TRIGGERnometry - Adam Carolla: "I Can't Wait to Leave California"

Episode Date: October 3, 2022

Sponsored by: Manscaped. Receive 20% off Manscaped products when you use the code Trigger20. Check out their products: https://www.manscaped.com Adam Carolla is an American radio personality, comedian, actor and podcaster. His latest book, Everything Reminds Me of Something, was released this year. Join our exclusive TRIGGERnometry community on Locals! https://triggernometry.locals.com/ OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: https://www.subscribestar.com/triggernometry https://www.patreon.com/triggerpod Bitcoin: bc1qm6vvhduc6s3rvy8u76sllmrfpynfv94qw8p8d5 Music by: Xentric | [e-mail] | https://www.xentricapc.com/ | Channel ID: UCo_8zzSxKeL3arKWVuP8wdQ Buy Merch Here: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/shop/​​​ Advertise on TRIGGERnometry: [e-mail] Join the Mailing List: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/sign-up/​​​ Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media:  https://twitter.com/triggerpod​​​ https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod​​​ https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod​​​ About TRIGGERnometry:  Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@francisjfoster) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When I grew up, you go to the beach, there was a sign that said no, and all it was is fireworks. Or, you know, no manslaughter. The beach sign gets something, it's no Frisbee now, no digging holes, no alcohol, no dogs. Like, no, no. So, you were living in a place where the beach, if you think about the beach and the ocean, it's like, it's a metaphor for freedom. It's like I'm going to the ocean or they sailed across the ocean to be free, you know, and they landed in Venice Beach or Pismo Beach or whatever. It's like it's literally like a metaphor. Well, in California, there's a never-ending list of things you cannot do on the beach and every year they add one.

Do you have a sort of moving? Yes. No, I have a couple of kids and I tell everyone I will be attending. their graduation in a U-Haul truck. I will pull up in a moving truck. I wave to them during their graduation and I'm going. They just can't admit they were wrong. Gay marriage was illegal in Arkansas.

It's going to be legal in California. And then one day Arkansas will make it legal and then they'll look at us. Right. Except for what happened is we just kept going. And we never stopped, you know. Hey, Francis, do you like locals? I live in London, Mike.

So obviously not. The only pleasure I get from the locals is when we share an intimate moment as we watch a Japanese tourist get trapped in a tube door. That is good. But I wasn't talking about the locals. I was talking about our community on locals. You mean the one where you get phenomenal behind the scenes content when you... When you get to ask incredible guests like Jordan Peterson, Brett Weinstein, Bill Burr, Sam Harris, Adam Carolla, Heather Hying and others your questions? Not just that, you can get supporter-only benefits like trigonometry mugs, monthly calls with other top supporters and even a regular meal with me and Francis. You also get phenomenal behind-the-scenes footage of our trip to America

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Go to trigonometry.locals.com and support the show. Hello and welcome to Trigonometry on the road from the USA. I'm Francis Foster. I'm Constantine Kitten. And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people. Our brilliant guest today is a comedian, radio podcaster, author, actor. He's done a bunch of stuff. Adam Carolla, welcome to Trigonometry.

Thanks. I was just writing something down. You were just writing something down. Listen, great to have you. on the show, thank you for, first of all, for letting us tear up your set in order to do this. He doesn't look happy about it. No, that's fine. I'm flattered that you guys want to stop by and have a chat. No, we appreciate that, man. Well, listen, we love you. We're big fans of yours. A lot of our fans are big fans of yours. But there's also a lot of people in the UK who are less familiar with your life and story and stuff like that. So who are you? What's been your journey through life?

I grew up out here not too far away from this studio. I was a carpenter out of high school. I didn't go to college. I wasn't really a good student, and I didn't take the SATs and forget about trigonometry. I didn't take algebra. I literally didn't. Like everyone else took it in the ninth grade, I was taking math, took high school math, you know. I grew up in a sort of blue-collarie kind of semi-depressed, you know, divorce, you know,

sort of some welfare, some food stamps, you know, just a little sort of impoverished to some degree. And so I got out of high school and I just went to work, you know, and I just, you know, I got a job just as a labor, you know, just working on construction sites, just kind of using my back, you know, moving stuff, digging holes, you know, cleaning stuff. and it was sort of relegated to a pretty, you know, blue collar kind of just, you know, grunt work kind of labor on a construction side. I mean, what I did, you know, everyone who comes here from Mexico or some other place who doesn't speak the language and doesn't have the proper identification, they work on a construction side as a laborer, you know, so that's kind of what you do. That's the lowest kind of rung on the socioeconomic ladder. And that's, I was no different.

I was just born here, but I just went to work. And I, you know, I worked my way up and I became a carpenter at some point and bought some tools and a truck and learned the skill of carpentry. And then at some point I was just like, man, this hard and it doesn't pay well. And it's kind of, I don't like the guys that work with. And it's not very interesting or stimulating or anything. And so I made the conscious decision to try to see if I could like make my way into comedy somehow because it was only two sort of tangible assets that I had. I almost said gift, but I was, you know, funny and I was good with my hands.

Those were like my two things. And I couldn't read very well. I couldn't write. I wasn't going to work. It wasn't going to be an attorney or anything. But I was like, I think you could try doing comedy. So then I just started training in comedy in my kind of early 20s. And I couldn't quit my day job.

I just work all day. And then at night I'd go take a comedy class, an improv, class, acting classes, something like that. I've just work, work all day, have an apartment with a couple of roommates. And at night, go out and try to learn comedy. Man, that's awesome. Sorry, for instance. Let me just finish this quick. point. So the thing I really love about what you do is the way you talk about it, it comes from

that blue-collar place of like the real world, right? And that's what I think makes you so interesting and so interesting to listen to and funny as well, because you're talking from a real space that a lot of people connect with. And we've traveled around the country, we've been all over the place, East Coast, West Coast, South, you know, everywhere. And I have a feeling that you have quite a unique insight into this because we've loved the trip. We're so inspired by the United States. It's a great country. There's so many amazing things going on.

And yet so many people that we talk to are afraid. They're angry. They're politically very, you know, it's a divided time in this country. Why is that, Adam? You know, the middle is no longer an attractive place to be. You know, it, it, it, it, people used to kind of strive to get to the middle, like middle class. You know, I got a home, you know, I got 14 more years on the mortgage and I own it, you know, free and clear. And yeah, it's not much, but it's mine.

You know what I mean? It's like a lot of like, you know, we got two cars. I got to work on one of them all the time, but we got two cars and, you know, I'm taking care of my kids and feed my family. It was like a kind of a pride in sort of that middle world. And then at some point we decided there was some nobility in the ultra-rich and or the, she's a mother of 14 and doesn't have a pot to piss in, but she's got her pride. You know what I mean? Like it's this weird, we got into this weird kind of class thing.

And everyone had to kind of pick aside. Oh, you want to be Elon Musk or you want to move into a project in Chicago. Like, and we kind of just, you know, the middle is like, you know, but maybe it was like more like, like, like, you know, the worst thing you could say about somebody's art, standup routine painting or something is go like, yeah, it's okay. You know what I mean? Like you almost want people to go, I hate it. I hate that guy's comedy. I can't stand that guy. or he's a genius, you know, the sort of middle is not sexy,

and it's just kind of like, we almost like the metaphor I always think of is like, if you'd like to go to the beach and you'd like to not get pummeled by the waves, then stay on the beach or swim beyond the breakers where it's calm. The middle's just you getting sand up your ass. But what's interesting about you talking about the middle is you found fame, with a character called Mr. Birchel, who in many ways was an epitome of the middle. He was a guy in the middle who was getting put upon by everybody, and he was just very frustrated.

Yeah, I came upon that guy, Bircham. I think he might as to pronounce it a little bit, but I'm not going to hold you to hold it to it. We're from Britain, man. Forgive us. I can say Benny Hill. but everyone can say Betty Hill. Bircham was a blue-collar guy. He was a shop teacher at a junior high,

and he was kind of based on a lot of my shop teachers that were mean and hated the kids and so on and so forth. But the appeal to that character, so I got to the radio, Well, I guess we got time, so here we are. I was not having success in comedy or radio or TV or anything. I'd been at this point, I had been at it for about eight or nine years, and it just, I'd been training, but I just never had any success. And I came time to maybe get a shot to do something on the radio, but it was. It was only because I was working as a boxing coach and I trained Jimmy Kimmel to box and

he was on the radio and it was a morning stunt, zoo stunt thing where this guy was going to box that guy and they needed trainers and Jimmy was doing sports. He wasn't anybody, you know, this is back in 94. So he didn't, he was sort of side kick guy in a morning radio and I trained him to box. he thought I was funny and so he said you need to I said how could I get onto the radio and he's like well you know

you're boxing coach you know like how am I going to pitch you as a comedy guy when I go well I do comedy but I just happen to be a boxing coach he said well I won't tell him who you are because they'll go it's the boxing coach you know that guy thinks he's funny but you got to come up you know with a character

and you come up the character you can try it out on Monday on the show. They're probably not going to like it, the guys who host the show, but I'll get you in. And so then I came up with the wood shop teacher, Mr. Bircham, and it just became like an overnight sensation. Isn't that the problem with the way America is in a way that you were asked that you wanted to go on the radio and you had something to give, but people just thought because you had like a blue-collar job that suddenly, like, you didn't have anything to say. You couldn't make people off. the reality is, is because you've experiences, you have far more of a connection with a regular audience

than people who went to an Ivy League university or college and, you know, had come up just doing improv and not having to worry about money. Yeah, I had a real kind of base, a foundation, and I knew who those guys were, the blue collar and the teachers. And I had this base, and I had this base of knowledge because I was a carpenter.

So my character, the thing that made the character really intriguing is he was funny, but he also knew the subject so well that people kept thinking, I know this guy's a comedian, but I also know he's a woodworker and a maybe he's a, maybe he teaches wood shop. I taught, let's see, I taught remedial wood at Louis Pasht. your middle school in Monrovia. Everything was made up, you know, and Mr. Bircham was the guy.

And so it's like people would say things, and I would take some phone calls sometimes, and like some woman, I remember if she called up, she goes, oh, it's my husband's birthday, and I want to, he's got a table saw, and I want to give him a big deluxe fence, that's the guide.

I'm going to get a fence, and the guy at this store said it was a bee, he said, there's something with a bee. I said, bees am I there. He's like, yeah, it's a bee. Yeah, that's the best fence. Yeah. And then I never want to go, how do you know all the stuff?

And I'd go, I didn't say it on the air, but I lived that life. And then I just brought it all into comedy. And Adam, one of the things that we have in the UK is like it often feels like most of the people who are on air who are talking about stuff, most of the comedians, most of the media personalities, they're not really that connected to ordinary people. And it explains a lot of the political situations we've seen in real. recent years. You're on the radio all the time. You talk to normal people. What do people actually care about in this country at the moment? People, you know, it kind of depends what side you're

talking about. But like in general, people live in this country to be left alone. And more and more, there's a lot of like, what's the government going to do about, you know, X, Y and Z. But most people just kind of went their space and to get along and kind of kind of go about their life. It's really the, you know, I think the attraction of this country is come here from wherever you were. Once you get here, just leave everyone alone. Just go about your work. And by the way, if you don't hurt anyone or pay your taxes, then you'll get left alone.

And then everything will be copacetic. And recently, we started down this path where we wanted the government to get more involved with things, which never really has a good ending. But somehow we decided they needed to be doing more about, like, with your kids, you know, the schools, the meals, the who's taking care of kids? It's like, I was supposed to say you take care of your kids. That's who's taking care of the kids. That's how it works. And I would get into trouble because I would say, you know, they'd say they're going to close the schools for COVID. A lot of these kids are on meal programs, how they're supposed to eat.

And I'd say, your parents are supposed to make sure you're fed, not the government. And then I don't want the government feeding you starting at age nine. I just feel like that's a bad precedent. Like, that could go on. Well, near 40s. You know, like, and I've been on that end. I've seen what that inspires in people. Like, I got a front row seat.

Like, I remember when I was nine, I said to my mom, why don't you get a job? If you get a job, maybe we could have nice stuff, like a nice car or something. And she's like, if I get a job, we're going to lose my welfare. Like, she was like, you got to think, boy. horrible message, but I was like, oh, she's not working because she doesn't, because she's being incentivized. Like, she's capable of a lot. And then I sort of saw her atrophy because it's like

this person that could have won out and did something was told to stay home and wait for that check. And it hurt her. And it hurt me. It hurt my sister. You know, we had a sort of front row seat to this sort of lethargy. Yeah. And you know, you are a penultimate, interview in the earth, the only one we've got left is Bill Burr tomorrow. But everyone we've spoken to and every place we've been, and we've been, like I said, in New York, in Washington, in Virginia, in Nashville, in Austin, and now in L.A. California is supposed to be the most liberal place in this country, right, from what I understand. And yet, I feel more restricted here than I have in any of the other places we've been. Like, you get off there, they are poor, masks, masks,

masks, masks, mask, mask, mask. You get in the taxi, mask, mask, mask, mask. We went into a cafe. We've been filming like a vlog of our trip. We've been filming in every cafe and restaurant. No one's ever said a word except the first place we come in L.A. You can't film here. How is it the most liberal place? I mean, liberal means freedom. The liberal place in this country.

And that's the impression that we get as visitors. How does that happen? I think you're spot on or bang on, whatever you guys say. Spot on. You're on. You're on. Well, it has sort of devolved into that, although the people that are making the rules look at it as evolving into it. And, you know, I always say this.

You know, Carol Shelby, the guy built all the race cars. He lived in Texas. He's a Texas guy. And he came to Venice Beach, California in the 60s because he wanted to build cars. Now, obviously everyone is leaving California now to go to Texas because they want to do something and they want the government to leave them alone, you know. It is a kind of a, we, California is very blue, it's very Democrat, it's kind of Democrat, it's kind of Democrat supermajority, and any place where the Democrats are involved

and have no, no enemies in the wild, so to speak, they just start regulating. And it's basically, you know, I always say it this way. When I grew up, you go to the beach, there was a sign that said no, and all it was is fireworks. Or, you know, no manslaughter. The beach sign gets something, it's no frisbee now, no digging holes, no alcohol, no dogs. Like, no, no. So you were living in a place where the beach, If you think about the beach in the ocean, it's like it's a metaphor for freedom.

It's like, I'm going to the ocean or they sailed across the ocean to be free, you know, and they landed in Venice Beach or Pismo Beach or whatever. It's literally, it's like a metaphor. Well, in California, there's a never-ending list of things you cannot do on the beach, and every year they add one. Now it's 14. When my kids are in their 20s, it'll be 34 things you can't do on the beach. They never remove them.

And so it's essentially California is just sort of like if you took beavers and you put them on top of the Empire State Building, they'd go, we've got to find some wood. You go, for what? We got to make a dam. You go, why? Because that's what we do. We're beavers. We're politicians. We make rules.

And California, there's a checks and a balance in other places. And California doesn't have that. So you'll see a sticker on every thing in Home Depot that says cancer causing, whatever. It's California. Everything's California. Like if you build stuff, I build stuff, you'll say, like, oh, I want to get the tempered glass railing on the whatever. They go, are you in California? And they go, yeah, oh, we can't ship the tempered.

We have to do the laminated stuff there. And I go, well, you can ship it everywhere else in the country. It's like, yeah, California's got a rule. They got a rule about everything. And they don't look at that as oppressive. They look at it as progress. But to many, the people who live here feels not like progress.

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But there's also the flip side of it, which is a homeless situation in this state, is out of control. The last time I was here was 2007. And what I've seen just driving about in the short time that I've been here, I've found genuinely shocking. Well, so there's another thing, which is sort of the beginning of the end of a civilization, which is California has very intense rules for people who pay taxes and play by the rules. I mean, insane amount of regulation in red tape. But conversely, if you do not want to pay taxes, or you can then construct yourself a shelter on the side of the freeway and you will be left alone.

So basically it's this. We have some of the most stringent building codes and they're up your ass every step of the way. So if you want to, you own a home and you want to build a gazebo in your backyard, that's a two-year permit situation there. But if you'd like to not pay taxes or property taxes and just build a property. plywood home in the park, you will be left alone. And that's why we have over-regulated for those who are playing by the rules and almost zero regulation for anyone who wants to just slam drugs and live in the street. And why is that? What's the philosophy behind that from the powers it be?

There's a kind of a weird system, which is like, you have money, you can afford a home. home. You know, that homeless person is sort of noble and needs our help and we're going to punch up. We're not going to punch down and leave Malone. I chronicled this in a book I wrote a few years ago, which is I started noticing there's a street. It's called Forest Lawn Drive and it goes by the cemetery and it's three miles from here. And so it's a big cemetery there. And so on one side of the street, you have a lot of poor Latino people who go down to the flower mart. Latinx, please. Latinx, and they buy Latins.

And they buy, it's the most obnoxying everything. So they buy flowers, and then they sell them cheaply to people that are going to visit Nana, who died four years ago. And so on one side of the street, and it's a mess, like the boxes and the trash and everything on one side of the street. And they're just running a bootleg flower shop from the street. They're just street vendors, you know. And street vendors, street vendors everywhere here, as you guys probably know. Okay, on the other side of the street, there's a cop. And the cop's on a motorcycle, and he's backed up the driveway to the Jewish cemetery, and he's got his radar gun out. He's given

tickets to taxpayers and soccer moms that are going to five miles an hour too fast down Forest Lawn Drive. The other side of the street is illegal activity going on and first off they're not paying taxes, nothing's permitted, they don't have a business license, they're undercutting the flower store up the street who asked to pay insurance and and all the expenses that are occurred with running a business in Los Angeles. Those people operate with impunity and our government is handing out tickets to the soccer mom who's driving her kid to school. I noticed that about 10 years ago,

and I was like, something's broken here. You either have to bust both people or you got to let the soccer mom go too. And so we start, that's the path. That's a progressive path. I don't know what's considered compassionate about letting people just sort of die in the streets or sell their goods in the streets

or all cash under the tail. It's some compassion. We also have a racial, thing too because those are Hispanic people on that side of the street. If you come down on them, then that's going to be like a bad optic. We're a mess. We don't know. I went out on a boat with a guy who ran the Staples Center, which is now out of the Crypto Center or whatever it is. And I said to him, I walked out of a Lakers game a couple years ago with my son. There was besieged with people with makeshift hot dog carts and propane tanks

just selling street food. But I said, it was all on your property. It's all on the Staples Center. It was right by, right, the door, or you should walk out of the venue. It's like you bang into a guy that, he pulled out his phone and he showed me a picture of one of those carts

with a giant cockroach cooking on it. And he said, we hate it. We hate it. What can you do? I said, well, what can you do? You're inside charging, 14 bucks for a hot dog. These guys are charging two bucks for a hot dog.

There's no permit. There's no license. They're dealing with food. There's no health ordinance or something. They're on your property. They're just selling. He said, oh yeah, they load them up in vans and they bring them out, you know, and they're all cooking out front there. I said, go to the city council.

You guys are one of the biggest taxpayers in the, you took downtown and resurrected it by building the Staples Center. You got to be one of the biggest taxpayers, employers, in the city, go down to the commission, the city council, tell them, clean this shit up, we don't want this stuff out of it. He goes, I don't want to get into trouble. What? That's the way

there's exact words to me. So I don't want to get I don't need that kind of trouble. What does that mean, Adam? It just means if he, he as the taxpayer who runs the Staples Center, if he goes to the city council and says, I want you get these people off of my, whatever,

they'll go after him. That's, I mean, we did the same with COVID. It's like that's, that's just where we're at. That's why people are leaving. And this is why I was going to ask you, because when we were in Austin, we did Joe Rogan's show, and one of the things he's trying to do is get a bunch of people down there, sort of like a building you scene. Have you ever thought of moving? Yes. But you haven't? No. And that's why I'm a good interview. No, I have a couple of kids, 16-year-old twins, and they're in high school and they're coming into their junior year and I tell everyone I will be attending

their graduation in a U-Haul truck. I will pull up in a moving truck and wave to them during their graduation and I'm going Texas I don't know Nashville Florida it doesn't it doesn't really matter you know the thing about California is it's so screwed up people used to come to California like like Carol Shelby with a dream. You know, they come here. It was like, hey. Now, when I talk to, and I grew up in California,

in California, it's like, you would never leave California. People come to you, you know what I mean? Like, you look at people in other states and go, well, you bet you, it's only a matter of time before you come down here. I'm not going to you. Yeah. And you talk to people now and go, you want to leave California? And they go, yeah, and then I go, where are you going?

And they go, it doesn't matter. Like, that's how bad California's got. They're not even, it's not like they found a place they think is better than California. They just want anything is different. I'm kind of the same way. It's like, Nashville or Austin or, you know, Florida or whatever. It's just like, yeah, I'll figure it out. Right.

But don't you think there will ever be a moment where you can sort of turn California around? because surely it can't keep going down that path. Nobody likes to live with the descriptions that you've just described. Nobody likes to see that. Even people who are just very much on the right would be like, well, surely these people need help, you know, they need psychiatric help. We can't carry on like this. And then presumably, I mean, you tell me what you think,

but you'd expect them to be a political backlash against this. Like people having their cars robbed every day, you know, drugs, blah, blah, blah. you know the full deal. You'd expect people to start voting not only with their feet, but also in the voting booth. Well, you know, it's kind of a weird thing. And so, you know, I guess it depends on how ensconced you are in a way of doing things. Like, you know, we had a tried to do a recall on our Gavin Newsom, the governor, you know,

he won by a landslide. my mom who's I talked to my mom about it and about six months ago when this whole thing was going on she's a lifelong kind of Californian and progressive I said so what do you think

you know we vote for Gavin Newsom again or Larry Elder the other guy and she's like I don't know anything about the other guy the Republican guy she's like but I'm just going to play it safe and vote for Gavin Newsom it's like all right man more homeless people.

It's kind of a, the way people think over here is, it's like, look, I don't really know what Gavin Newsom's up to. I'm not a big fan of that guy. But the other side, those guys are racist, and I would much rather just have bad governing than a racist running. Larry Elder, well-known racist. Yes. The LA Times called him the black face of white supremacy. He's actually a black guy grew up in Compton, but he's evidently he's a white supremacist. So that's what they do.

Now, the bigger question is, what the fuck's wrong with my mom? I know the L.A. Times told you the middle-aged black man was a racist, but don't you see a pattern forming here? Can everyone be a racist who disagrees with you? So the racist guy is for school choice. Because he's racist? Like, why? How does it work? And the answer is people are stupid.

They're stuck. It's cognitive dissidents. And really what I think it is is they just can't admit they were wrong. They just made a mistake. Like this guy, I know he's, you know, a Democrat. I know he's on your side. I know you like him. He's a disaster.

Just you got to go another direction. Sorry. You know. And, you know, People say, well, you know, maybe when we bottom out, we're not quite, we're not there, we're almost there. But then when change happens when you bottom out, and I go, okay, so you have to bottom out. Yeah, that's when the change happens. So it's like we're, we got a teenage daughter and we removed all of the nail polish remove her from her bedroom because she's huffing it in a sock.

But she's not flatlined yet. Like, she's not OD'd officially. She just has a problem with huffing varnish in the garage. Maybe we could get her help now. And their thing is like, wait until she ODs and flatlines. Then we get help. And I'm like, when we see where this is going, right? Like, maybe we could get a meeting now or some counseling now.

Like, I see where the trend is going. We're bottoming out. And in California, we're like, yeah, but we haven't hit bottoming. yet. So we'll hit bottom, then we'll do something. That's absolutely insane. The fact that they're thinking like this. Why is this the most progressive out of all the states in America? Why? We just, we decided that we lead the way. So, and we say it, like politicians go, as California goes, so goes the nation. You know, we, we think we're trendsetters. And so we

think we're setting fashion and trends and, you know, Hollywood and movies, and we're very much like, we are the taste makers, you know, so we sort of dictate. So, you know, and we look at it almost like historically, like, like if, if there were two drinking fountains for black Americans and white Americans, and California would certainly be the first place to outlaw that, you know, and we go, because we set the trends, you know. And historically, it's like, yeah, we do. We kind of set the trends and we're progressive, and we'll show the way. And so if gay marriage was illegal in Arkansas, it's going to be legal in California,

and then one day Arkansas will make it legal, and then they'll look at us for, right. Except for what happened is we just kept going, and we never stopped, you know. So now we're like, we need guys swimming. with women and setting records, everything seems like the next, you know, progression. It improves the sport. You can't argue with it. The times get better, everybody's happy, except the women.

Right. And they're never happy. We just got caught up in this. We're setting the trends. You know, we're going to have a third transgender bathroom. And we're going to, if a male identifies as a female, then he goes right to the female prison, you know, or she goes right to the female prison.

We look at ourselves like, we are so progressive that, you know, we just kind of go, well, what would they hate in Arkansas? So, well, I would hate people to have guns and be able to drink a beer on the beach. That's what they want. Then we're doing the opposite. Or, you know, that's just so obviously there was a time when it was like kind of a good thing. We've gotten so far past that point, and we don't pump the break. So it's like, what's Florida want to do? He wants to keep the schools open during COVID.

All right, close the schools, you know what I mean? And then he wants to keep the beaches open during COVID. Close the beaches. You know, that's how, what would Trump want to do? He wants to build a wall to make a, no, no more wall. That's essentially, all they do is. react to whatever, they just do the opposite of whatever Trump wanted to do or whatever a red state wants to do. But they're not really weighing in like, hey, if you close all the schools,

maybe the kids are going to commit suicide. They're going to get freaked out. I don't know. We're not interested in that. They said close to school. Open the school. We say closes. Hey, Francis, what do you think is the best way to advertise a business? That's easy. All you need to do is spend shed loads of cash on an advert that's going to be promoted on a dying medium light TV, then simply sit back and watch all your hard-earned money disappeared down the toilet. What about advertising with Trigonometry? Why would I do that when I can advertise on ITV3 for the measly sum of 20 grand and be

watched by six people? Because Trigonometry now has over 350,000 subscribers across the different platforms and gets 2 million views and downloads a month? That's right. You can place an advert with us and will promote your brand on one of our own. episode. Your ad will be written by two professional comedians. Yeah, that's right. We're hiring two professional comedians. When we make our ads funny and engaging to the point where some people say the ads are their favourite parts of the show. Yeah, we probably shouldn't admit that,

mate. All you need to do is contact us on marketing at triggerpod.com.uk. That's marketing at triggerpod.com.com. Advertise with us and we'll get your business cancelled. Adam, you mentioned both Trump and Florida, so DeSantis, obviously, you know, looking from the outside in America, went through just four years of absolute chaos, or six years of absolute chaos now at this point. What happens going forward? Well, it kind of, I guess it depends.

Now, so people will do this thing, well, they'll go, Trump drove everyone insane. He gave everyone had Trump derangement syndrome, and so he drove everyone to. And then they'll say, if we can get some more moderate type in there, not Trump, but somebody's more moderate, then we could live with that. But they will go nuts over anybody who gets elected who's a Republican because they've kind of painted themselves in a corner, which is they've said anyone's a Republican's are racist and homophobic and transphobic and everything phobic. So then there would be some concern if you actually thought that someone who was racist and homophobic and transphobic and everything else was running your country. There would be definitely thoughts about that.

But I mean, they will, Larry Elder wasn't a racist until he ran against Gavin Newsome, who's a Democrat and who's a white guy. Then the black guy became a racist because I'm not based on him. anything. It's a tool. It's a tool. It's a tool. It's a tool that is bizarrely ingested repeatedly by people. If I was in charge of calling everyone a racist who opposed me, I would, I would feel like, oh, come on, who's going to buy it the 126 time? It can't be some sort of magical equation where everyone who disagrees with you is a racist? Like, it's a pretty preposterous notion, but they're going, we're going back to that again.

And they just, they just do. And I don't. So you don't think DeSantis, you can say, well, look, I'm from a Latino background, you know, I mean, obviously didn't work for Lari Elder. You don't think that a more moderate person like him, because let's be honest, Trump was incendiary. Yes.

On purpose, often, right? Yes. A more moderate person who has many other. policies, who's confident, who looks good, sounds good, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You don't think that will help? I mean, it'll get it a little, anything but Trump, for sure, but they will go nuts on DeSantis. I mean, they're already starting with him because they feel like maybe he's viable or something like that. So there's going to be lots of hit pieces on him.

and it's the same playbook. They'll find misogyny, racist, some COVID stuff where he didn't care, you know, whatever they're going to do. But they'll do it. I don't really know what the end game is, and I'm not sure why so many people go along with it. I interviewed a, oh God, I'll think of his name,

Glenn Washington, I think his name's a black man who is the, I didn't work for NPR. something like that and he unfortunately came in here the day after Trump was elected and he's like I got to talk to my kids about where we're living now like what what's I got to tell them they got to look over their shoulder you know they run serpentine to the mailbox and everything and it's like what you think Trump's doing out hunting black people or something like what do you think his policy is you just tell your son go to school you know go go enjoy your life he lives in San Francisco

He's like, oh man, I got to talk to my kid and I'm like I I don't know I don't don't talk to your kid by the way You're gonna screw him up, but also like do you think like what do you think is going on and I I I don't know the answer I did I did they believe it like what are they I mean I had You had so many people like freaking out like I got to talk to my kid I got to leave the country It's like whatever and he's going to you know X Y and Z and and I'm like all right, but after X amount of years and nothing happens, is it okay? And they're like, he wanted, it went, it went from like, he's going to do this to he wanted to do it. Now, it would have done it. Yes, we're in some weird hypothetical where this is what he wanted. It shifted from,

here's what he's going to do to here's what he wants to do. And then it gets into some, we have to stop him from doing the thing he wanted to do, but never did. So you're essentially an arsonist who's never lit a match, but you want to burn down the synagogue, but you never did, but it's because I'm going to stop you. It's just a weird hypothetical world, and I don't know if you can ever win that hypothetical argument. You know, you can't think the shit is going to end at some point? You think it's just going to get worse and worse?

Well. I mean, I can't imagine it being worse than it already has been. Can you? No. Isn't it fucking brutal? I mean, the news outlets have an endless ability to churn. You know what I mean? So they're going to do what they're going to do. The question is, is sort of people, you know, when do people hit a saturation level?

Like somebody said to me, I was talking to Dr. Drew on my podcast, and he said something about monkey pox. And I'm like, I'm not, whatever the CDC is talking about, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm no longer listening. I've just, they, they were so full of shit with COVID. They got so many things wrong. I had so many people telling me what to do and what not to do and so much misreporting and so much everything that I was just like, whatever goodwill I had with the, you know, with this group or that, you know, I've lived in this country around the whole life. The CDC was like, yeah, whatever they tell you to do, you do it, you know, because they're the experts. They don't

have an agenda other than your health, the nation's health, or whatever it is. And I, I, I don't Honestly, that's how people felt about CNN a few years ago. It's like, look, whatever CNN said, that's what happened. Like, that's the news. Now everyone's like, oh, sure. Oh, so Trump took a shit on the grave of the unknown soldier. Who told you this happened? Oh, no one sought.

Oh, one person sought. Oh, they work for CNN? Like, it's like, now everything is just dubious world. And it's really, it's just a bad way to relationship to have with news. or the CDC, because they may be right. I mean, there could be a pandemic coming down the pike and the CDC could say, Adam, here's what we need you to do.

And I'm like, yeah, I'm going to have another beer, bitch. And then I die. You know what I'm saying? Yes. But that is a terrifying place for America to be in, because if you no longer have faith in the institutions, doesn't that really say you've got no, you don't really have faith in America itself?

I think you shift it to, you know, you get back to sort of god guts and guns. Like, I'm no longer listening to what the FBI experts have to say about Hunter Biden's laptop. You know what I mean? The 51 security experts signed off to say it was fake Russian propaganda. It's like, all right, so these guys are experts. Or Fauci or CDC or, you know, infectiousities, like experts. It's like, or Twitter or Facebook. Like, you're pulling off doctors who disagree with you.

You're putting on doctors who do agree with you. I think people are just going to have a different relationship with experts, so to speak, or even the FBI or the institutions. And yeah, it's definitely going to erode some of your relationship with the government if you hear the FBI or the CIA or the CDC or Dr. Fauci or the vice president says, and you go, sure did. Yeah, I'm not, yeah.

And then you end up going, well, let's go over to substack and see what these guys have to say about monkeypox because I don't believe what the president is saying about monkeypox, you know what I mean? Or, or Don Lemon on CNN. Like, all right, let me go on. So it's going to force people to then go into these alternative places and find information, which then the mainstream will label as dangerous misinformation.

It's like dangerous misinformation who is right about most of COVID as the dust settles. Yeah. Moving forward, how do you think we heal America, Adam? How do you think that we bring... Well, we don't heal it because we're foreigners. Yeah, exactly. You heal America. You, Adam.

I think, you know, ultimately, people have to understand that politics used to be a very small, boring part of our culture that nobody really wanted to talk about it at dinner party. Nobody knew other people's politics. It was just sort of like, I don't know, that guy votes. I never asked. Why would I care? You know, it's like a very small group. I have friends in Hollywood, you know, who I disagree with politically, but we're still great friends, and we just don't talk about politics, and we never did.

It's not like we put a moratorium on talking about politics. We never talked about politics. It just wasn't, we talked about comedy. We talk about cars, you know, we're talking about sports, you know. We talk about, you know, good football, real football. But I don't know. And there was no, there wasn't much room in, in our conversation for politics because it was considered sort of boring and stuff old guys talked about. We want to talk about fun stuff.

And so I think we, I think we need to just start tacking back toward a place where it wasn't such a, in the zeit guys. Like it wasn't such a big part of everyone's day in and day out. Like I never spoke to my family about politics. It just wasn't a, it wasn't a thing. And I think we're going to have to realize that, you know, CNN or Fox or whatever, they may want you to talk about all this stuff. But ultimately, that's them, and that's them getting paid, chitting up interest in something that's probably detrimental. Like, look, you can turn on the TV and see a thousand commercials for fast food. It doesn't mean it's good for you.

It means they're getting paid, but hopefully you're consuming it. But at some point, you're just going to have to step back and not consume. So we've got to make politics boring again, which we'll try to do. We do it on our show all the time. But, Adam, you've written a new book. Oh, that's right. It's right there. There's a lot of copies of it here.

What do you talk about? What's it about? Well, normally I write a comedy book. I just sit down and think, what do I think's funny? and what have I been ruminating on or thinking about, and then I sort of tend to write it. I guess that's how everyone writes their comedy books. But in this book, people are asking me questions.

Some celebrities and some fans, and they're saying, here's a question. And so now, I'm now forced to go, I never considered that. I was planning on writing about this. So my past books, I just drive around, see stuff that pissed me off, I go, oh, I got right about this.

Damn Mexicans on Forest Lawn Drive. Well, there's a cop giving tickets out to sucker moms. Give me that pen. You know, this is people asking questions. And then I've been sort of forced into a position where I go, hmm, I never considered that. And then it is forced me to kind of stretch out, grow a little bit comedically because I was just doing what I wanted to do in pastbook. And the books were funny, but this is more like somebody asked me a question. And they said, it's 2022.

Men and women in this country have basically gotten on an equal playing field. And many men stay home. Many women go to work. And many men cook and the women bring home the bacon and all that kind of stuff. But still when you see someone riding a motorcycle, the guy's on front and the woman's behind. And it's 2002. Like, why is that the standard architecture of people on a motorcycle

because that goes back 50 years, you know? The patriarchy, Adam. Yeah, the patriarchy. But why? Why is that still, in 2022, when everyone is, there's more women lawyers and more women in college than men? And I remember just thinking, that's interesting.

Why is that? Because I don't see it laid out any other way. So I was like, what would explain? that and I thought I think I have an answer but it took me a minute I was like because it is a very true statement but it also wouldn't be true inside of a college campus there's many female professors now and female CEOs and stuff like that and I thought a progressive couple couple that was more modern more progressive and more of all these things we talked about

would never own a motorcycle. Right. It's too dangerous. Right. People were double masking during COVID, wiping down their tennis shoes before they walked into the house. So the people who are progressive emotionally that way, politically, whatever, a motorcycle would be way too dangerous for them to own. They're all driving vulvos with, you know, 15 airbags in them. And the people who would go out and ride a motorcycle in this.

dangerous days out there, they are much more traditional, and they have a different relationship with danger. It's a little more traditional. Like, they wouldn't be yelling at the kid to put a helmet on when he was walking to the bathroom, you know? And so it's a self-selecting group. Right. And that's why that's the only way you see it laid out. And I was satisfied with that answer. Yeah, Manuel, I really look forward to reading it because you're a very funny guy, and these anecdotes will probably give you, like we haven't had a chance to read it yet, but I really look forward to it

because the anecdotes probably give you, like, great launching pads to go into stuff like that. Yeah, it was, everything's a launching pad for me, but I did kind of get a lot of questions and went, it was like, it's kind of the difference between going out and doing stand up and kind of going, here's what I'm talking about, and I got my set, here it is,

versus somebody in the room going, talk about, and then they yell something out, you know, and now it's like it's a little different dynamic. And you're kind of going, I wasn't planning on talking about that. But now you're sort of challenged.

Like, how do I make this interesting, funny, unique, and what have you, given it wasn't something I was planning on talking about. And I found it to be kind of interesting that way. Adam, do you feel constrained in your comedy more than you did 10, 20 years ago? Could you get away with more stuff before than you could now? You know, I think it's all about sort of how you position yourself.

And, you know, if you, I say horrible things all day, but no one ever asked me to apologize because I've sort of positioned myself as someone who doesn't apologize. So if you kind of position yourself in a certain way, then you can avoid a lot of this. Now, I don't know that it's going to help your career that much, per se, but for me, I've always just kind of felt like, well, I'm a comedian, so I have some license to say whatever I want to say whenever I want to say it.

Now, we've kind of changed the rules of that recently, but I never changed my mind on that rule, which is I get to say what I want to say because I'm a comedian. I'm not setting policy. I'm telling jokes, you know. And it's funny, though, I mean, to be honest, you know, you say to people, comedians always go, it was a joke, it was a joke. Yeah, it was a joke, but I felt that way. I mean, if I make a fat joke about a skinny guy, it's not really going to work.

You know what I mean? You got to be that way. So I joke about a million things. I do mean most of the things I joke about, but they're jokes. So I get to say what I won. And my feeling is like, you know, I'm a carpenter. I can go back to swinging a hammer if I have to.

I have a trade I could fall back on. And I would never want to compromise what I want to say. I just, I feel like that's a Faustian deal with the devil. Like, it's just, why would you ever want to alter or even trim what you, what you have to say? And I get there's certain language. the certain sign of the times and, you know, that kind of stuff. But for me, no.

And then also, you'll just find a new crowd who appreciates your authenticity, I guess, although I hate that I call myself authentic. Yuck, I got to take a rape shower. But I just mean, I never looked at it as having a choice. It's just like, here's what I have to say, now I'm going to say. say it, this is not open for negotiation. And it's not because I'm bold or a hero or take a stance or anything. It's just like, I talk. I have to say what I think. It's a sign of your success that you can do that as well, because when you've got a big audience, I think that probably

makes it easier, which is great. That's great for you. Adam, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. We're going to ask you a couple of questions for our supporters only from our supporters. But before we do, the last question for the main interview is always the same, which is what's the one thing we're not talking about as a society that you think we really should be? Well, we're not talking about dads and the importance of dads. I think, you know, we sit around and we kind of chase problems. Like, what's going on with all this street crime? What's going on with failing school systems? You know, what's going on with all the substance abuse or, you know, homelessness or suicides, you know, prison overcrowding, you know, we were kind of like, who are all these

people in prisons, you know, and then we do this thing where we go, we need to either build more prisons or just let the people out who are in prison. And my thing is, why don't we find out why they're in prison? Like, maybe that's something. You know what I mean? Like, we have two choices. And my feeling is like, maybe there's a third choice, which is like, where are their dads and what roles are they play in their life and what the hell happened? And, Dads are super important. We somehow decided that they were part of the problem. There was, like, toxic masculinity or some nonsense.

They're not. They're vitally important. We got in some weird world. We're like, she's a single mom, and she's doing her best. And then we applaud, and no one goes, where's the dad? Where's dad? We decided that they didn't really have a role or as an important role as they did in the past. everything we see is just an offshoot of broken families, absent dads and bad parenting,

and we're fools just to chase it around. Like this guy, he's 16, he shot one guy, then he went into the system, then he got let out, then he punched this woman and the push her onto the tracks at the subway, then he got arrested again. Then he was out on the street that afternoon. It's like, all right, we can follow that one kid around. It was costing us millions of dollars because he gets into the system and so and so forth.

Or we can try to go back a little further and figure out where the dad is. How come the dad didn't raise him correctly? How come he didn't discipline him? All the things you get from that, we could do that. Politicians never do that because that's like a third rail that starts breaking down along racial lines

and it turns into a nightmare. So they talk about the, problem, which is essentially the damage that the termites do, but they never talk about eradicating the termites or how they got in the house or whatever it is. So it'd be like if an exterminator just chased around

ants and hit them with a slipper individually, where's the colony? Where are they coming from? What are they attracted to? They like moisture. Good. You have a leaky pipe. Fix the pipes. They're attracted to the moisture. We're not, we talk about like root causes all the time. We never get to the root of Everyone goes, why is there so much violence?

What's going on? There's 15-year-old boys punching people on the subway. It's like, yeah, ask these guys where their dads are. Go go to prison and find out everyone's relationship with their dad. Okay, that's the problem that would fix all the other problems around. We never talk about it. That's why we love Larry Eldon. That's why we had him on the show.

He's very good on that. But I'm really glad. Oh, that white supremacist black guy? Adam, thank you so much for your time. Really great to chat with you. I look forward to reading the book. I'm sure everybody else watching and listening does as well. Thank you, Adam, and thank you guys for watching and listening.

We'll see you very soon. We're another brilliant episode like this one, Aura show. All of them go out at 7pm UK time. And for those of you who like your trigonometry on the go, it's also available as a podcast. We'll see you on locals with a couple of your questions for Adam in a second. Take care and see you soon, guys. Adam, what have you changed your mind about in the last five to ten years?