C (3:46)

Yeah. Well, first of all, I'd like to say I'm living over here in Russia, and for quite a few times this year, your voice has been the only.

D (3:55)

One I've heard in English. That's really refreshing, and I just want.

C (3:58)

To thank you for that.

B (3:59)

Yeah. Everyone else speaking Spanish, Russia. I live in Southern California, so my fantasies, they speak Spanish everywhere. German, Mars, Russia. It's all Spanish, I guess. So go ahead.

C (4:17)

All right, my question is, there's been a few people on lately, John.

E (4:22)

Sally, you had a guy on the.

D (4:24)

Raw food guy, and they're giving medical.

C (4:27)

Advice and diet advice and claiming kind.

D (4:31)

Of cures to medical problems. And I guess my question is, what's.

C (4:36)

Your take on people that aren't doctors giving medical advice?

B (4:41)

Well, if they're not doctors, the only people experienced or qualified to give out medical advice are either doctors or actors. That's what I've learned. Donnie, you got the phone that rings in here as opposed to the other phone. All right, Donnie, we do have a phone. That is our phone that we're supposed to have in here, right?

C (5:06)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

B (5:08)

Well, Donnie, why not just use the phone that we use for calls on our phone calls? Because Spider and the henchman did an interview yesterday and they needed the speakerphone, and I switched over. But then we need to switch it over when we're doing the phone call show. Are you talking to somebody right now? I am, but I'll answer his question. You can switch it. You can. You can switch it over. It Says studio phone in big red letters on the. On the thing. All right. While Donnie does his technical magic, I'll answer the question. Look, there's a lot of people that have a lot of beliefs. I find that there's people that believe in God and eat junk food, and then the people that don't believe in God believe in nature and they eat whole food. That's usually how it works. I'm an atheist who just eats anything put in front of me waiting for Donnie. Okay, we got that straightened out, Donnie. There we go. Now, does this stuff cure cancer? No. Would it hurt to eat things that are good for you? Yes. If you had cancer, would it hurt you? No. If you said, I'm going to forego my doctor's advice and not get chemo, chemotherapy and just eat raw foods, would it hurt you? I think it would hurt you. So my feeling is, as the old Jewish joke went, it couldn't hoit to eat the food that's good for you. But it certainly is not going to cure AIDS or cancer. Might it prevent it? Certainly could help. And if you just lived in a line that perpetually went through a drive through and ate things that had country gravy on it, I'm sure it would cause some medical problems at a certain point. So I'm somewhere in between. The reason I don't put a pin in these guys hot air balloons normally is because essentially they're right. It's kind of. Kind of like the smoking thing, which is secondhand smoke ain't gonna kill you. On the other hand, do you want somebody smoking in a car that your kid is in? Not really. So let them preach. Even if they're pushing the boundaries of the truth just a little bit. My feeling is genetics in moderation. If your genetics are good, you're fine. If you're genetically not predisposed to get cancer, then you're not going to get cancer. You could probably give yourself cancer by moving into the Love Canal or Three Mile island or something like that. But look, have some chili fries every once in a while. Just make it every once in a while. Pop that multivite, get a little exercise. You don't have to get on the creatine and go two hours a day. Just do things in moderation and you probably make it to 75 or 80. All right, let me jump back to the phones and go to line two. Just going down the line. Justin. Yo, what's going on, Justin?

E (8:09)

How you doing, Adam?

B (8:10)

Doing well.

E (8:11)

Wow, this is amazing. Well, I have a question for you. I was just curious. I've been listening to you on KROC and on your podcast for, well, since day one, pretty much. And noticed for a while you went without doing the week in Rage, which was one of my favorite things. And then I, you know, picked it up, noticed you've been doing it on Kevin and Bean and always been my favorite part of your, of your act. I start crying sometimes when I'm at work and I'm hearing you rant, but I was just curious. I know you're not Big Book man, but I was curious if you had ever thought about or been approached by anyone to kind of take all your rants and put them into some sort of comedic book. I think it would be absolutely hilarious. And my thoughts are that if Paul Reiser can write a book full of one page rants that make me laugh, then I can't even imagine how much harder I would laugh at anything that you had in book.

B (9:02)

Well, thank you and I hope Paul's not listening.

E (9:05)

Yeah, me too. Sorry, Paul.

B (9:07)

Big Book man would be a horrible pro wrestling name. That's my first thought. Secondly, yes, I am working on a book as we speak. I like when people say as we speak. When obviously it's impossible for me to be working on a fucking book because I'm sitting here talking to you, but I am working on a book as we speak because I got my assistant buddy, Mike lynch, he's assistant writer, he worked with me on the radio show and he's worked with me on the sitcom. He is currently at my home. Well, actually he's probably eating right now, but he's supposed to be taking all the thoughts and ideas and rants and all the things we discuss on this podcast and distilling them down and we're going through them and we're making chapters and 10 minutes ago I was at home working on my pizza chapter and why pizza was fucked up and what toppings were the best toppings and. And all the super important things of life.

E (10:08)

That's really funny actually. I know I work across the street from the improv where you were at last night and I was actually just curious. You know, I was going to ask you about pizza as well and I hear you talking about it every once in a while.

B (10:22)

You were.

E (10:23)

Was just going to let you know I have no relation to this pizza place. So I don't score by, by promoting them or anything. But there is, in my opinion, short of maybe Ray's Pizza in New York City, the best pure Italian pizza I've ever had. Here in Placentia, which is next to Brea. So I was going to say, if you're ever coming out to the Brea Improv again, maybe we can swing you by a Brooklyn pizza, the real deal from Italy and see what you think.

B (10:47)

Well, we would love nothing more than some real pizza. And yes, the la, or I should say the New York style pizza that you can fold in half. You taco in half and grease just drips down it onto your tongue. And I like to give it a little dust of garlic powder. Not garlic salt, but garlic powder.

E (11:08)

Yeah, this one actually does it around the. They put that stuff on the actual, you know, the crust around the pizza.

B (11:13)

Clearly the best. Look, I've said it once. Well, actually I haven't said it once. I've said it one million times. But I'll say it again. I just had Domino's thin crust pizza that my wife brought home about two weeks ago. And, and it was actually good.

E (11:29)

So this must be the new recipe, just the idea.

B (11:32)

No, not that. It was probably pre the new recipe campaign and it may have been Pizza Hut, but the point is it was thin crust so there wasn't anything to fuck up. It worked out quite nicely.

E (11:48)

Yeah, I'm not big on the one slice of pizza that weighs 17 pounds. It's a little too much and leaves you, leaves you real in a little later on.

B (11:57)

Yes, they fuck up the crust or you just go. I mean the analogy for me, I was just writing this chapter in my book which is either be on the beach with the thin crust out of harm's way, or be out past the breakers with the Chicago style Geno's east thick crust. But don't get pummeled in the middle with that medium crust. That's the shit crust. That's the crust that kids like. It's doughy and it's chewy and you work on one piece for 45 minutes. And also the stuffed crust, by the way, when you announce as a pizza company, hey, we're going with stuffed crust, Aren't you just announcing we can't make a fucking pizza? Aren't you just throwing up your hands and going, you know what, people? We don't know how to make pizza, so we're gonna inject shit into the crust. Has anyone ever ate a pizza and went, why isn't there anything oozing out of this crust? This is a travesty. And can I say this too? With the Pizza Huts and the dominoes and all that. Knock it off with the desserts. You have the stuffed crust pizza. That's the hoagie Philly cheesesteak version. It's already 200,000 calories per slice. It's like eating a full scale gingerbread house and one slice of pizza. Now we got to cram some dessert in on top of that. Yeah, and don't give me that cop out thing that like Taco Bell does where you just take leftover shit that you're working with and sprinkle cinnamon and sugar on it and go, hey, now we got dessert. Don't give me the pizza dough that has sugar and cinnamon on it and go, oh, hey, has anyone tried our dessert? That's not dessert. That's leftover shit that you've dumped sugar on top of. Oh, my God. Get some goddamn dignity and pull out a piece of apple pie. Or pumpkin pie, better yet.

E (13:53)

I'm just saying I couldn't agree with you more. We've been eating at the same pizza place for about 15 years now called Brooklyn Pizza, and they're down the street from the Brea Improv. And you get your pizza served you by a guy that kind of looks like Mario got the high voice. So, you know, you're getting the, you know, the real authentic stuff, and it's just as good as you can get. So I'm hoping we didn't make it out to the Brea show last night. We made it to your first show.

B (14:16)

But you couldn't have crossed the street and come to the show last night.

E (14:21)

Well, it was more a money thing. We went to the first show when we were at Bald Brian's show.

B (14:28)

Well, it's safe, really.

E (14:29)

Just a matter of the $3 in my wallet not getting me through the front door.

B (14:33)

I can. I can dig it. Save up. We'll see you, Strawberry. Dot me. Let's talk careers for second. We all got to have a job, but what you really want is a career. Something that makes you feel like you're actually building something, not just clocking in and clocking out. I talked to Vincent over at Strawberry. Great guy, by the way. First rate people over there. Super nice, smart, and they actually care about helping you move forward. I know that firsthand because I talked to Vincent over there. Strawberry me helps you go from stuck at work to feeling good about what you do. They'll match you with a career coach who gets your goals. You take a quick quiz and bam, you're on your way. They'll help you figure out what you want, what you're worth, and how to get there. Whether that's negotiating Better pay. Finding a new gig or finally moving into something you care about. Head to Strawberry Me acs to get 50% off your first week. It's your career. Take care of it. That's Strawberry Me acs, stop settling. Start building the career you actually want. You in Ontario next week, or Irvine the week after that, or the El Portal out here in my hometown of North Hollywood. Plenty of shows coming up.

E (16:03)

Yeah, it's really great to see you guys doing this live bit. We just had so much fun coming out. And if I may say, too, to some of the people listening, you're one of the guys that really does take care of your fans. And we really appreciated the fact that you waited and signed everyone's autographs, took pictures, and we got to talk to you. You and Donnie actually. Really, really cool that you guys take.

D (16:27)

Care of your family.

B (16:27)

Well, thanks. Thanks, Justin. And Justin, how dare you laugh at me. You wouldn't be sitting in that seat right now without me designing this. I would because I own this goddamn. I own this warehouse. I might. Might have just been here anyway. Hey, Justin, about computers, though.

D (16:42)

Yes, sir.

B (16:43)

Let me ask you this. Would you pay 299 to hear 1 of those live improvs?

A (16:49)

I would.

E (16:50)

You know, I was just hearing. Actually, I was. I was on hold trying to get through the other day and could hear you guys through the phone talking about a little bit your new price structure. So I'm a little confused. Is it just 299 per improv show? Is that how you're going to do it?

B (17:04)

Here's how. Here's how we're going to do it. All the daily podcasts will be free. They will always be free. We will go out on the road and we will do a couple of shows a night, and we will give you one of those, and we'll ask you to donate 299 for the second show. So you will always get one for free. Now, as a matter of fact, last night, we were in Irvine. Sorry, we were in Brea, across the street from where you were. And we only did one show. We did not do two shows as we normally do. We just did a single show in Brea last night. And Donnie said, are we going to sell this show for $2.99? And I said, no, we have to give this one away. We will not have one to sell the following week or the week after that. Because I said, we'll give you one, and if you're nice enough, you can pay for one. But since we only did one, we'll give you the one and we'll not have one to sell. So that's how committed we are to this. Our commitment is we will provide a free podcast each and every day. And once a week or once every couple of weeks, we'll put up a 90 minute live comedy show. And it'll be a way to not only get us some money and keep the lights on over here, but also I'd like to start paying the Dana Goulds and the Jeff Ross's and the Bill Burrs and the Ralph Garmans and all the people who make the crazy pilgrimage out to Irvine and do the shows for us and with us for free.

E (18:44)

Well, not only is, you know, it's a good cause, we're getting a great show out of it, but also, you know, we know the money is going to the right people.

B (18:52)

So, yeah, it's not going up Donnie's nose or anything. We're just trying to keep the lights on over here and give you guys a free podcast. Thanks, Justin.

E (19:01)

Hey, no problem. So when do you think the ETA.

D (19:04)

Would be on your book?

B (19:05)

Oh, the book. Yeah, the book. I'm almost done with it. I have to turn the transcript in actually three days ago. So I'm a little bit. Or I should say manuscript in three days ago, so I'm a little bit late on that. But I think it'll be coming out somewhere around the end of this year.

D (19:26)

That's awesome.

E (19:26)

Well, I'd like to say I'll be first in line to buy it. I can't wait. I'm so happy to hear you.

B (19:31)

Thanks, Justin. The good news is there'll be no line, so you'll just be first to buy it.

E (19:38)

We'll be listening every day.

B (19:40)

Thanks, buddy. Good times. All right, let's keep going down the line to line three. Speak to Chris. Chris, hi.

F (19:48)

Hey.

C (19:50)

Sorry.

B (19:51)

That's all right.

C (19:52)

I was just wondering. I know what a cake lover you are, or, sorry, pie lover, and I was wondering if you have tried to shelter your children from cake at all or do you allow them to have it at birthday parties?

B (20:06)

So far I've not intervened in the cake and pie as far as my children go, but I will force them to love pieces at some point or I'll threaten to disown them. So my birthday parties always have birthday pies and they're always stolen long before they even get out of the, you know, get laid out and put out in front of people. I've said it many times, pie versus cake, pie makes a pie is much Better than cake. Cake makes a good substrate for, for candles and miniature football players and themes and goal posts and shit like that. You can't. Like for instance, half the, half the kids. Half the kids cakes, you know, first off, when did you have to start picking a theme for the top of the fucking cake? You know what I mean? You're having a party, you got a bunch of nine year olds, there's cake and ice cream and fruit punch everywhere. Why do we need to do an elaborate scenario on top of the cake? Why do we have to turn the top of the cake into a football field? Hey, little Timmy loves football. Good. I love football too. I also like cake that don't have goal posts and hash marks on it and a chain gang. So how about you just cut a fucking piece of cake and we'll go into the other room and watch the football game and enjoy the cake, you know what I'm saying? Like I, I enjoy boobs, but I don't have to paint a football field on boobies. And I don't have to take, I don't have to buy loaves of bread that are shaped like footballs. They can be shaped like loaves of bread. I don't. Looking at a spongebob or square pants themed cake. What's all the thing. When, when, when was, when is a cake not good enough? You know what I mean? Like, do you ever think you just put a big chocolate cake in front of your kid for his ninth birthday with nine lit candles in it and he's gonna go, hey, what the fuck, old man? Where's spongebob? Where's Dora the Explorer? What's going on? There's no theme here. How am I supposed to eat this? You know what the theme is? Cake. That's the theme. That's the ultimate theme. It's nummy. That should be all you need, by the way. Who wants to pick off all the plastic shit? How many kids choke each year, you know, on an army man, that was on the, you know, army themed cake. And then when you do pick the shit off, it takes a lot of frosting with it. And then you do probably the most unsanitary thing in the world, which is you pull off the little plastic football players. And as you pull off the plastic football players, you lick the base of them. Let me get some of that frosting out there. I'm sure that shit just sat in a bin and came over on a container ship from China. You're licking it now. I'm looking at a cake now. It's got a whole construction theme on it. Little Bobby loves construction. Good. Let him have some cake and go sit and watch a dump truck. Why does it have to be on top of the cake? He's already spitting on it and blowing on it. Yes. Yeah. And how good is something going to taste when it has a dump truck and a backhoe on it? Let's knock it off and let's just give them pie because pie kicks the ass of cake. And I don't want you guys making your stupid, spurious, retarded argument where you go, oh, yeah, have you been down to the Benish bakery? Benish bakery out there on Fairfax in the Jewish district. They make a seven layer German chocolate cake that has just a little raspberry filling. No, I'm not talking about $189 cake. I'm talking about going over to Marie calendars and getting a $6.99 pie versus any cake you can get for $6.99 at the Ralph's or the Lucky's or the John's market down the street. Here's my cake challenge to all you naysayers. Pie person, here's seven or eight dollars. Go find the best pie you can get for $8. Cake person, here is eight dollars. Go find the best cake you can find for eight dollars. I'll guarantee that pie kicks the shit out of that cake's ass. And when I have my birthday parties, we have pie. And you lay that shit out and you have to keep people away from it. Cake. And it's all you need to know about pie superiority to cake. Here's how the cake works. Some bitch gets in charge of cutting. She gets put in charge of cutting the cake up. So she cuts up the cake and all the pieces, and then she distributes it. She walks around, piece of cake. You want a piece of cake? Would you like some cake? Everyone's like, ah, nah, nah. And then she'll go, I'll just set it down on the arm of the sofa next to you. And then later on when you're cleaning up, you find a cigarette put out in it. Pie is always finished. You don't find half eaten pieces of pie. And you don't have to distribute pie. People, people come to the pie. You have a party. We have pieces of pie cut up. You have people swarming around the pie, circling the pie like buzzards waiting for their piece. Cake. Cake gets distributed. Pie people are waiting in line like hungry Haitians and one of those relief trucks. That's all. It's all you need to know people get line for pie. Cake, you got to spread around. What do you like, by the way?

C (25:44)

Just outgrow it at a certain point. Cheap beer at a certain point. Like cake. It's just such a novelty childhood food.

B (25:53)

I agree. Yes, please, everyone, let's mature into some delicious pie. And I feel the same way. I was just writing about this in my book. The same with the pepperoni pizza. Sausage and onion meatball. There's so many better things to put on a pizza. Yet still, when you go to that super bowl party, the guy orders it up, give me 10 cheese and 10 pepperoni. It's like we're fucking eight. We're not eight anymore. I don't want any pepperoni pizza and I don't want any cake, thank you. Where are you calling from?

C (26:26)

Montreal, Canada.

B (26:27)

How's that going over there? It's great.

C (26:30)

It's a great city. I haven't lived here very long. I'm originally from Vancouver, and it's just a great city. People are very warm and friendly. The weather isn't warm, but the people are very nice and polite. And there's a great music art scene here.

B (26:50)

Yeah, you have the comedy festival there every year. That's right.

C (26:55)

Yeah. That's fantastic, too. I've only been here one year and I did go to a few things.

D (27:01)

Last year, and it was great.

B (27:03)

Did. How much graffiti do you have in Montreal?

D (27:08)

It's.

C (27:09)

It's not too bad if there is some. It's, I guess you could say city sanctioned.

D (27:15)

Like, as I said, it's a very.

C (27:16)

Big arts, you know, that people commission murals or whatever, but there's no. There's no gang tagging. There isn't much gang tagging or whatever you want to call. Doesn't look like Brooklyn or anything like that.

B (27:28)

Yeah, well, L. A, you know, I'll tell you how bad L. A Has gotten with the graffiti. There was always graffiti in L. A. There's more than ever now, of course, and there's more trash than ever. And I don't mean just trash like people throwing, you know, cigarette butts out the window or fast food containers out the window. I mean, dumping tires and old sofas, stuff, you know, pallets, wood pallets, old sofas, old truck tires. We actually used the city as a fucking dump, which we never had in the past. But not only is there a lot of graffiti and a lot of dumping, but there was an unwritten rule that if there was a. If there was a mural by the side of the freeway or on a big Slab wall somewhere. Big cement slab somewhere that mural wouldn't get graffitied on. Now all bets are off. There's fucking graffiti all over the murals, all over the side of the buildings. And the murals were just put there to paint over the graffiti in the first place. And it's not your kind of cool Montreal artistic stuff. It's just your basic gang banger shit. So LA's really digressed and really, really gone into the garbage. I might be moving up to Montreal within the week.

D (28:47)

Interesting.

C (28:48)

Since I moved here, this wasn't the case in Vancouver, but they actually collect your dump once a week. So not only do they collect your garbage and recycle them, but you could put your own couch out on the sidewalk. Yeah, somebody will collect it just if they want to own it.

B (29:01)

Well, here. Yeah, here's the problem with la. If you want to take your tires or you want to take your sofa, or you want to take your whatever construction trash to the dump, it costs 50 bucks. But if you want to just dump it off at night by the side of the freeway, well, that's free. So what do you think we're going to do over here? What is up with. Hold on a second. I know I get onto this all the time, but don't we know this? Don't we know this? Does Villa Rugosa not know that we have a town where plenty of people do plenty of construction projects and don't want to pay the 50 bucks or make the haul out to the dump, so they just dump it by the side of the freeway or they dump it by the side of the road and there it remains, by the way, for weeks and months and years? What is up that a town this large, with this much money, that has this high a tax bracket, that generates these kinds of dollars, can't fucking pick up its own shit? Why does it have to be so fucking depressing out here? Thank you. By the way, was it Chris?

C (30:10)

Yeah. Chris, yeah. Thank you. It's a pleasure to talk to you. I started listening to you the past year.

D (30:14)

Somebody archived all your Loveline shows and.

C (30:16)

I listen to them while I work all the time. So it's nice to actually speak to you.

B (30:21)

Thanks, Chris.

C (30:22)

All right, Cheers.

B (30:23)

Good times, buddy. Like the cheers. All right, let's try to hop to line one. Hey. Oh, man, let's get this name here.

C (30:34)

Hey, how's it going, Adam?

B (30:35)

Give me your name.

C (30:37)

My name's O.T. neil.

B (30:38)

O.T. neil? Well, that's how it's spelled. All right. Remember, the machine knows if you're lying first Statement. Carvana will give you a real offer on your car. All online. False. True. Actually, you can sell your car in minutes.

F (30:51)

False. That's gotta be true again.

B (30:53)

Carvana will pick up your car from your door, or you can drop it off at one of their car vending machines. Sounds too good to be true. So true. Finally caught on. Nice job. Honesty isn't just their policy, it's their entire model. Sell your car today, too, Carvana. Pickup fees may apply. What's happening, Neil?

C (31:13)

Not much. Just chilling here at my friend's house. Hanging out.

B (31:17)

All right. Got a question.

C (31:20)

Yeah. I know you used to ride a motorcycle, right?

B (31:24)

Yeah.

C (31:25)

What kind of motorcycle did you have?

B (31:28)

I've had a few. I had a Honda 404. Old 70s bike. Kind of cool bike. Four cylinders, 400cc's, so they were probably about the pistons. Probably about the size of a grape. Four into one pipe. Handled very nicely. Not much in the power department, but definitely, definitely got you around. Used to ride it up to the Weeze's house with my buddy Ray, barefoot on the back in the dead of winter. Had a Honda 404. Had a. Oh, it's on the. Oh, it's on. It's on the carcass website. Oh, it is a picture of my Honda 404. Who knew it? What's that, Weezer? It's under images. Oh, under images. Oh. I didn't even know we had a picture of my Honda 400. I know you don't know too much about computers, so we'll help you out.

C (32:18)

As much as we can.

B (32:19)

It's not computers. I didn't know we had a picture of my motorcycle. It's not my Honda 404. All right. So, Donnie, when you're done making fun of me with the computer shit, you can say we don't have a picture of you in your Honda 404. Don't bother going to the Carcast website is what I'm saying. Now, where were we? Ah, yes. Honda 404. Couple of ninjas, which we don't have pictures of either. And a couple of ninja six hundreds. And a. And a Enduro Kawasaki 185.

D (32:55)

What are you.

B (32:55)

What are you riding?

C (32:56)

I actually acquired a Kawasaki Ninja 500.

B (33:02)

I didn't even know they had that.

D (33:03)

Yeah, Yeah.

C (33:05)

I got a really cool deal, man. On Craigslist, actually.

B (33:08)

All right. And your question is?

C (33:12)

My question is, you know, everybody. I ask everybody, you know, like, everybody sees me riding, you know, France, you know, all their friends in stuff, parents, you know, be careful, you know, they think I'm going to kill myself on that. Pretty much, yeah. And, and especially, you know, in a city like in la, how people drive and stuff.

B (33:33)

Well, also, I think they're judging you and they're sizing you up as a kind of a squirrely stoner because like Leno rides a motorcycle all the time and no one ever goes, hey, man, you're going to kill yourself, look out. I want you to be careful on that. But probably when they see you. Plus, you know, dude named Antel that smokes a lot of weed, hangs out on his buddy's sofa. Yeah. You seem like a prime target for an 18 wheeler.

C (33:58)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, true. Yeah, I know, but, you know, nobody knows that I have a, you know, motorcycle background. You know, I grew up riding motocross, you know, motorcycles before, so I'm pretty familiar with the bikes. You know, I'm not, I'm not a newie, you know, like.

B (34:18)

Okay, what's your question?

C (34:22)

Oh, yeah, will you give me any tips, you know, like, as far as, like, you know, riding, you know, I'm planning to go. I want to ride all the way to San Francisco this summer. I was wondering, ever did any long, you know, this riding?

B (34:38)

Yeah, I had a couple things. Well, my only. I'm going to put you on hold because I think your line's kind of jacked up. All right. I drove. I rode my motorcycle to Santa Barbara in the middle of a torrential rainstorm. That was that. That was probably my longest motorcycle haul. I always just drove them around town and I never really had any business out of town. But I did decide to visit my buddy Carl, who went to UCSB on my motorcycle. About five minutes after I got on the freeway out here in la, it started raining and it never stopped raining and it was freezing and I had no rain gear and no anything. I was probably just wearing like a denim jacket. I don't think even think I had gloves on. I just had jeans and a helmet and denim jacket. That's the trip. I peed on myself at a certain point, maybe passing through Ventura, Oxnard. I couldn't have gotten any wetter. I mean, it was literally like just driving. It was like riding a motorcycle through a car wash. But I'd been doing it for the last 75 miles. At a certain point, I just pissed myself. I said, I'm freezing, I'm dying. I'm going hypothermic here. I'm like one of those guys on the crab boat that fell over. Fell over the. Over the edge in the bering seas. And I just said, fuck it, I'm pissing. And I just whizzed all over myself. And you know what? It felt good. I mean it was sweet relief for about two minutes until it just froze with the wind hitting it again. But yeah, it was really one of the most. And I'd had an uncomfortable life up until that point, but this is about as uncomfortable as I'd been. I don't know why I thought it was a good idea to head out to Santa Barbara when rain clouds were gathering, but it never stopped raining all the way up there. As a matter of fact, I think I was riding into the mouth of the storm and by the time I got to my buddy Carl's house, I was so soaked to the bone and so freezing. And of course it was at night and get there till about 10 o' clock at night. I was in pain. Like it was weird. I think, I think I sat in his bathtub and just ran hot water in it. But it was, it was brutal. My hands were purple and freezing and still the shape of the handlebar grips, I had to pull them off. I was as wet as if I just climbed. It was like dipping yourself in an ice cold swimming pool and just riding a motorcycle at 70 miles an hour with no fairing on it or anything on the freeway for an hour and a half. It was stupid. Wasn't Snake Oiler with you too and getting electrocuted or something? Yeah, my buddy Todd, we like to call him Snake Oiler was with me on his bike, which never quite worked out right. And it was having electrical problems and it was raining and sparks were shooting out of it like right, right in the middle of it by the battery and it would keep like kind of losing power and I'd see him reach down and like flick a wire and then a spark would shoot out and his hand would shoot out and I'd hear him yelp and, and he was just being shocked all the way down there in the rain on his bike. It was one of the many semi retarded pilgrimages Snake Oiler and myself made. The other one, of course, was when we went to Tijuana in his stepmom's beat to shit Mazda. Not an RX7, just the old Mazda, whatever the hell sedan they had back then with the four bald tires literally showing belt on all four bald tires with no spare. We just said we're going to TJ One night we headed out, of course, got a blowout and had to sleep by the side of the freeway. Another story for another day. All right, let's get back to the phones. Kindly remove the image. Thank you very much. Let's talk to John from Fresno. John? Yes. What's happening, John?

C (38:44)

Ace, man. What's up?

B (38:46)

Hmm. Talk to me, Johnny.

D (38:48)

Hey, Adam.

C (38:49)

I just wanted to give you a call and thank you. I'm rather new listener, always been a fan, first time caller, but basically I forget which podcast I was listening to yesterday.

D (38:59)

But you just went off on how.

C (39:01)

The police in LA are always harassing you and they're just basically trying to fill the revenue stream. And I experienced that quite a bit here in Fresno. And I just got to thank you for going off on that rant because it made me feel better and your opinions voiced a lot of about how I feel about the man just harassing me. I'm a. I work full time, I go to school at night. I'm just trying to better my life. And they're getting pulled over for shit all the time. Yeah, haven't had a chance to update my tags. Hey, but you know, that costs money.

D (39:27)

And, you know, I'm doing the best.

C (39:29)

I can and they're just on my ass and it's just, man, the way.

D (39:32)

That you just went off, I was.

C (39:32)

Just like, you should be running this country, not the fucking idiots that we have, you know.

B (39:37)

Well, thank you. Look, all I'm basically saying is the police force was, you know, let's get back to basics is what I'm saying. Why does a society have a police force? The society has a police force to stop crime for the people that pay the taxes. It's really, it's an unspoken agreement, but here's the agreement. There's a certain portion of society, and hopefully the lion's share of society who is going to go to work and we're going to commute to work and we're going to go to our jobs and we're going to fulfill our duties as citizens. We're going to head off to work every day and we're going to earn a paycheck. And from that paycheck, we're going to take a portion of that paycheck and we're going to give it to the city. And in return, you guys keep the order. So you keep the street lights on, you fill the potholes, and you stop gang bangers from breaking into my house and raping me in the middle of the night. LAPD says to protect that is to protect the citizens and protect the taxpayers and the people that pay them. And to Serve those people. Not serve with summonses and bullshit tickets, but to serve the people. It doesn't say to hassle and fuck with. It doesn't say to bilk and rape. It doesn't say to ring like a fucking bar rag until every last nickel falls out of it. It says to protect and serve. Please read the side of your fucking door before you get into your car and stop fucking with the people that you're supposed to be protecting and serving. If you go back to, you know, California, I'm sure 200 years ago there was a sheriff, and that sheriff was to wait around for the Dalton boys to come to town and make sure there wasn't any problems. And if someone got shot in a saloon, they take the guy who shot him and throw him into the drunk tank and so on and so forth. But it wasn't to pull over every guy who was riding a horse and fuck with him. Hey, what's going on with those saddlebags? You know? Oh, it looks to me like your horse's tail is an extra six inches too long. I'm going to have to write you a ticket. Just go ahead and give me a piece of gold for that. And by the way, is that a proper saddle? Has that saddle been certified? I don't see any. I don't see any tags on that saddle. That saddle's. That saddle's. Well, that saddle's not been updated. You need to pay me $20 so I can put a sticker on that saddle that says it's been updated. And by the way, the gas coming out of the ass, your horse, has that been certified? Has that been checked up? I suggest you take your horse to one of our ass gas certification centers. Pay that guy 50 bucks. Pay me 50 bucks, then pay the DMV. Oh, they don't exist. The horse MV another 50 bucks, we'll get you back on your horse again. Oh, hold on a second. You think you can just pull your horse up to a hitching post and leave your horse there? Oh, no, no, no. I'm going to have one of my deputies stand by your horse and you can pay him so that your horse can park there. Is that how it worked? I don't think so. We had a sheriff. That sheriff job was everybody in the town is going to pay him a dollar a month and he's going to protect the citizens in the town. And that's how it worked. It went on that way for tens of years. Just decade after decade. Cops looking out, protecting and serving. Somehow they decided they were on Some kind of campaign to raise funds that started a few years back. And it is, it has just spun out of control. It does not say on the side of the car to bully and rape. It says to protect and serve. When can we get back to this? What happened along the way? We go to work, we pay our taxes, they use some of that tax money for your salary and you bust the bad guys and we all get on with our lives. Can we please get back to that? And what the fuck do our kids have to look forward to? I mean, if you think about what it was like 20 years ago, they weren't handing out chicken shit jaywalking tickets every fucking five feet. And they weren't handing out no front license plate tickets and all that other kind of chicken shit bullshit. Think about what the hell our kids are going to have to do. Cops just going to show up to their house every morning, knock on the door and you're going to have to peel off a 20 and he's going to climb back in his cruiser, maybe bangs your wife, leaves a duke in your toilet, gets back in the cruiser and takes off. Is that the future we can look forward to? And I know LA is by far the worst of any town in America. This shit never. This shit would not go down in other towns I've traveled around. There's no fucking way this stuff would fly in Texas or in New Orleans. Alright, let's keep going. Hey, James. What's going on?

C (45:08)

James, how you doing?

B (45:10)

Doing well.

C (45:11)

Well, hey, I'm glad to get to talk to you. Been a big fan for a lot of years and was never able to get through on the radio show back in the day. But I certainly got to get through to you today.

B (45:22)

Better late than never, buddy. What's happening?

C (45:25)

Well, I got to participate and be part of the crew a few years back when you and Jimmy had participated in the Super Bowl Grand Prix back then down in Houston.

B (45:37)

In Houston, yeah.

C (45:39)

Yeah.

D (45:39)

And I. You guys had brought.

C (45:41)

Had either. I'm not sure if Leanne Tweeden was actually on your show and you guys brought it up.

B (45:46)

She was, she was.

C (45:48)

And it had a little momentum back then and I was trying like crazy to get on. So hey, you guys need to head on out to Phoenix and settle this thing up, you know.

B (45:56)

Yeah. For people who want to know what the situation was. All right, here's the situation. And James car cast. You can actually see the in footage video of that particular race. What? That's correct. Or is it just stock footage of a Honda 404 what are you talking about, Donnie? Beach Grand Prix. No, Donnie, sorry. I'm going to go back to the bong, please. Back to the bong? Yeah. You can't see in car footage if you go to Carcast. If you go to AdamCarroll.com you go to Carcast. You can see in car footage of my car from the Long Beach Grand Prix I did a few years back, which is kind of interesting to watch. The Leanne Tweeden go kart race. Celebrity go kart race. Okay, let me tell the story first off. Leanne Tweeden I haven't been following closely is one of those good looking, kind of looks like a Hooters chick and does sports like when they get the hot chick and they put her on the sideline or they get the hot chick on the best damn sports show or whatever. I think she worked for Fox Sports and has quite a bit of experience racing and go kart racing and even raced go karts at a semi high level. And if you don't believe me, when she showed up at the celebrity go kart race at Houston for the super bowl about five years back, she had her own custom helmet and her own helmet bag and all that kind of shit. The rest of us were just wearing helmets that Cadillac provided. She had her own thing, full face with a flame job and everything. So she does a lot of go kart racing or did a lot of go kart racing and I guess she won and wins the celebrity Cadillac go kart race every single year like a.

C (47:45)

Three time three peat champion. I think it actually may have even started with the win in 04 there in Houston.

B (47:51)

So you were a witness to that race?

C (47:54)

Yeah, and I work out with Bob Bondron there.

B (47:58)

Oh yes, Bob, Bob Bondrand was there sponsoring as well. So you, you tell me how, how many horsepower does one of those go karts have?

C (48:08)

Those, I think those are the Briggs cars at the time. I think they were 12 horse.

B (48:12)

12 horsepower? Yes. They're nothing. Not, not, not like a racing shifter.

C (48:16)

Cart shifters are about 36 to 40 horse. Yeah, about 120.

B (48:22)

This has, this has the, the Briggs and Cunningham lawnmower, essentially. Briggs and Stratton, sorry, lawnmower engine in it with about 12 horsepower. I mean they're not going to get any celebrities killed. Right.

C (48:37)

Correct bumper all the way around. You're not going to run over any tires and go flying.

B (48:41)

They're fairly heavy and they're low horsepower.

D (48:44)

Correct.

B (48:44)

And they'll move okay. But they're not, you know, they're not there. For celebrities.

D (48:49)

Correct.

B (48:50)

We don't want to get Paris Hilton killed. So me. And now first off, let me just set the stage. I have not been on a go kart since. I don't know, it's been at least 10 years and I don't, I'm not, I don't do any professional racing. I fuck around a little bit.

C (49:08)

I Coronado. I know some of the guys saw you out at Coronado there in September. You look pretty good.

B (49:14)

That was the first vintage race I've done. But of course that was after this. But thank you. I went out that night and got shit faced and here's what happened. We all went out, me and Kimmel and the rest of the guys just went out. I was there with Kimmel, a bunch of his guys from his show and we went to some club and we got loaded as I'm apt to do. But the reason that night I got especially loaded is because somebody said hey man, there's an after hours club down the street, it's really cool and so don't worry that the bar's closing at 2, let's get in a cab and go to this after hours thing and party. And I ended up being the only guy there and I was there and it was like hey man, show and guys were buying me Jaeger shots and I ended up at this after party until 5am and I rolled back into Jimmy and I were staying in the same room I think and I rolled back into that room at like 5:30 or 6am and fucking passed out in my clothes. Jimmy. And there's one thing you need to know about Jimmy. He is super nutty prompt. So much so that you know if you have a flight that leaves LAX at 2pm he'll say yeah, I'll pick you up at 9 in the morning. That's what, that's the way he does you go Jimmy. It takes 45 minutes to get. Nah, I don't want to miss the flight. That's how Jimmy goes. This celebrity go kart race took place at like 10am or something like that.

C (50:44)

Yeah, it was in the morning because there's a funny reference to the, the edited bit that you actually next the following week had come on Jimmy's show I think even Monday or Tuesday and you had a kind of a wrap up video and Jimmy in his, on his footage he actually tells the camera, I think I'm drunk.

A (51:04)

Yeah.

B (51:05)

So the race is due to start at like 10am but they say hey, the driver should be there at 9am and go through the pre race safety discussion and how we're going to bracket it and blah, blah, blah, right? So of course, Jimmy being Jimmy and not knowing he's a celebrity wakes me up at like 7:45 and says, we gotta get ready, we gotta head out to this thing. And I'm like, ugh. I mean, I'm literally wanted to vomit. I'd been asleep for about 2 hours and 15 minutes and I was wildly hungover. And I said, what time are we supposed to be there? And he's like, we gotta be there at 9 o'. Clock. And I was like, look, when they say celebrities need to beat a go kart race at 9, that means we could pull up at 9:30 and be fine. No, we got to get going. We got to get there. It's got a blah, blah, blah. We showed up at that place at like 8:30, 8:45 in the morning. We were the first people there. They were like still setting up the track. There wasn't a celebrity in sight. And we just like sat there and eventually like LL Cool J showed up or whatever. And I was just sitting there, like just as hungover as I could possibly be off of two and a half hours sleep and sitting there. Well, eventually all the celebrities showed up and we started doing the brackets in the racing. And there must have been like, I don't know, 14, 16 celebrities there.

C (52:31)

Yeah, I think it was groups.

D (52:33)

I think it was five groups of four.

C (52:34)

So, yeah, right about there.

B (52:36)

Five, five groups of four. All right, was that 20? All right, 20. So like 20 celebrities. So. Oh, the winner of this group would move on to take on the winner of that group, and the winner of that group would move on to take on the winner of the next group. And eventually I just kept winning and Leanne Tweeden just kept on winning. And it got down to the championship race of it was me against Leanne Tweeden. And I remember thinking, well, these go karts have no horsepower and I'm 200 pounds and Leanne Tweeden is 126 pounds. So the extra 70 something pounds that are on my cart with the 10 or 12 horsepower lawnmower engine is gonna fuck me up. And I see her kicking the shit out of everyone. And by the way, I saw her just on the track like, poor Anthony Edwards has his fat ass out there or Anthony Anderson or whatever. What's the big brother's name?

C (53:33)

Anthony Anderson.

B (53:34)

Anthony Anderson. He's out there and I'm like watching her just pulling away from him and like lapping him and stuff. And I'M going. Well, clearly he's 263 pounds and he can't go and she's kicking his ass. So I knew in advance that my 75 pound weight disparity was going to cause a problem.

D (53:55)

Yeah.

B (53:57)

Yes.

C (53:58)

Handicapping.

B (53:59)

Thank you. Donnie. Joke about.

C (54:04)

You can go on YouTube and just search go kart competition and it's actually a pretty decent video from, from Jimmy Kimmel when you showed up there.

B (54:12)

Oh, it is. Oh, you too? Well, so what I did is I knew she was going to kick. I knew she was faster than me. So what I did is I sort of timed the start and jumped the gun just a little bit and got ahead of her. And then I was ahead of her. Yeah, yeah, I knew what was going on and I got out ahead of her and she was just behind me bumping me the whole time because she was faster than I was because she didn't have the weight. And it was like a five lap race or three lap race. And at a certain point she just went hard inside on one corner and got around me and she muscled her way around me. And then once she got around me, she just started pulling away. And then when the race ended, the other 18 celebrities who'd asked I beat started laughing at me. Hey, you just got beat by a chicken. And I was like, hey dicks, you all got beat by the chick and or me along the way, so shut the fuck up.

C (55:15)

Exactly.

B (55:15)

And then she started kind of mouthing off. Yeah, that's right. Met her luck next time, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, look, you know, I don't want to seem like a spoiled sport here and I'm not going to say anything, but if you keep bragging, I'll eventually bring up the weight thing. And she kind of kept going and I didn't really say anything about it, but about a month later, or maybe a year later, whenever it was, she came on to my radio show, I think she came on Loveline at the time and she started bragging again about how I was kicking your ass and how much faster I was than you and blah blah, blah. And I said, sweetie, you're a good go kart driver and maybe you would beat me in a heads up race. But I'll tell you something right now, if we took a sack filled with 80 pounds of sand and I placed it in your go kart, I would kick your fucking ass on that track. So here's my challenge to you. I will weigh myself. You can weigh yourself. We'll put the difference in The. In the form of a sandbag on your go kart, and I'll put up ten grand and we'll race. Would you like to take that challenge? Well, of course she said no. That was my challenge to her. I didn't want to sound like a chauvinistic dick. She's a really good driver, but. Hey, honey, stop bringing it up. And people who don't know don't realize that with 12 horsepower and an extra 75 pounds, you're not going to win that race. Right?

D (56:45)

Right.

B (56:46)

Thank you. So that's why I was being a dick.

C (56:49)

Thanks for. For the recap there. I just wanted to say if. And it may be more of a car cast thing, but if you and Donnie and Professor want to ever take a weekend John, or sometime come on out and running some cards, maybe do a car cast thing, that would be pretty cool.

B (57:05)

Yeah, we'd love it. And again, not to pardon the pun. Drive it into the ground. She's a good driver. I'm just saying, make everything even. Like they do in stock car. Like they do in F1, like they do in many other forms of motorsports. Make everything even and then let the best man or woman win. That was my only request. And shut your pie hole. Nobody likes someone to fuck nobody. Nobody likes a braggart. Thank you. And don't show up with your custom helmet. She had to ship that helmet from LA to Houston for a fucking go kart race.

C (57:42)

At least you have a driver's suit and everything else.

B (57:45)

Yeah. All right. Thanks for calling.

C (57:47)

Thanks, Al.

B (57:48)

Good times. James. Should we try one more call? Let's see. Here's an interesting question. Line two. Matt. Hey, Adam, how are you? What's going on, Matt?

D (58:01)

Not too much.

E (58:02)

I just wanted to ask you about something.

D (58:06)

Big Stern fan.

B (58:07)

And I heard recently he was saying.

E (58:09)

Some nice words about Artie. And he said, the only person I ever asked to sit in that chair was Jimmy Kimmel.

D (58:17)

And I was thinking, wasn't that you?

B (58:19)

Yeah, it was me. I mean, I'm not calling him a liar, but it was. It was me. Maybe. Maybe there's another chair next to it or there's a beanbag on the floor. He's good friends with Jimmy. And maybe. Maybe it's a little bit of revisionist history, but. And I don't even know that there was a chair, but at some point before Artie Lange, he wanted me to be there. After Artie Lange, I was never asked to be there. Was he talking about before Artie Lang?

E (58:56)

Well, he said, referring to what Artie did on the show.

D (58:59)

He said, there's only one person I.

B (59:00)

Asked before Artie, and that was Jimmy Kimmel. Although, like I say, I know I've heard him tell that story. It was you.

D (59:07)

In fact, I think I've heard you.

B (59:08)

Told the story about.

D (59:11)

That.

E (59:11)

You.

D (59:11)

You asked them how much it was?

B (59:15)

No, we. Oh, phone got disconnected. I'll. I'll be fast. Jimmy and I went out to do Howard Stern many years ago. I think it was for the Hugh Hefner roast after the whole 911 tragedy. And I don't think Jimmy knew me. Or Howard. Or me. I should say. Howard didn't know Jimmy or myself at the time we sat in. He liked both of us, but I think he liked me even more. And I think he thought that I wasn't up to much. And he sort of had an idea about me coming out there and sitting in that chair. I quickly explained to him that I had a bunch of stuff going on, as well as, you know, a family and a home and all sorts of things. And there was multiple reasons why I couldn't move out there. He didn't beg me. He didn't send over a hooker and blow or anything. He just asked if that was something I'd be interested in. And I just told him I was flattered because I'm a huge Howard Stern fan. But, no, Jimmy would be great in that chair and already was great in that chair. And I hope he gets to get back into that chair. But unless there's something, I don't know, the way the story originally unfolded and I said, this goes back eight years now, was he sort of initially wanted me to sit in that chair. Now, maybe he thought Jimmy was too busy or had too much going on or had too much dignity or had too many ties in LA or maybe his kids or whatever. I don't know. But originally, that was I was asked to sit in that chair, and then Artie was asked to sit in that chair. And I did sit in that chair for quite a few shows back in the day when Artie would be out or before Artie showed up, even though I was not in that chair, I was sitting at Westwood One in Culver City at 3am doing it after doing Loveline until midnight, which was excruciatingly painful. But if that's the way Howard remembers it, then so be it. Who might argue with it? And maybe that's the way it went down. I'm only giving you my humble recollection of how it went down. All right. I guess we lost that caller. But yeah, let's wrap it up. I don't know what's up with Artie. I don't know if his plan is to come back. I don't know when he's going to come back. And I wouldn't mind sitting in that chair. Well, all right. That's about all we have time for. Once again, I humbly ask for your participation in a $2.99 donation to hear our fantastic, if I might say so myself, Hollywood improv show last Saturday night featuring Dr. Drew and Ralph Garman and Doug Benson and of course, course, moi. We'll see if this little experiment works. Again, we plan on giving you free shows all throughout the week, but occasionally ask for your donation to keep this operation up and running. So until next time, this is Adam Carolla for my good buddy the Wii saying mahalo.

A (62:44)

All right, that was Adam Kroll show 2:52 from 2,010. Come up next, we have Adam Kroll show 3:18 featuring Megan Dahm. Megan Dahm is an author, essayist, journalist, podcaster. She's written seven books. She first came into the Corolla world as a listener and a fan who was a local journalist in Los Angeles at the time. She was very much into architecture and design. In January of 2007, Megan wrote an article for the Los Angeles Times defending the content of the Adam Carolla show and kind of criticizing the executives behind the scenes who did a cast change up and brought in Danny Bonaduce and got rid of Dave Damaschek and the existing kind of Howard Stern whack pack style inspired format the 2006 Adam Carolla show had. Of course, that morning show led to this podcast. This is her first appearance on air with Adam separate from Adam appearing on Zocalo Public Square in 2008. I think you can still find that file online as well as maybe a video footage. And then I think there's also a green room article where Megan interviews and Adam about what he does before they did that interview. And then Megan has since come back on. She may have appeared on Ace on the House even, but then she came on the Adam Carolla show in 2020. It's very interesting to see how these guests kind of intersect throughout Adam's career who are fans and kind of appear throughout time and sometimes kind of fade away. In some cases we know what happened because it happened on air, like the David Alan Greer situation. In other cases, guests move away, don't have anything to promote, or sometimes fall through the cracks as the show changes and Gets new staff members and people don't quite remember the full oral history of the Adam Kurilla Show. The same is true for Loveline, the morning show, and the podcast. Without further ado, Adam Krilla show 318.

B (64:23)

With Megan D. O'Reilly. Get it on. Welcome to the podcast, Megan Dom. Megan is an author. She has a book out called Life Would Be Perfect if I Lived in that House. I'm guilty of that. It's basically a book about real estate addiction. An obsessive fascination that we have with houses bigger, better and all that. But I guess. Well, maybe we should explain our history. Megan.

F (64:50)

Yes, I'm so Adam, I just. This is like the highlight of my life. I don't want to embarrass you, but I'm so excited to be here.

B (64:58)

Megan, by the way, is quite accomplished, so it should really be all my pleasure. Degrees from Vassar and Columbia. Those both sound real impressive to me. Written for gq, the New Yorker, Harper's, Village Voice, Vogue, and magazines like that. I think I first became aware of Megan when she wrote some op ed piece about me in the LA Times some time ago.

F (65:24)

Yeah, I think that was almost three years ago.

B (65:27)

Definitely the best review. I don't even know what it was. Bio that I've ever had written about me in my. In my entire life. And then, Megan, now I'll screw this up, but you sort of presided over a speaking series at the Skirball center that you invited me to speak at.

F (65:46)

Well, I did the column about you. I write a column in the LA Times every week. And just some background. The reason, you know, most opinion pieces often come from anger. And I was very angry about something that had happened on your show. I was angry. I don't want to dwell on it. I don't want to dwell on it. Yeah, but I was really, you know, I had been a huge. I'm a huge fan. I'm probably your biggest fan. I mean, you've got a lot of.

B (66:13)

I don't want to.

F (66:13)

I don't want to frighten you.

B (66:15)

No, I don't mind it.

F (66:16)

And I have the column here. I'm happy to read it out loud really slowly at any time. So just stop me.

B (66:22)

You brought the column?

A (66:23)

Of course.

F (66:24)

I actually, no, I committed it to memory. I know you've committed it to memory.

B (66:27)

Well, we'll hear some of that column now. I haven't heard it in a while, but I was tickled pink when I did read it. But then it sort of ended on a negative note.

F (66:37)

Oh, no, you can get it as a ringtone now. Actually, you might want to do that.

B (66:40)

Really? I should.

F (66:41)

It's a really long and then.

B (66:42)

And then Megan brought me out, I guess, to the Skirball center is. I don't know where Bill Cosby's kid got shot. And they do other things in the neighborhood, too. But that's all I really know about the center.

F (66:55)

It's a cultural center. It's. It's. You know, they do major cultural. They have exhibitions and things. So. No, the way that happened is I had written this column about you, and I am not affiliated with the skiroball center, but I often would put together programs for a lecture series here in LA called Zocalo Public Square. And I convinced them to let me interview you. And, you know, it was broadcast on public radio, and we had about 800 people. But you know what was so funny about that night is they always ask, because it's a nonprofit organization, they make a little pitch before we go on, and they ask people for donations. And they made $40 that night out of 800 people.

C (67:39)

So.

F (67:39)

So that was your clientele. You know, I mean, normally we would have about 100 people show up and they make, you know.

B (67:48)

You'D have, you know, you'd have. Percentage wise, you'd have a lot less people there, but you'd make a lot more money.

F (67:54)

Yeah, the yield wasn't great. Wasn't great.

B (67:56)

Well, they sold a lot of wine because I'll tell you afterward, there were a lot of people drinking wine and talking to me, so they must have at least sold that wine. That was calm, it was great.

F (68:05)

And I was really. And. And Lynette said that she had tears in her eyes. The thought of you being on National.

B (68:10)

Public Radio, I think, yeah, you know, you've arrived. Well, so. Well, we'll get into the column, but let's talk about the book for now. What inspired you to write the book?

F (68:20)

Well, I, as you said, I'm addicted to real estate. I'm one of these people that cannot start my day without looking at the real estate sites online, without looking at Redfin to see what's for sale, what things cost. Even if I'm not looking for a house. I do this behavior. I go to open houses on the weekends, even if I'm not looking for a house. If I am looking for a house, then it's just a complete mania, like I can't get my work done. It really feels. I'm a houseaholic. It feels like an addiction.

B (68:50)

I'm that way Too.

F (68:51)

I think you are. And I know, I've heard you talk about it. I know you talk more about it from a kind of renovation contracting point of view. And for me, it's like looking at pictures. It's like porn. And the way it started. I bought a house in 2004 by myself in LA. It was right as the bubble was building up. And I guess it would burst in about 2007, right around the time I interviewed you probably, or wrote that column. And, you know, I was on my own. I was single. I was self employed. I was a very, you know, I had a life of a great deal of independence. And for some reason, I had just become consumed with buying a house. I wanted to buy a house more than I wanted to go on a date. I wanted to own a house before I kind of got a boyfriend. I was just done. I had moved around a lot in my 30s, and I just wanted a house so badly. So I was consumed. Consumed with looking for the house. And it was the time when you would walk into a house and there would be 20 people bidding on it and you had to make an offer within five minutes. It was like speed dating.

B (69:58)

Buying a house was not only that, but if the house was listed. This is out here in Southern California, if you can imagine, before the whole bubble burst. Yeah. 0405. If the house was listed for $760,000 thousand dollars. If you didn't offer them.

F (70:17)

Right.

B (70:17)

780 or 800. It was an insult. So normally you list your price, you list your house for $760,000. You get a couple offers at 615, a couple offers at 660, but you don't get offers for 810.

F (70:32)

Yeah, no, nothing.

B (70:33)

You had to offer more than the listing price if you wanted to be in the game.

F (70:38)

Oh, and I. I mean, tear downs were going for $1 million in great neighborhoods. I'm not talking about Bel Air. I'm talking about Mount Houses in the.

B (70:48)

Valley stuff that I grew up in.

F (70:49)

Right. I went into a house with a friend of mine and we were both looking for houses at the same time. And our entire relationship was based on this. We could be on the phone talking about interest rates and mortgage brokers for literally four hours.

B (71:03)

Yeah, it does.

F (71:04)

Without stopping.

B (71:05)

If you have that bug. It's powerful. I recently. And I'm a little bit of an addict too, because I guess you define addiction. At least Dr. Drew does, because I've talked to Dr. Drew about it before, not as it pertains to houses, but just Addiction because people that drink that don't have a problem with booze, I like to drink.

F (71:28)

While I looked at the pictures of.

B (71:29)

The houses, do a lot of this stuff. And he said, do you continue. Continue in the face of adverse conditions and situations? Meaning is your wife telling you she's going to leave you? Is your boss saying he's going to fire you? And you keep doing it? And I guess this would fall under that heading because I'm jobless essentially, and I don't have any income and I don't have any money. And I found out that Madonna's old house was going up for sale up on the top of Beechwood Lake, Hollywood area right now. Yeah, I don't have an. I don't have. I have enough. I barely. I barely have enough to keep my together.

F (72:13)

I'm so excited to be here. I'm gonna pay.

B (72:15)

I don't have $7.9 million for Madonna's house.

F (72:19)

Okay.

B (72:19)

And Donnie's mom, my realtor, said, oh, do you know Madonna's old house up for sale? And she said, you want to check it out? And I'm like, hell, yeah. I mean, I've seen that house a million times, you know, from afar. And I went into the place, pulling up a picture of it now and, you know, built 1929, Bugsy Siegel lived there, blah, blah, blah, just jaw dropping views. And I was like, this is, you know, it's on like 3.3acres. I was like, this is premier real estate. Like, this is insane. And. And I knew somebody was going to get it for somewhere in the sixes, which is insane because the 6 million. 6 million, yeah.

F (73:05)

We're not talking sixes. My sixes are different.

D (73:07)

Right.

B (73:08)

So it's going to get it. I thought someone would get this thing for 6, 8, 6, 9. And I was convinced that when the dust settled and everything got back to normal, that you'd be looking at a $15 million property because it was like, it's one of the most premier properties in L. A. And so there I was walking through Madonna's old house with the. Who I assume is the gay realtor, just because. Unless otherwise stated now.

F (73:33)

And Donna had to like, clear out for you, was it. Were they like.

B (73:37)

No.

F (73:37)

Madonna coming over right now.

B (73:39)

Cleared out 10 years earlier. But you could see where she'd done her closets one way and done the kitchen was not in there. No, I didn't trip over Lourdes or anything like that and. Or as Larry King would call her, lords. But I was walking around and literally jobless with. With really no income to speak of and, you know, not. Not great times financially. And a pretty big nut to take care of and kids that are going into preschool that costs a bunch of money and shit like that. And I was just walking around the house going, how can I get $7 million? Who can I get to get involved with this? I make a couple of phone calls. Maybe Kimmel wants in on this thing, like I'm going to. And it was like. It's insane. Like, at that point, a lease on a new Jetta would have been considered a bold financial move for me. And I was like, I could get some guys scared, get a small consortium.

F (74:35)

What can I do to get this now? Please focus.

B (74:39)

Yeah, I was thankfully able to. Able to let it go, but it was like. It was like I started thinking down the road, and what if my NBC pilot gets picked up right? Then I can bargain. Stalin bargaining. Yeah. What addicts do.

F (74:54)

Yeah.

B (74:54)

Stall them for about three months. Find out about the pickup. Like, the pickup gets. I probably get cleared for a loan if that show gets picked up. And it was like, are you insane? This is wildly expensive. You don't have any money. And if your show does get picked up, maybe it gets picked up for 12 episodes, and then it gets canceled. Then you have an $8 million house.

F (75:12)

So what was the plan? Were you going to live there, or was it going to be like a vacation house?

B (75:16)

This is the part where it really turns into an addiction. I didn't even want to live that because it's impractical and it's way too big. And I thought maybe if I got it and I rented it out, I could get half the mortgage back. But it would be my.

C (75:32)

That.

B (75:32)

Oh, you. The mortgage would be like, you know, $35,000 a month, and you could hope to rent it out for, I don't know, 18 or 20.

A (75:42)

And then you.

F (75:42)

What, do you advertise on Craigslist or something where.

B (75:45)

Yeah, like, hey, struggling students.

F (75:46)

Yeah.

B (75:47)

Is there 275 of you want to all chip in a thousand bucks a month?

F (75:52)

Dogs considered.

A (75:53)

Woof.

B (75:53)

Yeah. Like, I didn't. I didn't. Well, that's the whole point. Did not have a place plan. That's where it really kicked in. So you Bought your house in 04?

F (76:03)

I bought my house in 04, and it was one of those things where I had a certain amount of money. Look, I'm a freelance writer. I'm not your ideal mortgage person. If it had not been 2004, it's entirely possible I would not have been even considered for a mortgage. I had some cash because. Because I had written a novel and it was like, you know, I came out to la, it was optioned for a movie that of course went nowhere, but I had made some money doing that and I had been hired to write the script and I had some liquidity, but it was a set amount. I only had a certain amount. It wasn't like I had a salary where I was going to keep making money. And so I had this kind of finite amount of money. But the real estate market was just going up and up and up and up. So I had a clip clock. It was like I was going to be priced out of the market within weeks. I was, yes, stuff.

B (76:56)

You'd see houses that sold for 350k that a year, you know, four years earlier. And now a year and a half ago there were 550. And you just saw it going to the market for 910.

F (77:09)

Yeah.

B (77:10)

And you're doing this math, which is this will be $3 million in the next eight weeks versus the math you should have been doing, which is this is going to pop and drop.

F (77:20)

Well, yeah, within. When I finally, when I get back to the house in a second. But yeah, I was in the house the first day and there was a really ugly, like, window shade on the, on the front door. It was like a glass French door. And a friend of mine said, well, why don't you just take it down? You just rip that off and the house is probably worth ten grand more now. That was literally what we were talking about. A bad doormat. Take it away. It could really. Yeah. So anyway, I, you know, I had a certain amount of money and we're not talking about fancy neighborhoods in la. I live on the, on the east side. What, what some people refer to as the east side. Not what real East LA people, East side. But I live in, you know, the Silver Lake area. And.

B (78:01)

Well, my, my sister bought a house in Silver Lake up the hill. Not the flat part of Silver Lake, not the greatest part of town. I can't remember the name of the street up on a hill in Silver Lake. In. I believe it was 97. Could have been 98, $116,000. And the reason I know that is because I put the down payment down on the house, which was like $8,000. And their payments were like $635 a month. That was like their mortgage payment.

F (78:40)

Yeah.

B (78:41)

So now you feel, did you still have the house?

F (78:43)

Did you sell the house or did.

B (78:44)

You get Your any return, she, did I get my money back? No. This is how my family works. At some point when she was giving me shit about being a douchebag, I said, you know, I have paid for quite a few things for you and your family, and I never have been paid back for those things. And then you get the, oh, you're gonna rub money in my face now? And it's like, not gonna rub money in your face. But when you do call me a douchebag, that's when I do pull out the money card. And then I said, like, when you were in Germany, and you said you had to get the money wired from Germany, and you didn't have time, and you had the money and could you just pay that eight grand for the down payment? We'll get the money from Germany to you in the next couple of weeks. And I said, remember that time? And she said, I paid you back. And I said, no, you didn't. And she went, oh, I thought I did. But then we just moved on.

F (79:44)

So what you're saying is she sold the house for 900 grand.

B (79:47)

Sold the house for about three and change. No, I didn't get my eight grand back. I do like those conversations you have with people where they. They go, wait a minute, I returned that sweater. And you go, you never return the sweater. And they go, oh, I guess I didn't. But they don't take the next step where they go, oh, I. I will now. Or I like, like that thing where you go, you owe me money. I thought I gave you that money. No, you did not. Oh, all right. What do you want to eat?

F (80:13)

Well, it's all about intention. It's like that great scene in the Squid and the Whale where the kid makes up the pink floor. He's plays the Pink Floyd song and claims to have written it. And then he says, I could have written it. Yeah, I could have written the song.

B (80:26)

Right. I get. I get a lot of moral victories from my family, but not the part where I get the $8,000 back.

F (80:33)

But anyway, you have a lot of real estate. You're very. You've done well for yourself.

B (80:39)

They factor that in.

F (80:40)

Yeah.

B (80:41)

So she sold it for, like, three and change and move somewhere. But the point is, is 116,000.

F (80:49)

So when I was looking in 2004, I was seeing places that literally, the Unabomber could have still been there riding away for 400,000 shacks under the 101 freeway. Just horrible. Horrible.

B (81:06)

It's insane. Insane.

F (81:09)

And my real estate agent, his word was compromised. This house is a little compromised.

B (81:14)

Right.

F (81:15)

We looked at a place that was near a mental. A psychiatric hospital where they had disclaimers. You walk into the house, and there was a whole bunch of flyers about the fact that it was, like, literally one yard, small yard away from a psychiatric hospital. But then they were saying how many rooms were in the place, and I just thought, well, maybe I could just live there. There was really know. I was. I was so afraid I wasn't gonna find anything, so. So I. I finally found. There was a. There was a cute place that had been on the market for 30 days, which was unheard of at that time. Unheard of. So I walked in. It was a little house, very blah. Little Spanish bungalow. And I didn't hate it, so I bought it.

B (81:55)

Right?

F (81:56)

Did not hate it.

B (81:57)

And now what? You pay for it?

F (81:58)

I paid 450.

B (82:00)

And now that place had to hold up. Okay. Right. Like, it's got to be worth four.

F (82:05)

I have some. I have some pictures of it, which are great for the podcast. I don't know.

B (82:08)

I'll take a look at. I. I remember going out with Donnie's mom was about the time we shot my home improvement TV show. And we were looking at houses, and I saw one place, like, in the. Just in the bowels of North Hollywood, this office, Sherman Way. Thought I was in Mexico under a big sign that had been, like, feeding on. And right next.

F (82:29)

Oh, yeah, they have a billboard in.

B (82:31)

The yard, a liquor store, and a huge sign that, like, blocked out the sun. And it was like, they wanted, like, 400K. And I was like, could you imagine taking people from Utah and going, who had, you know, five acres and lived in a ranch house? And it cost them 175 and goes. Here's what 400k will buy you. A syringe and a sign with a P. Mexican radio station above it.

F (82:59)

Who would ever. Do you have to be a total idiot?

B (83:02)

Absolutely insane. There's the house, by the way. They just showed my TLC.

F (83:07)

What are we looking at?

B (83:08)

Oh, YouTubed it. It is. It was the shittiest, scariest, diciest neighborhood with a huge billboard, as you can see, right. Right next to it. And it was next to a liquor store. I mean, literally.

F (83:21)

That's convenient.

B (83:22)

It is.

F (83:22)

That's. You know, it's liquor store.

B (83:24)

If you busted through the stucco, you could get into the liquor store. I mean, scary neighborhood, ugly neighborhood on a busy street. And I don't know if it was 375 or 400, but it was. So there was A ton of graffiti on the graffiti on the back of the. Of the sign, of the billboard, which is always pathetic. But out here, they graffiti on squirrels and birds and rocks and clouds and everything.

F (83:53)

Well, the squirrels do the graffiti.

B (83:55)

Oh, do they?

F (83:55)

Yeah, yeah. In my neighborhood, they're. They're organized.

B (83:58)

And if you try to stop someone from the graffiti, then he shoots you and it's all disaster.

F (84:03)

But now.

B (84:04)

Oh, you brought pictures of your house. Sorry.

F (84:06)

The people. The people listening to the podcast.

B (84:10)

I will paint. I will. Will paint a colorful picture with my.

F (84:14)

The irony of this all is that my house is actually. I'm selling my house now.

B (84:18)

You are.

F (84:18)

And this is not. I'm afraid people are gonna think, oh, this is a stunt for the book. Like, I'm. Like I'm selling. Like I'm so. I'm such a publicity whore. I'm so manic over whore. Yeah. Okay. That I. That I went and sold the house just to get attention. But it actually, I was trying to. I got married about six months ago and we wanted to take advantage of the first time homebuyer tax credit.

B (84:42)

Oh.

F (84:42)

Which is April 30th. So I wanted to get the house in escrow for April.

B (84:46)

And you and your husband now what does he do?

F (84:50)

He's a reporter at the Los Angeles Times.

B (84:53)

How is the Times going?

F (84:55)

Well, it's bankrupt, but it's chugging along.

B (84:58)

Is it one of these things that sort of like the Hollywood sign, we're never going to let it die or will we let it?

F (85:05)

The thing about the Hollywood sign is it was never in any jeopardy. I wrote a column about it a few weeks ago. Somehow this. This was like an urban myth that started going around. The land around it was going to be. What was it was going to be sold back to a developer. To the developer or a developer had had it for a lot. I don't want to miss misrepresent.

B (85:23)

Well, you wrote the column.

F (85:24)

I don't remember. I only remember the column I wrote about you. But the Hollywood sign itself was never going anywhere. They were going to build houses around it.

B (85:34)

But the thing. I think the thing was. And they. Well, let me tell you, let me explain a couple things because I used to live up Beechwood Canyon, and that's where the Hollywood sign is. And the Hollywood sign used to read Hollywood Land. And the old development was called Hollywood Land. And I had one of the original houses up here, there from Hollywood Land. And then it got completely dilapidated in the 70s, as everything did, and the land part fell off. And Hugh, hefner passed the hat and raised like $240,000. And they rebuilt it. Imagine that, you know, 240K. Couldn't get a fucking driveway put in around here for that now. But they rebuilt the sign and now they wanted to sell the land or the developer wanted. Wanted to sell the land. And so somebody said, there's going to be a McMansion in the middle of the O or something like that. We're not going to tear down the Hollywood sign. But who wants to look up at a bunch of bad stucco next to the D? And I think that's what they were saying. Keep it pristine. Keep the mountain pristine.

F (86:38)

Yeah, no, I agree. It's definitely preserving the area is. But they a good thing.

B (86:43)

But the sign itself, people are hysterics because the entire time when I lived up in Beechwood Canyon, at some point they wanted to build a little curb around the store. I don't know if, you know, there's like a little country store up there and there's a diner up there, which is a horrible diner, and you should never eat there. But the point is, is at some point, somebody wanted to build a little curb with a little fountain that had a little kitten, like playing. Like a little statue of a kitten playing with the fish and the fountain or something like that. It really was going to come out eight feet. It was going to be like. It was. If you look at this picture that Donnie's showing you, the corner of Beechwood used to just kind of be clipped. And somebody said, we should build a little fountain there. And a whole thing erupted. Oh, it was controversy. They're going to build a fountain there. And I remember people were saying to me, that will technically be a park. It will be labeled by park. And then once it becomes a park, and it's literally a ten foot by ten foot.

F (87:45)

It's. It's like a parking. It's an island in the middle of a street.

B (87:48)

It's like, it will be designated as a park, and then hobos will sleep there.

F (87:53)

Hobos.

B (87:54)

Bums.

F (87:55)

Oh, I thought you said something else.

B (87:56)

Drug ass.

F (87:57)

Not homos.

B (87:57)

No, hobos.

F (87:58)

Hobos.

B (87:59)

But there may be gay hobos.

F (88:01)

No, not in Beachwood Canyon.

B (88:02)

Not in Beachwood. The point is this. I just kept saying to everyone who gives a shit, and everyone's like, coming to me maybe because I had some celebrity and, like, you need to spearhead this. These people are trying to develop this land, and I'm always like, who gives a shit? Because I know none of this stuff turns into anything.

F (88:21)

There's only room for one hobo.

B (88:22)

Why are we fucking hysterics? Like, I know I'm going to sound like Chuck Heston here, but whether it's drilling in Anchorage or whatever, Arizona's done with their latest immigration reform. Whatever. Everyone always goes nuts. Nazi Germany, hobos. It's going to kill caribou. And then what happens? Nothing. Like, nothing ever happens. It never happens. I know you think it does happen. It never happens. You were probably one of these people that went hysterical when they were talking about the Patriot act five years ago. You want people busting in your house and pulling your computer out of your wall. I was the only guy went, nothing will ever happen. And it never does.

F (89:02)

I.

B (89:02)

This.

F (89:02)

I want to ask you this, and I. I wanted to ask you about this, please.

B (89:06)

This is the fucking corner that everyone made a big fucking deal. Actually, it looks good now. There's a thing, it literally used to just turn. It turned like that. All right, here's the old picture. Thank you, Donnie. It's amazing what you're doing here. It used to turn around and they made it jet out. It actually makes more sense now than it did before. And everyone was like, that's how it originally was. And I'm like, listen, people were. They were all drunk Irishmen back then. They weren't geniuses. They didn't have computers. Most of them were on the take. Who says they were all geniuses back then? I mean, maybe the guys who originally laid it, laid it out were drunken assholes who had bad ideas. So who gives a shit?

F (89:45)

I want to know how you managed to buy real estate up there so early in your career. How did you get your financial act together?

B (89:53)

I'll tell you. Thank you, Donnie. I'll tell you, hobos are gonna be sleeping there. I'll tell you exactly what happened with me in Beechwood Canyon. I owed. I had no money, as you know, because you've documented my life. Nice job, Donnie. I. I owed the IRS like, four grand that you work out a payment program with those vultures. You pay the minimum amount, which is like $31 a month. You pay for six years. And you've never cut into the principal. I mean, the idea that we have the government in charge of, like, oh, we're going to look into these loan sharks and these check cashing places. How about you look in the fucking mirror? How about you look at the irs?

F (90:38)

They should have a credit card.

B (90:40)

Yeah, the IRS should have a fucking credit card. All you guys do is rip off your citizen. You're supposed to be in charge of looking out for us. Meanwhile, you guys are ripping everyone off because you, by the time you pay the interest and the penalties, you can make a minimum payment for a thousand years. And when you're dead, your grandkids will still owe them the $4,000 principal. So that's all I did. I had no money. I met Jimmy Kimmel. I started to make some money in like 94, 95. I got on a radio. First thing I did was just pay off the fucking vultures over at the IRS game. They're forced grand. I lived in an apartment, had a roommate. I just started socking away money. The second I got to what would have been a down payment, like 35, $40,000. The second I got that money in the bank, I. There's picture of the house. The second I got that money into the bank, I said to Donnie's mom, we're going out house shopping.

F (91:37)

See, that is so interesting. You did this as a single person, a single man.

B (91:41)

Absolutely.

F (91:43)

You know, you're in a distinct minority.

B (91:45)

Why?

F (91:46)

Because the number of single men who buy houses on their own is vastly less than the number not the gay.

B (91:54)

Guys, they're on top, right? I, I says, I said to Donnie's mom and everyone I knew, I'm going out house shopping. And they said, you've been in show business for 10 minutes. Like you've been in show, you've been poor, dirt poor your whole life. You basically just put down a hammer and picked up a microphone. But you've been in show, you've been, you've been poor from zero to 31 and a half, but you made money over the last eight months and you're just going to go out and buy the most expensive house so you can afford 32. Yeah, I was, I was like, yeah, it was like 32.

F (92:32)

And so you were a single guy. Were you in a relationship?

B (92:35)

No. Yeah, I had, I had a girlfriend and I had my. What will be my would have been, would become my wife. I had a new girlfriend and I was single.

F (92:46)

Was she gonna live there with you?

B (92:47)

No, I was that.

F (92:49)

She must have been so impressed.

B (92:50)

We're just dating. I don't think she gave a. Let's be honest. Ah, well, you would be impressed. You like me?

F (92:57)

I would, yeah.

B (92:58)

You're pre wired for that. Other people don't have that feeling. But I said, but here's the moral of the story. I said, I'm buying this house. And people said, are you nuts? Like, you just got into show business and you're here today, gone tomorrow. And what if they don't pick up Loveline, the TV show again? And what if they fire you or whatever? I wasn't making much off the radio. I needed the radio and the TV to do it for me. Yes. Everybody said, this is the shittiest house I've ever seen. Kimmel showed up and said, wouldn't it be better just to tear it down, to completely rebuild a house? It was really in bad shape. So the second I got, like, $44,000 in the bank, I went to Donnie's mom. I said, how much? What can I buy? How much house I can buy? She said, 350, maybe $375,000.

F (93:51)

That's a lot. I would think somebody from your background as a member of the Corolla family, this is a different kind of thinking, this is a different kind of mentality than the one you grew up with buying a house.

B (94:02)

What I. Well, this is what I've done. And yes, my mother lives in the house that her mother bought in 1952 in North Hollywood right now. And it's the house I grew up in. And that's the house my mother still lives in. So my mother's never purchased a house. Her mother purchased a house and let her flop there in 1971, and there she remains. So she's still there. My dad bought a house, but it's only because he married a woman that, like, had a brain and, you know, a couple credit cards that kind of figured it out.

F (94:38)

The woman usually drives the train on.

B (94:40)

The house, did the work, and my dad went along for the ride. I overcompensated, which was I looked at everyone in my family and went, I'm not gonna be like any of you motherfuckers at all. So whatever it is, I would think, what would they do? And the answer is always be nothing. And so I will do the opposite of that, and I'll go whole hog into this. Like, most people go, well, my dad was frugal, so I ended up being frugal. It's not like that. My dad was frugal. So I went, fuck it. My dad didn't own a tool. I won a thousand tools. My dad didn't own a garage. I want a super garage. Everything they didn't do, I want to go the the opposite. So I was like, what would a Corolla do? Corolla would sit on his money, not buy a house for 10 years and wait for it to triple in price. So I went, fuck it. I'm buying a House. So I immediately got the house. I immediately start tearing into it immediately. Didn't have enough money to do the renovation because it was huge.

F (95:34)

So what was wrong with it? Just give me.

B (95:35)

And structural problems.

F (95:37)

Did you have foundation problems? Did you have inspections?

B (95:40)

I didn't bother with the inspection because it was such a pile of shit. And I was a contractor so I didn't need some guy to tell me what was wrong with it. And the chimney needed to come down. The place needed to be bolted down. The living room had serious structural issues where the walls were fading. The walls were bowed out at the top at the 8 foot mark. They're out about 4 inches at the bottom. So they were literally leaning out. The roof was pushing them out.

F (96:06)

And no one bought this house. Had it been sitting around for a while?

B (96:09)

No. I used four come along chains that were eight foot off the ground and I busted out the stucco and went through the stucco and wrapped around the top plate and 2000 pound come alongs that were cranking to try to get the living room to come back together.

F (96:22)

Oh, so it's like a retainer for the house. A piece of orthodonture for. For the house.

B (96:27)

It was a piece of orthodox headgear. Yeah, yeah. They, they, they. They're called collar ties. If you go into houses and old Spanish houses, you look at the like cathedral ceilings. You go into a church or something, you'll see a big wrought iron bar going across at the ceiling height or where the ceiling would be. But it's. So it doesn't. That's a picture of the house, by the way. It's. So that's a huge house. Doesn't. Yeah.

F (96:52)

Oh, this is back. This is when you lived there. That's the Hollywood sign, says Hollywood land.

B (96:56)

Yeah, Hollywood land. Like back in the day. Yeah. I just went. I just went whole hog. Went for broke. And here's my philosophy. And I'm not saying this is right for everybody, but maybe it's right was right for me. I came to the end of finishing the house and I was out of money and I had to take a second mortgage out to borrow like 80 grand to like finish all the renovations I was doing. And now we're done with the house and it came to kitchen appliances. Do you want the Kenmore shit or do you want the Viking and the Sub Zero? And I was like, I want the Viking and the sub Zero. But I was out of money and somebody said, look, just get the Kenmore in the Frigidaire refrigerator. It ruins everything. Do that it's, well, I want to do it. I didn't have $18,000.

F (97:51)

I would rather have no stove. I said, have no stove.

B (97:54)

And also, you don't know how many stairs there were from the street to the kitchen. And idea of carrying a stove and a fridge. I said, look, I know I'm out of money, but I'm still going for the Viking and the Sub Zero. And the reason I'm doing that is because a. A year from now when the man show comes out or Crank Yankers or I have some success and have some money, I don't want to be fucking staring at a Kenmore refrigerator. I'm going to be pissed. I'm staring at something that's avocado green from Sears when I should have. So I'm doing it. So I went for it and it all worked out. The house, you know, continues to grow in value and blah, blah, blah.

F (98:36)

Isn't it interesting the way what's in your house, it supersedes what, what you wear. It's like the ultimate expression of yourself. I don't think people know me unless they've been in my house.

B (98:47)

I grew up in such squalor and such a shitty house and in such fucked up conditions that I can't stand it now. Like I can't stand when something should be different or change or. I told the story before, but I don't know if you, you know, it probably do. All right, well, this one's told a couple of times. I will give you my people. This is my people in a nutshell. My grandparents had a upright piano in their small North Hollywood house. In the den, at some point they were retarring the roof above the piano and. And some hot tar dripped through the roof hole and onto the piano, onto sort of the arm of the piano. And there it dried. This hot roofing tar became this sort of. It was like if a bird shit on the side of your piano. And it just dried. And it was there through my entire childhood. And it was there, it was always there. And it was like that's the piano with the roof tower on it. And we looked about it at it and sometimes we laughed about it. It was just, it was just there.

F (100:02)

It was like the way it played.

B (100:03)

Though, it wasn't on the keys, it was just dripped. It was dripped on the arm. It was dripped on the wooden arm. It dripped kind of on the top and it was dripped down on the leg a little bit and there it was. And at some point my grandfather passed away and my sister had Children and wanted to, they wanted to learn the piano and the piano, since no one buys anything. The piano was given or taken from grandma and dropped off at my sister's house, which was fine, like she had kids. I wanted to learn the piano. Grandma had a piano. She wasn't playing. So she asked could I have the piano and took the piano. And at some point I was at my sister's house for Thanksgiving about four or five years ago and I had a few drinks and I walked up to the piano and I was looking at it and I was kind of having this rush of these memories and my grandfather sitting at it, so on and so forth. It was by far the most expensive things thing that Corolla's own. And then I looked to the left and there was the tar. And I said, hey, Lauren, that's my sister. I said, you got a hair dryer? She said, yeah. Bathroom? I said, you got a butter knife? She said, yeah, in the kitchen. I said, go get the hair dryer, I'll get the butter knife. She said, what are you doing? I said, I'm getting rid of that fucking tar. She said, why? I said, because it's been on the piano for 52 years. She said, so what? I said, it's bothering me. What do you mean that? What do you mean so what?

F (101:29)

She just hadn't seen it.

B (101:30)

No one noticed it. I mean, they've seen it. Oh, they knew it, they knew it's there. I, she said, what do you want? I said, I'm going to fix this. She got a hair dryer, I got a fucking thing. I hit it with a hairdryer, it softened up. I scraped it off the butter knife, I looked at everyone, I said, it's gone, the tar is gone. It's funny you mentioned four and a half minutes. It took you motherfuckers 50 years. And by the way, your kids would have grown up staring at this fucking tar covered thing. Is that what you want to indoctrinate them into your shitty, retarded, depressed world? It's done now. Jesus Christ, people, have some fucking dignity. Yes, there's a piece of fruit roll up that's on the ceiling my stepfather's room and my mother's shitbox house. And that piece of fruit roll ups the size of a silver dollar. And I know it's a piece of fruit roll up because I put it there with my COUSIN Greg in 1974. And if you go to their house and you look in the ceiling of my stepfather's room, you will see a piece of fold fruit roll up that is still adhered to the ceiling. Now it's a testament to the. To the longevity of fruit roll ups in general. God. God knows how long this thing stay in your colon. If you want to find. I will show you a picture. It has now been over 35 years and there's still a piece of fruit roll up stuck to the ceiling. Those are the Corollas.

F (103:02)

Yeah. But it's so interesting that you mentioned the butter knife because it's an incredibly useful tool for a lot of homeowners.

B (103:07)

It was always a screwdriver around the Corolla house.

F (103:10)

I took I. My big pet peeve with any house is flooring. When I walk into a house that's like a craftsman, an old house and they had gone over the floors with vinyl or carpet, I want to go find those people and kill them.

B (103:24)

I salvage all the old houses from the 20s. Were all the subflooring in the kitchens was Doug for clear Doug fir tng a true inch thick beautiful old gross shit. And everybody goes over it with terracotta tile or vinyl linoleum, whatever.

F (103:44)

There should be laws.

B (103:45)

I salvage the shit. I patch it in. I put mortises in it and I patch it in with. When you patch in a mortise, it's called the Dutchman. I patch them in with Dutchman and I paint them. I did it in the house you're looking at. I did it in the house I live in. And I invite you to come over and stare at my floors.

F (104:06)

Really?

B (104:07)

Yes.

F (104:07)

Because I salvage all so I don't have to go very far.

B (104:11)

Please.

F (104:11)

It's because when I. After I had been in my house for a couple of months, I was noticing, you know, the bathroom. First of all, the whole place was carpeted. So the first thing I did when I closed escrow is I. I walked in and I just ripped as much as the carpet off as possible. And I mean, I have a long relationship with hating carpet. It's like it makes me physically sick.

B (104:32)

Especially when they. They will carpet the bathroom. Like that's how fucked up they were in the 70s.

F (104:37)

I have seen that. So my bathroom, it had this horrible baby blue vinyl tile, just kind of laminate. It was as if it had been a rental. Some landlord put it in. I don't know know how it got there. And I was one day I noticed just peeking out of the corner a little tiny piece of the original porcelain hexagonal tile from the 20s. The house was built in 1928 and it was probably about 11 o' clock at night, you know, And I thought, oh, my gosh, there's. The original tile is under there. And I didn't. You know, I'm a chick. I don't have a lot of tools. I mean, I probably could have found.

B (105:09)

Butter knife, borrow one from my sister.

F (105:11)

And I started scraping, and I was. And it took me about six hours, and it was all night. And I had. I pried up the entire bathroom floor.

B (105:20)

And it was like, you're breaking out of there, like you're breaking out of prison.

F (105:24)

It was.

B (105:24)

I had.

F (105:24)

My. My pants were ripped, my knuckles were bleeding. I had to get that goo gone stuff. You know, there's. I was, you know, the dog was like, walking. It was just glue. The whole floor was glue, and the dog got stuck on it like a mouse on a glue trap.

B (105:38)

A finer point on it, but. Yeah.

F (105:40)

What is it called?

B (105:40)

Mastic.

F (105:41)

Mastic, yeah.

B (105:43)

Put down with a notch trowel. Probably lines in this house.

F (105:46)

It was probably Elmer's glue.

B (105:48)

Well, almost. Elmer's glue would dry rigid and pop. I don't know when you stepped on it, this. This had a little still flexibility left in it.

F (105:56)

I don't. I don't know. It was. It was. It was coming off in. Just in. In shards and pieces. But it was so exhilarating. I feel like that was the. The evening that my house became my own.

B (106:05)

I love finding a treasure buried under something. And I've been to other people's houses where, like, it's like, well, the contractor says we can't salvage the original tile. And I was like, why? Well, there's a couple pieces missing, and we can't match them because it's from the 20s. I'm like, you can paint tile, you can paint tile. You can have. I had a scenic painter paint my tile to match the tiles that were missing. That's how into salvaging the tile I was. And people don't know it. Here's the deal. Contractors are hacks. And even if they're not hacks at what they do, like, some are, like, physically good, mentally, no imagination and have no imagination and have one way of doing things. Like, you can't replace this. We got to go over the top of it. No, no, you can fix it, but they're not creative. The homeowner sometime creative, but they don't have the know how. So they listen to the.

F (106:58)

Like, you're being a brat. You feel like you're asking the impossible.

B (107:02)

I've had a million people tell me, oh, you can't do this, you can't do that. It's really. It happens in almost every form of business. And that's why you have to ask questions like. And you have to do a kind of a math because they will tell you. The awning company who's doing your old house will tell you, oh, we just got to use that shitty hollowed out EMT tubing. And then we'll screw on this things and screw on these spires at the end. And you're like, I want. Do you have a welder? Well, yeah, we can weld. Good. Then get the solid twisted stuff and weld it onto the top. I had a, just as an example somewhat to do with the home, because it ended up in the home. When I used to box, at some point I wanted a heavy bag that was a water bag filled with water. Because the heavy bags filled with like sand or whatever they put them in, they destroyed my hands. My hands were all screwed up. See, my knuckles are screwed up and my hands are fucked up. And I wanted the water bag, which much easier on the hands. But I didn't want the vinyl water bag. I wanted the leather. Because nothing better than punching a leather heavy bag. Vinyl, everything sucks, you know. So I called my buddies over at ringside and I said, hey, I want one of those water bags, but I really want it leather. And they said, well, we don't do that. We do the. We can do a leather bag filled with concrete or we can do a vinyl bag filled with water, but we don't do a leather bag filled with water. And I said, why not? They said, I don't know.

F (108:43)

Lettuce and tomato sandwich, right?

B (108:44)

The five easy pieces? Yeah. Was that five easy pieces? Yeah, yeah. And I said, I said, well, listen, I'm looking at the catalog. They look like they're the both the same size. Are they the same size? Yeah, they're the same size. All right, so they're sewed, like using the same template or whatever. Yeah. I said, good. Give me the leather skin from a leather bag and then send me the bladder for the water bag and I'll put the bladder inside the leather.

F (109:12)

It's called a bladder.

B (109:13)

Well, anything. I'm calling it a bladder. Anything that holds liquid in any business is called a bladder. So I said, we'll do it that way. And the guy was like, yeah, I guess that would work. And I said, well, of course it would work. The same size, Same bladder size. I'll just stuff the it in myself and fill it with water. Is the bladder weak? Am I Going to pee on myself? No, but is it going to leak into the leather? Like, is that why you don't want to do it? Because it's leather and it wouldn't take water? And they go, no, bladder is indestructible. I said, good, send out the bladder and send out the leather bag. And the guy's like, all right. So I paid for it, and he did it. I stuffed it. Now I have the only leather water bag. But the point is, the first 10 times the guy said, no, you have to do the math. You have to use your mind. You're motivated.

F (110:00)

I'm not a math person.

B (110:01)

Well, I mean the math in the sense that they want you to go away.

F (110:05)

I totally have to pee now, though.

B (110:06)

Now that you kind of have to pee, too. So you're selling your house?

F (110:12)

I did.

B (110:12)

It's the Times going that. You think the Times will be here five years from now? The la.

F (110:17)

Yeah. I'm not on staff at the LA Times. I've been a columnist. This is my fifth year now. But I'm a freelancer, so I don't. My husband goes there, and I don't know all the ins and outs of it, but. No, people are gonna still need to.

B (110:29)

Read newspapers in your book. It's on sale as we speak. As you know, I don't read, but.

F (110:35)

I don't believe that. I really don't believe it. No. You know, when I wrote the column about you, I got so much mail from all your friends, from all your fans. And Jimmy Kimmel sent me an email, and he said, I'm sure Adam would love the column if he could read. And I. That's hyperbole.

B (110:56)

I can read. I just don't. I choose not to now. I listen. I. People assume I read, and it's a compliment. I don't read. I never read anything. But dig this vibe for one second because most people, like, you know, I sat next to Dr. Drew for all those years, and I guess I feel like most of the knowledge that he's gained has been from reading. Or at least that's been the. One of the modalities he's used to accumulate knowledge. Either they were textbooks or they were just great literature from the past. Either way, Drew reads a lot, and he gains a lot of knowledge from reading. I don't mean he's one of these robots that just reads book and reads books and spits back texts.

F (111:44)

I'm not saying I'm not sure. He's not a robot.

B (111:46)

He is a little robot.

F (111:47)

I don't understand how he does it. What is he is. He runs marathons, he sings opera, he has two medical practices. I don't get it.

B (111:54)

Do a balloon, take a nap.

F (111:55)

I don't get it.

B (111:56)

I agree. He's so much better than all of us, and it sucks sitting next to him all those years. But his philosophy, or credo or whatever it is in life is, you know, get educated, read a lot and accumulate knowledge and then regurgitate said knowledge and make money. And I never write a thing. And I've always felt like not reading other people's ideas has freed me up to create my own ideas. And I know that sounds counterintuitive to everyone who reads everyone else's ideas, but I feel like their ideas pollute my ideas. I don't want to know what they're thinking.

F (112:39)

There's a famous Indian writer whose name is on the tip of my tongue that always very famously says he doesn't read because he has to write. He doesn't want his mind to be contaminated with other people's ideas. Oh, it was VS Naipaul.

B (112:52)

Oh, sure, something like that. I know him well.

F (112:55)

I knew he's going to be on.

B (112:56)

Shelf dedicated to him in my library. No, and I. I know there's a lot of greats and a lot of, you know, a lot of. A lot of luminaries, and you should be reading and absorbing their ideas. But I hate reading. And I've at least rationalized that I would rather sit around and come up with my own ideas and absorb other people's ideas.

F (113:17)

You're extremely verbal and as I wrote, your ability with language as a writer.

B (113:23)

But maybe that's from just listening people talk. Never read.

F (113:27)

Anyway, this book, it's. It's relatively short. It's very easy to read.

B (113:31)

It looks fat to me.

F (113:33)

No, you know why? Because the pages are thick.

B (113:35)

Wow.

F (113:35)

Yeah, it's really.

B (113:36)

You really do have thick pages.

F (113:38)

Yeah. No, this is like for people who have sort of dexterity problems.

B (113:43)

I like that you don't have to lick your fingers.

F (113:45)

And, you know, it has a little house. Has a house on the front.

B (113:49)

Yes.

F (113:50)

Yeah. The. The top title, I really like the title. Life would be perfect if I lived in that house. I had to fight for that. Originally the book was supposed to be called Give me Shelter. And another book, the title came out, but it was giving.

B (114:01)

The thing was about the Rolling Stones.

F (114:03)

No, but then there was. But then another book. Whatever, it doesn't matter.

B (114:06)

So if somebody said, I wrote a book called Give me Shelter, I'd be like, oh, it's the early years with the Stones on the road.

F (114:11)

Okay. But it was give. It was the sort of more refined. Yeah.

B (114:14)

It still conjures up Rolling Stones.

F (114:17)

Well, yeah, and it's not. It is about buying this house, but it's also about. It's a memoir. It's about my life. You know, I grew up with a mother who went to open houses on weekends for recreation. We, you know, she was obsessed with decorating, with moving. And she finally got her. She ended up getting her own house and having a series of houses. And I moved dorm rooms every semester. And I moved, moved around a lot. I did something. When I was 29, I moved from New York to Nebraska.

B (114:47)

Why?

F (114:48)

Because I was really broke. I was, you know, like you. I had a tax. You know, this is what happens is you're self employed person in the arts and you make a little bit of money and you don't realize that you're supposed to pay taxes.

B (114:59)

You get $10.99.

F (115:00)

Yeah. You don't, you don't realize you're supposed to be estimated quarterlies. So I had, you know, and also I didn't have health insurance. I didn't have health insurance. So I had some dental work that I had had to have done between the dentistry and the taxes. I. And student loans because I'd gone to graduate school. I was about $78,000 in debt.

B (115:22)

It's real easy. You get paid just enough to live right, but not enough to put anything aside for the man. And then at the end you get the thing where it's like, all right, you should have paid in. And now you owe the IRS and.

F (115:34)

You, you're living like. You know, I was in New York and I was freelancing and I had a couple things in the New Yorker and I was writing for these magazines and I thought, well, this is great. Like I'm supposed to be, you know, living. I'm supposed to have it my own apartment and I'm supposed to go out for drinks with my friends and. And I'm supposed to have fresh flowers.

B (115:50)

Thought you were Carrie Bradshaw, baby.

F (115:52)

That's right. I thought I was gonna walk down the street with my loaf of French bread and the flowers sticking out of the top of the grocery bag. No, that's like, like every Meg Ryan movie, you know, and apparently that just. I was. I was way, way in over my head on that one. So.

B (116:09)

So the, the book which is out as we speak is you would recommend to now everyone in the world. Everyone in the World, but first time home buyer should definitely want to take a look at this.

F (116:19)

You know, it's not a how to book. I think there's a part in most of us, not all of us, most of us that is really consumed with sense of place and home and nesting. It's a great book for moms.

B (116:32)

Yeah. Well, I was just thinking about that last night because I. I went on a crane. I went on a crane fly killing spree last night, which is these huge daddy long leg flying mosquito skeeter eaters.

F (116:50)

Is that shower this morning?

B (116:53)

There you go.

F (116:53)

It's like a bird.

B (116:54)

They're, they're terrafucking dactyls. And I said, enough. And I'm going on it. I'm going on a rampage. And I went to my garage and I pulled out some ether which is used for starting car engines. Quick start. I just went on a killing spree. And then when I was done with my killing spree, I thought to myself, because I hate it when they fly into my house and I'm chasing around, they don't bite.

F (117:17)

They don't. They're not mosquitoes, are they?

B (117:19)

But here, no, they're not harmful. But here's the thing. Let me say this about the rational mind. It's not. You know, when's the last time a cockroach did anything to you?

F (117:29)

Well, you know what I mean. I lived in Texas when I was a child and I remember sitting in the bathtub as a little girl and seeing enormous cockroach float to the surface of the tub.

B (117:38)

But it didn't do anything to you.

F (117:40)

It horrified to talk to my therapist.

B (117:43)

But it didn't do anything. So you can't go to the bathroom anymore in public.

F (117:47)

Except right now I would bladder bag the bladder bag. I'm never going to get that out of my mind.

B (117:53)

That's a point. You can't. If you judge your hatred of insects or people by whether they did anything negative to you, you wouldn't hate anyone or anything.

F (118:02)

You see what I'm saying? Always find a way.

B (118:05)

That's my point. You're arguing that these things don't do anything to you. I'm arguing that cockroaches and mice don't really do anything to you.

F (118:12)

Mice. Don't get me started.

B (118:13)

But you want them out of the house. Terror.

F (118:16)

Terror.

B (118:17)

And you know what I thought I was thinking about last night after my, my ether induced killing spree. I thought, well, what's the big deal? Like, I mean, what's the big deal if one of these is Buzzing around your house. It doesn't sting you. It doesn't do anything to you. It's not raping your kids. It's not shitting on anything. It's just around. It's in your house. And then I thought, furthermore, what's the deal if there's a mouse in the house? Like, what's the big deal? It's staying. It's staying clear. You. It's not getting in your bed with you.

F (118:44)

Someone who was raped by a mouse. Yeah. They had to take back the night marches.

B (118:49)

Lit candles with paper plates on campus. Take back that. Everyone had mice, whistles.

F (118:54)

Yep.

B (118:55)

The point is this. Here's what you don't like. As you were saying, this is my space.

F (119:01)

That's right.

B (119:02)

This is my area. And I want it free and clear of others. Not only people, but just things. I want to bring the stuff into my house that I want to bring in my house. The stuff that goes in under the COVID of darkness. I don't want that shit in my house. And it's really just the fact that it's in your house, not what it is. It's not doing anything. It's just in your house.

F (119:26)

It's an invader. Even if it's a bad piece of. Of furniture.

B (119:29)

Right.

F (119:29)

It's a bad couch.

B (119:30)

Yeah.

F (119:31)

That kind of thing. Made. And they bring in a coffee table that you can't stand.

B (119:35)

Yeah.

F (119:36)

I wanted to get rid of the roommate.

B (119:37)

No, we all know that thing where somebody gets you a little piece of sculpture or art or something and goes, oh, I thought of you, and this is so wonderful. They put it. And they have to. They're going to want to see it next time they come over and you want it out of your house.

F (119:52)

When you're in a relationship with somebody and they have bad taste. What if you're. What if you're living with someone or you're married to someone and they say, hey, honey, I really like this sofa.

B (120:00)

I know it's a.

F (120:02)

There's a major cognitive dissonance going on. How can you be with this person?

B (120:06)

I. Well, you know, it's different for guys. But I will say that I don't care if someone has bad taste as long as they keep it to themselves. Like, as long as I can go, look, you've got bad taste, I've got good taste. We're going to do it my way.

F (120:23)

You've established that as the hierarchy.

B (120:26)

Yes. Yes.

F (120:27)

So are you responsible for furniture buying?

B (120:30)

I'm responsible for picking out wall colors and fabrics.

F (120:36)

That is furniture.

B (120:37)

And Everything unusual. Well, here's what I don't understand. Why is your taste supposed to stop with the design and the architect, architecture and the layout of the house? Like, either you have good taste or you don't. And if you have good taste, then you have a good color palette. You have a good idea for design. So if you have a good idea for the design of a room, then why wouldn't you have a good idea for the furniture design that goes in the room that you design? You know, to me, it's just completing the task. Why would you call in another party to put the furniture in the room after I designed it and built it?

F (121:11)

Compartmental. Now everything is so specialized. You get somebody to build the house, and then there's a decorator that does another thing, and then someone else is a shopper. I'm not saying I employ these people, but we're in this culture of specialties. Everyone just does one thing and nobody sort of looks at the whole picture. You can really see it. I mean, I don't want to dwell on this, but I'm looking for a house now. And I go into places. I went into a Craftsman house. Beautiful, beautiful, fabulous location. They had ripped out all of the woodwork, all of the built ins, put emerald green carpet, put, like shower stalls from the 80s in it.

B (121:49)

Yeah.

F (121:49)

And again, no, it makes you imprisonable offense, I think.

B (121:53)

Now, listen, when I got my house, when I was rebuilding it in. In trying to undo all the. That was done to it in the set, 70s. And occasionally the former owners, kids would like, stop by. They. They live there and they're like, hey, how's the rebuild going? How's the progress? And I was like, I want to choke your dead dad for what he did to this. Desecrated. This is a. This was a. This was a beautifully crafted 1920s home. And this took a can of Sears Easy living and pack painted over frescoes. Dig that old man up so I can choke him out. And it was like. It was like I wanted there should be a corner in hell for people to do this. It was the 70s. It was the 80s. People are high out of their mind on coke, and everyone had a bad idea. And it is the conversation that I've had with my wife when she didn't make. My wife just lays back and I do all the. The thinking around the building. It's fine. She doesn't give a shit, and I know what I'm doing, so why should she care? She did. She was influenced by a friend, and she pushed her Into a little shabby chic direction.

F (123:09)

I like. I have to say, I like shabby chic. It's a weakness.

B (123:12)

It's better. It's better than many of the other, you know, many of the. Better than the burnt orange and the.

F (123:20)

Avocado kind of smelly candles going on.

B (123:23)

And it was a shabby. It was shabby chic.

F (123:27)

Yeah.

B (123:28)

And I had to explain to her that, look, here's the problem with trends. They come and they go. And what you don't want someone to do is walk into your house and go, I know the year you remodeled this house, because I can tell meaning when you walk into a house from the 70s, you go, 1975. Brady Bunch. I get it. And when you walk in a house from 1985 that got remodeled in 85, you go, oh, it looks like a Nagel painting. Awesome. I know.

F (123:55)

It's the Duran Duran Rio.

B (123:57)

Yeah. You don't look like a real cover. And I said, listen, here's the problem with shabby chic. The same problem with anything, which is I don't want people to walk in in 20 years and go, oh, 2002, 2003, 2003. No. Your job is to put it back like you're restoring a car. If you got a car from 1925 and you're restoring it 1925. Not with little touches of the 1980s. No. No shabby chic. So I had to put my foot down. Even though the shabby chic stuff arguably much nicer than many other bad eras we've been in.

F (124:35)

Anthropology catalog. Very seductive, Right. For a lot of women.

B (124:38)

Buy sediment. Seductive, shabby chic. Now going on 8 years old, and it doesn't look quite as good as.

F (124:45)

A little frumpy chic, dumpy chic.

B (124:47)

Not as nice as it was. You know, the worst. You want to Worst. One of the worst times we Forget about late 80s, early 90s, Georgia Keefe, Southwest Western, kind of orange and cow's heads and weird. Oh, it was like New Mexico, Arizona.

F (125:09)

Yeah, it was. It was the. Well, a lot of women who wore bold earrings.

B (125:13)

Yeah. Lots of turquoise floating around. Lots of. You'd walk into people's living rooms and it had a sort of Western, but lots of turquoise wall colors and orange sunset.

F (125:26)

A lot of it has to do with women asserting themselves. I have a whole theory, and I talk about. About this in the book. Show me a woman who. Who lives on her own, who doesn't think that her place can be improved by having a scented candle.

B (125:39)

Right.

F (125:39)

She thinks that any Guy who walks into her house, if she lights that scented candle, will fall in love with her or at least want to have sex with her, even if he's had no interest in her up to that point.

B (125:49)

Yeah.

F (125:49)

And it's emblematic of a whole set of dynamics.

B (125:53)

Do you have the article that first made me fall in love with you? What I love about you, this is.

F (126:02)

Do you want me to read it really, really slowly?

B (126:05)

Do it with. Do it with passion and a certain agenda. Yeah, but.

F (126:10)

But should I read the whole thing or should I just read some highlights?

B (126:14)

Read some highlights. I don't know what would bore people. I don't know how many words it is. It was in the LA Times. What was it? Oh, six.

F (126:23)

It was January 13, 2007. So it must have been right after Danny showed up.

B (126:29)

Yes, Danny joined my radio show, so.

F (126:32)

Right. I write on the opinion page, so this was kind of hard to get. I had to talk my editor into letting me do this because I'm not an advocate. You know, I'm very. I don't. The lefties think I'm a right wing and the right wing people think I'm a. I'm a lefties.

B (126:47)

Right. Because all you need to do in order to get either one of the sides pissed off at you is to choose one thing that you agree with on the other side of the aisle and they turn you into a full blown member of that party.

F (127:01)

Oh, I love it.

B (127:02)

Which is so short sighted.

F (127:03)

And it's really entertaining. Okay, well, maybe. Maybe I'll just read a few. The way that it starts, the time has come to talk about Adam Carolla.

B (127:13)

Yeah.

F (127:14)

Because you're reading the op ed page of the Los Angeles Times, there's a good chance you're only vaguely aware of him. Not anymore. This was back in 2007. You're only vaguely aware of him as a host of cable shows you don't like or radio programs you don't tune into. Maybe you've seen the bus ads for KLSX Radio's the Adam Carolla show, which bill him as an American genius. You probably thought this was idiotic hyperbole. I'm here to tell you it's not. And then I also go on to say not to listen to the show. Danny was messing it up. But I'm going to skip ahead. See, this is actually, I think this is why I've always found you so compelling. And I think that what you're doing is really interesting. Carolla's primary subject has always been about class, the mannerisms and material ambitions that accomplish accompany the great American pastime known as socioeconomic striving. Having positioned himself. Did you actually read this part when he.

B (128:13)

I did, I read it.

F (128:14)

Having positioned himself as a lug headed refugee from the low rent reaches of the valley, he mocks trailer trash culture without seeming remotely mean spirited. He can also dissect the pretensions of affluence in a way that is actually interesting, despite the masturbation jokes and pot references. To listen to Corolla is to sit.

A (128:33)

In.

F (128:35)

An acid tongued anthropology lecture.

B (128:38)

Yeah.

F (128:38)

And you want to take notes.

B (128:40)

Wow, I love that. And he basically went on though to say not to listen because Danny Bonnet.

F (128:47)

Did that bum you out? I'm sorry. Otherwise it's just. You wouldn't believe it. It would just be a fluff piece of promo.

B (128:54)

It would be a fluff piece. Yeah, yeah. No, it was the nicest article anyone had written about me because I've had a lot of articles written about me, but they never really, they just go funny or they get a few facts wrong or something like that, but they never really delve into what I'm attempting to do.

F (129:08)

I know, I remember listening to Loveline in the, in the early 90s. Were you guys doing.

B (129:12)

I was there from like 96, 95.

F (129:15)

And what I, you know, one I remember because I was always really interested, and this is ancient history in the way that the AIDS crisis was represented in the media and the sort of hysteria around the idea that everyone was gonna get hiv. The whole, the heterosexual community was gonna get it. When I was at Vassar, they would run around saying lesbians on this campus have HIV and they're gonna give it to other lesbians. And you guys, you were, oh yeah, yeah, you should go there. You should do an event. What country are they in? So I, you know, I actually appreciated the way you guys were giving really, really, you know, helpful and realistic advice without buying into a lot of that hysteria. Not to imply in any way that it wasn't a real, well, problem for.

B (130:04)

A lot of people. I think the problem, the thing that makes me angry about the left is they think it's okay to lie as long as, as your heart's in the right place, which is as a parent, you can tell your kid marijuana will kill you, even if you know it's not because you don't want your kid to do marijuana. So if your heart's in the right place, then it's fine to lie. So if you don't want people to smoke, you just tell them. 53,000 people die every year of secondhand smoke. And that's good because your heart's in the right place. Meanwhile, seven people die every year year of secondhand smoke. But it's okay for you to lie because your heart's in the right place.

F (130:45)

How do they prove that? How do they quantify that?

B (130:47)

They don't know. Drew pulled out an article in JAMA about five years ago and it said they thought seven people have died of secondhand.

F (130:56)

I'm. I have that with me too.

B (130:57)

I'm going to read that out loud, please. That's what they said. They had no agenda. It's just that's what they thought seven people had died of. Second secondhand smoke. Surely 53, 000 people don't die every year secondhand smoke. And by the way, what happened, it was a first rate killer five years ago. Where's it gone to? Here's the problem. And here's the thing. Nobody dies of secondhand smoke. You want people to stop smoking cigarettes? Good. Focus on that. Don't lie. Well, Megan, I'm inviting you over to look at my floors. Yeah, mission accomplished.

F (131:31)

Yeah, I honestly, this is. I'm not exaggerating. I'm going to go home and I drive into a wall on the way home.

B (131:37)

Well, don't kill yourself. You never see my painted floors.

F (131:40)

Now I'm going to get, you know, paralyzed and then I'll go over Megan.

B (131:43)

Dom, the name of the book, I'm going to pick it up is Life would be perfect if I lived in that house. It is out as we speak. Donnie's put some dates about us being in San Francisco and Seattle May 20th, 21st, 22nd. But I think those sold, those shows will be sold out, so I'm not going to mention them.

C (132:04)

Thank you.

B (132:04)

So until next time, this is Adam Caroll from Megan Dom saying mahalo.

A (132:13)

All right, that was a Fun flashback to 2010 with Megan Dahme in studio. Coming next we have Adam Kroll show 313 with Alec Baldwin. This one's also from 2010. It's about four years into the run of 30 Rock. So you can kind of place it in your mind's eye. It's a really fun chat. Alec Baldwin, of course, became a fan of Adam Carolla through listening to clips of Loveline from his driver whenever he was in Los Angeles. He is the same driver he would always be playing episodes of Loveline that he recorded that he got off the Internet that we recorded. Then of course, Adam Carolla ran into him on a Plane where he explained all this to him and they've been friends ever Since. Adam Kroll show 313. Alec Baldwin.

C (132:50)

Yeah.

B (132:51)

Get it on. Welcome the podcast. Dear, dear friend and fast becoming, I think, the funniest actor in Hollywood, Alec Baldwin. Great to speak to you, Alec. Thanks for calling in.

D (133:02)

Thanks, buddy.

B (133:03)

Where are you heading?

D (133:07)

I'm heading to a meeting. I have meetings out here for employment. I now have them. You can count them on one hand every year. So I'm going to meet with some folks about voiceover for an animated film, which is like the real panty for gold. You know, you do those and if they work and it's a really, really, it's really great. They're great jobs, you know.

B (133:34)

Yeah. Because it's a minimal amount of work and you get kissed into the deal. Do you get points on the deal?

D (133:41)

I wouldn't say that. I mean, I think that the people who are the biggest movie stars of their day, they get a real. And who play maybe the most significant roles, they probably get whopping deals. But I think for me, I'm going to get $40 a day and all the coffee I can drink or something like that.

B (134:02)

And congratulations on the Academy Awards. I was really excited for you.

D (134:08)

Yeah, it was really an interesting experience because it's, it's two focuses, you know, it's the, the television audience at home watching the show and then the live audience who's, you know, many of whom have got a lot riding on it. You know, they kind of take it a little seriously.

C (134:27)

So.

D (134:27)

Sure, yeah. I mean, but I will say that when Kathryn Bigelow won, the whole room kind of got high and it was a really great thing.

B (134:35)

Yeah, she's a sentimental favorite and, you know, beating out her ex husband and Avatar and all that stuff. Stuff is sort of. It's the thing stories are made of. But Alec, so I want to compliment you on your great work on not only 30 Rock, which I was watching just last night, but also the Academy Awards. But I think we spoke maybe two or three years ago and we were talking about 30 Rock and there was a little disappointment in your voice, not because of the product, but. But because I think you felt like it should be a more popular show than it was. Are. Have you made amends? I mean, are you, have you made your peace with that? I mean, have the Emmys helped soften the blow?

D (135:20)

Yeah, I think that the show, I think the show has come up in the ratings. I mean, not, you know, overwhelmingly so, but it's come up enough like you know, we're very happy that the show has good ratings, and if we're going into season five, so it's obviously profitable for them on the air and online and, you know, selling DVD and so forth.

B (135:45)

The.

D (135:46)

That's all gone pretty well. And, you know, it's never going to be the Office. You know, the Office has the real ratings and Charlie Sheen has the real big ratings. We don't have those kinds of ratings, but I think we're. It's offset by the fact that we. We won every prize they had to give out probably two or three times, so.

B (136:03)

Yeah, well, you know, I just. We just had Bryan Cranston in here from Breaking Bad. Yeah, he said to say hi.

D (136:10)

Yeah, he's a great guy.

B (136:11)

Really nice guy. Like, I. I think you two have a lot of parallels, although you're. You're probably a little more tormented than he is. But. But he's like an untormented Alec Baldwin, right?

D (136:27)

Is he. Is he kind of. Is he Catholic?

B (136:29)

I. I don't know. No, I think maybe that's. Maybe that's.

D (136:33)

Maybe he's Episcopalian or something.

B (136:34)

Yeah, there's something. He seems like he's. He's. It's like if. If you were more comfortable in your own skin. And I. I don't mean that. I know that sounds horrible, but it's mean.

C (136:44)

No, no, no.

D (136:45)

But I respect you and I care about you. I like you. So go ahead and psychoanalyze me on the air. I love it.

B (136:51)

Okay. I think you are a little bit too smart for your own good. And I wonder if it's a more difficult challenge for people that are as intelligent as you are to not be bothered by so many of the little things in life. And maybe this is becoming a little cathartic, but I. You know, it's a blessing and a curse being talented and having what I would call your intelligence level. And I wonder, in a way, if there's parts of you that wishes you could just crack a beer and watch your favorite team and tune out and not worry about any of the things that were going on politically or nationally or internationally.

D (137:37)

Well, as I'm getting older, I think I'm actually getting closer to that person. I think I'm becoming that person. You know, the older I get, the more I wonder if I want to just enjoy life and enjoy myself, which is very common. I mean, I'm 52 years old, and people who turn into their. You know, once they get into your 50s, you. You really do want to smell the roses. You know, and lay on a boat and take it easy. But I think that what you're saying in terms of acting, in terms of work, the business has changed enormously since.

C (138:09)

I've been in it.

D (138:10)

And I know that everybody who was in the business for 25 years when I started would say the same thing. It's constantly changing, mostly because of technology and technology that appeals to very young people. And the business is really now kind of an inverse pyramid, you know, the gigantic patch of the audience are kids who are going to go see the Hangover like five times, you know, Right. They're going to watch the Hangover like it's Lawrence of Arabia, like it's an important film. And then you make more kind of sophisticated films and the audience for them is very fractured. So it's a tricky time to make films, I think, which is why, another reason I'm very glad I do the TV show. The TV show has been a great experience for me personally.

B (138:59)

Well, most people do a TV TV show for the exposure or the paycheck and then they get their sort of creative rocks off doing independent films and plays and things like that. But it must be nice to be part of not only a primetime TV show, but a network primetime TV show that's so artistically gratifying.

D (139:21)

Well, I think that a lot of people do TV because they kind of fall off the movie tree, you know what I mean? They don't. They're not making films the way they used to. Typically they're getting a little older and the opportunities aren't there for them and the commercial success has evaporated, let's say, or perhaps was never there in the first place and they go and do.

B (139:40)

TV.

D (139:43)

For a certain set of reasons. I find that more and more people though, who probably could jostle in the independent film market and make good films and do good work have gone to TV because of lifestyle. Like I've got a couple friends of mine who I would see them sign up to do a long term gig on a TV show and right away I knew their kids were at reach school age, you know what I mean? When their kids were portable and your wife was going to come with you around, or if it was a woman, her family would come with her around to go do films and travel once the kids need to land somewhere and go to school. A lot of guys I know, they take a TV gig and they really is a lifestyle choice that's driven by their families.

B (140:24)

Well, it seems like you've had, I mean, you've never been out of the public eye. And you've never been too far away from the television set of the big screen. But I do feel like an Alec Baldwin renaissance has occurred over the last three or four years. Am I just making that up or.

D (140:45)

Well, I think for me, it's the show 30 Rock and Tina and Robert Carlock and all the writers there, Matt Hubbard and Jack Burden and Kate Cannon, all the people who wrote with us, John Rigi. I mean, there's a whole bunch I'm leaving out, but that show and their writing is what's responsible for whatever goodwill I've received in the last few years. If it weren't for the show, I wouldn't have been offered the movie with Nancy Myers and to work with Meryl. If it weren't for the show and the movie, I doubt I would have hosted the Oscars. Steve. I mean, all of it is kind of a. There's a momentum to it, which really. I owe it all to the show, and I owe it all to Tina and her writing, quite frankly.

B (141:31)

I. She did Loveline once, and I found her delightful. I really did.

D (141:37)

What kind of. How would you say, if there was a word or a phrase you could use to describe her advice to your callers? What was the theme there with Tina's advice to the Lovelord?

B (141:47)

She was, you know, demure but helpful at the same time. But she didn't. She didn't expose a lot about her personal sex life.

D (141:57)

No, no, no, no.

B (141:59)

She wasn't like, well, I had crabs in college, so I know firsthand, you're.

D (142:05)

Never gonna get that.

B (142:06)

No, but she was really. I. You know, and it must be. God, she just must be up in her head all the time. She's so intelligent and probably has so many good ideas. She must just run around writing shit down on matchbook covers all day long.

D (142:23)

But on her computer. Yeah. Well, she's also someone who, because it's working so well for her, I think she's motivated to keep going in that direction. You know, the kind of thinking she's doing and the kind of writing she's doing and the acting she's doing, it's all working real well for her. So I think it just motivates her even more. And she. I'm going to be very interested. I've said this before in interviews. I'm going to be very interested to see what she does when 30 Rock is over. I'm going to be fascinated to see. See if she goes heavy duty into writing and directing films. Kind of like a Nora Ephron. Or Nancy Myers, and we'll see. I think there's going to be some very interesting times for her when the show's over.

B (143:06)

Well, she definitely can do whatever she wants.

D (143:09)

She can do whatever she wants. She's that smart. And she's smart in a way that's useful for the business. I mean, there's a lot of people I've met who are smart people, but they don't necessarily, necessarily translate. And, you know, people like the show. He's got a very devoted following and people think it's funny. And I mean, I think it's funny. I mean, when I work with them, they crack me up. I mean, no one cracks me up more than Jane Krakowski. No one has nailed that kind of vapid, horny actress better than Jane. You know, she just has crushed it on the show. She's so funny.

B (143:42)

So as far as you go. As a matter of fact, when I was talking to Bryan Cranston just a little bit ago, he said, boy, I bet Alex gonna run for office. And I said, I don't know. I don't know if he wants to deal with that. And then if he did, he'd probably say something and get himself into trouble. And I don't know. I feel like that job, part of that job is biting your tongue and you're not a good tongue biter. I mean, I'm sure you bite other people's tongues. Well, but your own tongue probably, probably not good at that. So is that something. I know everyone asks you that and maybe you don't know the answer, but is it something you toy with?

D (144:25)

Well, it's something that I think about in terms of. It's something I care about. And I realize that the government is this enormous, this incredibly vast organism that just controls people's lives more and more, and it's the only entity in the world that's licensed to and can legally stick its hand in your pocket and take your money and spend it in a way that you have an ever increasingly less input into. And I mean, all the complaints I have about the way the government operates are the same as, I think, most Americans. It doesn't have to be Tea Party people or a partisan thing. The government is an extraordinarily efficient operation. And that's really the task now, I think, is to not spend less money. I don't think Americans are over taxed. I think the money is wasted. The amount of money that's collected, the way that it's collected is actually a fairly efficient system. I mean, if everybody takes their taxes fairly and on time. But I think the real issue with Americans is not how much money we spend on government, it's how much of that money is wasted on things that shouldn't and it shouldn't be.

B (145:39)

Yeah, I think everyone has that feeling. Yeah.

D (145:43)

Well, I was going to say, in terms of my. Well, many people feel that that's not the issue. They feel that it needs to be cut and less money needs to be spent, period. I mean, this is why you have deficits that are run up by certain administrations that wind up, you know, calling into the discussion that we have to stop spending on social programs. You know, you had one administration for eight years wanted to spend as much money on a war as they could. They did. They spent about $750 billion on a war that a lot of people weren't quite sure really mattered. And aside from the bravery of the people that fought the. But the. And now you have an administration that's saying, well, we're going to do one for us, which is social spending and making things a little bit easier for, or at least in their mind, some Americans. But, you know, for me, I. My problem is that Americans have become very inured and they become very accustomed to a political class running the show. You have, beginning with Bush in 88 and now on through the last 22 years, you've had a. You've had an Ivy League man in the White House. You had a guy from Yale, another guy from Yale, the son of the one guy from Yale, and now another guy from Harvard. You've had Harvard and Yale men in the White House for 22 years.

B (147:10)

Yeah, we got to get some junior college guys in.

D (147:13)

We got to get to some Claremont College guys in there, some Pierce College guys in there. Well, yeah.

B (147:18)

What do you.

D (147:19)

What do you do? My point is that Americans have grown to believe that there's a political class of people that need to be running this country right now. And that's a mistake. I mean, the man, or in any case, the woman who would ascend to that job, you walk in and you have the mother of all crash courses and indoctrinations. And if you think somebody has that decency, the smarts, the courage and the stamina to do that job, and they're fairly educated. I don't think it makes a difference whether they went to Harvard or Yale. I don't think it makes a difference whether they were a community organizer in Chicago or they were the governor of Arkansas or what have you, or they were screwing up a baseball team down In Texas for a few years. Whatever. People. I think we need to have the window open and some fresh air come in and some people run for office who are not the usual suspects.

B (148:10)

Well, we always talk about that and every once in a while they make a movie about it, but it never really seems to happen. I mean, everyone just.

D (148:18)

It happened here in California.

B (148:20)

With who?

D (148:23)

You had a guy that was. Whose only political credentials were he was the head of the President's Council on Physical Fitness.

B (148:28)

Oh, you talking about Schwarzenegger.

D (148:30)

And he became the governor twice.

B (148:32)

Yeah, but that's not a good thing, right? You don't look at that as a victory, do you?

D (148:37)

Well, I think that the tragedy is that Californians got played. They got really obscenely played in that situation because Darrell Issa, who basically lit the fuse and spent his own money to make that fuse to turn out Gray Davis, he in his mind, he thought he was going to be the presumptive nominee of the party. When he did that.

B (149:04)

Well, I think a lot of Issa.

D (149:06)

When Issa got rid of Davis, which I thought was shameful because the financial situation of this state is five times worse under Schwarzenegger than it was under Davis. You don't see Daryl Isser running out there trying to cut Schwarzenegger throat and thinking about running again, do you?

B (149:21)

No, but I know. Well, I live now. You come out to California part time, your daughter's here on an as needed basis. Yes.

D (149:29)

And Schwarzenegger's governor. I come here on an as needed basis.

B (149:32)

But now how does it work? Do you go. You go back and forth, you do films here, you visit your daughter here, so on and so forth. But it's full time in New York.

D (149:42)

I've had a home here and I've had an address here for many years. It's like I first came out here in 19. 1983 and I've had a place here when I was married to my ex wife, I commuted back and forth. I mean, I really lived both places. I was purely bi coastal, as they say, for years and years and years. But since I got divorced, I come out here only on a regular schedule to see my daughter.

B (150:04)

Are you thinking about ever getting married again?

D (150:08)

Oh, God, that would be great. I mean, you're married, aren't you?

B (150:10)

Yeah, I got.

D (150:11)

Isn't it great?

B (150:12)

I got twins.

D (150:13)

Aren't you happy?

B (150:15)

I am.

D (150:16)

God, you're, you know, is your wife. Does she. Does your wife think you're funny? Does you just crack her up all the time?

B (150:21)

No.

D (150:24)

You don't?

B (150:26)

No. Do I do. I crack my wife up all the time.

D (150:28)

Yeah. Does she just crack. Does she think you're the funniest guy in the world?

B (150:33)

She probably does, but also. Probably wishes I would just leave it in the car when I walk up the, you know, when I walk up the stairs. Because my kind of funny is really just complaining and that gets old very fast. You know, my. My problem is, is I see the bad in everyone. I see the flaws in every product. The glass is always sort of half empty, and all I do is kind of Ebenezer Corolla. Yeah, I'm really. I'm telling you, when I was 22 and I lived with a bunch of guys in apartment, they called me Grandpa Walt because I was the guy who was complaining even when I was, you know, I was supposed to be ripping bong loads and screwing chicks, and I was still complaining about shit when I was 22. So as far as my wife goes, you know, I don't. For her, it's like, you know, saying to someone who works at a Baskin Robbins, hey, isn't it awesome working around all that ice cream? They'd say, I'm over it. And that's. That's probably her. Her take on it. What she likes the fact I think that I'm a good builder and that I can fix shit around the house, but the part where I never shut up and never stop complaining about things is. Is something she could do without.

D (151:49)

I'm sure she. I'm sure she tells you you're the funniest guy in show business. So long as you keep. Keep that hammer moving, right?

B (151:55)

Yeah. Yeah. Keep that hammer swinging. And no, she doesn't tell me I'm the funniest guy in show business. She really just worships at the altar of Bruce Springsteen. And as a matter of fact, last night I got yelled at for setting my dress shoes down on top of her Bruce Springsteen book. That's that. I should have never done that. I should have never set the wingtips on top of the Boss.

D (152:22)

Now you now I saw, by the way, I don't want to forget this. Did I see in some credits? I was clicking through the TV the other night. Are you doing some stuff with Leno now?

B (152:33)

I did something on Leno. I did something on. Well, I did the marriage raft last night.

D (152:40)

How was that?

B (152:43)

I think they were happy to have me because it was Gloria Estefan and Donald Trump who were the guests. So not the funniest cats on the planet. Yeah, you did it with some pretty.

D (152:56)

Funny people talk about milk with your corned beef there.

B (152:59)

That's terrible. Yes.

D (153:01)

That's bad mix.

B (153:02)

So I was doing a lot of pedaling to try to keep the comedy going in that environment and situation. Although Donald Trump has sort of become a parody of himself, so it's sort of interesting. I mean, I don't know that he knows he's become a parody of himself. And I don't necessarily mean that in a horrible way, but Donald Trump is now an actor playing the role of Donald Trump. Do you know what I'm saying?

D (153:25)

Yeah. The real Trump died, and this is a surgically enhanced actor. Well, he's someone who, you know, he's in public a lot, and I've met him and he's always been very kind to my mother's charity. I mean, he's really been really, really sweet to me. But he's a good example of someone who. He's not a professional actor. So when he gets out there, he's only got three or four moves and he's going to recycle the same thing over and over again. He doesn't realize that you got to. You got to try to figure something else out if you're going to stay in front of the camera for 20 or 25 years.

B (153:56)

Yeah, well, Trump, and it's funny. Lean over to me during the commercial breaks and he'd be like, this is going to be the highest rated marriage ref they've ever had. Trust me. Trust me on that one. I went to Wharton School. I went to the business school at Wharton. This is going to be the highest rated one. And I'm like, really, Donald? I always wonder, like, that's a million miles away from me. I'm assuming it's going to be the lowest rated one they've ever done, because.

D (154:22)

I'm on it the same way. Every time I do something, I think it's going to bomb. You know, when it doesn't bomb, I'm stunned. You know, when I did the movie with Merrill, when we just did It's Complicated and the movie made money, it was like the happiest moment of my professional life. I thought you to make a movie.

B (154:37)

That makes money by the way, out on DVD and Blu Ray. Tuesday the 27th. I should, I should mention people now. Speaking of that, did you ever watch my movie? Because I sent you my movie some time ago.

D (154:52)

I can't get. It's in my mind. It's completely burned into my mind how you rotated that hip on that left clock. You throw the left cross. Rather you though that Whole hip rotation. I mean, I literally sit in restaurants now and think, which guy in the restaurant am I going to go practice that on? You know, like, I'm going to get up and try to do the hip rotation. Just drop some guy who's pretty big, you know, see if. See if it works, you know?

B (155:19)

Well, thanks. I'm glad you watched it.

D (155:21)

It was just. It was indelible. That was a really good. Why aren't you making more moves? I mean, are there other opportunities for you, you just still want to do it, or.

B (155:30)

No, there's no opportunities.

D (155:32)

There's just no opportunities for you in movies. Okay. All right, well, next subject then.

B (155:36)

No, I mean, it's just, you know, people say to me, hey, I love the Hammer. What's your next movie going to be? And it's like, I don't know if I have enough energy and time to raise the money and rattle the can and do what it takes to make an independent movie. Nobody's calling me, asking me to be in their independent movies. If I want to make another movie, I'm gonna have to get out there and raise the money and do what I did with the Hammer. And it's just. It's. It's soul depleting to have to go through that process and you don't make any money.

D (156:11)

Yeah, well, the thing for me, I have a production company, and that company, you know, we dabble in certain things, but not. I kind of any of that stuff where I'm raising funds to produce independent feature films and so forth, because like you said, the rattling the cup and everything, I just can't do that. And people would come to me with a script, and they'd say, we're going to give you. It doesn't really. Whatever amount of money, we're going to give you 4 million bucks, 5 million bucks, 6 million bucks to go make this little film. And they'd say, and it was a film I really believed in, but there would be, like, you know, the Bill Sykes character, or there'd be the guy that in the beginning of the film, you know, stepped onto the kindergarten bus with a flamethrower and killed everybody.

B (157:00)

Right?

D (157:01)

And they'd have some really just horrible role. They'd say, well, we want you to play that role, Right? You know, they'd say, in order for us to give you the money, you've got to. To get in this, you've got to be in the film. And I'd say, well, I don't want to do that. You know, so for me, moviemaking has really kind of taken a real back burner now.

B (157:22)

Well, it's the same with me, except for what. It's different where they go. We'll give you the money if you're not in the movie. If you. If you could get Baldwin or Keanu Reeves to play your role, that would be awesome. But, yeah, see, for you, your. Your name and people know you in the theatrical world, so they want you in those movies. But it's such a weird business these days. I mean, when Alec Baldwin says, I'm gonna sort of back burner the theatrical stuff for a while, that's really saying something, because I think to most people, you're considered a, you know, a list celebrity and a leading man and who's, you know, transitioning more into comedy than. Than, you know, the heavy roles that you were playing in your. In your mid-30s. But still, the idea that Alec Baldwin can't just go out and make whatever movie Alec Baldwin wants to make when he wants to make it would surprise a lot of people.

D (158:28)

Well, listen, I mean, I. I mean, I appreciate the compliments you give me, but. But, you know, the business is. It's. Most people who know the business know that it's easier to get a studio to spend $105 million than it is $5 million, right? You know, get Tom Hanks, get Bradley Cooper or somebody who's really current and make a film with them. And, you know, Matt Damon, who I love, I mean, that's a great guy. He's just had it up in terms of making different kinds of films. But that's a particular kind of business. But for me. And another thing is, you got to want that, man. If you want to be in the film business, you got to move here. You got to get a house here. You got to let people know you're in. You got to let people know you want it, because there's plenty of people who do, and they tend to be younger. Maybe they don't have kids. Maybe there's a primacy to their careers that I just don't have the time for now. But, you know, it's ironic that you and I are doing this in this format, because this is really, really what I would like to do. I've been very lucky this year as he gets closing out in May. My first year that I was the announcer for the New York Philharmonics live broadcasts on the air, I do 39 shows a year, and I do two live broadcasts on public television in New York. I go to the philharmonic many times during the season. Whenever I'm available. And they have their summer programs as well. I've gone to the Saratoga Performing Arts center and done their summer program with the Philadelphia Orchestra, which is in severe trouble right now, unfortunately. I just substituted for Kurt Anderson on his Studio360 show. Radio is really, really something that entirely. I love the idea of sitting down and, you know, the ideas are really what's at the fore. So I envy you, Adam, that you get to do this kind of thing.

B (160:20)

Well, thanks. I mean, no, no.

D (160:22)

I mean, it's a great format, and you're great at it. You're great at it.

B (160:25)

Well, you know, I think for people who have ideas and want to communicate those ideas, there's no better vessel for that than radio or at least audio, whether it's on the Internet or whether it's coming through your car stereo or what have you. I think it penetrates deeper. I think the ideas resonate stronger than if there's a visual component to them. Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah.

D (160:56)

I mean, I mean, to me, I've always said good tv. I mean, tv, they're in a little bit more of a hurry. I mean, a good film and even good tv, you should be able to follow it, even with the sound off. You know, what's the visual?

B (161:07)

Is there a.

D (161:08)

A good movie is a movie where you get some sense of what's going on with no sound. I mean, the pictures are just so rich or they're so integral. And with radio, there is no visual. But you hope that you can create a visual for people, as you said. And I mean, to me, just the idea of being able to. To talk with people about something that matters and some, you know, smart topic. I loved doing Kurt show. I interviewed Laura Linney and I interviewed Mary Carr, the novelist, and it was a great opportunity for me, and I would love to have a radio show myself. I would never do a radio show with you, by the way, because you would just stomp me into the ground. I'm not quick enough to do. I used to listen to you. I told you, my man Freddie Lipperman and I, we were listen to you on Loveline. And we would be gagging listening to you on this mother radio. You are so funny.

B (162:00)

Thanks, Alec. Wow.

D (162:03)

I'm pulling up to my exit here off the. Off the 134. I'm on my way to go grovel and beg and snivel for a job out here in Hollywood like everyone else.

B (162:16)

How long are you out in town for?

D (162:18)

I'm here. I want to go back Sunday, I'm out here. One of the main reasons I was out here was for the Turner Classic Movies Classic Film Festival which premiered last night with a screening of a restored print of A Star is Born. And I attended that with Robert Osborne because I hosted some of those essentials film programs with Bob on the television and they've got incredibly beautiful program. They're showing, you know, Casablanca and Paul Heinrich's Daughter is there doing an interview. Bob Donovich is interviewing Leonard Maltin. They've got Houston family has a whole day tomorrow of John Huston's films or Houston family members films. Danny and Angelica. They've got really great, great films playing at Grauman's and at the Man Chinese. They've got a lot of great films playing and they've got a great program going along with it and great interviews going along with it live. So it's really. If anybody looks up tcmfilmfestival.com it's great.

B (163:24)

Well, Alec, let me off the air. Let me get. I have your cell phone, I think, but I don't know if I have your current cell phone. So maybe off the air I'll get it from you because I'd love to. I don't know where you're staying out here, but I've wanted to show you my house for quite some time and.

D (163:42)

Yeah, I know.

B (163:43)

Maybe we can figure this out.

D (163:44)

If not, let me know and I'll give you my number.

B (163:47)

Yeah, I'll do it in one second. So let me just say this Thursday night's 9:30, best show on TV. 30 Rock, everybody and it's complicated out on DVD and Blu Ray on Tuesday the 27th. The great Alec Baldwin carving out time from his busy scheme schedule from begging for money to be in theatrical releases. Thanks so much, Alec. And I'll get your number off the air and we'll try to hook it up.

D (164:13)

Thanks, Bev.

B (164:14)

Thanks, buddy. So until next time, this is Adam Carolla for Alec Baldwin saying mahalo.

A (164:24)

All right, that was Adam Carla Show 313 with Alec Baldwin from 2010. That does it for Ace Coral Classic. Make sure to tune in tomorrow for an all new installment. Until then, mahalo and get it on.

B (164:55)

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F (165:08)

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B (165:15)

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F (165:19)

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