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- [00:01]
Adam Carolla
Well, happy Memorial Day. We're all barbecuing and enjoying ourselves. So we got the day off around here, but good news, we got the best of Corolla Classics. Enjoy this classic compilation May 27 Hollywood
- [00:16]
Announcer
history meets radio history as Kroc's own Adam Carolla is honored with a star on the legendary Hollywood Walk of fame Wednesday, May 27, 11:30am at the corner of Hollywood and Highland. This isn't just a celebration of one career career, its recognition of a city, an era and the soundtrack of Southern California itself. Join Jimmy Kimmel, Dr. Drew and generations of Loveline fans for Adams induction as a Hollywood icon While celebrating over 50 years of the greatest radio station in the country, the world famous KROQ. Wednesday, May 27, 11:30am at the corner of Hollywood and Highland. Congratulations Adam Carolla Foreign.
- [01:07]
Progressive Insurance Announcer
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- [01:47]
Adam Carolla
This message is brought to you by Apple Card For a limited time, when you get a new Apple card and purchase AirPods Pro 3 at Apple, you can earn back the cost up to
- [01:57]
Rob Riggle
250 daily cash new AirPods Pro and up to $250 bonus daily cash back. Now that's music to my ears. Subject to credit approval, limitations and spend requirements apply. Apple Card is issued by Goldman Sachs bank usa, Salt Lake City Branch Terms and more at Apple Co AirPods
- [02:18]
Adam Carolla
at
- [02:18]
Rob Riggle
first I didn't think it was real.
- [02:20]
Pluto TV Announcer
I woke up to this blinding light
- [02:22]
Rob Riggle
and I was transported to another place. Pluto T. Then I heard a voice.
- [02:28]
Podcast Host / Giovanni
Come with me if you want to live.
- [02:30]
Rob Riggle
There were thousands of movies and shows
- [02:32]
Adam Carolla
and they were all free.
- [02:35]
Rob Riggle
It's just so beautiful.
- [02:37]
Pluto TV Announcer
On Pluto TV, free streaming of Terminator 2, Fringe Arrow, the 100 and the X Files may cause excitement, loss of sleep and sudden belief in extraterrestrials. No credit cards or alien encounters necessary. Pluto TV Stream now pay.
- [02:59]
Adam Carolla
Foreign.
- [03:05]
Podcast Host / Giovanni
Classics I'm your host, super fan Giovanni this is the podcast. We play the best moments, highlights and fans like the clips from all 17 years of the Adam Carolla show. If you'd like to access the ad free archives for the Adam Corolla show, The Adam and Dr. Drew show, as well as the podcast Beat it out, make sure to check out Adam Corolla's substack adamcarla.substack.com and you'd like to request a clip, please email us classicsamcorolo.com now on to the clips. Since the podcast began in 2009, nearly every year we've attempted to do a special best of episode for Memorial Day. A couple years it got lost in the mix, I think 2009 itself because it was such a carryover year. With the podcast starting so quickly after the radio show ended, it's kind of an incomplete year. There was no ACE Awards that year. Traditionally we play a full episode with a military guest who's been on the show, oftentimes Rob Riggle. It's very convenient. This year is no different. You'll be hearing three pieces from select episodes over the last two years. Coming first, we have an episode from March of 2025 featuring guest Joel Lambert. It's a one on one conversation between Adam and Joel. Hope you guys enjoy
- [04:03]
Announcer
the Adam Corolla Show.
- [04:05]
Adam Carolla
Well, ex Navy SEAL Joel Lambert, or maybe there's never an ex Navy seal, maybe you're always a Navy SEAL is joining us. He's got a book out called a Navy SEALS bug in guide to how to turn your house into the safest place on earth and it's available now as we speak. Lots of distinctions for Joel. Done some acting too. Been an American Sniper and Patriots Day. But also was a lead instructor for buds, which I believe stands for basic underwater demolition, as I recall, SEAL training.
- [04:41]
Joel Lambert
That's it.
- [04:41]
Adam Carolla
SEAL training out here in California back in the day. Good to see you.
- [04:47]
Joel Lambert
Yes, sir, thank you. Thanks for having me on. Been a fan, of course, since the 90s and real happy to be on here and happy to see all the stuff you've been putting up and standing up for. So thank you for that. Very grateful for people like you with platforms that are speaking a reason to the insanity.
- [05:02]
Adam Carolla
Well, you know, it is interesting. I've had a number of Navy SEALs and folks of that ilk on the show over the years and I don't know in advance when people come on this show, you know, I have comedians, I have actors. You know, I'll run into guys that are like hardcore lefty, you know, almost Militant, lefty, like an actor or comedian or something. I didn't even know where they stood. But whenever I hear Navy seal, I'm like, all right, we're simpatico. We're gonna be on the same page. But how do I know? Well, I know we will be. Cause I played football and I did construction. So I know I'm dealing with someone who lives in the real world. And there's no more real than being a Navy seal.
- [05:52]
Joel Lambert
No, you come face Adam. You come in the buds, Basically Underwater demolition, SEAL training. The whole point of buds, and I was an instructor after going through myself, is we are peeling with a razor blade, a scalpel, like an onion, peeling layers of their existence off and exposing it to the air and the sunlight. And what happens is you either get to the core and you in hell week or someplace around there, you have. You stare into the void, and you get to see the very nugget you're exposed to. The core. Core of your soul, the very nugget of your existence. And if it's good, great. You come back out and you're able to move on. But if there's a rotten spot somewhere on the way in, that's. That's what we're doing to screen people out. So it's an exposure process. And so the guys that have gone through, even the ones that may have other issues, and there's a lot of us that have a lot of issues, you know, that the very core of their soul, they've been into a journey to their. Their very. The very nugget of their existence and come back out, because that's. That's the screening process.
- [06:50]
Adam Carolla
I've had many a seal and a total. Makes sense. Explain to me that it's really mostly mental and that the guys that are jacked and the high school football studs and everything tend to flame out faster than the guys who just have the grit and the right mental mindset.
- [07:09]
Joel Lambert
That's exactly right. I always say it's 100% mental and it's 100% physical. But what it is is the mental is the make or break. And we get to their mind. We break their mind by going through the body. So we put the mental pressure on the person by giving them physical pain and in copious amounts of discomfort and putting them in situations under extreme amounts of duress, especially underwater. And those are the things that. That will break someone mentally, but we do it through the body. That's why, you know, team guys are usually very physical, even though, like you said, the ones that are jacked. And the ones that are, that we, we call them as instructors, we will always call them gazelles because these are the kids that in high school they were, you know, they were, they were state champion wrestlers or sprinters or something like that, or they're NCAA wrestlers or something. And they never lost. They don't know what it's like to lose. They don't know what it's like to have your dick dragging in the dirt, bloody and beaten, completely demolished by whatever it is you're going up against and have to keep going after you've been mentally demolished. They don't know what it's like. So the guys that are used to getting kicked in the dick over and over and over throughout their life, they're the ones that do pretty well because they're able to handle that kind of just mental stress of not being able to cruise through and you know, cruise across the finish line, throw the, throw the great game winning touchdown and then go to prom with the head cheerleader, you know.
- [08:33]
Adam Carolla
I completely agree and I was thinking about this, which is I put this theory together. I started to notice that the guys who were former professional football players, who were offensive linemen, moved on and were having success in business and in the booth and all that kind of stuff. And I was just talking about this with the Rams. Let's see, we gotta look this one up. Andrew. Andrew, I think the guy's name is Andrew, who just retired from the Rams. He had the gray beard, made the super bowl, retired like two years ago. Andrew something. He's a giant guy. Giant guy, but he's up in the booth, he's doing great. Wentworth, I think his name is Wentworth. Anyway, I met him. Fucking guy's huge, by the way. But anyway, I met the guy and he's doing great. Andrew Whitworth. And I told him I feel like the guys who were the offensive linemen are doing better outside of the league, in business and beyond than the ball hawk bonus, baby. Guys who scored all the touchdowns. Because the guy you're used to slugging it out in the trenches and giving it up. You have to be very giving and you cannot be selfish cuz all you're doing is blocking for the guy who's getting all the cheerleaders and the attention and he's on the COVID of the newspaper. You're trying to push a 300 pound guy around and getting no credit. But then that mentality, once you go out into the world and you have to collaborate and do business, is a much better attitude. To have. And so offensive linemen who you think are big dumb oafs turn out to be to do much better once they leave the league than the guys who run the 4, 2 forties. Totally.
- [10:34]
Joel Lambert
They're the ones that are used to getting run over by the defensive linemen, you know, Right. They're, they're used to taking the hits. And the guys we get that come in there aren't used to taking the hits. And particularly the mental hits. The ones that have always, you know, they've always been the fastest guy, they've always been the strongest guy. They've always. They're used to winning. You get to buds, there is something in that screening process and in life as a Navy SEAL that will crush you, that will destroy you. There will be something that you're not great at. And how do you handle having to deep down, dig down into that very core and find something to be able to get you through something you're not good at and you can't breeze through. Some guys, that's everything in buds, but other guys, we'd have guys. I had a guy in my fir when I first started training. He was a professional triathlete. I mean, he was sponsored by Cytomax and all these different. He had all this free stuff and nobody ever found out why he joined the Navy. He got in trouble somehow, but he was a professional triathlete. And he would lap collegiate swimmers in the pool. And 100 meters, he'd be lapping collegiate swimmers running. He was the one who would sing our cadence for the instructors because he was the only one who had breath on the runs in the sand. And that guy. On a room inspection, on a Monday morning, room inspections, the instructors come and they stand outside your room and they go in. Really, it's an excuse to just mess with you. You know, they come in your room and if they find any hits of detailing or cleanliness issues or disorganization, three hits and you fail. And then you get sent to the surf and you get beaten for several hours. You know, push ups and pull ups and eight count bodybuilders and things like that. And he quit on a room inspection. This guy was just jogging along. All the brutal physical stuff was cake for him, but the mental pressure of someone yelling at him in his face and humiliating him during a room inspection broke his soul. And he quit. And that was like two weeks in. So it's a very. It's different than what people think. They think, you know, you're just going to charge through and be punching it's more. It's like Rocky says. It's how many punches you can hit and keep. And you can take and keep moving forward. How much can you take and keep going forward? That's the key.
- [12:36]
Adam Carolla
Yeah. And then that just translates into every facet of life. Exactly. And I don't think people in character. Oh, in character. And I don't think people understand really what's going on when we're sort of messing with character and telling people that. You know, I get in arguments with people, it's like, don't take that Ozempic. And they're like, why not lose a few pounds? Like, what's wrong? And I'm like, cause you're losing your character. You want to have to have to say, I would like to have a piece of cheesecake. But you know what? I'm not gonna do it. Cause it's not good for me. Or I would like whatever that thing is. We are now trying to deprive especially young males of those things because we look at them as hostile or dangerous or somehow. Oh, it's toxic masculinity. No, it is not. We need it. We're depriving people of it. We're getting really bad citizens. We're having character issues, and we're getting a bunch of fat, lazy, angry people. It's not a good plan. So what you would say, so let's try to square this off for a second. I'm just gonna break it down. You would go, a Navy seal, okay? That has to be the most pragmatic person in the world. There are jobs that need pragmatist, you know, airline pilot, construction engineer. You know, their jobs. And then they're, you know, Then there's the DEI counselor at the college. You know what I mean? She doesn't need to know anything or do anything. There's no consequence. There's no gravity. But Navy SEAL, okay? Now, per capita, the Navy SEALs have more of the kind of thoughts you're sharing with me than the average superstitious housewife. So you go, well, how are the most pragmatic people in the world sharing ideas that seem, I don't know, tinfoil hatty to a lot of people? And then you go, well, one of the other components of being a Navy SEAL is traveling and seeing things and going to parts of the country where this stuff is playing out of what their experience and their expertise is. And then they get to be present when things go down. And then you're right. So you have whatever on msnbc, but then you actually have guys who are in the room when the shit did go down. And so you have a peek behind the curtain of what goes on as well as a bunch of experience. And I never really. I forgot about the part after the Navy seals where you were employed in that business. So what's your take on then? Is Trump present a threat to this? Why the crazy derangement syndrome with Trump?
- [15:43]
Joel Lambert
I personally think that Trump is the outlier. And I think that what happened was that they had everything lined out. They had eight years of Obama and we were going into eight years of Hillary Clinton and Obama teed it up and Hillary Clinton. Hillary was going to take us into World War Three, eliminate the Constitution and, you know, losers of wars, they get to be occupied. And we would have been. There would have been some false flags, probably from North Korea. All the bad guys they set up on the TV are not the bad guys. So the TV says the bad guys. Start questioning that if they're hammering like Trump. That's just not necessarily the case. I think that the five eyes, the intelligence agencies, all the areas that the controlling entities of our world operate through the central bank, the intelligence agencies, and military industrial complex. Eisenhower warned us about, JFK warned us about all these power controls, Catholic Church, all these structures that develop in the world have been infiltrated and taken over because they've been recognized as power structures. And so the people that have been running this stuff for a very long time have infiltrated all of those, I believe, and taken control. And so when things come about and rise to some sort of prominence, they. They infiltrate and take control. So I think all the power structures that are happening right now have been infiltrated and taken control. And then you have the outlier. But then that doesn't mean that there weren't some good guys working behind the scenes. I don't know if you ever see an AMC series called Turn. No, it was on George Washington and it was the spy ring he had during the Revolutionary War that actually turned the tide of the war and allowed us to win the Revolutionary war. It's phenomenal. Anyway, I think back starting then, there was knowledge that these. These entities that control the. The city of London, the Vatican, the Washington D.C. those three corporations that control everything through the spiritual, military and banking arms. I think that they have. Boy, I'm gonna get. I'm gonna get offed. I think the day I. They have established these control structures and taken them over and have directed things very effectively. And now. But also there's still some good guys working behind the scenes that recognize these structures. And I think that Trump and all the people that are working with him and behind him, Trump's just the figurehead, have been putting things in place to counteract this move that these people have been putting in place for a very, very long time, which was the 16 year plan, the final 16 year plan of Obama and Hillary. Because I think, I personally believe United States Constitution is the only thing that's really standing in the way of complete, total world domination by the globalists. And so I think that Trump came in and surprised him. I think that Hillary was never supposed to lose. And I think that probably what happened is when Trump came in, they never thought that he was going to be able to do what he did. Like all the other outliers that have tried Ross Perot and throughout the years. But there are always, everyone's always been controlled. There's another great book, Confessions of an Economic Hitman, which really goes to where this control structure has kind of started. But I think that Trump came in, was the outlier first. They didn't take him seriously because they're able to mitigate his first term. But I think now they're starting to really realize that this is going to be, probably going to be the destruction of their entire global system that they've been working on really in the United States have been working on it since we started, but since 1913 and the federal Reserve coming in and taking us off the gold standard and putting us on this fiat currency that we pay interest to borrow that's not backed by anything. It's not real. They just print pieces of paper and then we pay interest to borrow those pieces of paper. It's insanity. But it's starting to get exposed and I think the exposure is going to take it down. So I think Trump is the good guys. I think we're in the middle of a most amazing psychological operation. It's World War 3. It's a fifth generational war, which means it's a war of narratives played out by non state actors. It's an information war. And I think that Trump and those guys are all exposing what is really the real structures of the world, not the ones we thought we've gone along with that we thought that our money really meant something and that our, our government had our best interests in mind and that the news was actually the news and it was not all Tavistock controlled social conditioning. And so I think that we're in an exposure phase and now we're starting to turn the ship around. I'm very positive about Things, But I am too.
- [20:35]
Adam Carolla
But let me ask you a couple specifics. And by the way, sorry, rambling man, I'm interested because I'm so. For people, it's weird because guys like me almost like, here's the way I feel. I feel like the love of my life, the woman I've been married to for 30 years, is poisoning my oatmeal. And then I walk around and I go, man, I feel sluggish and I have a headache all day. And at some point, one of my friends goes, I think Michelle may be poisoning your oatmeal. And I go, get out of here. Get out of here. Were you kidding? Why would she want me to die? She loves me. You know what I mean? And at some point I go and I get a toxicology report from a doctor and he's like, we're finding strychnine. And I go, get out of here. What is in it for her? Why would she do this? We've been married for 30 years. I took care of her, you know, she loves me. She's poisoning your oatmeal. And I just go, I don't believe it. Why would she do this? So that's where I'm at with all of this stuff. I'm like, really Pizzagate pedophile. What are we talking about here?
- [21:52]
Joel Lambert
Yeah, spiritual war is what I think it is. I think it's purely. I think it's light and dark. I think we're a very spiritual, very angels and demons kind of. Kind of place, is my opinion. Because it comes from. If you trace the people that are running this stuff back through the Black Nobility and, you know, the Rothschilds and all of them, those people and the 13 bloodlines and stuff. It all goes back to the cult of Moloch and baal, pre Christian stuff, Sumerian stuff, you know, child sacrifice and really ugly Old Testament stuff. And these people are still around.
- [22:29]
Adam Carolla
So these are just modern manifestations of age old.
- [22:34]
Rob Riggle
Yes.
- [22:35]
Adam Carolla
Cults. And so basically. All right, let me say this and tell me what you think of this statement. You go back and you look at these characters from the past. You could find a Hitler or Pol Pot or somebody like that, or IDI Amin or something not that long ago. And then at some point you could go to Marquis de Sade or somebody, you know, and you could go. So we all wrap our mind around evil from days of yore. You know, this guy was a sadist and he killed for pleasure and whatever like that. And then you go, and now there's us in modern times. And then part of us goes, well, look, we have genes and we drive electric cars and we have air conditioning, so we're not like that anymore. But then you go, well, wait a minute. As a student of psychology and as a student of physiology, we haven't changed that much. I mean, it would stand to reason that there are evil people that just walk amongst us. Just because it's 2025 doesn't mean that was bred out of us in the last thousand years. Why wouldn't there be evil people around or people that want power and whatever? And that's kind of your summation, right?
- [23:52]
Joel Lambert
So that's what I think. I've gone down a lot of rabbit holes. I read a lot of books. I know a lot of people that are in high places in various governments around the world and in special operations obviously around the world that have seen and done a lot of things. And so I've gotten a lot of inside information. And I've also, you know, really sacrificed a lot in my life for the pursuit of truth and understanding what's really going on, for my own development. You know, I want to be the most powerful and most developed human I can while I'm in this meat suit. And so that means that. That my ego's got to take some hits while I. While I grow, you know, And I think what we're really running into, you're talking about some of them, the brainwashed people and such. I think at this point, like, you're talking about my wife's poison. I can't believe that. I can't. I can't believe that. Well, in order to really wake up to the. What's actually happening in the world, both what we really are as human beings and the state, the real political state of the organization of our world is it. It's an ego confrontation. You can have your ego or you can have the truth. And one of the things, and the Obamas were masters of this is that whole narrative through the mainstream media and all that tells you you're good, you're the smart ones. We have to take care of those dumb rubes that won't wear masks and don't understand that the Republicans are all racist bigots and stuff. And so it feeds an ego and they feel like they're good people by not having to do anything. They don't have to really be good people. They don't have to confront their own shadows. They have to just do what the TV tells them, and they're good people. So then to confront any truth that Might be different than what the TV tells them now. It shines a light on their maybe. Maybe I'm not good. Maybe I'm not the smart one. Maybe I am actually brainwashed. And that to be able to face even the merest possibility of that is a savage blow to the ego. And as you know, our ego will kill the host before it'll allow itself to be threatened. And so I think that's what the. The roadblock we're running into with a lot of people, 100%. It's a sad place that we're at, but I think that we're righting the ship, so to speak. So I hope that things still continue on the path that they seem to be.
- [26:09]
Adam Carolla
I agree. So sorry I didn't get into your book. No, but I want to tell people, Listen, I'm with you. I've done a few things in my life. You ready? Yeah, yeah.
- [26:23]
Joel Lambert
Fire.
- [26:23]
Adam Carolla
Okay. All right. I tell people all the time, look, somebody's house is gonna get robbed or ransacked or looted or something. Let's just make the guys go across the street and not have it be your house. You know, you're not gonna build Fort Knox or Hitler's bunker. You're just gonna make it a little more difficult. And I've told people a million times, when I had a car stereo in my truck, I painted it brown. It was a Sony digital car stereo. And I spray painted it brown, the color of the dash. And I didn't do a good job either. And everyone said to me, why did you do that? And I said, to make it less attractive to steal. And I lived in LA, and this is in the 80s, and everyone got their truck broken into and everyone got their stereo stolen. But not me. I parked in Hollywood, on the streets of Hollywood, I got my truck stolen two times. I got it back because I put a fuel cutoff switch on it under the bench seat. So that was easy. And for about a buck 75, I kept my truck and I kept my stereo because I just did the two things that I knew would work in terms of getting the car stolen or getting the stereo stolen. I didn't build a cage around my truck. I made it unattractive for them to do this. And that's essentially what you can do at home, right?
- [27:46]
Joel Lambert
Yes, absolutely. I cover a lot of that in my book. Is it's not about, like you said, you don't want to build a fortress, that it seems impregnable. Well, there's something they're protecting in there. I want to be, we call it in buds when go back to SEAL training when students come through, there would be students that would come through and then you'd be sitting at graduation as an instructor and you'd be nudging your buddy like, you remember that guy up there? I'm like, no, I don't. I don't recognize that guy at all. He's graduating when we put him through training. I don't remember him. We call those the gray men. The gray men are the guys that go through training with your eyes just slide over the top of them. They're never at the top and they're never at the bottom, but they don't get any attention. Because in buds, if you're the best guy that gets a lot of attention, you're going to get extra attention from the instructor staff, which is never a good thing. And if you're in the bottom, you're going to get all kinds of remediation. And that's a very bad thing. But to be the guy that makes it through training without any extra attention from the BUDS instructor staff is the way you want to do it. That's the easiest way to get through training. And that's what you want to do with your house. You want your house to be the one. Your eyes just slide right over. There's nothing in their value. There's no reason, nothing attractive there. You want your place to be not examined for, you know, that's pretty impregnable. That guy's done a great job of, you know, making it unattractive. We want it to not even be noticed. Yeah, just like your camouflage dash radio.
- [29:09]
Adam Carolla
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- [30:06]
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- [30:35]
Adam Carolla
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- [31:20]
Progressive Insurance Announcer
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- [31:40]
Adam Carolla
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- [31:43]
Rob Riggle
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- [31:46]
Adam Carolla
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- [32:09]
Podcast Host / Giovanni
code podcast15 all right, that was Joel Lambert from 2025. Coming up next, we have a show from this year from 2026. From earlier in February, Rob Riggle was on promoting his book. It was one of the most in depth conversations they've had about his military service and they've had many felt like the most timely clip, the least stale thing we could play with Rob. And we always gotta have Rob Riggle on Memorial Day. Everybody loves Rob. Check it out.
- [32:36]
Adam Carolla
Rob Riggle in studio. Got a book out called Grit Spit and Never Quit Notes and then it stopped. So now I'm gonna look up here. Yeah. Oh, oh, notes. Oh, okay. I thought it was gonna be like Notes from the Edge or something. Yeah, I made some notes anyway. Marine's Guide to Comedy in Life. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Rob's one of the good ones. The only Marine on Manhattan island for a while. Is that correct?
- [33:08]
Rob Riggle
Well, I wasn't the only Marine there, but my reserve Unit was the only reserve unit in Manhattan.
- [33:14]
Adam Carolla
Yes.
- [33:15]
Rob Riggle
Yeah.
- [33:16]
Adam Carolla
Mike August always thought there was a sitcom in being the only unit in all of Manhattan.
- [33:22]
Rob Riggle
Well, I remember the first time I think I ever met with him. I was pursuing comedy and acting in Manhattan at the time, but I still had my day job with the Marines. So I think somehow he saw me doing something with the UCB theater or something, but he was like, they're coming for a meeting, kid, basically. And when I went to meet with him, I was in my uniform. He was probably like. I think he was baffled. He was like, what the hell is this?
- [33:46]
Adam Carolla
He decided, as he often does, that the story would be better if you were the only Marine on all of Manhattan, which does not mirror the truth. But how big was your company?
- [33:58]
Rob Riggle
The unit was small. Yeah, the unit was very small. It was probably 20 to 30 Marines.
- [34:07]
Adam Carolla
So that was all, though. I mean, it was still kind of an interesting story being one of 20 or 30 Marines in all of Manhattan, right?
- [34:14]
Rob Riggle
Yeah, yeah. Because there were other Marines, but they were on, like, recruiting duty, perhaps, or other things. That reserve unit that I was in was more of a training unit. So there was, you know, it was a lot of FBI agents, a lot of cops that, you know, they had day jobs, and then they were in the reserve unit.
- [34:31]
Adam Carolla
There's. As I was looking at your book, there's some similarities, like you and I had, which is kind of bopping around like you were at ucb. I think I was at the Groundlings and then Acme. Sort of bopping around for, like nine years and nothing's really happening.
- [34:48]
Rob Riggle
Yeah, just grinding. And the not knowing is all this time and energy that I'm pouring into this, is it gonna lead anywhere or am I just wasting my time?
- [34:58]
Adam Carolla
You know, it's kind of interesting and I've never thought about it, but I didn't have a sense of wasting my time because I came from a group of time wasters. You know what I mean? They just did nothing. All and everyone I grew up with did nothing. So it wasn't like, well, if you didn't. For all the time you spent with the Groundlings, you could have been a great cello player, or you could have been a surgeon or a celebrated attorney. Nobody did any of that. So it would have just been more beer and more TV if I hadn't done that.
- [35:31]
Rob Riggle
No, that's a good point.
- [35:33]
Adam Carolla
I wasn't looking at it as a trade off. Like, if nothing comes of it, it still wasn't a waste of my time, because I would have Been doing nothing anyway. There wasn't an option to get a master's degree or something.
- [35:47]
Rob Riggle
No, no, listen, I hear you. I think. I think I had this sense because I started late, you know, I spent all my 20s, my whole 20s, basically in the Marines. I didn't take my first improv class until I was 28 years old, and I joined the Marines when I was 19. So I just didn't. It's not a lost decade. It was a great decade. I wouldn't trade it for a single minute. But I wasn't doing what all my peers were doing, which was taking the classes, getting on stage, working on their. Their either act or their skills. So I felt like I started so late that I felt like there's this constant fire under my ass to get something to get done. Get something done. Figure it out quicker, figure it out faster. Find some way to get traction. That's what. That's. I always felt that heat on my backside.
- [36:44]
Adam Carolla
Well, the Marines, even though it's not comedy, is a good training program for, like, football, like branches of the military. Like, you know, there's a part of a sport. Like in football, there's a. You know, I played 10 years of football and I. Very rare, not very rarely. A small percentage of what I did involved football. The other part was like running. Running bleachers and pushing sleds and living in the weight room and depending on what position you play. I never even touched a football. I didn't really play football until the game. Everything else was sort of drill, drill, drill. And then you go, well, what's running bleachers have to do with football? And it's like, it's good. It's good for it. It's discipline. It gets you in shape. Whatever. Whatever. All the various drills, dragging the sled around the thing and everything. And then you go, well, what's that have to do with comedy? Well, it's good. It's good. It gives you a base. And you also. You get kind of resilient.
- [37:51]
Rob Riggle
That's it.
- [37:52]
Adam Carolla
Which you need.
- [37:52]
Rob Riggle
That's the word. It's about resilience and discipline. If you don't learn those habits early, they're really hard to learn later.
- [38:00]
Adam Carolla
Right.
- [38:00]
Rob Riggle
And there was times I was going to practice because I'm the same way. I played football from fifth grade all the way through high school. And this is back in the 80s, too. So fifth grade coaches treated you like Woody Hayes. They would hit me over the head with the whistle and the helmet, and your head would ring. That was one of Their favorite moves, they'd chew you out like you were a college athlete. And you'd be crying and they wouldn't stop, they'd keep going. They had no mercy. You got tough quick, you got mentally tough quick. And then you'd go, Sometimes you'd just be working out In August, in 2A days or whatever, and you wouldn't know why. It was just hell on earth. But you did it because you were supposed to do it. You were disciplined to do it and you learned how to do these things. And the resilience came with it. The discipline came with it. And I didn't realize those intangibles would pay off all through my life. Still to this day. Still to this day.
- [38:56]
Adam Carolla
Well, they can be applied to anything. And I don't think people really get that. If you get that toughness and the resilience and a little bit of grit and a little bit of push through pain, you know, just a little, are you hurt or are you injured Kind of thing. You get a little, you kind of get through that and then what happens is little stuff pops up later on. Like, they go, you know, you're gonna drive to Vegas and then you're doing two shows, but you gotta do a podcast before that. You're gonna be too tired to do that second. I go, no, I'm not.
- [39:34]
Rob Riggle
Yeah, I got this.
- [39:35]
Adam Carolla
And they go, you gonna do the podcast, then you gotta drive your base, but you gotta hit the stage like a half hour after you. And then there's a second you're not gonna be in any condition. I go, yes, I will. By the way, it's all I can do to stop yelling, calling people pussy all the time. But I mean, I'm like, yes, that is nothing.
- [39:53]
Rob Riggle
I'm proud of our generation. I'm very proud of our generation. I think we were raised on resilience. I give coaches, the coaches I had, they were sobs. They were hard, hard nosed guys. And the drill instructors I had, they were hard nosed guys.
- [40:12]
Adam Carolla
Oh yeah.
- [40:12]
Rob Riggle
And they didn't have, they were, they were reasonable men. Right? You know, they didn't, you know, they would, they would feed you. They would, you know, they would, if you had a dangling broken arm, they would let you go, you know, they would let you sit down. But they didn't, they didn't give you outs all the time. You know, it made you stand there and face the fire. And what I always learned, what I appreciate about them so much now looking back, is I had a perceived, this is what I thought my maximum was, right it was always. I was always like, you know, five more sprints and I'm gonna die. Five more and I'm gonna throw up or I'm gonna. And then I would. I would throw up or I would pass out or I would collapse or I would just say, I can't even. I can't run one more. And they would push me beyond that. They'd say, oh, you think your limit's here? Your limit's way up here. I mean, that's impossible. Don't even talk about that. That's impossible. You know, we're gonna do a 26 mile hump with 80 pounds of gear in what, 12 hours or in eight hours or whatever it's gonna be. That's a marathon. It's crazy. And then you do it and you realize, oh, shit, I guess I can do that. I wouldn't even conceive it. That's why I love them and hate them. I hated them at the time because they pushed me too hard. But then they showed me what I'm really capable of. And then I got a whole new perspective on life. Because once I pushed through my perceived limits to my real limits, it showed me that I am capable of so much more than I thought I was, which then allowed me to think for the first time in my life, well, if I can do all these things, I didn't think I could. Maybe I could be an actor and a comedian because I had that dream, but I just never thought it was real. I put a cap on myself, but because the Marine showed me, oh, you can do way more than you think, then all of a sudden I started to allow myself to dream again. And that's when I said, all right, you know, screw it, I'm going to go for it. And I got out of my own way. It helped me get over my own fear. And so I give them a lot of credit because those intangibles, people always say, well, Marines and comedy, how does that go together? It doesn't necessarily, but the intangibles do, right? You know?
- [42:22]
Adam Carolla
Yeah. I don't know how people can expect to fare without overcoming things and doing more than they thought they could do and having all those sort of old timey, sort of pioneer spirit things, you know, that your grandpa knew and all that kind of stuff. Plus, you know, their own pharmaceuticals and stuff now. But, like, I realized that dealing with situations for me, I got a lot out of building houses. I could build houses and I could. So stuff wasn't a thing. It was always just a process. I Could see people being intimidated or they go, we got to demo out the bathroom and then we got to build the bathroom and then we got to get the tile and the plumbing and stuff. And I go, yeah, yeah, but you just do it. But I also realized they don't have the experience of doing it. And the experience is invisible. But it makes everything easier. It makes writing a book easier if you've built a house or if you've done a marathon with an 80 pound sack rucksack on your back. So we are denying that what is a privilege. But we've mistaken it for pain or we've mistaken it for some sort of punishment. But it's not really a punishment, it's more of a sort of a privilege. And we've denied that. We've decided to remove that from the landscape. And so a young person, especially a young man, we have removed all of that from their vista and they're now going through life with none of that, that sort of officer and a gentleman. You know, it's raining and the coach is, the DI's calling him mayonnaise or something and telling him to do one more push up and he's like yelling, I won't quit. You know, and all that, all those great movie scenes, we've removed that from every young boy's life. And then, you know, they're 25 and we expect them to have their shit together and they really fucking don't. They're lazy, they're unfocused, they're sort of non disciplined, they're overweight, like there's a whole bunch of shit. And because they don't have any tools in their toolbox, adults, there's a moth in their toolbox.
- [44:44]
Rob Riggle
We denied them the ability to become resilient, right? Because you know, and I, I, I, I, I'm a dad and I have to try, I balance this. I have to try to be, try to forgive myself a little bit. Because as parents, we want to help our children avoid the pain that maybe we endured. But we think by, by coddling them and carrying them over the obstacle, it somehow helped them. All it did was make them weaker. Their resilience is atrophied.
- [45:14]
Adam Carolla
Yes.
- [45:15]
Rob Riggle
And so they don't have the ability to do those things because we denied them thinking we were doing them a favor when in actuality you got to let them get the bloody nose. You got to let them fall out of the tree, you got to let them get kicked off the team or, you know, not start in a game because they didn't Practice hard. You gotta, you know, these are the lessons that you learn that allow you to say, I'm gonna try harder, I'm gonna come back. You know, we've gotten smart. I think we, you can get smarter about it. Like my football coaches in the 80s, we would have two A days in August back in Kansas. That's friggin hot, right? I mean it's on. It's unbearable heat. And they used to march us down to the water fountains in the stadium and we would stand there and look at the water fountains while he talked about the fourth quarter and how you had to be mentally tough and how you're going to be dying of thirst and you're not going to have any energy left and it's going to be the big game and the game of your life. Now let's get back out there. And nobody got a drink. We had to go back out and run some more.
- [46:14]
Adam Carolla
The water first off, I really feel like I was waterboarded. But the opposite.
- [46:21]
Rob Riggle
Water denied.
- [46:21]
Adam Carolla
I got sand dumped on my head, which is worse because. Because water. And I don't know why, Dawson, this popped in my head. But there should be a picture on the computer somewhere of me playing football. Like an old black and white one. I'm standing on the corner, I'm standing on the side.
- [46:35]
Rob Riggle
I've seen pictures of you.
- [46:36]
Adam Carolla
I've seen pictures of you talking to the coach. And the coach is holding my face mask when he's talking to me. That'd be a hate crime. Now he's literally holding my face mask because I was the defensive captain. He was trying to tell me to do some shit. He was like, oh, they drag you around, pay attention.
- [46:52]
Rob Riggle
They drag you around, they grab two of you and get you banging head.
- [46:55]
Adam Carolla
We had a couple things we had at the park. There'd be the drinking fountain behind the baseball dime. So we'd run laps, go behind that diamond, turn left, go behind that backstop, go behind the four backstops. They're all spread out. There's a drinking fountain behind each backstop. And everyone was dying. Cause it's a San Fernando Valley and they thought water was bad for you. They tell you you cramp up. You don't want to cramp up. Like I'm going to cramp up, I'm going to die. So they'd go run around the back. But if I see anyone, yeah, take a sip that. And you're literally running past the drinking fountain going, no, no, just running.
- [47:36]
Rob Riggle
And you've watered that water so bad.
- [47:37]
Earthquake
It was.
- [47:38]
Adam Carolla
There was Always a strategy. They never brought any water out onto the field, but at some point they'd break you for water, like go, yeah, but everyone's back in five minutes.
- [47:47]
Rob Riggle
Yeah.
- [47:48]
Adam Carolla
And so the strategy was, do you sprint to the drinking fountain and try
- [47:53]
Rob Riggle
to get out of wind?
- [47:55]
Adam Carolla
You guys have never heard the sound of water being inhaled, not drank, inhale, like just sucking it up. They're out of wind and they're sucking it. Or do you stand in back, get your shot at the drinking fountain, but that whistle may blow before you get.
- [48:16]
Rob Riggle
It's too high a risk.
- [48:17]
Adam Carolla
It's too high risk.
- [48:18]
Rob Riggle
It was always a gamble. What I saw too was, oh, he's
- [48:21]
Adam Carolla
hanging onto my chinstrap is what Mr. Burr and Mr. Look at that great picture are doing.
- [48:29]
Rob Riggle
Great picture.
- [48:30]
Adam Carolla
The Sun Valley Falcons and Mr. Burr, the head coach is like mid, sort of not yelling at me, but he's telling me, hey, this is what we're doing on defense and go back in there and do it or whatever it is.
- [48:43]
Rob Riggle
And I don't know what it was about the men of that generation, but, but he was probably 31 years old, your coach, and he looked like a 50 year old.
- [48:52]
Adam Carolla
Yeah, yeah, we had. Oh, it was great. No coaches. I'm trying to think out of a grand total of like 51 coaches I've had football. Three of them were nice, you know, the rest were just fucking angry and scary and spit tobacco at you and throat.
- [49:12]
Rob Riggle
They used the practice as their personal therapy. It was cheap therapy for them. Them scream therapy.
- [49:17]
Adam Carolla
The guy from LA Valley Junior College like to reach for his dip and he'd throw it at you like a fatty.
- [49:25]
Rob Riggle
Just pull it out.
- [49:26]
Adam Carolla
Yeah, just throw it at you, right?
- [49:27]
Earthquake
So.
- [49:28]
Adam Carolla
So it'd be. He was like an old time gunslinger where it's like, you know, hey, Marshall, the Dylan boys are in town. You see his hands start sliding down slowly and undo the holster strap, right? See his hands start moving up Corolla. You don't know the difference between a gap eight and a six one now, do you? And see his hand starts creeping up and you're like, fuck, he's going for the dip, he's going for the dip. The idea that that guy could throw dip at you. Oh yeah, and that was no problemo.
- [49:55]
Rob Riggle
I had one coach who had been shot through both legs in Vietnam.
- [49:59]
Adam Carolla
Oh boy.
- [50:00]
Rob Riggle
And he didn't tolerate much. He really didn't tolerate much.
- [50:07]
Adam Carolla
Well, you know the thing that's funny is you go from football coaches and getting yelled at the whole time, you go to the Marines, you get a di I go on a construction site. I get a foreman, and that's your DI for sure. For on a construction. And those guys are the same dudes.
- [50:24]
Earthquake
Yeah.
- [50:24]
Adam Carolla
This guy was on a. He was on a mine sweep in Vietnam. Mike Stromat. He was angry all the fucking time. And you. He took it out on you. But I don't know. I got used to it. And I also knew they were trying to make you better, because now I realize when I start talking to my kids and they just be like, the volleyball coach is mean. I go, what do you mean mean? He's just yelling all the time. I go, what do you think he's trying to do? Mean. You know, it's like, he's not in the business of being mean. He's trying to win games.
- [51:00]
Rob Riggle
So he's seeing a deficiency in your performance.
- [51:04]
Adam Carolla
Perceiving it as meany. I never perceived it as mean. I perceived it as they wanted to win.
- [51:10]
Rob Riggle
I always. That's. And I think. I don't know, maybe I was able. I was coachable. I could receive a lesson. I might not like it. I didn't like to be shamed, and I didn't like to be embarrassed. Nobody does. But the coaches were pretty good about spreading it around.
- [51:25]
Adam Carolla
Yes.
- [51:25]
Rob Riggle
Everybody was going to get theirs at some point. Right. I hated the days when it was my turn, but okay, if I screwed up. But it also made me, you know, as a. As a young person. Your mind drifts. Some of those lessons are boring when they're going running through plays or whatever, it's hard to stay focused all the time. But, you know, you get yelled at enough by either a sergeant instructor or a coach, you know, your focus goes up a little bit, you pay a little more attention.
- [51:52]
Adam Carolla
Yeah. And you tend not to make the same mistakes over and over again.
- [51:57]
Rob Riggle
That's right.
- [51:57]
Adam Carolla
Especially if you. If the deal is you're running laps if you make the mistake. And by the way, you're not running laps. The whole team's running laps. As you can thank Mr. Riggle, gentlemen. Thank. Make sure and thank Mr. Riggle on that lap, because that's why you're running laps.
- [52:12]
Rob Riggle
It's great. And that's the thing, too. Like shame. Like that.
- [52:15]
Adam Carolla
Oh, good.
- [52:16]
Rob Riggle
It works.
- [52:17]
Adam Carolla
I fucking am. It works.
- [52:19]
Rob Riggle
But somewhere along the way with these, you know, I can point fingers at a lot of people that I think are the culprits, and. But shame has been removed from the toolbox of teaching.
- [52:32]
Adam Carolla
Yes. And it became. It's kind of an interesting thing I think it's a sort of shift from the masculine to the feminine in that. I distinctly remember trying to teach my son when he was. He was probably about 9, and I was going. I was saying to him, like, I'm gonna teach you how to do a proper pushup. Like, I said, nine, could have been 10. And I sort of had him in the living room, and I was kind of going to put your hands about shoulder length and whatever. And he was kind of. I don't know if he was fucking with me, but he was kind of not doing it the way I was telling him to do it, you know? And he was being a little passive aggressive, which isn't his personality at all. He's super easy and whatever. But I was like, all right. His arm would go out. I'd go, no, no, put it.
- [53:28]
Earthquake
I even.
- [53:30]
Adam Carolla
I think I took a piece of tape or something, I put it on the ground, I put another, and I go, put your hands on the tape. And he'd put them wider. And I'd go, what are you doing on the tape? Let's go. You know? And at some point, my wife. Ex wife, but my wife at the time, she, like, came back, she's like, well, what are you yelling about? Or something. I said, I'm trying to teach him to do a proper push up, but he's not cooperating, you know, and he's like, I don't know what to do. Like, he knew he had an ally, you know? And she's like, why are you upsetting him? You know? And he knew, like, immediately, like, oh, this is gonna.
- [54:02]
Rob Riggle
This is my out.
- [54:03]
Adam Carolla
This is my out. And he's gonna. I don't know. He keeps yelling at me and I'm like, I'm not yelling. I'm trying to. And she's like, come here. Leave him alone. And they. They, like, left the room. And I'm like, okay, mission accomplished. But it's a. It's a.
- [54:16]
Rob Riggle
That out. You can't have that out all the time, right?
- [54:18]
Adam Carolla
But it's the feminine out. And in the past, we went. We had roles and we said, listen, I'm gonna teach a boy how to do a push up. Why don't you get in the kitchen and make something to eat when we're done? We're gonna want to eat. But we decided you can no longer do that. So now they've wandered out and they've assumed both roles. And that's not good. It's not good for young boys.
- [54:45]
Rob Riggle
So my grandfather, we have a farm in our Family. So my grandfather and my dad and myself, you know, we all worked the farm. I still do to this day. But when I was young, I couldn't wait until I got to go with dad out into the fields or out. Whatever project they were doing. I don't know, fixing fence, you know, tagging cattle, checking crops, cutting milkweed, whatever the chore was of the day. I just wanted to go with that. I wanted to go with that. I wanted to go with that. Finally got to go big enough to go with dad. Nine years old, something like that. Dad worked for 12 hours out there. I hated it. I was done after 2.
- [55:30]
Adam Carolla
Oh, yeah, right.
- [55:31]
Rob Riggle
I was done, done. But dad said, you know, this is the deal. You're out here with the men today. This is what we're going to do. Eventually, about hour four, he would take mercy and let me go sit in the truck. But that was about as good as it got for me.
- [55:45]
Adam Carolla
Me.
- [55:46]
Rob Riggle
And then I'd have to come back out after an hour or so and get back to work or whatever. But I realized how much this sucks, you know? But I didn't get an out. I didn't have anybody coming and say, well, let him come with us to the water slide. Let him come with us to the.
- [55:58]
Adam Carolla
You will. Yes. You will take that out immediately.
- [56:02]
Rob Riggle
I would have taken it in a heart if my mom showed up and gave me the out. I would have taken it at that age. But because I didn't have the out, you just. You kind of get a callus for it. You kind of say, oh, this is the standard.
- [56:15]
Adam Carolla
You had a David Koechner, I think, story in the book. I had a weird. Let me tell you what happened with me and Keckner, like, three weeks ago. I don't think I mentioned it on the podcast, but I was, like, flying home from one of my many. I don't know where. Florida's. No, I was in D.C. i think it was D.C. anyway, a lot of two show, late night, early morning Ubers, you know, 5:30am Whatever. I end up sitting on an airplane. I don't even know what day it is. And I'm, like, trying to, you know, And I. I'm in first class. I went in the very front, and I hear this, like, kind of guy behind me. It's like, hey. And I turn around, I'm looking sort of through the seats a little, like, above. I go, yeah. And he goes, who let you into that seat? And I go, I don't know.
- [57:10]
Rob Riggle
It's too early for this.
- [57:10]
Adam Carolla
You're Like I don't know what, you bought a seat. It's a guy with a full beard and a cowboy hat. He goes, who let you get in that seat? I go, I don't know, I booked it from before. I don't know. I bought the seat. Shouldn't be in that seat. It's first class seat. And I'm like looking at the guy goes, what the fuck is going on?
- [57:32]
Rob Riggle
Who's do is this?
- [57:33]
Adam Carolla
It's Keckner with a cowboy hat and a beard. Okay.
- [57:37]
Rob Riggle
And he had a beard.
- [57:38]
Adam Carolla
He has a beard and a cowboy hat. And I can't process, I cannot process it at that hour of the morning. Who, what this what we're talking about. But anyway, it was Koechner and we had a nice talk all the way back to la, but good dude.
- [57:52]
Rob Riggle
Yeah.
- [57:53]
Adam Carolla
Love that guy.
- [57:53]
Rob Riggle
Yeah, he's. He's salt of the earth.
- [57:55]
Adam Carolla
He's.
- [57:56]
Rob Riggle
He's a hard working man
- [57:59]
Adam Carolla
and well, he comes from rural America.
- [58:02]
Rob Riggle
Yeah, he comes from Tipton, Missouri, which is. I know that town well because my, our family farm is not far from it.
- [58:07]
Adam Carolla
Oh, really?
- [58:08]
Rob Riggle
Yeah. So yeah, between, between Boonville and Tipton, Highway 50 and goes through Tipton and Highway 5 connects. There's a junction called 5 and 50. It's right in the middle of Tipton. There's a burger joint there I use, I've been going to my whole life, since I was a kid. And then our farm is kind of up towards boonville, you know, 15, 20 miles away. So.
- [58:33]
Adam Carolla
And what did he do? Was he one of your first coaches?
- [58:36]
Rob Riggle
He was kind of a improv. He was just, I would say a mentor in a way, because he was. So I did, I knew him through a friend. That's it. I didn't know him at all, but through a friend. He knew I was in. My friend knew I was in New York. And you know, she said, well, you ought to talk to Dave. You know, Dave's, he's. He just got off Saturday Night Live. He just did a year there. He's. He does improv in Chicago and he did all this stuff and he's, you know, I figured he'd been on snl. You know, the guy's pretty dang good. So he was really gracious to me in the fact that he didn't know me from Holenwall. It's one of these, you know, you get a call from somebody and it's like I'm friends with so and so and wondered if I could have a coffee with you.
- [59:21]
Podcast Host / Giovanni
You.
- [59:21]
Rob Riggle
And he said, yes, and was in New York. And so we went and had coffee and he took the time to kind of let me tell my story. Like I'm trying real hard and I don't know what to do. And what do you suggest? And I'm taking class and I just tried stand up and I hated it. It's not what I thought it would be. And he was like, well, let's figure this out. And he kind of said, well, I've got some friends who just moved here. Amy Poehler and Matt Besser and Matt Walsh and Ian Roberts. And they're kind of the UCB from Chicago and they're doing long form improv and you might like it. Chuck, check the show out and tell them I sent you. So he got me pointed in that direction. And then when I went to ucb, I really enjoyed what they were doing. And then took all their classes and went through, you know, ended up teaching there and doing the whole thing. And then eventually came back to stand up. Because I started stand up. I hated it. I wasn't any good at it. I didn't like anything about it. Went to improv, loved it. Got confidence on stage and then came back to stand up later.
- [60:13]
Adam Carolla
That's so weird because you and I have some of the same. Quite a bit of the same trajectory because I started off playing football and then construction, but Marines, not that different. And then tried to do standup. Deemed myself not good at it and didn't feel like it was a good fit. I felt I just got up there, did it 25 times. I was like, this is not your best work. You're not where you're supposed to be with this. And then went from that to the Groundlings and then got to the Groundlings. It was like, oh, this feels more like where you're supposed to be. Went all the way through that and then got back into stand up later.
- [61:03]
Rob Riggle
That's pretty much the exact same thing I did right When I first did the standup, I literally just. I didn't know where to begin. I was in the Marines and I got myself to New York and I said, okay, I'm gonna start chasing this dream. And I literally went to a standup club in my neighborhood on the Upper east side, Comic Strip Live. And in the window it said classes. So I was like, this is where it starts. We go. So I walked in and took the classes. Eight weeks. The guy hated teaching. He was over it. Yeah, he's like three jokes per minute. Set up punch. Set up punch. I was like, but Eddie Murphy Tells stories. And that's not three jokes per minute. And he's like, you're not Eddie Murphy. So I hated it. I got up and did five minutes of garbage, right? But going through the ucb, it gave me so much more confidence. Then when I got on the Daily Show, John Oliver, I was sharing an office with him. He was a pure stand up, very talented standup.
- [61:58]
Adam Carolla
Does he do stand up anymore?
- [61:59]
Rob Riggle
I think, yeah. Oh, yeah, I think he does. I don't know. I don't know the volume that he does it, but. But he's one of those guys who. He can do it without even trying. Like he can do a whole set of just talking to the crowd.
- [62:10]
Adam Carolla
Yeah, I'm trying to think. I don't. I can't see. I'm picturing him doing standup and I'm not picturing it. I don't know where it ends up.
- [62:20]
Rob Riggle
I just remember he was prolific. Cause he was a working man when it came to stand up. And he would do the work every night. And so I used to say, well, come down to UCB and do monologues for the Ass Cat show, you know, and he would. Cause he can, you know, somebody can give him a suggestion. He can tell a funny story. He knows his way around. But then he was like, all right, you gotta come do standup with me. And I was like, I don't know, you know, I don't know if I want to go back to that. I'm not any good at it. I don't have any. I don't have anything. And then he was gracious with me. He said, all right, look, because New York's great. New York is great. You can get in five mics a night without even batting an eye.
- [62:56]
Adam Carolla
I don't know gay slang, but keep going.
- [63:04]
Rob Riggle
Five microphones. Five microphones.
- [63:07]
Adam Carolla
We were talking about Mike August earlier. I just understand you can get in
- [63:13]
Rob Riggle
five microphones a night, which, you know, it's so hard to do here in la. I found living out in the burbs. But it was great because we'd leave the Daily show, we'd jump in a cab and we would go, piano room, slipper room, ucb, stand up, New York Comic Strip live. You could hit all these.
- [63:29]
Adam Carolla
How much time?
- [63:31]
Rob Riggle
And I'd get up, I'd get up and I would do three to five minutes. And then that would be it. I'd do it the first place. And by the end of the night, after four or five mics. Microphones.
- [63:42]
Adam Carolla
Right, sorry, I got it now.
- [63:44]
Rob Riggle
Okay, well, I just Want to. It's New York by the night. I have. I'd have a minute worth of material.
- [63:54]
Adam Carolla
Right, that'd be good, right? Because you're working it out.
- [63:57]
Rob Riggle
Yeah, because I, he was gracious with me. He would say, because I didn't, I wasn't, I didn't have a skill set. And I, and I. And that world kind of bothered me. So I was a little agitated when we'd go to the, to do these things.
- [64:10]
Adam Carolla
Yeah.
- [64:10]
Rob Riggle
And I'd kind of get an attitude and I'd get all pissy and fussy about it, you know, and so he'd say, all right, look, Jesus Christ, calm down. He goes, do you have a, do you have a funny story at all? I was like, yeah, I got a funny story. He goes, just tell me the story. Just tell me your story. Get up on stage, tell the story. I go, it'll take two minutes. He goes, greg, that's it, tell the story. So I got up and I told the story. Well, as I told the story, I embellished. I heighten things. I exaggerate things like we do in comedy turns into a three minute story. Right at the end of it. We got in the cab, heading to the next place. He's like, man, they were laughing hard at this, right? Big silence here. They love this part, you know, have you ever thought about maybe explaining what that looked like and.
- [64:54]
Earthquake
Oh, yeah, yeah.
- [64:54]
Rob Riggle
So we get to the next place and I would explain more in detail, maybe embellish that and talk about. And find new things to fill out the story. And by the end of the night, I felt like I had a chunk of material.
- [65:06]
Adam Carolla
Yeah.
- [65:06]
Rob Riggle
And all I had to do was. So then the next time we'd go out, I'd try a new chunk or a new story or a new thing and just work it that night. And I mean, I was able to build, you know, a 50 minute set probably in, you know, three to six months, which is pretty good.
- [65:25]
Adam Carolla
No, it's real good. But that's a real commitment. Like working all day and then going out and.
- [65:32]
Rob Riggle
Yep.
- [65:32]
Adam Carolla
Blowing five guys named Mike doing the five. I mean, I know like, like I, you know, I talk to comedians who do that all the time. It just feels like so much. It is so much.
- [65:46]
Rob Riggle
Well, that's why I, I had the one set, right? And I toured it and I did a half of it on a Comedy Central special and I toured it for a long time. And then it was time to build a new set, right. And then I got Fox NFL, and that was it. Then I was like, well, I'm. The money I make. There I is the money I'd make out killing myself on the road.
- [66:07]
Adam Carolla
Right.
- [66:08]
Rob Riggle
So we're good. So I just stopped. So I haven't done it forever, but it always nags at me because I do think about, you know, I kind of would like to build a set because there's part of me that likes to. I do. There's nothing better than. I'm sure you're experiencing it now when you get out there and you're having a great night. The audience is great, you're having fun, they're having fun. There's something special about that.
- [66:31]
Adam Carolla
Tell me about John Oliver, if he's playing, doing sets or like as a Hulu special or something. Cause I'm very curious about Seth.
- [66:39]
Rob Riggle
I saw him and Seth Meyers in Vegas at a New Year's Eve show.
- [66:45]
Adam Carolla
He just played the Met in Philly. So we see. Uh huh. Yeah.
- [66:49]
Rob Riggle
It was just a couple years ago. So I know he's still. And I. He's one of the.
- [66:53]
Adam Carolla
It's weird, I've never. You come across. You cross paths with people, you play the theater and they go, hey, John, this guy was just here. And that'll happen inevitably and that's never happened. But anyway, we don't need to admire that. The thing about stand up, like being a good standup is they can't really take it away from you. And it's not reliant on the corporate whatever or Disney's pissed off cause you crossed the line or somebody pulled an old tweet of yours and we got an issue now over at espn and there's none of that. It's just kind of you and yours in the audience. And I mean, Louis CK was in here a couple of weeks back. It's like you can't cancel him. They tried, but he can't because he has this standup thing.
- [67:46]
Rob Riggle
I think it's the purest form. It's the purest art form in the world. It's you, a microphone and an audience. There's no director, there's no producer. You're the writer.
- [67:57]
Adam Carolla
Right.
- [67:57]
Rob Riggle
And you're in the moment. It's so present.
- [68:00]
Adam Carolla
Yeah, I mean that's the more philosophical way of looking at it. I'm just looking at like sort of pragmatically like in terms of you can age out of movie business and you can age out of TV and you can sort of. Or you can get whatever. Piss too many people off or get on the wrong side of whatever Covid or something like that. But stand up. Just stand up. And in a weird way, it's sort of. It's the way I felt about being a good carpenter. When you're a good carpenter, you just work. No one cares who you know or what your politics are. You just work. They always need good carpenters. There's never any down economy or anything. With good carpenters, you just will work and you'll never stop working. And you don't need to advertise and you don't need to have cards or flyers made up or, you know, magnetic signs for the side of your truck or anything. Just your phone rings and someone's got another job and they want you, and you tell them, like, I'm kind of busy. How about you use this other. They go, no, I'll wait. I heard. I want to get with you. And so it's like you have your toolbox, you have your skill set, and you really can't be canceled. And you can always make a living. And in a way, that's what stand up is. The movies, TV comes and goes, Topsy, turvy, whatever. Here today, gone tomorrow, or what have you. But standup is that toolbox and that skill.
- [69:25]
Rob Riggle
You know, it's so funny, I'm sitting here listening to you nodding my head, going, God dang it, I gotta get back in this. I wanna get back in.
- [69:30]
Adam Carolla
You're lighting the fire into carpentry.
- [69:32]
Rob Riggle
You're lighting it, but, yeah, you are lighting the fire, man. And I'd rather have the slower, steady ascend than the waves, but sometimes you can't control that, you know?
- [69:43]
Adam Carolla
No, but you can't control a drunk driver t boning you either to intersection. So you might as well just get in the car.
- [69:50]
Rob Riggle
Yeah, I think that's what maybe is bothering our society. Everybody wants to control things, and a lot of things are not in their control.
- [69:58]
Adam Carolla
There is a freedom to sort of letting a lot of stuff go. And there's also a problem with an attempt at control. That is, I can tell you from driving race cars and losing control of the race cars. Yanking the wheel is not gonna help. It's better to relax. You'll survive the accident better if you're relaxed. You know what I mean? And there's a sort of a tense up and pull hard and overcorrect and that kind of stuff. And it's better to let it go. Isn't that interesting? You can't, but. But it's like telling someone who's about to go up on stage who's really nervous. Have fun out there. You know what I mean? It's okay. You can't yell at me to relax or have fun.
- [70:50]
Rob Riggle
The wisdom's there, but the practicality's not.
- [70:53]
Adam Carolla
Yeah. I think a lot of it is a wiring. And I've realized that the same for me, the same wiring where I get my car destroyed but I don't react and I get my show canceled but I don't react, is the same. It's the same wiring I have when the car's going backwards on the track. And I'm not. I'm relaxed, and I'm not relaxed because I'm not concerned. I'm relaxed because there's nothing I can do.
- [71:25]
Rob Riggle
It's not in your sphere of influence. It's not in your sphere of control at that point.
- [71:29]
Adam Carolla
Yeah, not really. I mean.
- [71:31]
Rob Riggle
I mean, I've gotten better. I try to. When I find myself this morning, I'll tell you, this morning, I woke up hot under the collar because I just had a stack of things and people that needed. They owed me answers. I need to know this. I need to know this. I got to get this done. I got to get this done. And I was. I could feel myself nodding up, and I had to have a conversation with myself where I was like, calm down. Things will get done. You'll get the call. You'll get the calls you need. You'll get the emails back you need. You've already sent out. You've done your part. So just take some breaths and don't be hard to be around. Because I can be hard to be around if I'm not. If I allow myself to nod up and be like, God damn it, somebody. Why didn't this person call me? And then when they do call, I'm like, well, hello, I have an attitude. So. So finding. I think maybe that's a maturation process, too, that you go through where you do have to learn to let go on some level. You have to develop your own tools, your own tool set for that.
- [72:38]
Adam Carolla
In the book, you're talking about your parents and bullying and sort of teaching a lesson for you, which you always hear the story in the lesson about the guy standing up for himself, but you never really hear the story about him getting his ass kicked and having a limp home. But it always seems to be the advice back. The dads were like, you gotta learn to put your dukes up and whatever. But your story with that would be interesting to me.
- [73:03]
Rob Riggle
Yeah, well, you know, that is true. The hero's story, right, Is like the bullies you know, you stand up to the bully and then you triumph. Nine times out of ten, you stand up to the bully, you take a beating, you get an ass whoop, and you get some sort of shame. You know, it's not fun, it's not cool. But what I have found is the times that when I had to stand up to someone that was bigger or scarier than me, it didn't go well necessarily, in a physical sense sometimes. But my dad always what his. His big thing was, you know, take the beating, but, you know, give it. Give it everything you got. And that way the bully will know this is not an easy mark.
- [73:52]
Adam Carolla
Yeah.
- [73:52]
Earthquake
Yeah.
- [73:52]
Rob Riggle
And if I'm gonna continue to pick on this guy, I can plan on a full day's work.
- [73:58]
Adam Carolla
Yeah.
- [73:59]
Rob Riggle
And so then they go away. They do go away. Even if they beat your ass, they
- [74:02]
Adam Carolla
will generally go away. Well, bullies are like criminals in that they will just go to where they'll feed on weakness. Yeah. They got a break in, and that house is a deadbolt. And yours just has a privacy knob. Then they'll just go the privacy knob and kick that power.
- [74:20]
Rob Riggle
Police resistance.
- [74:21]
Adam Carolla
Yeah, it's kind of. That's their business. And so Andrew over there was, I think his girlfriend just. The guy was just going to go steal his catalytic converter. Her catalytic converter. And they just looked under there and they had that little cage welded on there. And the guy went to the next car, which is right now, he could defeat the cage if he wanted. But why? There's another car.
- [74:44]
Rob Riggle
Right? Just right down there.
- [74:45]
Adam Carolla
Right. And there's another kid in the seventh grade to beat on.
- [74:48]
Rob Riggle
That's right.
- [74:49]
Adam Carolla
And this guy's work, you know, and it's most of life, I tell everyone, when I had a car and I lived in Hollywood and the only thing I had to my name was a Sony digital stereo in my truck. I just painted it brown. And everyone's like, why? And I was like, who's gonna steal a brown stereo? And they're like, genius. How's that prevent someone from seeing. I go, they can't sell it because they got choices. They walk down the block, go to the next car.
- [75:14]
Rob Riggle
They go to the next car.
- [75:15]
Adam Carolla
If the only. If everybody painted their stereo brown, then maybe they'd steal mine. Or if there were no other cars, as long as there's another car with a Sony stereo that's not painted brown, then I don't have to worry.
- [75:30]
Rob Riggle
It's return on investment.
- [75:32]
Adam Carolla
Right?
- [75:32]
Rob Riggle
It's return on investment. If a criminal's gonna do a criminal act or a bully's gonna put decide to go to Fist City. That's an investment.
- [75:40]
Adam Carolla
Again, Fist City. I don't know the game. I don't know how many times I can tell you. I didn't grow up in New York. I don't know where Fist City is. I can only imagine. But you tell your five mike buddies about Fist City. The book, it's Grit, spit and never Quit.
- [75:59]
Rob Riggle
I walk into these. How am I walking? I'm walking to all of them.
- [76:07]
Adam Carolla
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Rob Riggle
at first I didn't think it was real.
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Pluto TV Announcer
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- [77:12]
Rob Riggle
and I was transported to another place. Pluto tv. Then I heard a voice.
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Podcast Host / Giovanni
Come with me if you want to live.
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Rob Riggle
There were thousands of movies and shows
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Adam Carolla
and they were all free.
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- [78:19]
Podcast Host / Giovanni
Alright, that's Rob Riggle, one on one with Adam from earlier in February this year. We have one final clip today featuring comedian Earthquake. This one's also from February this year. Lots of comedian military guests in February. This is another one on one with Adam and Earthquake. Earthquake in studio.
- [78:37]
Adam Carolla
Legendary comedian Earthquake is in studio. Good to see you my friend.
- [78:41]
Earthquake
Good to see you, my brother. My brother, my brother.
- [78:44]
Adam Carolla
I was interested when I was reading up on you coming in today that you were in the air force for years.
- [78:51]
Earthquake
Yes, nine years.
- [78:52]
Adam Carolla
Nine years, yes, nine. Is that an odd number to be in the service?
- [78:57]
Earthquake
Well, I mean I wanted to do 20 but the war broke out.
- [79:01]
Adam Carolla
So it's mostly you hear four years and then I re up for another four years. But nine's an odd number.
- [79:08]
Earthquake
Well, I reed up for another four and then I wanted to get out. Then they had the war broke out and I was. Since I loaded missiles, they had us on stop loss. That's the very important people. Certain if a war break out, that long contract you got, it's a stop loss that you cannot you essential that you couldn't get out. So they mandatory extended you because your
- [79:32]
Adam Carolla
job is loading up munitions.
- [79:34]
Earthquake
Yes, I loaded aim 9s, aim 7s on F15. Nuclear weapons on B50.
- [79:42]
Adam Carolla
Well, we got to get into that because that's interesting to me.
- [79:44]
Earthquake
Yeah, I mean I dropped 111 time
- [79:47]
Adam Carolla
though on the ground. Yeah, I want to hear about that. Well, B52, by the way, B52s have been in use for like 65 years out there. Incredibly old plane that they just never. So you were in charge of loading ordinance on those planes? Yes, always. Nuclear or not?
- [80:10]
Earthquake
Always. It all depends on the aircraft. You know, F15s usually. No, didn't have nuclear. B52s did.
- [80:21]
Adam Carolla
Oh sure, yeah. Bombers. Bombers versus fighters.
- [80:24]
Earthquake
Yeah.
- [80:25]
Adam Carolla
You know what's interesting? I think I was working on a production once and we'll circle back to this, but. But I was looking at one of those rigs that they keep the cameras on with the wheels and if you picture those in Hollywood, you jack them up with your foot. They come up, you let them out, they come back down again, they maneuver. They're totally precision. Right, right. So I'm a mechanical guy. So I was just sitting on set and I was looking at the camera guy and I said, wow, that's a really intricate rig. It's really interesting. And he goes, guess where they're made. And I just went, germany, hello? Like it's Germany. It's not Mexico, it's not Jamaica, It's Germany. That's who makes that shit. And then he goes, yeah, it's made in Germany. I go, of course it's made in Germany. Then he said, you know what they're originally for?
- [81:19]
Earthquake
What?
- [81:20]
Adam Carolla
Loading up bombs. If you picture one of those camera dollies with the jig and the thing that scissors up and lifts the thing from the ground all the way back, you go, oh, yeah. That's what. Germans used to put bombs in airplanes in World War II.
- [81:36]
Earthquake
Yeah, we had. It was jammers for us. You know, the rack that goes into the belly of the B52.
- [81:45]
Adam Carolla
That is incredible. By the way, they're Gonna operate the B52s through 2050. And they were started in the 50s.
- [81:53]
Earthquake
Yeah. It's an effective aircraft.
- [81:55]
Adam Carolla
And where were you based?
- [81:57]
Earthquake
Boxtail Air Force Base. That's in Shreveport, Louisiana. Bossier City. Eglin Air Force Force Base, when I worked on F15s in Okinawa, Japan.
- [82:07]
Adam Carolla
Oh, you went to Okinawa?
- [82:09]
Earthquake
Yeah, I was there for two and a half years.
- [82:11]
Adam Carolla
How was Okinawa?
- [82:12]
Earthquake
It was hard because there wasn't that many women. So you had to compete. Yeah, there's like 500 men to every one woman. Competition was fierce.
- [82:22]
Adam Carolla
Yeah. That's where the. That's where the sense of humor comes in.
- [82:25]
Earthquake
Yeah. You get turned out, you can have an unattractive woman in you. Nobody held it against you.
- [82:31]
Adam Carolla
Yeah. Because of the sheer numbers.
- [82:33]
Earthquake
Yes.
- [82:34]
Adam Carolla
It'd be like being in a male prison and getting your hands on a woman. No one would hold that against you.
- [82:39]
Earthquake
But we used to do, like, Fantasy Island. We used to catch the unattractive women when they first landed on the island, before they found out they was attractive.
- [82:48]
Adam Carolla
Where they was at, you're saying when they came in from the States.
- [82:53]
Earthquake
Yes.
- [82:54]
Adam Carolla
And they were in the service.
- [82:55]
Earthquake
Yeah.
- [82:56]
Adam Carolla
Yeah.
- [82:56]
Earthquake
We used to be the. Me and my friends used to be the welcome committee.
- [82:59]
Adam Carolla
Right.
- [83:00]
Earthquake
And we get them before, you know,
- [83:01]
Adam Carolla
because back in the States, they were a 3 or a 4.
- [83:07]
Earthquake
Yeah.
- [83:08]
Adam Carolla
But on Okanawa, there were 8 and 9.
- [83:11]
Earthquake
15.
- [83:11]
Adam Carolla
Well, I don't know if it goes higher than 10, but.
- [83:13]
Earthquake
Yeah, they go.
- [83:13]
Adam Carolla
All right. But they go high.
- [83:14]
Earthquake
Yeah.
- [83:15]
Adam Carolla
And. And at some point, it would dawn on them that that's where. What was going on. And you had to get them before they found out.
- [83:21]
Earthquake
Yeah, before they got briefed by the other women. Women know what it was.
- [83:25]
Adam Carolla
Right.
- [83:26]
Earthquake
And there's nothing like being turned down by unattractive women.
- [83:29]
Adam Carolla
Yeah.
- [83:30]
Earthquake
Constantly oh yeah, it make, that's where you learn to drink it.
- [83:34]
Adam Carolla
I did have a time, I remember once at a, like at a bar or club looking at a woman that I, I sized up as about a five. And I thought, you know, I just need something, a confidence builder. So I just go over there and grace her with my appearance. And I just showed up and I just said, mind if I sit down? And she looked up and she went, why? And I went, oh man, this is bad. I thought, this is going to be easy. So now that's on the base at Okinawa, right? What about off the base at Okinawa?
- [84:08]
Earthquake
Well, it was back in the day and Japanese women didn't mess with many black men unless she was Michael Jackson, you know, and a lot of brothers dressed up like Mike.
- [84:19]
Adam Carolla
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [84:21]
Earthquake
Do they? First of all, you had to overcome the language barrier, huh. And then, you know, the color barrier part of it. But the only black person that they knew from the States was Michael. And so some brothers come there, get off base, get the jury curl, bring a little curl down the middle, put the shoes on with the white on the top level and go down there and dance like Michael and Okinawa. I mean Najo, I forgot the name.
- [84:50]
Adam Carolla
Is it beautiful there?
- [84:51]
Earthquake
Yes, it is. Yes, it was very beautiful. Great.
- [84:56]
Adam Carolla
Allen does. So you're, you're kind of limited to whatever women were on the base and the numbers were 10 to 15 it. 500 to 1.
- [85:09]
Earthquake
It was fierce.
- [85:10]
Adam Carolla
Yeah. And you're young, viral man.
- [85:12]
Earthquake
Yeah.
- [85:12]
Adam Carolla
And two and a half years is a long time to be somewhere without a lady friend.
- [85:16]
Earthquake
Well, I did.
- [85:17]
Adam Carolla
Well you did, yeah.
- [85:19]
Earthquake
I mean for the, the numbers because
- [85:20]
Adam Carolla
you were in the greeting department.
- [85:22]
Earthquake
Well, I catch it while his self esteem was down, you know.
- [85:26]
Adam Carolla
So how would it work?
- [85:28]
Earthquake
You know, it's like the new recruits come in like Tuesday and Fridays and you know what time the plane's coming in because. And you just sit there and she'll come in there, you're like, hey, how you doing? Welcome to Okinawa. I'm gonna show you around. I'm Sergeant Stroman. And she's not used to a good looking dude like me talking to her like that. And I know I had about 72 hours before I closed the deal. If I don't close the deal, 72 hours, she'll get a scouting report and find out she can hold out for a better deal.
- [85:58]
Adam Carolla
And how'd that, the, how'd the military feel about that if they found out about it was, would you get into trouble?
- [86:05]
Earthquake
No. You were Getting in no trouble, though. I mean, you wasn't making them. You wasn't making women do anything they wanted to do. It's just, honey, it was no different. Instead, and catching them at the club, the NCO club, you caught them when they first got here. But such police, we had advantage because we went TDY and we was temporary assignment. We'll go to the Philippines where it was reversed. So many women there, you know? So we'll go there every three months. And you go over there, man, and you get 15 women for a bag of oranges.
- [86:39]
Adam Carolla
Really?
- [86:40]
Podcast Host / Giovanni
Yeah.
- [86:40]
Earthquake
About $4. Yeah, man. You had to learn the word in Filipino Hindi. I mean, no, no, no, no, no.
- [86:47]
Adam Carolla
Oh, because they would, they would solicit you.
- [86:49]
Earthquake
Yeah. As soon as you get off the base, Hinde come in. They'd be like, man, gi, I know you want. You're like, oh, no, it was.
- [86:57]
Adam Carolla
It was just wide open for sex that way.
- [86:59]
Earthquake
Oh, it was beautiful. I had this one chick was over there, she was half black, half Filipino. One of the most beautiful women other than my wife that I have ever seen. And it was like, you know, of course, her father was a soldier that, you know, impregnated her mother. And then he got orders and left, right. And I ran into her. She was beautiful, but I had to leave her right then. Couldn't take her back to the States.
- [87:25]
Adam Carolla
Why not?
- [87:26]
Earthquake
No, that ain't me.
- [87:31]
Adam Carolla
I had a cousin that was in the military and brought home the Filipino wife and she started a prostitution ring behind his back.
- [87:43]
Earthquake
Oh, that's what they do.
- [87:44]
Adam Carolla
Is that what they do?
- [87:45]
Earthquake
No, what happens is they get over here and it was the funniest thing in the world. You know, my wife, friends be like, quake. I said, right? You just met him, Tom. She does everything my mother does, plus give me some pussy. I was like, okay, well, that's a good way. He only known her for a while, so he'll. He'll make her a citizen, he'll marry you, and then he'll bring her back to the States, which we called the world because United States is called the world in the military. And soon as she get her citizenship and bring her family over there, she in the NCO club getting the man she really want to be with.
- [88:19]
Adam Carolla
They bring their moms over, right?
- [88:21]
Earthquake
Yeah, they bring the family and everything.
- [88:23]
Adam Carolla
That's what, that's what this one did.
- [88:25]
Earthquake
Yeah.
- [88:25]
Adam Carolla
And before you know it.
- [88:27]
Earthquake
And then they put them out. Yeah. You have base housing and in the military, if you have any problem with your wife, any domestic part of it. What they do is they remove you from. From the home and allow y' all to go through counseling. And she has the home right then and there.
- [88:43]
Adam Carolla
Yeah. So they know what they're doing.
- [88:46]
Earthquake
Yes, it was a racket.
- [88:48]
Adam Carolla
So how do you go from this and tell me about the time you dropped the nuke.
- [88:53]
Earthquake
Oh, I was. That was in Boxdale, Louisiana. I was trying to go see 2 Live Crew, and they had me doing the rotation of ordinance and I told them I wasn't working today because Luke was coming in. That's when Luke just came out. Live Crew with all them bad women. And then my mind wasn't focused and I was trying to see Luke and I thought I put the. The missiles up the right way. And it didn't. And it pulled the rack away like you said previously. Brought it down and it just popped and hit the ground. And everybody started running. I said, you cannot run a nuke.
- [89:27]
Rob Riggle
Yeah.
- [89:27]
Adam Carolla
You might as well run toward it, make it easier.
- [89:29]
Earthquake
I mean, might as well sit down there and just. And pray to God.
- [89:33]
Adam Carolla
How big was the nuke?
- [89:34]
Earthquake
Oh, it was a big ton. That was a D62, about a two ton bomb.
- [89:40]
Adam Carolla
About two tons.
- [89:41]
Earthquake
Yeah.
- [89:41]
Adam Carolla
But they need to arm them, Right.
- [89:43]
Earthquake
Nukes are one of the most safest ordinance because they have to drop at a certain hike. All the mechanisms to go off and everything. Yeah, you just. It just can't fall conventional bombs.
- [89:56]
Adam Carolla
But it like fell and hit the ground.
- [89:58]
Earthquake
Yeah.
- [89:58]
Adam Carolla
And bounced around.
- [90:00]
Earthquake
Bounced one time, huh? Boom.
- [90:02]
Adam Carolla
2000. Is it 6 foot long and 2ft of wide or something?
- [90:06]
Earthquake
It's long. My measurement's not that good, but it's huge. It takes the whole bomb bay. Excuse me. Of the B52. Yeah.
- [90:18]
Adam Carolla
It's incredible how much those planes can lift weight wise, is it not? You know what the craziest visual is? Is when they take one of those M1 Abrams tanks, or four of them, and they start loading them up into the back of those C130s. And I'm like. Like you're going to take off with a tank, multiple tanks in the belly of your airplane, and they just take off? Yeah, it's kind of nuts.
- [90:46]
Earthquake
It's very nuts. And it's nuts. That needed ride. What we call a hop. And you sitting right beside it.
- [90:53]
Adam Carolla
What are you.
- [90:53]
Earthquake
Have you sat behind when you wanted to go, like leave Okinawa and go to the Philippines? You jump on one of the planes that's going over there, taking the tank and you sign up for it and you hit your ride.
- [91:07]
Adam Carolla
I know. It's all Physics. And I know it works, but sometimes I'm on a southwest flight and there's a fat guy sitting next to me and I'm like, oh, we're in trouble. We're not going to make this. I couldn't. And that guy's 280 pounds. I couldn't imagine standing. Hey, Andrew, look up an M1 Abrams tank. It has to weigh. It's gotta be 15 tons. It's gotta be 20 tons. What do you think?
- [91:39]
Earthquake
I don't know. To be honest, I'm still in my mind. That fat dude sitting beside you and you being.
- [91:43]
Adam Carolla
Well, it's visually, I understand logically, but psychologically, let's see. But 55, approximately 55 to 70. I don't know what that is. Between 60. Yeah, 60 and 70 tons. It's between. Okay. A full size SUV weighs about six, 6,000 pounds.
- [92:08]
Earthquake
Right.
- [92:08]
Adam Carolla
And this is tons. So it is like flying with 25 SUVs, plus in your, in your whatever. And it just lifts right off the ground.
- [92:20]
Earthquake
Yeah.
- [92:20]
Adam Carolla
And you sat next to it.
- [92:21]
Earthquake
Yeah, yeah. And striped down and everything.
- [92:24]
Adam Carolla
Yeah.
- [92:25]
Earthquake
But you just thinking about them women you about to see in the Philippines. You know, you stuck on the place that you ain't got no women and you're on your way to the Philippines. You'll fly on the back of a bird.
- [92:34]
Adam Carolla
So you're going. You're in a place with very slim pickings.
- [92:38]
Earthquake
Slim.
- [92:39]
Adam Carolla
And you're going to a place that's like a golden corral of pussy.
- [92:43]
Earthquake
I mean, everywhere, buffet.
- [92:45]
Adam Carolla
How long, by the way?
- [92:47]
Earthquake
I forgot. But it wasn't that long.
- [92:49]
Joel Lambert
Long.
- [92:49]
Adam Carolla
Not that long.
- [92:50]
Earthquake
No, it wasn't that long.
- [92:51]
Adam Carolla
Yeah. Time flies when you got it.
- [92:53]
Earthquake
Oh, when you're thinking about it.
- [92:54]
Adam Carolla
Yeah. And it was affordable because the plane's going anyway.
- [92:58]
Earthquake
Right.
- [92:58]
Adam Carolla
And you're just deadheading it on there.
- [93:00]
Earthquake
Yeah. You just sign up in spank. I forgot the priority based on your rank or whatever. And you, once you like standby, they call your name and you get on there.
- [93:11]
Adam Carolla
So how do you get from doing that to doing comedy?
- [93:15]
Earthquake
The war broke out, so I, you know, I said, I ain't want to stay in.
- [93:19]
Adam Carolla
Sorry. Which war?
- [93:20]
Earthquake
The golf war? The first one.
- [93:22]
Adam Carolla
First golf war. That one.
- [93:24]
Earthquake
And I said, I can't stand here. I don't mind practicing for war. But they about to fight for real. And what they was fighting for, I wasn't. I didn't think it was worth it. I wasn't fighting over no oil. I didn't even have a car. So I just said it was time for me to get out and I just got out and went to Atlanta and opened up my own comedy club.
- [93:49]
Adam Carolla
Oh, you opened up your own comedy club?
- [93:51]
Earthquake
Yes.
- [93:52]
Adam Carolla
Most people just start doing open mics and work their way up into featuring or emceeing or something. They don't just open a comedy club.
- [94:01]
Earthquake
Well, you do that when the comedy club that was based in there wouldn't give you opportunity.
- [94:07]
Adam Carolla
Any earners in the family? In your family?
- [94:10]
Earthquake
What you mean by earners? They self sufficient.
- [94:12]
Adam Carolla
But yeah, but I mean, would it be nice to have a vacation house or something? Somewhere? Something. Somebody dies and leaves you something?
- [94:20]
Earthquake
No. Well, no, we don't have that. I tell all the time. I tell my wife, I say, I make enough money for me, for me it's you I don't make enough money for. Yeah, not that she asks is what I want her to have so that she's the reason why I work. But I make enough money for me.
- [94:36]
Pluto TV Announcer
I get it.
- [94:36]
Adam Carolla
But wouldn't it be nice to just have somebody in the family who made enough money for them and you and a cottage and a condo in Hawaii?
- [94:47]
Earthquake
I wouldn't even know how to act.
- [94:49]
Adam Carolla
Yeah, it'd be confusing, right?
- [94:51]
Earthquake
It'd be very confusing. That'd be foreign territory for me and my family. We don't we independent contractors. On its own, you live, you eat what you kill.
- [95:05]
Adam Carolla
I know. I don't have anything either. No one. My family does. But I do hear about stories where somebody died and they had the vacation home in Palm Springs and that him and his sister got it or something. Yeah, just something. Do you know what I mean?
- [95:22]
Earthquake
Yeah.
- [95:22]
Adam Carolla
An old vintage expensive car that your dad had for 50 years and now it's yours. No, you ain't getting something. A warehouse somewhere, something you could rent out.
- [95:32]
Earthquake
Might get some tennis shoes. Shoes or some pictures, but you ain't getting nothing that you can take to the thrift store. Some memento, you know, that's about it.
- [95:46]
Adam Carolla
Does your wife's family have anything?
- [95:49]
Earthquake
If they do, she never told me. So.
- [95:53]
Adam Carolla
So are you. Did your parents pass away?
- [95:55]
Earthquake
Yes, my parents are gone.
- [95:58]
Adam Carolla
Why'd they leave you?
- [96:00]
Earthquake
Memories.
- [96:03]
Adam Carolla
That's the greatest line from Papa Was a Rolling Stone.
- [96:06]
Earthquake
Memories.
- [96:07]
Adam Carolla
When he died, all he left us was alone.
- [96:14]
Earthquake
But alone.
- [96:15]
Adam Carolla
That's the greatest.
- [96:16]
Earthquake
I used to always put the song say, he left us alone, like alone.
- [96:20]
Adam Carolla
Right.
- [96:21]
Earthquake
But then I. As I got older. It was a loan, right? Yeah. Well, he left you something.
- [96:29]
Adam Carolla
Yeah.
- [96:29]
Earthquake
You know what I mean?
- [96:30]
Adam Carolla
Yeah. He thought it was like a mortgage or Something.
- [96:32]
Earthquake
He left you alone, right? He loaned you some money? I didn't know it was alone. He said, oh, damn. Now, this song is very sad.
- [96:41]
Adam Carolla
Yeah. I got a Tony Bennett CD from my dad that used to be mine that I gave him. So I just got it back because it was autographed to me. And I couldn't figure out why it was autographed to me, but it's because I gave it to him. And I got a book.
- [97:00]
Earthquake
Yeah.
- [97:01]
Adam Carolla
From a Dennis Prager friend of mine who wrote the book. So I probably could have got the book.
- [97:05]
Earthquake
Right.
- [97:07]
Adam Carolla
I got a newspaper clipping.
- [97:09]
Earthquake
No. Of yourself now.
- [97:12]
Adam Carolla
Was something that he wrote for the LA Times, like, 35 years ago. And he gave me a clipping of that.
- [97:20]
Earthquake
And it's gonna make me cry.
- [97:23]
Adam Carolla
I got a bag. I got a Trader Joe's bag. It came in.
- [97:28]
Earthquake
You need a hug?
- [97:30]
Adam Carolla
Oh, my God. Now, my mom did less.
- [97:33]
Earthquake
What'd your mom leave?
- [97:35]
Adam Carolla
My mom did not leave her kids anything. But she did leave us a note explaining she was a good mom. But the thing that was crazy about it is it was made out to me and my sister. So it was just one note.
- [97:53]
Earthquake
So you ain't get no individual note?
- [97:55]
Adam Carolla
No, it was a form letter.
- [97:56]
Earthquake
They gave you a group text.
- [97:57]
Adam Carolla
It was like. It was like a letter you get from a politician. You know, you get an email from Kamala Harris, and you're like, come on. And then at the bottom, she wants money. That's basically what we got left, at least.
- [98:10]
Earthquake
Was the signature authentic or was it bad?
- [98:12]
Adam Carolla
It was stamped auto pen. Auto pen. I was thinking about the other day. I was walking on pch. I was like, she left. She made a letter, but it was for me and my sister, which is weird because we're totally different. And also, I got boy, girl, kids. I couldn't imagine writing them just one form letter about being a good dad. But by the way, the thing about the form letter about I was a good parent.
- [98:43]
Earthquake
Right.
- [98:44]
Adam Carolla
Even though you don't know. Doesn't work on the people you parented. It will work on the neighbors or the neighbor's kids. It don't work for the people who are there.
- [98:52]
Earthquake
Right.
- [98:53]
Adam Carolla
They're on you because they were there. But, yeah, I got the note.
- [98:58]
Earthquake
Did you speak at the funeral?
- [99:00]
Adam Carolla
Oh, my God. I think this is where we're going to part cultural ways. Mom and my dad both died. No funeral.
- [99:09]
Rob Riggle
What?
- [99:10]
Adam Carolla
See? Tell that to a brother. Nothing. I mean, nothing. No. Anything. No. Hold up.
- [99:18]
Earthquake
They die and that's it.
- [99:20]
Adam Carolla
They died and that's it, man? There's no urn, there's no ashes, there's no headstones, there's no ceremony, there's no wake, there's no church, no preacher, nothing. When white people are atheists, they can just die and that'll be that.
- [99:40]
Earthquake
You're atheist?
- [99:42]
Adam Carolla
Well, that's. My family's. That way. I'm a little less. But the point is, real atheists, white people, they just die and they take it to the grave.
- [99:54]
Earthquake
Don't nobody say byevin the ghetto.
- [99:57]
Adam Carolla
No, no. No food.
- [99:59]
Earthquake
No food.
- [100:00]
Adam Carolla
There was. Here's what I'm saying. Nothing. I'm talking. When I say zero, I don't mean 3%. I mean no anything. There's no nothing, which is incredible because I think black folk do it up a little better. Yeah, that's hunting white atheists. We do nothing. Nothing.
- [100:20]
Earthquake
Ain't nothing like picking up a woman at a weight.
- [100:23]
Adam Carolla
Oh, you can do that? Yeah, because they're vulnerable.
- [100:26]
Earthquake
They're very vulnerable. Especially ones didn't have no life insurance. Oh, that's when you catch him right there.
- [100:32]
Adam Carolla
Oh, yeah.
- [100:33]
Earthquake
Oh, that's good hunting.
- [100:34]
Adam Carolla
Yeah.
- [100:35]
Earthquake
Because, see, you could tell she's. She's contemplating how she gonna maintain that standard living now. The providers in the ground.
- [100:42]
Adam Carolla
Gotcha. That ain't no Okinawa military base. That's fertile soil.
- [100:47]
Earthquake
That's fertile turtle store. You can get it 10 cent on the dollar right there.
- [100:51]
Adam Carolla
Smart.
- [100:52]
Earthquake
Yeah. She know right then and there.
- [100:55]
Rob Riggle
Yeah.
- [100:55]
Earthquake
Go to a weight. You pick them up and you sit there coming in with a dish like some potato salad. Set it on the. On the table like bait.
- [101:03]
Rob Riggle
Yeah.
- [101:04]
Earthquake
Look her in the face, and she'd be like. You could tell she been crying. Eyes puffy and everything. Just look in the face, say, what's wrong? And she just look you back and say, I'm in a bind, Nate. I'm in a bind.
- [101:18]
Adam Carolla
I got you, Smart.
- [101:20]
Earthquake
See the key is uncle gonna be over here from now on.
- [101:23]
Adam Carolla
My parents never had. Your parents must have done something when they died, right? You had a whole funeral.
- [101:29]
Earthquake
Well, we had a funeral. I took care of it. You took care of it for both of them. My mother and my father.
- [101:33]
Adam Carolla
You paid for both of them?
- [101:34]
Earthquake
Yes, I did. I buried both of them on it. And.
- [101:38]
Adam Carolla
Headstone. Headstone.
- [101:40]
Earthquake
Headstone.
- [101:40]
Adam Carolla
Everything.
- [101:41]
Earthquake
Everything.
- [101:41]
Adam Carolla
Thousands of dollars.
- [101:43]
Earthquake
Yes.
- [101:43]
Adam Carolla
Yeah. Yeah.
- [101:44]
Earthquake
Thousands of dollars. They. They're laying beside each other.
- [101:47]
Adam Carolla
Oh, yeah.
- [101:48]
Earthquake
Yes.
- [101:48]
Adam Carolla
They stayed married all these years.
- [101:50]
Earthquake
Yeah. Because when my.
- [101:52]
Adam Carolla
When.
- [101:52]
Earthquake
When my. When my. My mother passed first and when I went and bought the lot, I said, well, give Me, I want two. They said too.
- [102:01]
Adam Carolla
Yeah.
- [102:01]
Earthquake
Because I looked at my father, I said, he next.
- [102:04]
Adam Carolla
Yeah.
- [102:04]
Earthquake
You know what I'm saying? So might as well get both of them together.
- [102:07]
Adam Carolla
So your parents stayed married for how long?
- [102:11]
Earthquake
60 years.
- [102:12]
Adam Carolla
60 years.
- [102:13]
Earthquake
Yeah.
- [102:14]
Adam Carolla
That's unique. Yeah.
- [102:16]
Earthquake
Yeah, it was. And they argued? 59 of them.
- [102:18]
Adam Carolla
Really? Yeah. Wow.
- [102:20]
Earthquake
Oh, my. They used to go at it.
- [102:22]
Adam Carolla
Wow.
- [102:23]
Earthquake
Yeah.
- [102:24]
Adam Carolla
So they never got divorced?
- [102:27]
Earthquake
No, no, no.
- [102:29]
Adam Carolla
How many brothers and sisters you have?
- [102:31]
Earthquake
I got three brothers and one sister.
- [102:36]
Adam Carolla
And I'm guessing since nobody could pay for the funeral, they weren't wildly successful people.
- [102:41]
Earthquake
No. They could have paid, but it's like in show business, whoever got the most money, pick up the tab and I'm the one.
- [102:51]
Adam Carolla
Yeah, but both, I feel like you do one and then they all chip in with the other.
- [102:57]
Earthquake
I got it.
- [102:58]
Adam Carolla
I bought my father in law's casket was $11,000. Yeah. And I paid for it.
- [103:04]
Earthquake
Did you?
- [103:05]
Adam Carolla
Yeah.
- [103:06]
Earthquake
Yeah.
- [103:06]
Adam Carolla
That was uncomfortable.
- [103:07]
Earthquake
Did. Did he try to upgrade?
- [103:11]
Adam Carolla
He was gone. But
- [103:16]
Earthquake
no, I mean, the funeral director, did he try to upgrade?
- [103:19]
Adam Carolla
I did. I did not talk to the funeral director. That's. If I had talked to the funeral director, I wouldn't have paid $11,000 for a casket.
- [103:29]
Earthquake
I talked to him.
- [103:30]
Adam Carolla
Oh, you did?
- [103:31]
Earthquake
Oh, yeah.
- [103:31]
Adam Carolla
He tried to upsell you?
- [103:32]
Earthquake
Yeah, he did. What'd he do? He would try to give me the. The golden or the platinum package.
- [103:37]
Adam Carolla
That's the whole thing. Yeah.
- [103:39]
Earthquake
I said, nah, we good. My. My. My. My mother and father didn't believe in fancy stuff. Yeah, well, so that what I told him?
- [103:47]
Adam Carolla
That's what you told him? Yeah. Well, look, I saved a lot of money for my mom and my dad because that was free.
- [103:55]
Earthquake
Okay.
- [103:55]
Adam Carolla
My. My mom donated her body to UCLA Medical.
- [104:00]
Earthquake
Oh, that's beautiful.
- [104:01]
Adam Carolla
And my dad. Unclear where he is. I don't know where he is, but he's somewhere. But, you know, it's the beauty of being an atheist. You just move right along. Nothing. I don't know many people who have no idea where their parents went after they died, but it's nuts.
- [104:28]
Earthquake
I just don't know. The transit, the transition, man, they're gone and then they just. Gone. They just. You just get the notice that they pass and that's. It ain't no so fuck closure. That's the closure. Notification is the closure.
- [104:42]
Adam Carolla
Them dying is the closure. That's the closure. They die and they close, and now it's done.
- [104:55]
Podcast Host / Giovanni
All right, that was Earthquake in studio with Ace man from earlier February of this year. That does it for raise Corolla Classics. On behalf of everyone, Corolla Digital, we hope you have a happy and safe Memorial Day. Mahalo. And get it off.
- [105:25]
Rob Riggle
At first, I didn't think it was real.
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Pluto TV Announcer
I woke up to this blinding light
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Rob Riggle
and I was transported to another place. Pluto tv. Then I heard a voice.
- [105:35]
Adam Carolla
Come with me if you want to live.
- [105:37]
Rob Riggle
There were thousands of movies and shows,
- [105:39]
Adam Carolla
and they were all free.
- [105:40]
Rob Riggle
Truth is that it's just so Beautiful on Pluto TV.
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Pluto TV Announcer
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Pluto TV Announcer
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- [105:55]
Rob Riggle
At first, I didn't think it was real.
- [105:57]
Pluto TV Announcer
I woke up to this blinding light
- [105:59]
Rob Riggle
and I was transported to another place, Pluto tv. Then I heard a voice.
- [106:06]
Podcast Host / Giovanni
Come with me if you want to live.
- [106:08]
Rob Riggle
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