much as you want. I think generally the country's super hungry for that. The fact that you hunkered down and did that on a couple of iPhones was just interesting. It reminded me, this is a bit of a stretch, but remember when Bourdain was caught in Beirut. It was probably 10 years ago now. Well, it was probably 10 years ago now. Well, I mean, you didn't have to do a show. You just needed to turn the camera on and be a reliable narrator or a witness to whatever that was.

And that's what I meant by permission. You grew up in this state. You live in that zip code. You know how to communicate. You know how to be a host. You know how to be a guest. And you've got a front row seat to something. But what was interesting for me when I shared that,

at the comments, I still remember a lot of people going, well, you know, he's, I mean, he's being very pessimistic, you know, he's like being very much of a Cassandra, you know, a prognosticator, you know, we'll just see, because it sure seems like all, all the brass are saying, oh, no, no, no, all the bureaucracy's gone, all the roadblocks are coming down. They were talking about issuing thousands of permits in months. Mm-hmm. And, dude, you were right. They haven't, what have they done? Well, they've done a little bit in the palisades, a little bit,

and pretty much zero in Malibu along the coast, because I think the Coastal Commission had to get involved with that. Plus, it's kind of academic. Like what people don't really fully understand is, I could issue you a permit for these places that live, these lots that were burned down, a long PCH on the water side, on the ocean side of Pacific Coast Highway. And, you know, a picture tells a thousand words.

So there are, there's some stuff out there, Chuck, that is me chronicling a job site. There's one job site on PCH. I don't know, Adam Carolla, PCH foundation work or something like that. I've literally got the drone up in the air and filming all the stuff. So what I'm saying is, is even if you had a permit to build your home back on PCH, part the engineering for that home that you're going to rebuild is 35 casons that are 36 inch in diameter going five stories into. to the ground. Now, we'll find you the pictures. I'm not using any hyperbole here. It is casons, which are drilled with a caseon rig and a giant auger bit. It's essentially just drilling down into the earth, but not drilling down 15 feet, drilling down five stories, and not

seven of them, like 35 of them. Now, we need video. of that it's out there somewhere. This is it. It's in my vlog, though. You'll see it in the vlog. I don't think you'll see it as clearly in my show. Well, you'll find it. Anyway, Kaysans alone deserve some sort of rhetorical detour.

I mean, just so people understand, you know, I mean. Yeah, that's a vlog, but now you have to, what are you typing in? And I'll see if I can help you. That's the vlog. I typed the drone footage. Adam Carolla, drone footage, BCHH. But you didn't put the word foundation. I guess not.

That's why you're not seeing it. That's why I said foundation. But that's earlier stuff where it's destroyed. Now, so the architect told, now by the way, that's just the caissons. Then there's the sea walls. Then there's the slab. The engineer architect. he told me there'd be 3,000 yards of concrete in this in this foundation.

Three. All right, you're, do you put in the word foundation in? I did, yeah, yeah. I'm not doing good. We'll get a new one, a new video pop up. I'll just spell it. So, let me get this out of here. It'll be a construction site is what I'm saying.

This is stuff of just a burnt out place. But, all right, for your audience, 3,000 cubic yards of concrete, a full-size concrete truck holds 10 yards. So one truck is 10 yards. Each case on is about 20 yards. So each caseon is two full trucks, pumped, and there's 30-some-odd casons. And that's just for stuff poking up from the ground. Why do you need a caisson in this case?

I don't under it. You don't. So I'm talking to the engineer, and he goes, I'm looking at this. And I'm anxious for you to see it as I sound bug and Chuck, because you're going to go, oh, my God. Like, I had no idea. All right, Chuck, what are you poking in there? Okay, so I got something on Instagram. All right.

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proceeds benefit the microwworks foundation at noblespirates.com k-no b-el spirits dot com soon may the noble man come to bring a bottle for everyone one day when the wait is done, we'll take a drink and go. Is this right? What did you type in? I typed in Adam Carolla, PCH Foundation. All right. Let's see.

Let's see. This has a couple of quick shots of it. Let's see. Put in the word. Okay. Get rid of foundation. Put case on. Okay.

Which is an interesting spelling. I think it's C-A-S-S. Yeah. I think there's an eye in it too. Yes. But those were the things that like that's, they used to build bridges with these things. Yeah, they build bridges with them. They hold up freeway overpasses.

I mean, they go down into the ground. And you pressurize it underwater and that's what lets you work in an area and pour concrete, you know, 50 feet underwater or more. Yes. Might this be it? What's it saying? Rebuilding real estate nine months after the blaze. Now, this would be like the most recent. One, I think.

Okay. So this is not it. No, this is me explaining that the Equinox gym across the street's been closed for nine months, but the Taco Bell has been open the entire time. Who is it with you and Taco Bell, man? I tried to get a job there once, and they denied me. That was the second book, not Taco Bell material. That was it. Yeah.

And here, I mean, like, the irony of that and now today, doing stand-ups on Instagram, on an iPhone I know chronicling one of the greatest you know disasters do a picture do a photo

hey there you go click images there you go hit images case on foundation pcea h mcich adam carola image

I think something will by the way you know I can't imagine more really like right now to be Chuck has to be

one of the most annoying things yeah I know you've been on Rogan and you've seen Jamie do it with like two fingers. I can't even type. There's a thousand of these. Hold on a second.

All right. Now, just found a foundation that's being re- you want it. You want it like from the last, how, like what time? The last, the last ones. Let's see if those. The most recent.

I'm going to go past month. So nothing came up. The guy, as they're pouring 3,000 yards of concrete, I'm sitting there talking to the architect. And I go, and what about the old foundation? because you had to pull out a bunch of stuff.

And he said, oh, those were all just piles, just telephone poles, pounded down in the ground. That's they should build piers and everything on just a telephone pole that got whacked in the ground. And he goes, I go, wait a minute, there was no, he goes, there's no concrete. I said, none? He goes, no, no, it was all wood. Everything was what? I said, it lasted for 70 years.

And then the fire got it. but the foundation never gave way. And he goes, no, everything was wood. That's the way they built it in 1957. And it was going fine until the fire got him. And I said, okay, how much is this foundation? And he said, about 2.5 million. I said, 2.5 before you bring in the first 2x4 to build.

He said, yes, you're gonna be into this about 2.5 with just foundation. And then you can start building your home here. after you're into that 2.5. I said, who's got the money for this? Who can do this? And by the way, the time, I mean, they get full. Kaysan rigs like a five-story piece of engineering role

and, you know, on tank tracks and everything, steam shovels, backhoes. Like, it is an insane proposition. The mount they're putting into that. each K-San has a rebar cage that essentially looks like a long slinky made out of number six rebar, which is like three-quarter inch thick rebar, has to be hung up on a giant crane five stories long and lowered all the way down into each one times like 36. All right, Chuck, there's no way you don't have a picture of that foundation.

I think he drew one. He's got, he's pretty talented. You could go up the coast and get a quick shot and come back and lift the time. This is not working out well at all. This is, oh, shit. Well, let me ask you this, Chuck. Do you know what a foundation looks like? Yeah.

Okay. If you were to see one, you would be like, I got a picture of some Ksons right here. There you go. But I don't think that's what you're looking for. Those are the old ones. I got, well, maybe I'll just pull my phone out. I mean, at this point. At this point.

Well, I mean, like, oh, we'll find it. But the moral of the story. The last vlog from the fires will probably have something. Adam Carolla's last vlog. The date on it will be, I don't know, three weeks old or month old. But anyway, go ahead. Why are you doing this? It's nearby where I live.

I am very fascinated with all forms of buildings. So I will come poking around if you're building and I'm walking past whatever it is your building. I just come poking around. Like I just like it. I like seeing how it's built. It is kind of my Reese's peanut butter cup. It's taken sort of comedy and commentary and sarcasm and humor. mixed in with building and kind of put together my peanut butter cup like the two things i kind of

like you know assembled essentially um oh this is one month ago all right let's see now we're getting somewhere let's see what this is this is no i don't think it's this one oh man uh go the one uh go forward you can scrub it for can i can i No, I don't think it's this one. One more before this one, probably. Let's see. Okay. One year later, they're trying to see if that one's something.

The one year later one? Yeah, I thought I hit that one already. Oh, maybe you had nine months later, I think. I mean, how many vlogs have you done? I've done a lot. I've done a lot of them. It's definitely not this one. That much I can.

Oh, well, that's, there you go. We'll find it. So I walk around, I just look at it, but the point I'm trying to drive home, I'm not doing a good job. Is this it? This is the one year later. Yeah, you can just let it run. Well, now it's really no longer about your story.

It's just about whether or not Chuck can find this. It is more about, it is more about Chuck at this point. At this point, yeah. All right, my, here's my point. My point is what used to take no money and little effort is now Herculian and involves a lot of engineering and a lot of permitting and stuff. There it is. You can stop it there for a second.

Oh, Kenny? Oh, can you? Yeah. There it is. Okay, good. Yeah. We'll let it even get even closer. But that's the job site.

And those are all the casons that they're pouring that are, yeah, let it roll a little more. Let's see if we can get a little closer to it. Trying. Okay. That's all right. Yeah, there it is. You can let it roll there. Okay.

Those things go five stories into the ground. That's just for a single family residence. That's not, you know, it's, that's, The Germans at Normandy. That's just a single family home with seawalls filled to the top with rebar, with dowling into the rebar, the seawall goes 20 feet down in the ground. Explain why that is a thing. All right. You just pause it there for a sec.

Nice job. They have, good job, Jack. You're back. They have to build a seawall basically. because they're going to put a septic system in there. And they're essentially building a 20-foot-high, 14-inch thick concrete wall all the way around it so the septic system can't leak and go into the ocean.

Are you kidding? Should be the name of my next podcast. This is total and utter insanity. And it's what the city makes you do. And so my point is, is this is a metaphor for California. You want to know how, come there's not enough low-cost housing? How come we don't have this? Because you guys make it impossible to do because of regulation. See, we could rebuild a home the way it was built before,

but this is total insanity. And it's the safety thing we talk about all the time. Sure, but what's the end game? What's in it for the county, making it impossible? I mean, that house when it's done is going to be tens of millions of dollars. Yes. Easily. Yes. And like to your earlier point, who's got the dough? How are you going to build back with those kinds of protocols?

The county simply adds things on and they never peel anything away. So if the regulation 20 years ago was number four rebar, now it's number six rebar, soon it'll be number eight rebar. and all they know is how to keep ratcheting up the thing that they always hide under the umbrella of safety. It's always some sort of safety-related thing. But like I used to say, when I had houses from the 20s, 1923, maybe 1927, my first couple house, and I'd be building some stuff, and you get to engineering. And I'd go, this is way over engineer. And they go, we're an earthquake country.

I'd go, yeah, where do you think the house? You think the house was in Idaho? In 71 when the big one hit. And in 94. 94. Thank you. When the Silmar one hit, they're both here. Nothing happened.

There's nothing. They weren't engineered for anything. There's no caissons. There's no anything. It's just here it is. Here it's sat. So, yeah, there's nothing wrong with engineering. There's nothing wrong with being safe.

But building 1,000 fold as strong as you need to is like, like saying, you know, everyone goes, sell a car, should have an airbag, and a crumple zone in front. Okay. And a safety belt. But it doesn't, and a belt. But it doesn't need a fire suppression system and a fuel cell and a roll cage. Right. Because the actual.

But it would be safer. It would be safe. But it's not practical. So the actuary, like I'm fascinated with that argument with the car thing because, and people just, I broke a few eggs. Look at that. That's a beauty. By the way, all those casons that we're seeing now, and we're not seeing all of them, some are underground, but they're all going five stories into the ground. Wow. I mean, I can't imagine. That's for our house. That's why I need to show you the picture, Chuck. Good work. Good work. So we start every year knowing 35 to 38,000 people

are going to die on the highway. We know it. And you can have your crumple zones and you can have your double air bags and your restraints and you do it all. But that's doing all that gets you 35 to 40,000 fatalities. Yes. You want to knock it down to 20? I get the speed limit to 35. You want it down to 15 mandatory helmets. Right.

You want it down to 5,000? No left turns. Right. You want to get it down to zero? Correct. Wrap them. Yeah. Wrap them in rubber.

Like a tugboat. Exactly right. So you start with the idea that you could absolutely eliminate automotive fatalities. But it's been weighed and measured, and we've decided 35 to 40,000 fatalities is something we can live with. We can live with it. Right. We're not running the same. There is no corollary for this. No, because this is zero fatalities because in this equation, the old. old car with no airbags and no crumple zones would have been this thing built on the telephone poles that were pile driven into the ground.

But the pier, which is a half block down the street, is over 100 years old. And it sits on those telephone poles, the same one. So this is your grandpa's old Osmobile with no fatalities ever and still were requiring the roll cage and the fire suppression system. I'm just thinking like all these additional things, like through the lens of a safety process. to call, yeah, but this is through the environment. This is like saying we will spare no expense to keep any amount of septic sewage from potentially leaching. Right.

You know, can we live with a 1% chance? No, we can't. It has to be zero. And it doesn't matter what it costs. Right. Well, another thing is the modern systems are so good that there is none of that leaching that goes on every time I talk to someone. And they go, they say you can drink whatever's in the leach field.

Then they pause. I go, but I don't. But I don't. Oh, good. I was just about to offer you a cup of piss water. But okay. I get it. You don't do it.

No, listen, nothing that was built there before had a seawall. Previously, there's zero seawall. Right. And everyone is on a septic system. Right. And by the way, the thing that, I'll tell you what hurts the floor and the fauna and the ocean, it's a fire that burns everything in the ground. And then mudslide.

where everything that was up on the hill, including burnt out Priuses and foam mattresses and sofas and carpeting, all slides down the hill into the bay. That's bad. Much worse than a leech field. But isn't it interesting that the degree to which we're willing to mitigate automotive fatalities allows for 35,000 deaths? Yes.

But the degree to which we're determined to mitigate an environmental problem is zero. And that's where we're out of whack. We have elevated the environment to so far above the value of a human life. But we're still having the conversation as if, well, let's not really talk about how that happened, but it's not much different than saving a dog from drowning instead of the 10-year-old kid. Now, it's your dog and you love the dog and you don't know the 10-year-old kid. And so now there's a value judgment. Do you save your dog that you love or do you save that kid? Well, there's another element here, which is, you know, in the car metaphor, you go, well, a roll cage and a fuel cell with a bladder and a fire suppression system and fire suit and everything.

You know how much a Toyota Camry would cost with that? And then they go, you don't think the rich guy from Malibu can afford a Camry, even if it's $500,000. And it's like, yes, he can afford it. It doesn't mean you should do this. And by the way, once you take this mindset and bring it, we do, right, we go, we're suggesting homeless for the housing. These are 400 square foot bachelor apartments, 950,000 per unit. It's like, how did we get to that price?

We got to that price. How that place get to that price? because you guys were acquired so much more than what was practical or feasible. It can't be built. And there's no economic system that'll support it. And the people who build it, they moved to Texas. And they just go, I don't want to deal with this. Right.

So that's what you get. And that's why we get it. So all this stuff under the name of safety is really grinding everything to a halt. And there is literally that one. foundation you saw is the only construction going on in the entire PCH. That's it. There's no other. Just one. And it's for that reason. And you say, we want to fast track this. Again, even if you fast track it, if it takes 3,000 cubic yards and basically you're building a launch pad for NASA, which is essentially what they're going to end up building because they have to do a one foot slab on top of all those

casons with grade beams, by the way, in between. I mean, there's a lot more to go. It's not practical. It's not feasible and people aren't going to do it and know they're not going to rebuild. And they do this little kind of wordplay thing, which is, yeah, we'll give you a permit to do something you can never do. Don't you think about like, that's what I meant earlier about why Cal California feels so consequential to me for the country because if that attitude that exists in, you know, the community supervisory, what do you call me, like like the tyranny of the small government, like we all the headlines are about, you know, D.C., but the real like the real action is is here. And like, how would we ever be able to convert our domestic manufacturing manufacturing,

manufacturing capability into a wartime footing with this kind of thought. How would we rise to any occasion that we've historically risen to if the most important thing is to keep the septic thing from leaching? And if we're okay, forcing people to just squeeze through hoop after hoop after hoop after hoop, after hoop. Yeah, well, I think we've proven that we can't because we have. We have to, had all of these mechanisms in place and I was friends with Suzanne Summers and Alan Hamill and they lived in Malibu on the ocean and they loved it and they had a home there for many many years and I don't know maybe in 96 or somewhere it burnt out and then they went to rebuild and they loved living in Malibu but when they tried to rebuild and by the way you know it's it's another thing too it's it's

kind of cruel to have someone's home burn down and then really not let them rebuild. You know what I mean? It's not like I go, I'm going to open a brothel with the speakeasy on the roof and they could go, okay, no, no, we're going to slow roll that part. But this is your family's home burnt to the ground because of their negligence, by the way. It burnt to the ground because of the government not managing the forestry and so on and so on and so on. And then they want to rebuild it at their own expense and they won't let them do. it, which is cruel at the end of the day. So Alan Hamill and Suzanne Summers, who adore Malibu and who would come back from Palm Springs to stay at a hotel in Malibu every chance they got, went through about six years of trying to pull a permit. Coastal Commission just kept telling

them to pound sand. And eventually they went, we're too old for this shit. We can't spend our golden years arguing with the Coastal Commission, who won't let us rebuild. and has a million hoops to jump through that no one could ever satisfy. So they move out. And there is no rebuild. And I was always kind of aware of that. But you're talking about a wartime situation. How would we react?

Would we? Well, this is a nice simulation. Everything burned to the ground. Trump came into town a week later and he said, we need to hurry. This is unfair to these people. We need to fast track this thing. This was supposed to be a war simulation. We, this is our extraordinary circumstances, many homes lost, many families displays.

And now, like in wartime, we're going to fast track this stuff and we'll be building Liberty ships at the count of, you know, one every 40 hours. If we can fast track this stuff and tell the unions to back off a little in wartime. Well, this is it. This is wartime. And I think we got our answer. Well, that's why people said, you know, what you said earlier. And I'm guilty of it too.

Sometimes things have to go splat. Right. But to your point, if that's not splat, what are you waiting for? Like what other calamity could possibly, I mean, there's nothing left but war, truly. Right. Anyway, maybe some of what's going on to on a national level is we're just not a terribly sympathetic part of the country. You know, oh, the millionaires lost their houses. There's a definitely element of that.

Yeah. But Altadine is a different story. Great. And then if you go the other extreme, what was that train derailment? Palestine. Oh, right. East Palestine. That's not on anybody's vacation brochure.

Right, right. But we managed to ignore the hell out of them, too. Yes. You know, how squeaky does the wheel have to be? Will we assign a lot of value? I mean, a good-looking person dies. It's a tragedy. Ugly person dies.

It's just not as bad, you know. Famous person, mom, goes missing. Jeez. Somebody's got to find her because I can't take any more news about that. I don't even, I mean, are we even allowed to kind of, not joke about it, but acknowledge the, I mean, what is it? Like, 3,200 kids have been found by ice. Mm-hmm. found that had previously been just lost in the country during this same period.

Yeah, yeah. I don't know anybody's name. I don't, where's that kid? Where's the story? Where's the triumphant? We found another one. Weird in the priority department, yes. No disrespect to Nancy Guthrie, but she was kidnapped and I don't need an hourly

update on it. I hope they find her and I hope she's alive. And I hope for all the best, but it's not something I need to hear every day. Don't you, I mean, maybe it's even worse than that. Maybe there's something that really deleterious for the human mind to constantly be told about a circumstance or a situation that you can't do anything to remedy. And if that's just a steady drip, drip, drip, and that's just one story. Yes. You think of all, you know, people say, ah, you got to.

take a break from the news because it's all bad. I don't think it's that. It's not that it's bad. It's that you can't do anything about it. Yeah, it was funny. I was talking to Dr. Drew about this today, and I mentioned that I didn't have a take on Nancy Guthrie, and I didn't have an Epstein take,

and I don't have takes on everything, because there's stuff I just don't know about, and I'm not going to talk. I have takes on casons and foundations. And Chuck not being able to retrieve them from the internet. We all have a take on that. But I do not have a take on Guthrie's mom being abducted because I have no insights. And I worry about people that feel compelled to have a take on everything all the time

because you can't be a Swiss Army knife all the time. You can't be everything all the time. And I'm perfectly happy to just go, I have no thoughts. I feel like it's sad. I hope they find her. Now I got to get back to talking about foundations. But see, that is a sane and rational approach for a true civilian. But you're not a true civilian.

You've got the microphone, you've got the cameras, you have an audience. Do you feel any kind of obligation? I feel very obligated to talk about things I'm aware of I know about. hearkening back to doing our makeshift studio hotel room fireside chat, I felt compelled and obligated, living in Malibu, probably at the time thinking my place was burnt down, construction background, so on and so forth. They're very compelled. Then there are other subjects like Epstein's list, I just don't know anything about it. I don't know anyone. I've listened to 30 different versions of it.

I can't get a straight answer. You're not on it. I'm not on it. And as a part of me, it's like, I mean, it would have taken the flight at least. But to prom, I used to do this joke. I did it like five times

and I felt bad. But I said, the problem with the pedophile accusation is like you go, you see Tom Hanks' names on the thing. And the problem with pedophilia is you go, oh, come on, Tom Hanks. he would never,

wait a minute. Like, there's that thing. And I used to do this joke where I'd go, because like if you said to me, your stepdad, John, what about it? Could he murder someone? I'd go, absolutely not. John's a good guy.

He's a gentle soul. And what about, could he be an arsonist? No, no, no. What about going to an island with a bunch of models? Which island? That was kind of a joke, because it's sort of true. You don't know what anybody is capable.

And every time it's someone who seems unlikely, you go, oh, come on. And then you go, wait a minute. What island? Be specific. My favorite metaphor so far, you kind of glossed over it. But we're talking about Reese's. Reese's peanut buttercups. Yesterday, there was a big article, kind of a scandal.

the grandson of Reese bought a bag and ate one and just threw the whole thing in the trash. Really? And said, this cannot stand, right? Uh-huh. So never mind all the ingredients in the cup, the two that are conspicuously absent

are peanut butter and chocolate. There's not a trace of any of it. Really? And so some lawyer at Reese's a very artful rejoinder just said, look, our iconic cups haven't changed at all. Well, no, your iconic ones haven't. But the ones you sell now in the store have. And so this is going to be like, you'll read about it soon. It's like a, it's a thing. But you were comparing the fundamentals, the foundational fundamentals, chocolate, peanut butter. It's not that complicated. Unless you keep

calling the same thing, where if this new thing, you call it the same thing. It kind of looks like a foundation. But it's not made. There's no wood. There's no concrete. There's no rebar. It's all something else. And it's unpronounceable. And I think something, it's part of the general fraud that's been perpetrated upon us. The ingredients aren't what we thought they were. And we can't even pronounce the stuff that is in it. And it all just feels like it's just going off the rails, you know. And that, you know, your vlog is, to me, just feels like an attempt to, you know, put the truth on the label for God's sake. Yeah. I'll tell you the number one abused word in all ingredients is honey. If you look at honey cough syrup or like honey fix or

honey shampoo or go see if you can find honey anywhere. No, the label's got a giant bee on it that's dipped in honey. You turn that thing around. I don't care what it is. If it says honey something on it, there is no. Honey bunches of oats. There's no honey. There's no honey in anything that advertises is the first word of honey, which it's the

weirdest is like for cough medicine. It's like a honey, vicks, whatever. And you look at it, there's zero honey in here. Here's what we're desperate for. I think we just want to hear the truth. The best cough drop I ever saw. I forget the name of it, but I bet, God, I hesitate to say Chuck. But if you Google it.

I got the peanut butter thing up. Their slogan was, tastes terrible, works great. Yeah. Smuckers. With a name like that, it has to be good. It was Mason Adams. You should do VL work really. one of these days. But that, that to me, that's the key, right? You can't just, it can't all be

great. Part of it has to be crap. And then if you'd give them the truth about the crap, then you can tell them the good news. You just need permission. I have found, I mean, the thing that I think attracts me to going on to the job sites, and now I am touring some of the rebuild sites up in the hills of the Palisades inland. another word, not touched by the Coastal Commission. And there's houses that are sort of half-framed and getting close to, getting close to finish. And I'm touring the houses. And, you know, none of it lies.

It's just what it is. There's no theory about it. There's no, I have a dream about a house that gets framed. Buckley's Award-winning campaign. Right. It tastes awful. And it works. Right.

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U.S. Skills, U.S.S. Skills USA. I think everyone feels that way. For some reason, it scares Madison Avenue. It sort of scares society.

Like it scares, you know, the people that are selling you stuff. But I happen to like that. And they used to do like VW. a bug used to have campaigns talking about they looked ugly but they got you know got very gas mileage or whatever like self deprecation was always good um i first off self deprecation is a great quality it's kind of it's bygone you know what i mean like i i kind of miss i was never really good at it it's just a great thing that we should get back to i think it's always i always like that guy or that

woman who makes a joke at their own expense. Can't go too far. Then it's as artificial as, you know, being void of it, totally. But yeah, a little bit of it. I did a few of those types of jokes. I would do jokes in the vlog, which, you know, people are sort of, I don't know, I had mixed feelings about it because people's houses were burnt to the ground and I was kind of joking around.

But it was always fun. So I found a guy. early, and you won't have to look for it, Chuck, but it was he had, it was everything on PCH and this guy got jobs, his company cleaning the lots. Yeah. And he'd go in there and clean these lots out. He's doing the stuff Trump was saying we need to do now. And one of them, the lots would be cleared out, but their, his company would plant an American

flag in front of the lot. And I said to the guy, I said, just go along with me. on this and I got my cameraman and I said the American flag, old glory this is amazing. Everything burnt everything burnt but yet this remains. The true testament of a country and these

colors won't run. Amazing statistically. How could you even think about it? Everything is gone but yet old glory still waves and then he comes up and he goes we put it there this morning and he'd nailed the line by the way which is which is funny

Do you feel like an obligation to be funny when you're, I mean, just in general? No, I like to have a meaningful conversation. At some point, when I'm discussing something, I'll use some sort of metaphor or something and someone will laugh, but I'm not really trying for that. I'm just trying to paint a sort of peanut buttercup picture. Yeah. You know? And no, I feel like there are times. when you're in certain situations where you need to be funny because that's sort of what they're asking.

Right. Oh, yeah. Totally. 100%. You come watch me do stand up. I do not get preachy. I don't talk about the government. No lectures.

I don't do any of that. I just want to be funny because that's why you bought a ticket. And so I'm going to oblige. And then there's other situations that are like more conversational, more interesting. and I think you should be able to toggle back and forth, you know, between those personas. And I also feel like if you are a little more serious, a little more interesting, a little more thought-provoking, it'll set up the humor for when it's time. And it's also more about a batting average than it is about times to the trips to the plate.

Yeah. You know, and I used to tell people all the time, They used to hear me on Howard Stern. They go, oh, I love you on Stern. So funny. How do you do that? And I'd go, I don't say anything if I don't have anything funny to say. I'll just hang back and let the conversation go.

And if I have something funny, I'll punch it in and then hang back again. But it's the people that feel like they have to get to the plate and swing all the time. They're just, they're going to get some hits, but they're going to have a bad batting average. And I'm like, just sit back and wait for. your pitch. Who do you admire? Like, who's doing that right now in the in the zeitgeist? I think there's some crazy guys out there like Shane Gillis. I knew you were real strong. Like, he's funny. Not, you know, not everybody's funny. He's fine. Tim Dillon's funny. You know, there's, I'm not a real connoisseur of comedy. because I'm sort of a mechanically minded person.

And if you, if you'd say, well, what do you look at online? It's like car auctions, you know, or some guys rebuilt a Dotson Z car and I want to check it out. You know, something like I'm sort of blue-collarly minded and a little less, let's check out this guy's stand-up special on YouTube, you know. And I'm fine with it. It's just, I do it for a little bit. living and when I'm done, I'll put it to you this way. Times I've been to a comedy club where I'm not performing, almost zero.

Times I've walked to that job site, Malibu for free, 2000. So that's where my interests are. That's literally what I'm doing. And I find myself much more interested in monkeying around with building and cars and mechanical stuff than I do in the sort of arts world. Yeah, but there's a metaphor there too. I mean, you know, the mechanics of a joke, the construction of a tight five minutes. I believe it has to live somewhere in some reality, depending on the style of your humor.

But my humor is sort of a people have to kind of go, yeah, okay, yeah, I know what that is, or I've heard of that, or I believe that. Like for me, it's very important that we live in a, oh, yeah, I know what he's talking about. How come blah, blah, blah? And that's to me what sort of building is. It's kind of a reality and a practicality and a kind of a gravity. And when I used to build, I would talk to the, it would always be the women who were remodeling the houses. The guys never, I never talked to the guys.

It always be the woman. And the guy was at work most of the time, and the women were there. And they would say, like, I want to get rid of this whole wall and just make one big open expanse, one big great room, you know. And I'd go, well, if it's a load-bearing wall, then we're going to have to pick up the load, you know. And I'd go put my head and I'd go that Joyce are running the wrong direction. Yeah, it's a load-bearing wall. So then I'd go, all right, so we can get rid of the wall. but we got to put a big header to pick up the joys, the load.

And then the woman would go, I don't want a header. I don't want to look at a header. I want to be smooth and flat and all the way down. Then I'd go, well, we could put a header up in the ceiling. We've got to put a post down at some point because it's got to be a smaller header. No, I don't want to post. I don't want to post. And then I'd go, well, we could put a piece of steel up there and that'll span it,

but that's really expensive. I don't want to pay for that. I go, all right, what you want is a magic wand so you can affect gravity. I'm giving you these options and you got to pick one. And that's that. And you could bring in 10,000 other guys and they'll tell you exactly the same thing. So this is where we're at. So we've got to figure this out.

And that's just kind of my approach to life. Now, I know you don't want to look at a header and I don't want to look at a header and you don't want to post and I don't want to post, but that's it, we don't have a choice. But if you are a general contractor, metaphorically, and you are, and if you're, you know, not a subject matter expert, but, you know, you're in the decathlon and you want to be competent at all of these things, I mean, all of that really tracks, you know, you've done a lot of stand up, you've written your books, podcast thing, and all of it. And I, when I think of you interviewing Gavin Newsom.

Now, that's going to hold up. And that wasn't comedy. That wasn't, whatever that was, it suddenly revealed something. And, you know, I wonder what it's like. Now, for people who don't know what I'm talking about, just give me a real quick synopsis of what happened and when. And then talk about maybe what you think now when you see him. you know, in Europe and elsewhere doing his thing?

It was several years ago I interviewed him maybe 13 years ago now. And I didn't have any strong opinions about him one way or the other before he came in. I wasn't planning to be an adversarial, but I had some thoughts and corrections that I was looking to impress upon him. and I thought he'd be sort of amenable to some of those thoughts, you know, and there were kind of basic thoughts, which was I started seeing, I'll give you an example of a sort of basic thought. I would see people in Los Angeles who got into minor fender benders consistently standing in the third lane of the freeway,

in the middle of the freeway in the middle of the traffic, exchanging information, taking pictures, talking outside the car, and creating a giant traffic jam, right? And I would say, they're going to get killed, number one. Number two, the car's fine. It's amazing what a car can do. I've driven the Toyota Celebrity Grand Prix five times.

I've seen cars completed on three wheels with, every time there's a high-speed chase, at some point the guy's running, then there's just sparks coming out. Like, you could drag a car off the, I'm going to pull over to the, to the shoulder. You're going to get killed and you're stopping the freeway.

And I started saying, why don't they just put that up on the freeway sign? You know, like if you have a little fender bender, it's the law. Pull it over. And people started sending me pictures from like Montana signs by the side of the freeway said, if it steers, it clears. I mean, pull it over. You had a campaign. Well, here we are in Los Angeles, the worst traffic in the world.

and nobody knows they think it's a crime scene or whatever. So put it up on the sign. And I think he's going to say to me, oh, it's a good idea. You know what? You're right. Or better yet, like, yeah, I know.

I've been talking about this and I want to get it done and I want to put it, whatever. He just looked at me and sort of went, what? I said, in Montana, they have signs to say, I'll get out of here. You thought I was kidding.

And then so I said to him, no, it's a big problem. And it's just you could put it on the freeway sign and then start a campaign. He goes, I saw a sign I like. I saw a sign that said, you're not in traffic. You are traffic. And I was like, what's that mean?

What's that mean? I don't know what it means. But I want to alleviate traffic. He was laughing the whole time. And then later on, he brought up blacks and Hispanics, 50% of them in California don't have access to a checking account. Now, first things first. when people start butchering the language with the access. Like everyone, what do you mean?

What's that mean no access? You know what I mean? Like they would go hobby, lobby does the nice access to birth control or reproductive, you know, health to their, they don't provide the pill. That's not denied access. Right. I would tell people all the time, I have 20 people who work for me. I don't deny them access to lunch. I just don't buy them a sandwich.

They get their own sandwich. I don't slap it out of their hands. denied access. So he started telling me that 50%, which is an insane number of blacks and Hispanics, don't have access to a checking account. So I said, what's wrong with them? And he was like, what? And I was like, well, why aren't they doing it? Why wouldn't they get a checking account? It's like, I don't know. And he just kept bringing up the problem, but never bringing up a fix for the problem. And he went in circles and circles and circles for a lot of subjects, a lot of time, homelessness and everything. And I realized he had no answers, but he also didn't intend on any answers.

And he didn't, I guess what it is is he didn't find it to be problematic that he had no answers to the problems that he brought up. You know what I'm saying? Yep. And it didn't bother him at all. all. He didn't even seem to really recognize it or hear what he was saying. And I kept saying to him what is wrong. And by the way, he didn't go 50% of blacks in a Spanish, California, don't have access to checking account. So I have an amendment to a bill that will give us mobile checking account vans where we can pull into these cities like the Bloodmobile and get these people,

these underprivileged people sign him. He had nothing. He just kept stating the problem. He just kept stating the problem. And then I realized he doesn't know what he sounds like and he's a sociopath. Like he doesn't really understand anything. He doesn't, it's all kind of a fake laugh and hair gel and a deep leg cross, which is a thing that just they cross their legs super violently hard. Extraordinary, yeah. Extraordinary for a man to do.

And unfazed and unbothered by zero answers and zero remedies. with everything is kind of a laugh it off. Oh, you're making a joke. And I'm like, I'm serious. People get killed standing in the middle of the freeway. They should move their cars. Yeah. That's all he does.

He doesn't say, huh, I didn't thought about that. But you're right. That's a good idea. We should just put it up on the sign and make people aware of it. They can pull over. It doesn't say anything. He told me that the homeless, I said to him 13 years ago, I said, the homeless are junkies who are schizophrenic.

They're mental issues and they're addicted to drugs. And that's who's on the sidewalk. And he said, how about the true face of homelessness? And I said, who's that? And he said, oh, he said, the true picture of homelessness. I said, who's that? So it's a mother of two, full-time job, minimum wage, just got divorced, got put out with their kids. I said, that's nobody. That's nobody. By the way, you want to not solve a problem,

then don't mislabel a problem or don't diagnose a problem. Reese's peanut butter cups. There's no chocolate or peanut butter in his point. Right. And that's what it is. He labels something, something else and then moves on. And the homeless problem's got a lot worse. Last 13 years, the homeless problems got a lot worse because he diagnosed it as a mom. with a full-time job who just got divorced right that's how he diagnosed it so I mean just staying on that issue for a minute there was 13 years ago how many billions have been spent in California 24 $24 billion dollars has it gotten better or worse it's got worse but why wouldn't it because you've not identified the true face of homelessness well if you walked in a house and

someone decided it was termite infested and then the guy said, I think it's because it's haunted. And then left, well, that's not really going to solve the termite problem, is it? You've misdiagnosed what's going on. You got the termite part, right? But you might get a show on the travel channel. Tent that house. Yeah. Tented.

Well, you look, I think of the high speed rail. I think of the fires. I think of homelessness. And then I read the profile and was it Vogue the other day, which is just amazing. And I just watched yesterday in real time. I forget who he was in front of, but it was a large assemblage of black people. And he said, I have a, what is it, like a 980 on my SAT, but I can't read either. Yeah.

You know, there's some form of dyslexia. He's getting lit up for it because I think he said, I'm just like you. Yeah, 960, I think. 960, right? but I was rounding. Yeah. But I mean, so look, he survived the exchange with you 13 years ago. He survived all of these things.

He doesn't, he doesn't really fully understand it. And I can tell you that, you know, sometimes you have to sort of get in the ring with somebody to really feel their power or lack thereof. You know what I mean? You can't just watch them on TV. And they're boxing bouts. You know, you have to really kind of experience it. And I've sat in a room for an hour and a half with him listening to him try to answer questions.

And he doesn't track. So there's something missing. Like I would say, you know, with a lot of people when they go, oh, what do you think Adam Schiff? I go, oh, that liar, that guy's lawyer, bullshit artist. But and you can say, well, what do you think about AOC? and I go, she's a narcissist with a 10 cent head. But you go, what do you think about Gavin Newsom? I go, something's wrong with him.

That's plain and simple for me. And it's not for me. I'm telling you reliably something is wrong with him. And when you see him sort of do what he does, that's what you're seeing. But you're only seeing it on TV. You're not smelling as musk, his nutty musk when you're in studio with him. Chuck Google. nutty musk.

I'm serious to see what to... I just make it nut musk. I just want to see what comes up. I know we've got to land the plane here soon, but I mean, is there like a scenario where you'd even consider running for some kind of elected office? No, but I'm flattered that people tell me that all this time. You're on lists. I guess.

Again, it sounds so far away from... my version of myself that lives in my head. You know, like Adam Krolliver, Governor sounds insane to me. But on the other hand, writing a book is pretty far away. Not Taco Bell material? The version of my head. From your, I mean, look, it's all insane.

I totally get that it's all insane. But this one seems totally insane. But I would be very good at it because I would approach it like we're on the job site. It's just, here's what we're going to do. and here's what they're not going to do, and here's what it works. And there's a kind of pragmatism that is missing from what we're talking about, and it can be found on the farms and in the barns and on the job sites, a kind of a brass tax pragmatism that is missing.

The bluer the state gets, the more that enzyme is missing. You know, it needs some ranchers. and some hunters and some folks that put things together. Did you see Farid Zakaria's thing? Yes, I did. On Mondami. Yes. And New York in general.

What do you think? And blue states in general. In general. Well, blue cities. Oh, blue cities, yes. But what he did, he kind of left the door open for a comparison between blue and red cities. But I, like, can you think of a red city?

That's a good point. Yeah. There's red states, but not. so much red cities. Right. And I think, you know, the point of managing a population, it's kind of, the line to me is interesting between, well, are you managing a city or are you managing? Well, I can say to some degree, there are surprisingly a couple of Orange County cities that in California that could be considered red in the way they sort of conduct themselves, you know. And Long Beach, you know, didn't want to give in to all the COVID mandates and shut the beach and stuff like that.

They have, there's some little bastions. And you can tell because if I go to the Irvine Improv, which I've, you know, performed at quite a few times over the years, when I'm driving out of L.A. And I'm on the five freeway and I'm looking at damnation alley with hobos wandering and circles and graffiti everywhere and garbage everywhere. and at some point the road opens up and the pavement smooths out and the garbage and the homeless go away and the graffiti goes away. And I look around and I go, I guess we're in Orange County now.

Like we've literally, there's a palpable difference. When you're driving, it hits you pretty hard because it just all of a sudden everything has changed. And so there are certain cities that are at least run reddish, even if they're not completely, read, but I, 127 billion dollars for a budget, yeah, more than Florida. State of Florida, more than Thailand. Right. More than Greece. Right.

Yeah, it's insane. But the thing that's insane about it is there's a bravado to it, which is kind of, if you, it's really nervy. It's a bravado because what it's saying is, is you go, look, you guys spend more more money than the country of Greece and the state of Florida. Okay. And you're going to go up to the podium and say you want more money and people need to pay their fair share and we're going to tax this group and that group.

Is there any part of you that thinks about reeling it in a little bit in the spending department? And then why is that off the table? Like, why is that a non-starter? because you can either tax people more or you can spend less and you'll end up in the same place. It's the same difference. But throw in 5% of that population left. Right. Right.

I mean, that's a lot of people. And you can kind of hide that kind of big crazy number with big crazy numbers of people. But the number of people who are leaving is on the rise. So that just means your budget's higher and now fewer. people have to pay more. And it's just, I mean, watching Farid talk about this was, I thought it was really instructive because he didn't enjoy talking about it. But at least he, like, he told us the truth in the ingredients.

Like he was talking about real chocolate and real peanut butter, I thought, you know. Yeah, it was refreshing his candor. Yeah. And I think that's his brother's name, by the way. Candor Zakaria. So I liked it. And yeah, when people on that side of the aisle are speaking that way, that should be a sobering moment to those guys. And also, there should be some element of sort of humility that they don't seem to have, which is you are spending a grotesque amount of money.

This is an impossible scenario. And you're going to have to try to. try to re-engineer what you're doing here. And there never seems to be that sort of come-to-Jesus moment. It's just lots of posturing about needing more money. I just think, you know, the photo that Chuck finally found and good work, Chuck. That's the ultimate. I mean, your point was you can't go backwards.

They won't go backwards. If you're going to put in the barbecons or you're going to put in the casons and you put in five, you're never going to put in four. It's only going to be six. Everything's got to go big, big, big, bigger. You really, in order to really like fully appreciate this, for me, I did it for a living for several years, a decade or more, but then I got in a show business and I didn't do it for a long time. And then at some point, some years later, I like came back to it because I was doing some projects on my own.

and I was pulling permits. And, you know, I was talking to the engineer and I was like, oh, we got to build a sheer wall here. And I'd go, all right, yeah, okay, two by fours, fours, and number four. And they go, no, no, no, six by six, two by six. And I'd go, no, no, that's not how you build a sheer wall. I know what the specs are. I've done it. You know, half inch plant.

No, no, three quarter inch plan. I know the nailing schedule is six on center. No, no, three on center. I'd go, what's, what happened? What happens, I laid off for seven years and the codes kept moving. You step away and then you reintroduce yourself and it's completely insanely over. And I'm walking, are you got to be kidding me? There's no way they need this.

You know, they need that. Oh, they have the pads on each side, but they need a bond beam to tie them together. They don't need a bond beam. We got the pads on this. I'm like, no, no. That's the, you know, engineers are like, that's the new coat. That's a new coat. And so, no, they never repeal anything.

They just keep adding things on. And there is a cottage industry that springs forward from all that gets added on. And then those people have lobbyists. So, you know, we now have more bureaucracy in the teachers unions than we have teachers, right? I mean, there's more office workers than there are coaches and teachers and, you know, boots on the ground. That number just keeps growing and growing and growing because it becomes a Leviathan. It becomes its own sort of machine. And then they get political clout. And then you try to strip them and make them lean and mean and whatever. And then they go, remember who got you

into office. And then the political will goes away. This is why people say it's got to go splat. Yeah. And I don't know what it means. but the country ought to be paying attention to California. I agree. I'm glad you are, man. I really, it's just it's, I'm glad I know you too. You were very kind years ago, invited me on back in the Dirty Jobs Days, said some nice things about me, you know.

In fact, you were like, you know, I really admire your career. Like, I love the fact that you're out there, like, doing a show that felt. I'm always amazed in this industry. you know, I got a call one time from Patrick, Warburton. Warburton. Hard to say, but he was like, you know, I've been watching dirty jobs. He's a good dude, by the way. He sure seems like.

Oh, he is. And he had an idea. He was like, what if you and I were just to go through like Napa Valley? Like they did on sideways only just as us, just, you know, drinking wine and hanging out. It's like, is that a show? I'm like, yeah, I guess it could be. but I'm thinking, you know, you're putty, you're killing it on Seinfeld, you're the tick, you're like all these things.

And he's looking at dirty jobs and finding something that he envied, you know, something is different. And, you know, I guess we all do that, you know? Like I envy your career a lot. I'm happy with mine. But it's always interesting to see how people turn out after 30 years of doing what they do. Well, thanks. But listen, I see you and I go, oh, man, that's what I should be doing.

Yeah. Because I love the work. And one thing I do want to say to you specifically on that subject and all, you know, I know that all the vocational training and all that sort of bring back shop class near and dear to your heart. I say all the time you go up and down PCH as I do. it is littered with people working. Now, it's all road work. They're all doing road work.

They're not building any houses, but it's all road crews. And then I go up the hill and I walk on the job sites and it's all these crews. I see crews everywhere. I do not see one black face. I only see Hispanics. And I've said for a million years, can somebody go down to the inner city and find these kids

that are on a bad path that are heading for gangs or heading for worse and get a hold of them and go, there's good money to be made, there's dignity, there's pride, you're two years away from it, you're 17, you've been suspended five times, you're not going to be a rapper, we don't need to expose you to music, we don't need to take you to a museum, you need a trade, man, and there's plenty of work to be done, you know the pitch better than anybody. But could somebody go down there and and get to these people and tell them because I don't see one of them working in this entire vista. And I pass hundreds of guys every single day and not one person from the interstate. Well, the answer is yeah, but nobody who ever won an election.

In Baltimore, there's an organization you would love called Project Jumpstart. And these guys, this is the construction industry who basically threw up their hands and said, can't find apprentices. We're really in a world of hurt. So they set up this pre-apprenticeship program through the inner city. So some guys coming out of jail, some guys about to go in, you know, all at risk and, you know, and they went in there. They took two retired shop teachers and put willing participants through this pre-apprenticeship program. And it had consequences. Like, you could screw it up. You're late.

Like, they would give you a stipend, but if you're late, they'll take money. Shirts untucked, cell phone goes off, all that, you know, their consequences. Bottom line, it was not involved at the time anyway with any kind of local taxes, and it was vibrant. And, I mean, these stories, I mean, guys who, you know, electricians make $140,000 a year who were out of cards. Right. I mean, the exact kid you're talking about. So, yeah, L.A. could do that. They could absolutely do it, but I wouldn't know what elected official to turn to.

It's going to take private industry. I've never heard it come out of anyone's mouth, but someone should have said, Altadina's burned to the ground, Palisades is burned to the ground, Malibu's burned to the ground. I don't need a bunch of people coming in from Oklahoma to pick up the pieces. We have tons of strong, young people. it doesn't take that long to figure out how to pull some Romex through some studs or whatever. It's not rocket science. It's experience and it's hands-on, but it's just you can do it in a year.

And you can get on a job site. By the way, when you're on a job site eight, ten hours a day, every day, you learn real fast. Real fast. Right. And three years from now, this guy should be 20, 20. 21 and they'll be making good money and they'll have dignity and pride and sense of purpose and all that somebody just go let's do this and I've never heard I've never heard a word from anybody ever I look man I mean maybe we ought to do it all right I've been bitching about it for a long time

hey I'm glad you stopped by sorry it led into this giant life-changing promise made in front of three cameras but yeah let's do it I'm going game yeah oh good Really appreciate you coming by, man. Thanks, Mike. Always appreciate talking about you. Yeah, man. I owe you. Actually, I think this makes it even.

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