Beatboxing Nuns, Popeye’s Drug-Fueled Production + Tia Carrere + Mark Kriegel

Summary

Summary of "Beatboxing Nuns, Popeye’s Drug-Fueled Production + Tia Carrere + Mark Kriegel" – The Adam Carolla Show

Release Date: June 2, 2025

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1. Introduction of Guests

The episode features actress and singer Tia Carrere and boxing expert Mark Kriegel, known for authoring the definitive book on Mike Tyson, "Making of Mike Tyson". Host Adam Carolla sets the stage for a dynamic conversation covering Hollywood insights, cinematic successes, and the intricate world of boxing.

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2. Box Office Showdown: Lilo & Stitch vs. Mission Impossible

Adam Carolla kicks off the discussion by highlighting the surprising box office triumph of Disney’s live-action "Lilo & Stitch" over Tom Cruise’s "Mission Impossible".

• Adam Carolla [03:11]: "Mission Impossible was crushed by Lilo & Stitch at the box office, grossing 180 million versus 77 million."

• Tia Carrere [04:38]: "Director Dean Fleischer-Kemper brought heart and zany elements that resonated with audiences, making it more than just a live-action remake."

Key Points:

• The success underscores the audience's love for communal movie experiences.
• Live-action adaptations can triumph when infused with creativity and emotional depth.

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3. Tia Carrere’s Hollywood Journey

Tia Carrere delves into her experiences navigating Hollywood, sharing anecdotes about auditions and her role in "True Lies".

• Adam Carolla [10:36]: "Women have it easier. You’ve got to transition from being a beautiful, young ingenue to finding your place."

• Tia Carrere [11:13]: "After being a hot ingenue, there’s often a fallow period where you’re too old for some roles and too young for others."

Highlights:

• The persistent hustle in acting, even after achieving significant success.
• The challenge of evolving one’s career beyond initial typecasting.

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4. Behind the Scenes of True Lies

Tia Carrere shares a memorable audition story for "True Lies", revealing a scene that was ultimately cut from the final film.

• Tia Carrere [13:43]: "James Cameron wrote a beautifully written monologue for my character that was meant to be in the film but got cut to tighten the storyline."

• Adam Carolla [15:08]: "When you’re on an iconic set like James Cameron’s, not every scene makes the final cut, but they leave a lasting impression."

Insights:

• Even significant roles can undergo extensive changes during production.
• Directors like James Cameron make tough decisions to ensure the film's pacing and narrative coherence.

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5. From Hollywood to Boxing: Introducing Mark Kriegel

The conversation shifts towards sports as Mark Kriegel joins to discuss his expertise in boxing and his comprehensive book on Mike Tyson.

• Adam Carolla [92:16]: "Mark Kriegel's in studio's got a book out. It's called The Making of Mike Tyson. It's substantial, man. It's 400 plus pages."

Key Topics:

• The evolution of Mike Tyson’s career and his impact on boxing.
• Insights into the interplay between organized crime and the boxing industry.

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6. The Intricate World of Boxing and Organized Crime

Mark Kriegel provides a deep dive into the life of Mike Tyson, exploring his rise, challenges, and the influence of figures like Don King.

• Mark Kriegel [67:58]: "Don King is the smartest guy in the story. Whether you like him or not, he understands the business like no one else."

• Adam Carolla [94:48]: "Tyson was like a wave. You try to get away, and you get pulled in and pummeled."

Highlights:

• Don King’s pivotal role in shaping Tyson’s career and the broader boxing landscape.
• The psychological and strategic aspects of Tyson’s fighting style, likened to a relentless wave.
• The complexities of managing a boxer’s career amidst personal and external challenges.

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7. Reflections on Success and Personal Struggles

Adam Carolla and Mark Kriegel discuss the juxtaposition of success with personal turmoil, using Tyson’s life as a case study.

• Adam Carolla [95:14]: "Holyfield was like a God-chosen champion, unwavering in his belief and strategy."

• Mark Kriegel [129:25]: "Tyson was being groomed to be the greatest and youngest heavyweight, but personal demons always seemed to threaten his ascent."

Key Points:

• The fine line between monumental success and personal struggles.
• How belief systems and personal demons can impact an athlete’s career trajectory.

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8. Concluding Thoughts and Upcoming Content

As the episode winds down, Adam Carolla reflects on the profound insights shared by his guests, emphasizing the importance of understanding both the glamorous and gritty sides of fame and success.

• Adam Carolla [141:50]: "Oh my God, I love it."

Upcoming:

• Mark Kriegel maintains his dedication to boxing journalism, hinting at future discussions and book releases.
• Tia Carrere announces upcoming tours and performances, encouraging listeners to stay connected via her website and social media.

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Notable Quotes

• Adam Carolla [06:10]: "There have been a lot of inventions in our society that made us think things were going to go away, but we still continue to participate because we like the experience of it."

• Tia Carrere [06:35]: "As human beings, we crave community, connection, all that stuff. We become more and more disconnected."

• Mark Kriegel [138:16]: "Don King is like the street guy writ large. It's almost like, 'I'm your father.'"

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Conclusion

This episode of The Adam Carolla Show offers a rich tapestry of discussions ranging from the intricacies of Hollywood and the resilience required in an acting career, to the dark and strategic world of boxing. With guests like Tia Carrere and Mark Kriegel, listeners gain valuable insights into navigating success, personal challenges, and the relentless pursuit of one’s passions.

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For more episodes and content, visit The Adam Carolla Show.

Transcript

[Adam Carolla]

In this episode, hot actress Tia Carrera. I don't mean hot. Well, hot, but you know Lilon Stitch. 180 million domestic at the box office. She's up in more than that. Mark Kriegel, boxing expert, wrote the Mike Tyson book. Very interesting guy. He'll be on. We'll do the news and we'll do all that right after this. With the AMEX Gold card, you can run your errands and grab a pick me up From Dunkin on Amex. Earn up to $7 in monthly statement credits when you pay with the gold card at dunk enrollment required terms apply. Learn [e-mail] US Explore Gold. Hey, it's Adam Carolla from the Adam Carolla show. BETOnline is the world's most trusted betting platform and your number one source for all your sports betting action. Baseball season is in full swing now and we're into NBA. Got the playoffs, got NHL playoffs. BetOnline has more ways to stay in on the action with the latest odds, news and scores. Betonline even as live in game betting while the games are being played. So it's never too late to get in on the action. With the largest selection of odds on everything from NLB, NBA, NHL and UFC, BetOnline remains the best online source for all all your sports wagering info. And don't forget golf and professional boxing too. In between games, head on over to betonline Casino with all the top Vegas style games including poker and live casino bet online. The game starts here.

[Jason Mayhem Miller]

From Corolla One studios in Glendale, California, this is the Adam Carolla Show. Adam's guest today, actress and singer Tia Carrera, plus writer and boxing analyst Mark Kriegel. And we'll do the news and trending topics with Jason Mayhem Miller. And now, too stressed to be blessed, Adam Carolla.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah, get it on. Got to get on a trip to get amount mandate you get it on to you back in studio.

[Tia Carrere]

Hello.

[Adam Carolla]

Such a treat to see you.

[Tia Carrere]

Nice to see you. I dressed up in my sparkly dress and everything.

[Adam Carolla]

It's very aquatic.

[Tia Carrere]

Aquatic. Yeah.

[Adam Carolla]

Yes. Lilo and Stitch blue. Stitch back man. Disney back. Crazy.

[Tia Carrere]

Crazy.

[Adam Carolla]

I mean, I remember going into the box office, going into the weekend, last weekend, you know, the entertainment shows on like Thursday, like Tom Cruise versus Stitch, you know, and who, who's gonna win? And it was all Mission impossible talk. And I checked the other day and they just crushed Mission Impossible.

[Tia Carrere]

You guys did. I think it was like 180 million versus 77 million or something like that. Crazy.

[Adam Carolla]

Poor Tom Cruise.

[Tia Carrere]

And it was amazing. I have friends that worked on the Mission Impossible, and it's incredible the amount of work that they put into the stunts and everything. But, yeah, Stitch ate Tom Cruise's lunch.

[Adam Carolla]

Oh. I mean, it wasn't. I mean, you know, it's one thing to beat it at the box office, but more than double, it is kind of crazy. I don't think anyone saw that coming.

[Tia Carrere]

No.

[Adam Carolla]

I thought there was a lot of naysayers that, like, after the Seven Dwarves, like, what's Disney doing?

[Tia Carrere]

Yeah. And it's live action at a beloved property. Don't touch it.

[Adam Carolla]

Don't take your animated stuff and make it live action. You'll screw it up. Disney, you're on a slide and pow.

[Tia Carrere]

But I knew this was gonna be something special. I mean, the director, Dean Fleischer, Kemp, he directed Marcel the Shell with shoes on. It's a little shell stop motion made in his house, I guess. And it brought me to tears. And I thought, if you have that heart with this great Stitch character that everybody loves already, you'd have the heart and you'd have the zany, and you got a winning combination against a paradise. Hawaii that everybody wants to see. Hawaii.

[Adam Carolla]

Do you get the full script? Do you get your sides? Like, how do you. What do they give you? Are you able to read the script and go, there's something here? Or they keep it secret and be like, here's your part of this script?

[Tia Carrere]

I only saw my part initially until I showed up the first day of work. Also because they're constantly reworking it and, you know, rewriting, rewriting, rewriting. So when I got on set, we have the binder with the shooting script.

[Adam Carolla]

So here's the numbers. Lilo and Stitch, Worldwide, 361. Mission Impossible Worldwide, 204. And in America, 182 versus 64. So literally three times the audience now. I don't know, 182. I mean, that's the biggest one of the year. Maybe the last five years. Right? I mean, I don't know what's bigger than that. It's crazy.

[Tia Carrere]

It's the biggest Memorial Day weekend in the history of Memorial Day weekend. Is that possible?

[Adam Carolla]

I'm guessing. And listen, I'm happy. I love that there's still something called a movie theater. And people are still going, and they're bringing their family and they're having a communal experience. And I'm all for it. There's been a lot of. Well, soon as people get a VHR tape, it's all gonna go away a VHR tape. And as soon as they get cable, it's all gonna go away. And then as soon as they're streaming, it's all gonna go away. I'm glad, like, I am glad that there were inventions in our society that made us think things were going to go away, but yet we still continue to participate because we like the experience of it.

[Tia Carrere]

Well, yeah. I mean, as human beings, we crave community, connection, all that stuff. We become more and more disconnected. Everybody's on zooms, work at home and all that stuff that we went through. So coming back together, working when it's safe again, and all that stuff. And now we can laugh and cry and bring Grandma and Grandpa, Great Grandma and Grandpa, you know, and have this communal experience. It's in our DNA. This is what we hunger for.

[Adam Carolla]

And you got to sing in the movie as well.

[Tia Carrere]

Not in this one. I sang in the cartoon. Initially. I actually gave Chris Sanders and Dean De Beau, the first directors of the animated show, the idea to do the Lilo the Aloha Oe song in the hammock where I'm saying goodbye to my sister. So I got to sing that. Hello.

[Adam Carolla]

That's the song. I mean, is that number one and Tiny Bubbles number two? Like, what are the two biggest contributions Hawaii has made musically?

[Tia Carrere]

I know. The bubbles just got bigger.

[Mark Kriegel]

Tiny bubbles.

[Tia Carrere]

Yeah.

[Dawson]

It's pretty awesome.

[Tia Carrere]

It's the most famous song.

[Adam Carolla]

Make me happy.

[Tia Carrere]

I met him in a karaoke bar once, a long time ago.

[Adam Carolla]

What about Don Ho?

[Tia Carrere]

Don Ho?

[Adam Carolla]

Well, okay.

[Tia Carrere]

Girls used to throw their panties on stage to Don Ho. They loved him.

[Adam Carolla]

People don't realize that it's a good thing if you can't be the king of Hollywood. Find your own place and be that. Have that be your little fiefdom. You know what I mean?

[Tia Carrere]

I'm trying. Moving back to Hawaii, opening my own tiki bar.

[Adam Carolla]

You be the queen of Hawaii, Don Ho. You know, Don Ho in Hollywood was a short guy who couldn't sing that good, but in Hawaii, he was the king of all Hawaiians. And so he just went there and went, I'll just be adored.

[Tia Carrere]

Yeah. And he had his own, like, dome that he performed in at the Hilton Hawaiian Village. 4000 room, you know, hotel.

[Adam Carolla]

Yes. That's why Mike August wants Dawson to move to Alaska and be the king of Alaska. What'd he name you? Didn't he give you a Don Ho, Alaska name something. Yeah, we gotta hit him up because you laugh. But on the other hand, you could do a lot worse than just being the Most famous dude in Alaska out here. Fair to Midland country singer. Fair to Midland comedian. But there in Alaska, Dawson, you would rule that place.

[Jason Mayhem Miller]

According to Mike August, 100% wanted to leave me there.

[Adam Carolla]

He wanted to leave Dawson. They said, take over Alaska. This will be your territory.

[Tia Carrere]

I'm going back to the fair to the middling comedian. I mean, does that affect you at all, how he categorized you there?

[Adam Carolla]

Not in my eyes. In the eyes of the business, is what I'm saying. Or the king of Alaska. If Don Ho just said, forget Hawaii, I'm moving to Encino, I'm starting my singing career, we would never know his name. That's all I did ask him. Once he came on Loveline, he came.

[Tia Carrere]

Oh, my gosh, are you serious? I never knew that.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah. Cause he had a little weird American move. Well, he had the Don Ho show.

[Tia Carrere]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Adam Carolla]

And then in the, like, the late 90s, do you remember this? Remember when Pat Boone was, like, covering Pearl Jam songs or Soundgarden songs? Remember when Pat Boone went like, I'm going rock and roll. Like weird crook 50s guy, Paul Anka did it. They all kind. There was a weird 90s renaissance of.

[Tia Carrere]

Like, old guys doing rock songs, Metallica.

[Adam Carolla]

And they'd, like, show up the Kroc weenie roast and sit in with the screaming trees or something. And Don Ho came out. He was on Loveline, and I just asked him if he smoked a lot of pot. And all he did was he just went, if you ask them if they smoke a lot of pot, they just.

[Tia Carrere]

Go, they actually are probably currently hot.

[Adam Carolla]

That's a big fat thumbs up to the pot. So you. You're singing, you're acting. It's nice. I mean, you know, you have to make. I entertain, you entertain. But a nice. I don't even want to call it a renaissance, a transition. You know, here's what I'm saying. Jerry Seinfeld never had to make a transition. He was just a comedian in the 80s and now he's a comedian.

[Tia Carrere]

Okay, guys have it easier. Women have a lot of fun.

[Adam Carolla]

You gotta go from beautiful, young ingenue.

[Tia Carrere]

Sexy, all that stuff.

[Adam Carolla]

You've got to make a transphobic transformation into a new character that Hollywood, not a character, but you have to find your place in the business that wasn't where you started.

[Tia Carrere]

And sometimes there's a fallow period because you're too young, too old to play like the hot ingenue and too old to play the. Too old to play the ingenue and too young to play like the moms or grandmoms. I want to be Helen Mirren. I want to continue like now I go through the, you know, strong businesswoman or the cop or the, I don't know, whatever, prosecutor.

[Adam Carolla]

So what's it like for you? I mean, I know you're doing a lot of performing and singing and nominated for Grammys. Did you win a Grammy?

[Tia Carrere]

I won a couple of Grammys.

[Adam Carolla]

You won a couple Grammys? And Lilo and Stitch is great. Cause it's so big. But are you huge going out on auditions? Do you have to audition?

[Tia Carrere]

Of course. All the stuff you really want. It's still the same hustle. I would say it's like 41 years later. It's still the same hustle. If you want the projects that you really want, you gotta go and lobby for and you have to audition for. Cause there's like, everybody else wants to have them, but the ones that I own, they get offered to me. So it's a combination of the two, right?

[Adam Carolla]

It's a little catch 22y, right?

[Tia Carrere]

You have to have great discipline. Because somebody's throwing money at you to do this project doesn't mean you should be doing the project. Sometimes the ones you say no to is more important than the ones you say yes to now.

[Adam Carolla]

So will you get the breakdowns? And you'll go, this director's directing this. And you go, oh, wow, that sounds cool. You know, and there's parts in it and then you sort of, you know, campaign a little bit for those roles.

[Tia Carrere]

Breakdown services, that's like back in the day, I know where they have like a piece of paper that says, looking for 18 to 23 year old Asian American actors that can sing and do martial arts and whatever. So now the agents and managers get that online. You don't ever see a printed out, you know, mimeograph paper. But actually I just did the same thing on Instagram. I saw that John Chu, who did Wicked is doing oh, the Places yous'll Go, which is one of my favorite books ever. I'm like, oh my gosh. He posted something like, I love this book, I need to be in this movie. And you do it on Instagram or whatever. You know, sometimes they see it, sometimes they don't. But I had seen him at some Oscar events and I would put in my little. They're like, I'd love to be in this movie. I love this book.

[Adam Carolla]

Right? So you see what they're doing and you go, I'd like to be a part of that. How did True Lies come about? That's one of the great roles of all time.

[Tia Carrere]

It is. And somebody else was cast in the role. Oh, did I ever tell you this story? It was this other girl that ended up being on the L Word afterwards, but she had the role and it wasn't working out. And so me and two other girls were flown in to Miami. And I just stayed in my hotel room for, like, two days and went over that scene and over that scene, and then finally had the audition with James Cameron down in the conference room downstairs.

[Adam Carolla]

Was it the dance scene or was it the fight scene?

[Tia Carrere]

It was a scene that's a beautifully written monologue for Juno Skinner. She walks along the tomb, you know, a big, huge tomb that I have brought in. And I'm like, you like it? It's beautiful at this light. It's like torch light. I'm barefoot in the tomb, and I've invited him back to the tomb. And I'm like, see these people? They lived and loved and died. I just hope they got what they wanted, because getting what you want is the only important thing. And, like, I'm up in his face, like, gonna go make out with him. And that Schwarzenegger stuff. Amazing. Yeah, amazing scene. And then Tom Wannolds in his hair going, I have one word for you. H E L E N. Your wife. Your wife, Helen. And it's. It's an amazing scene that never was in the film. But that was the audition scene.

[Adam Carolla]

Oh, did they write it for an audition scene?

[Tia Carrere]

No, it was supposed to be in the film. And it fell in a part of the film that he needed to, you know, tighten it up. And so he took about 20 minutes out of the film. And unfortunately, that was one of the, you know, things that got cut. But he wrote me a really nice letter. James Cameron said it was, you know, my favorite scene or one of my favorite scenes. And I'm sorry that I had to cut it, but it was, you know, it was necessary. Yeah.

[Adam Carolla]

You know, when you were saying, I went and did this scene from the film, I was thinking, I don't remember that scene.

[Tia Carrere]

Yeah, no, it's a beautiful scene.

[Adam Carolla]

When you interview people, why you shouldn't go, oh, yeah, I love that scene. Because then I would be lying because I never saw that.

[Tia Carrere]

Then I'd be like, you're lying, Adam. You never saw it because I was in that movie.

[Adam Carolla]

But that's okay. I know.

[Tia Carrere]

And we get past it, because I know you'll lie.

[Adam Carolla]

I saw the movie quite a few times, and I know you spent lots of time in sort of the museum. And I was like. I kept stretching. That movie's so good, but how does it work? You know, you cast somebody in this role. It's a big role. It's a James Cameron film, Schwarzenegger action, huge budget. And you realize after shooting for a couple of days, it's not working out. But I can't figure out what's not working out. Like, the person's an actress. An actor. Actress. They know how to act. They've done it. They wouldn't have got this far. You wouldn't have cast them.

[Tia Carrere]

But something. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I. It's brave of him to do, you know, to make that change after having shot for. I think it was a few weeks.

[Adam Carolla]

A few weeks with that actress and.

[Tia Carrere]

That much money on the line. But, you know, James Cameron doesn't scare easy. I mean, he was told, oh, you know, you're gonna bring down two studios. I think it was like Fox and Warner Brothers or some, you know, pulled their money together for that film. And he just kept going, you know, and just believed in it. So, you know, it wasn't working. And so he made the change. And thankfully he made the right change because I think I was pretty awesome in the movie and I was happy to be invited to the party.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah. And it was you and another actress who went.

[Tia Carrere]

There were like, two other, like, I guess there were three different types. I don't know. I'm just imagining me, you know, Middle Eastern girl, Latina. I don't know. I can. That's the rumor that I heard, but I can't, you know, verify it. So I don't know who the other two women were. Only they know.

[Adam Carolla]

Mm. I'm trying to remember during that period.

[Tia Carrere]

Of time, 1992, 94, whatever it was.

[Adam Carolla]

Was that pre Wayne's World or post? Wayne's World right after.

[Tia Carrere]

Wayne's World, right after.

[Adam Carolla]

Wow.

[Tia Carrere]

Yeah. That was a great one, two punch, broad comedy. And then this big action drama thing.

[Adam Carolla]

Oh, wow.

[Tia Carrere]

Yeah. It was a magical time.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah. I mean, biggest comedy of the year and biggest action film of the year. Or the next year when I watch.

[Tia Carrere]

And then Sean Connery, Rising Sun, Penn in between or after True Lies. Rising sun with Wesley Snipes and Sean Connery.

[Adam Carolla]

I remember that.

[Tia Carrere]

Legendary Sean Connery. Your friend sounds like an idiot.

[Adam Carolla]

Remember that video? Remember he's sitting down at 60 minutes and he was like, oh, you have to hit a woman every once in a while.

[Tia Carrere]

Oh, my gosh. That followed him. Everyone like, oh, no, no, no.

[Adam Carolla]

No, I know.

[Tia Carrere]

That's the one thing that follows him through his whole career.

[Adam Carolla]

Oh, it's the beauty. You know, I was just watching the Pee Wee Herman doc.

[Tia Carrere]

I was watching it too. We were watching it last night. It was amazing. I had no idea who was so involved in the whole thing and how. Yeah, it was hard.

[Adam Carolla]

No. Well, look, if you wanna really do something, and I've done some of this stuff, you're not gonna just take a role in the passenger seat of this van. You're gonna be driving it. If it's your character, it' it's your dream and your creation. And all you're gonna be doing is talking to people going, not what I have in mind. That he wouldn't say this. I don't want to do that. Then you're gonna have a lot of people at executive levels trying to talk you out of stuff that's yours. And you sort of know it on an instinctual level. But you can't really prove it. You know, you just feel it. You kind of know it because it's your world and you've built it.

[Tia Carrere]

You have to be so strong. You have to be so strong as an artist. And as artists, we are, you know, we have foundational cracks in us. That's why we do what we do for a living somehow. But to know that this is the right way. I mean, that he said Gary Panter, the guy that designed all of that, Pee Wee's Playhouse. It's like they'd never seen that before in children's television.

[Adam Carolla]

Well, what they'll do is they'll get you the studio or whoever's cutting the checks will go. We've contacted the three guys that did Soupy Sales show and the other guy did Wonderama. And then whatever. And then you go choose between these three. I want this drug addict over here who does punk rock album covers.

[Tia Carrere]

You know, I couldn't believe that. Didn't that blow your mind? I had no idea about that history.

[Adam Carolla]

But that's how you get that. Yeah, you can't get that with standard form people. You're just gonna get a standard kids playhouse looking thing. So that was interesting. Then the whole part I forgot about the part everyone remembers, the Florida theater part. Although there were unclear. I like to drill down on the details. He was gay and he liked gay erotica. But probably more in a kitschy way than a sexual way.

[Tia Carrere]

I didn't get to this part of the documentary yet.

[Adam Carolla]

Sorry.

[Tia Carrere]

No, that's okay. I know the story.

[Adam Carolla]

Part two.

[Tia Carrere]

Yeah, yeah. No, I'm in the middle of part two right now.

[Adam Carolla]

Oh, we haven't got. You're right on the edge of the porn.

[Tia Carrere]

I'm right at where? So, Tim Burton. I didn't realize Tim Burton directed the first film. Holy cow.

[Adam Carolla]

I know. It's funny.

[Tia Carrere]

And then he directed the second one, and it failed miserably.

[Adam Carolla]

No, he didn't direct the second one.

[Tia Carrere]

Oh, yes. Randall Kleiser. Sorry? Randall Kleiser.

[Adam Carolla]

You have a good memory for names.

[Tia Carrere]

No, because I know Randall. I love him. He's got a beautiful house on the North Shore of Hawaii that I'm like. Hawaii?

[Adam Carolla]

It's not Hawaii.

[Tia Carrere]

I'm dumbing it down for you white people here. You Alaskans.

[Jason Mayhem Miller]

Haven'T heard back from August. They'll tell you the king of Alaska is ringing a bell.

[Adam Carolla]

And maybe it's just there's a song there.

[Tia Carrere]

We should write a song.

[Adam Carolla]

He had you as Don Kodiak or Don Hodiak or something. He had a Don Ho reference because we, Mike and I, it's been discussed without you in the room more than once, Dawson.

[Tia Carrere]

Dawn of Kodiak.

[Adam Carolla]

Mike believes very firmly in the Don Hodiak. I think it's Don Hodiak. Well, you'll be the Don Ho of Alaska. And Don Hodiak is a perfect name. Cause I think Kodiak think Bear. You think Don Ho. It's very Alaskan.

[Tia Carrere]

Dawn of Kodiak. Like dawn of Kodiak 2 on the nose.

[Adam Carolla]

I don't know. Don Kodiak will be your entertainment for tonight.

[Jason Mayhem Miller]

I just have to write a song about glaciers.

[Adam Carolla]

You need a glacier. Maybe a float plane song.

[Dawson]

Something.

[Adam Carolla]

Something with a floaty plane.

[Jason Mayhem Miller]

I'll just do something called hey Bear.

[Adam Carolla]

Hey, Bear.

[Jason Mayhem Miller]

Hey, Bear.

[Adam Carolla]

Don Hodiak presents hey Bear. Yeah.

[Tia Carrere]

Yeah. Could be a hit.

[Adam Carolla]

And you gotta run him. Like, you go. You do. You do one of those run songs like Johnny Cash. I've been Everywhere, man. You know, like, you go, you got black bear, brown bear, Kodiak. You got. You got. Whoa. You got the white bear center, the polar bear. Yeah, koala bear. But Kodiak, she lists all the other bears, right?

[Tia Carrere]

And they're all on a card and.

[Adam Carolla]

They'Re all okay, but not the Kodiak. But then there's the Kodiak, you know, so it's like one of those songs where you go, I've been with this woman. I've been with that. I've been with Sheila. I've been with Stephanie. I've been with Kai. But the best is Anne Marie, you know? I mean, you work that out.

[Tia Carrere]

Nelson, he's got your whole marketing campaign.

[Adam Carolla]

Figured out, because there's like 13 bears that people know already that you can go. And you say that they're bearable, sure, but they're not. The Kodiak, the mighty Kodiak.

[Jason Mayhem Miller]

I do feel like we're gonna have a hard time writing two verses.

[Tia Carrere]

Let's put all this into ChatGPT and make a song.

[Jason Mayhem Miller]

Lay all the bears out.

[Tia Carrere]

You got it all.

[Adam Carolla]

You lay all the bears out. And then you do, you know, you work the whole world. The seaplane and the bald eagle.

[Jason Mayhem Miller]

Salmon.

[Adam Carolla]

Salmon. You just do the whole thing. Just see if you can capture Alaska in a three minute song.

[Tia Carrere]

Okay, so we have all the data here. Let's plug everything that you just said in ChatGPT. It's a song. It's already done. You tell them the story and it's written.

[Adam Carolla]

We're gonna try. We're gonna try. Heretic. I'm pretty sure it's Don Hodiak. That's my memory. The show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Look, there's stigma surrounding men's mental issues, health, things like that. Probably a little more for the men than for the ladies these days, but hey, man, guys are suffering. They gotta take care of themselves. Men today face immense pressure to perform, to provide, and to keep it all together. So it's no wonder that 6 million men in the US suffer from depression every year and it's often undiagnosed. You know, I'm a big fan of therapy come from that group. You know, something that Drew and I always talk about. With over 35,000 therapists, BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform, having served over 5 million people globally. It's convenient too. You can join a session with a therapist at the click of a button. Help you fit therapy into your busy schedule. Plus switch therapists at any time. It's BetterHelp, right, Dawson?

[Jason Mayhem Miller]

Visit betterhelp.com Corolla today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp. H E L P.com Corolla Stream all.

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[Adam Carolla]

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[Dawson]

In this family we live by the.

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[Dawson]

Oh my God, I love it.

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[Adam Carolla]

All right, so wait, where were we?

[Tia Carrere]

We've lost the train of thought here. We've gone on a wild adventure.

[Adam Carolla]

Pee Wee's wild adventure being replaced after two weeks of shooting just feels so.

[Tia Carrere]

It's happened to me.

[Adam Carolla]

Demoralizing, really.

[Tia Carrere]

Yeah. I was on a tv. I was on a TV show, and it was kind of. I have to say, it was a. It was a relief because I knew the director wasn't happy with me. I. It was long before Wayne's World, so it's got to be, like, 89, 90.

[Adam Carolla]

So you're out here, you're an actress, you're auditioning, you're a model. You get cast on a TV show, but it's not like you're known at this point.

[Tia Carrere]

No, I mean. But I'd been on General Hospital for a year and a half.

[Adam Carolla]

Oh, okay.

[Tia Carrere]

So, you know, people at home that watch daytime TV knew me. So I was the guest star on this show, and I was the photographer on this show about models or something like that.

[Adam Carolla]

And was it one hour?

[Tia Carrere]

I Forget. What? Yeah, 42 minutes.

[Adam Carolla]

Well, like a drama. That wasn't a sitcom.

[Tia Carrere]

No. You know, it might have been a sitcom. I tried. This is how I survive. I wipe all the memories of all the unpleasant things that happened to me in my life. And I forget, but I remember it was a photographer, and I was trying to act older, and I was wearing flouncy, you know, flowy robes to make me seem more, you know, eccentric and stuff, but I just didn't feel it. I was too young, and I did a good job to get the job. You know, audition was great, but on the set, next to the other models, I just looked like another model. It didn't make sense. So, like, they pulled me to the side, and I just, like. I knew what it was. I was doing the rehearsals, and it.

[Adam Carolla]

It's rehearsals.

[Tia Carrere]

Rehearsals and the director.

[Adam Carolla]

Was there an audience?

[Tia Carrere]

No. No, no. Okay, so what's that? We're all just walking around doing our flocking, and, Tia, this isn't working out. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, I know, I know. I don't think this is right for you. And, you know, it was our mistake. Blah, blah, blah. I'm like, yeah, no, I was, like, gonna cry, but I was like. I felt happy that I didn't have to do it because I knew I wasn't giving them what they wanted. So it was a relief for me, ultimately. So I know what it feels like on both sides of it, you know, replacing somebody and Being replaced. It's brutal.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah. I never got a role in anything. I wouldn't know.

[Tia Carrere]

You created your own role.

[Adam Carolla]

I did create my own role because I knew. I don't think. I don't think that's. I don't think James Cameron's gonna cast me in anything.

[Tia Carrere]

I bet you could. You could have if you wanted to, but this is a smarter path. Creating your own thing. I mean, you created your own kingdom, you know, Pee Wee's Playhouse, Adam Carolla's Play Zone.

[Adam Carolla]

We got Kodiak's King.

[Tia Carrere]

Oh, My Gosh.

[Adam Carolla]

By Don Hodiak. Up in the land where the cold winds bite? Where the mountains rise?

[Tia Carrere]

It's a giant in the timber? Wild and free? A shadow on the shoreline Watching me? They say you ain't seen power? Till you've stared one down and old on hoodie? Kodiak knows it's bear on town?

[Adam Carolla]

Cause Kodiak's the king of the northern wild? Where the grizzlies roam and the rivers smile? From the salmon runs to the midnight skies?

[Tia Carrere]

That bears got fire in his ancient eyes?

[Adam Carolla]

Manta eyes. I don't know. I don't know that we could have done any better than Chatgpt, man. Wow.

[Tia Carrere]

I'm telling you, I've heard some of the stuff that comes out here. I'm like, oh, boy. I'm moving to an island. I'm growing my own food, and I'm just gonna eat papayas and mangoes and be happy because our days are numbered, folks. TikTok.

[Adam Carolla]

Can we put. Do we got a music bed we can put underneath that? I'm trying to Now. Don Ho would have done a ukulele, but we're gonna need something else.

[Tia Carrere]

Yeah.

[Adam Carolla]

All right. So you. Okay. You used to live in Malibu?

[Tia Carrere]

I used to live in Topanga on top of the mountain in Topanga. But my kid went to Malibu. You know, elementary, middle school, and summer high school. So all my friend group is Malibu.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah. Topanga burned some, but not all.

[Tia Carrere]

Yeah, but my whole. I was saying outside that my text group of friends, so many of them lost their houses because they were right there. Las Flores and the beach club. Oh, my gosh.

[Adam Carolla]

Oh, yeah. Pch right there.

[Tia Carrere]

Pch. And I was watching it on tv, and I just. Oh, my gosh. You know? And some didn't burn till the next morning.

[Adam Carolla]

And did you evacuate?

[Tia Carrere]

Yeah. Cause we're in Hollywood Hills now, and we had our own fire over here. The whole freaking world was on fire from far west to far east and then Hollywood. Like, how many of those were set by people. All of them, Right. Was it all arson? Everybody got a weird.

[Adam Carolla]

Okay. LA's got a weird relationship with danger and rules and things like that. If you and I went to the beach in Santa Monica and at night to start a small fire in the middle of the sand and do a little marshmallow roast, we would be arrested, right? We would be arrested, yeah.

[Tia Carrere]

Yeah.

[Adam Carolla]

That would not do at all. But if you'd like to be homeless and not pay any taxes and just move up into the scrub brush of the hills and sort of camp in the hills above the 405 Freeway or below the Hollywood sign or wherever you'd like. And you like to cook meth every night on an open fire that will be tolerated.

[Tia Carrere]

And then I've talked on an open.

[Adam Carolla]

Fire, fennel coursing through my veins.

[Tia Carrere]

No, they could get arrested. Of course you can arrest them. They're on.

[Adam Carolla]

Well, they could, but they don't. I'm telling you.

[Tia Carrere]

It's just the resources. You can't find them in the Bronze.

[Adam Carolla]

If you went to. If you went to the beach in Santa Monica and lit a cigarette, it would take less than five minutes for somebody with a windbreaker to walk up to you and find you. Or you could sleep in the hills.

[Tia Carrere]

They can see you.

[Adam Carolla]

They know where these guys are. They don't have an appetite for it, and I'll tell you why. Okay, let me explain something. If you're illegal and your tabs are expired on your car and your car's worth 400 bucks, they won't tow you when they pull you over because they don't want your car because you don't have any money, you don't have a checking account, and they're just going to get stuck with your car and it's not worth anything and it's going to cost them money. If you're all above the board and they tow your Mercedes, then you will cut them a check to get your car back. So they have empty bags, which is the homeless and whomever. And then there's taxpayers who they can get money from. So they get real efficient in enforcing things for taxpayers. But empty bags are empty bags. They don't generate income. You know what I mean? There's no fines, there's nothing. They need money, essentially, and that's how they roll.

[Tia Carrere]

But they couldn't find that guy that was shooting people in Malibu. They literally couldn't find him. He was in the brush, living.

[Adam Carolla]

Oh, yeah. I'm not saying they don't look, but I'M saying, I've talked to the Malibu Fire Department. They just go. 80% of these fires are homeless people. It's all homeless people. Well, how. How else could it go? You're doing drugs, you're starting a campfire, and you're in the hills, and the wind blows and the wind blows and you pass out, like, of course. And. Or just crazy people starting fires.

[Tia Carrere]

This is where I wish we could use drones with water in them that could go flying over 247 and drop some water or some of that red powder stuff and put it out immediately. That would be a good use of drones.

[Adam Carolla]

I agree. The problem with the water and the drones is water's so heavy with that dust.

[Tia Carrere]

That dust, it would just at least stop it immediately.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah, the red or the yellow or whatever it is, but are we trying to put music to that song?

[Jason Mayhem Miller]

No, it's gonna be too difficult.

[Adam Carolla]

It's too difficult.

[Tia Carrere]

We're not licensing. You have to clear it.

[Jason Mayhem Miller]

ChatGPT or whatever did suggest chords, so they apparently wrote a song. So I'll take it in the studio this weekend and put.

[Tia Carrere]

And take it under advisement.

[Jason Mayhem Miller]

We'll have it.

[Adam Carolla]

We'll have it next week.

[Tia Carrere]

Oh, yay.

[Adam Carolla]

Don Kodak. Don Hodiak, the king of Alaska. We'll see you come out with your own dip and snuff. Oh, yeah, you got your own lager, your own whiskey.

[Tia Carrere]

What about a staff? A large wooden staff?

[Jason Mayhem Miller]

A walking stick.

[Adam Carolla]

Oh, you need. That's your whole thing.

[Jason Mayhem Miller]

Yeah, but there's. There's got to be, like, a sword hidden inside of it or something.

[Adam Carolla]

Well, legend has it that you fought a Kodiak off with that stick, and now it's never out of your sight.

[Jason Mayhem Miller]

Yep.

[Adam Carolla]

You know what I mean?

[Tia Carrere]

It was given to him by his grandpappy.

[Adam Carolla]

That's right.

[Tia Carrere]

This will keep you safe.

[Adam Carolla]

He walked the same trails.

[Tia Carrere]

He walks the same trails.

[Jason Mayhem Miller]

His staff is scarred up by bear claws.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah. Yeah. We'll put a little red on the end, you know, like a coddle of blood on there. We'll work it out off the air.

[Jason Mayhem Miller]

The only bear claws you guys seen are in the diner.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah, that's right. The display case at the diner. So you knew a lot of people got cleaned out there. Yeah. What's the temperature over there? Are they gonna rebuild? Are they Frustra? Are they. They anxious to get right back to it? Have they thrown in the towel?

[Tia Carrere]

Said, we're moving over to county members. So, like, they're really on top of. We got, like, type A personalities. They made that Phone call the first day and got, you know, the. What is it? The Army Corps of Engineers to come and clear the land or not? And they're figuring out the, you know, the insurance. So these are all, you know, PTA moms and dads that are on top of stuff. And still it was very frustrating and difficult for them just. Just getting stuff cleared, making sure it wasn't toxic. And then they had homeless people living on their land and pooping on their land. And that's when they had to have, you know, the police come in and keep the place closed. That's why PCH has been closed this whole time, because they couldn't keep it, you know, safe from all these interlopers coming in and looting and pooping. Looting and pooping.

[Adam Carolla]

Looting and pooping. That could be a song for Don Hodiak. Looting and pooping. This could be the follow up single, Be Sad.

[Tia Carrere]

Yeah, it'd be funny if it wasn't so heartbreaking.

[Adam Carolla]

So something to look up. Sorry. Cause I'm reminded we got into this Pee Wee Herman thing and then we got off this Pee Wee Herman thing, which is he was gay and also he's kitschy. And then kitschy and gay is a different. It's its own kind of thing. And he collected kitschy gay erotica from the 50s and the 60s. And later on, you're gonna find out that that comes as well.

[Tia Carrere]

Well, I think it was his. He was conflicted within himself from the beginning. I'm like, he painted himself into a corner, right? He created this children's show where he. Then he couldn't come out and be who he is. And he seemed conflicted about it, you know, saying he could pass, which is, you know, you know, speak for, like, you can pass as a straight guy. And, you know, he didn't have to pass as a straight guy, but his art took him to a place where you're in a children's show and it becomes forbidden to be who you are. And so it's gonna, you know, he blew a gasket and it came out.

[Adam Carolla]

You know, but here's the question. And they never addressed it in the doc. And it's never really been addressed. And it would for me, if I'm trying to figure this case out, I would need this piece of information. And he's kind of. Pee Wee Herman is like. Like John Waters. Like, gay and kitschy.

[Tia Carrere]

Very fascinating character.

[Adam Carolla]

So he goes back to his parents place in Florida. He's like, staying with his parents, and he goes into a porn, you know, erotica film theater or something, Right? And then allegedly, he was masturbating. He was manipulating himself in this theater. I don't know who you're gonna offend in that Dade county porn theater at noon on a Wednesday, but, okay, leave the guy alone. And I don't know why we need to take resources like undercover cops and blah, blah, blah, but here's what they never address. He's gay. So is he in just a porn theater looking at male and female erotica, or is he in a gay porn theater?

[Tia Carrere]

They didn't say it in the document.

[Adam Carolla]

They never say what it is. And my.

[Tia Carrere]

He probably didn't want them to talk about it. It seemed like he was very, like, in control. Even the documentarian.

[Adam Carolla]

Well, he's in control of the documentarian, but he's not in control of the media when he gets busted. This is everywhere. All the time.

[Tia Carrere]

That they have gay porn theaters, Dade being what date is.

[Adam Carolla]

I think the media went ballistic because all they would do is show a picture of him as Pee Wee Herman and then split screen into him with his mug shot. And his mug shot, he had a goatee and hair down to his shoulders and looked like a deviant. And it was a perfect A and B for the media to dine on. They went nuts with this thing. So. So all my question is, is can we find out because what kind of theater it was? Well, here's what I'm saying if I'm Pee Wee Herman, because the whole thing. It's not illegal to go into the theater. It's illegal to expose yourself. To expose yourself. My argument is, if I'm in a theater with straight sex going on, I go, I'm gay. I was just getting in some air conditioning now. It was hot outside. I tetrinica load off. I'm gay. Well, why would I masturbate to this heterosexual couple having sex up here?

[Tia Carrere]

I think he might have been caught. Not red handed, but.

[Adam Carolla]

Well, they said it. They said. But then later on, somebody informed the LAPD that he had underage pornography at his home, and they raided his home in Hollywood.

[Tia Carrere]

Did they actually find anything?

[Adam Carolla]

No, what he had was all this old 50s kitschy erotica stuff, but sort.

[Tia Carrere]

Of like that Bettie Page, you know, topless with the haircut.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah, Barney Page, but yeah, out wasn't Betty. He wasn't interested in Betty. He wanted to be.

[Tia Carrere]

For instance. Oh, so that South Trail Cinema.

[Adam Carolla]

Oh, yeah, Sarasota. Oh, man, they got not one of the best club sandwiches out there.

[Tia Carrere]

Adult theater, catering primarily. Oh, I thought they said that they had catering caters primarily to Saratoga's. You could have a party there and cater to Sarasota's elderly audience.

[Adam Carolla]

So is it gay or is it straight or do they have a couple of sections?

[Tia Carrere]

Then we'd have to go deeper and find out what was playing on the day that he was there. I'm sure somebody's got that information somewhere.

[Adam Carolla]

Also, this was a time when people had VHS recorders. Like it seems weird to go to a theater. You know what I mean?

[Tia Carrere]

Again, the social community being with like minded people that you can share the experience with and you know, it's less lonely in the world.

[Jason Mayhem Miller]

Yeah. It takes a village to beat off.

[Adam Carolla]

It takes a village people, I guess. Yes. So I was curious and then I felt sorry for him. Later on I felt bad for him the whole time. But then when they raided his house and you know, child pornography, which is about the worst thing you can ever say about anybody, none of it was true.

[Tia Carrere]

None of it was true.

[Adam Carolla]

Right. But it doesn't, it doesn't matter. You know what I kind of realized? I don't know why I was thinking about this.

[Tia Carrere]

It's sad. It's just sad.

[Adam Carolla]

You gotta find the pictures of this. But this whole. There's this whole P. Diddy trial going on.

[Tia Carrere]

Oh, gosh. Oh gosh.

[Adam Carolla]

You've been following.

[Tia Carrere]

Yeah, that's scary. Like.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah. And let's see, 1973 was rave.

[Tia Carrere]

Brave of these girls to come out and say that because I mean, that one, the ex assistant, was terrified on the stand.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah, well, everyone's terrified. By the way, there's no such thing as an assistant. Not going on a stand and just telling horror stories. It doesn't matter who they assisted. It really doesn't. You could be David, they know her. It could be your assistant. Tia would come in, eyes bloodshot, screaming, screaming at the top of her lungs. It's like, okay, I didn't say that. I didn't do that. I know they experience that and then they accentuate that in every. Everybody, every celebrity's. If you talk to Tom Hanks's assistant.

[Tia Carrere]

Aw. The nicest man in Hollywood.

[Adam Carolla]

Henry Winkler's assistant. And she was a chick that was like 40 years old. She'd go, he came in screaming, screaming at me like she threw. Threw a bottle opener across the kitchen. Like they all have those stories now. I don't think half of it happened. They like experience. What it is, is they're your assistant. And at some point the person comes in who you work for and they go where the did you get the tickets? My flight's at noon. You know. And they go, oh, I didn't. And you go, I'm doing a thing. I'm booked at a thing. It's a seven. They already paid $50,000. You didn't get the. I forgot to take.

[Tia Carrere]

Of course you're gonna yell, go get the tickets now.

[Adam Carolla]

Go now. And then they go. Then later on, he came into the kitchen. He starts screamed at me. He threatened.

[Tia Carrere]

That's not what you think. It's happening.

[Adam Carolla]

I felt threatened. I felt threatened. No, no, that's not. He's the real deal. He's the real deal. But when I was watching. And back to Peewee in that story.

[Tia Carrere]

Why do y' all start with peas?

[Adam Carolla]

He firebombed Kid Cudi's car. Yeah, a lot of alliteration there. And the whole. I'm watching tmz, it's like, he blew up his car. He firebombed the car. The car got firebombed or he blew up the car. He was blowing up the car. Firebombed the car.

[Tia Carrere]

And he got away with it.

[Adam Carolla]

Right. But when you show pictures of it, one part of one of one seat has damage to it. The car had the driver's seat bolster on. The door side was partially burned. He didn't blow up the car. He didn't firebomb the car. I could get in that car and drive for the next five years. It was a Porsche, by the way. You give me one roll of red duct tape and some simple green and a rag, and I'm bringing that car right back, and I'm driving that shit. So.

[Tia Carrere]

But he tried to firebomb it. It didn't.

[Adam Carolla]

I get it. But here's how we work. If you talk to anybody five years from now and you go, huh, The P. Diddy thing, they'll go, he firebombed that guy's. He blew up that guy's car. He blew the car. He cut a hole in the roof, in that soft top in the convertible. He cut a hole and he threw a Molotov cocktail in there, or somebody did. And then it burnt part of the car a little bit. Part of one scene didn't really work. And then you could just get in the car and drive it home that day. But he blew up the car. And so the P. Diddy firebombed a car, and Paul Rubin had child porn in his home. And then we're done.

[Tia Carrere]

It blows.

[Adam Carolla]

Moving on. And we're done. And then you go, no, no, that neither One of those things really happened. And they go, sorry, that's the way.

[Tia Carrere]

I think it's already ended.

[Adam Carolla]

It's already here. That's how it goes. That's why you can't get it back. And then what ends up happening is the DA wants to look like he's doing something and not wasting resources. And the DA has endless resources. So what they do is they go, look, just plead guilty to this thing and we'll let you go. And you're like, no, none of it exists. Or do you want to be dragged through a child porn pedophile trial with reporters at the courthouse every day? Do you want to do that?

[Tia Carrere]

Wow.

[Adam Carolla]

Or you want to just plead guilty? They do that with everyone. They go, just say you did this, and so we don't look like assholes.

[Tia Carrere]

It looks like I'm doing something easier.

[Adam Carolla]

And it'd be a misdemeanor, and it'd be one day of headlines. And then you get 50 hours of community service and it'll go out forever.

[Tia Carrere]

Your name is child predator, child pornography. It's horrible.

[Adam Carolla]

It's horrible.

[Tia Carrere]

It's horrible.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah.

[Tia Carrere]

And he was just a sad guy that was doing his art and kind of had to be in denial of who he was for his whole life.

[Adam Carolla]

Leave the earners alone. That guy created so much work.

[Tia Carrere]

Great art, Great art.

[Adam Carolla]

But think about how many people he employed, huh? He employed so many people like he.

[Tia Carrere]

But you're not making a parallel with P. Diddy, like, he's a. Oh, no.

[Adam Carolla]

I'm talking about P. Diddy.

[Tia Carrere]

Yeah, that guy throw my coffee at you.

[Adam Carolla]

His albums were supreme.

[Tia Carrere]

I have to leave now.

[Adam Carolla]

What if P. Diddy produced Don Hodiak?

[Tia Carrere]

Oh, dear.

[Adam Carolla]

Ask Chat GP with that one. If, if, if. If PD produced Don Hodak too soon, put that Sting song, that Police song, underneath the Kodiak song. I don't know. All right, so, yeah, you gotta watch the rest of it. Cause it's interesting.

[Tia Carrere]

Yeah, yeah. I had to turn it off. Cause I was too tired. I knew I had to come here today.

[Adam Carolla]

And also every story. Or maybe it's just the ones they do that docs about. I feel like they all just have to end up sad. You know what I mean? Like, they always do that thing where.

[Tia Carrere]

It'S like, it's to make you empathize with when they say he died, like, days later. I mean, that was pretty shocking, though, that he's doing this and he's talking. He looked totally healthy. Looked like there was nothing wrong with him, but he died days later. That's trippy.

[Dawson]

Yes.

[Adam Carolla]

Yes, I know. Yeah. Look, first off, everyone always dies at the end, so maybe it is sad. And you don't die falling off a Pegasus that you're riding into the clouds. You get cancer. And then he was a shell of himself and he died. And it was sad to see that guy.

[Tia Carrere]

Antivirus.

[Adam Carolla]

That's how it goes. So that's. That's how it goes. But he had an interesting ass life.

[Tia Carrere]

Yeah. I had no idea he was such an artist. And I studied. What? That same Gary Austin at the Groundlings. I had done one of his sessions of improv, and I had no idea that was Paul Rubin's past and all these. And Phil Hartman. Phil Hartman was his partner on the show. I didn't know that.

[Adam Carolla]

I sort of knew that. And I don't know if you got to the part where they talked to Phil Hartman.

[Tia Carrere]

Oh, wait. So after he left as Captain Jack or whatever. Not Captain Jack.

[Adam Carolla]

There's a clip. You can find a clip of Phil Hartman. I think he was talking to Howard Stern. And Phil kind of brought up a decent point, which is like, I can paraphrase, but Phil went to snl, right? And Pee Wee went on to making his movies. Yeah, but we're talking about lunch pails and dolls and merchandising. I mean, we're talking about a multi billion dollar empire.

[Tia Carrere]

It rivals stitch merchandise.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah, we're talking about an empire, right? So let's just say you're the dude and you're at the Groundlings, and it's in the late 70s or early 80s or whatever, and that's just your buddy, and you're just kind of knocking around, and you're sitting there smoking pot, drinking coffee after taking Cynthia Sagetti's improv class, and you're just knocking it around, you know, like, we should do a live Pee Wee show. And you go, all right, I'll do Captain whoever. And then we should have a genie or something like that. And he's like going, okay, that's good.

[Tia Carrere]

Yeah. You think it would be partnership.

[Adam Carolla]

You develop this whole thing, but nobody, you know, everyone kind of goes, well, why don't you get a lawyer to buy? And it's like, they're artists, they're high on pot. Everyone's poor. No one's even thinking about it.

[Tia Carrere]

They did a lot of drugs, apparently.

[Adam Carolla]

What this could turn into, but at some point, it turns into something. And the person that's hammering all the checks never says to the person that co created, essentially, the show, like, I'm gonna break you off 10% for.

[Tia Carrere]

So he never gave Phil Hartman, or. Who's the other guy? The third guy, the genie guy. He never gave them a part.

[Adam Carolla]

I. According to Phil Hartman, no. Wow. No reaching out. Now I get it. It's murky a little bit. Sometimes a little gray area. Pee Wee Herman created the character. Paul Rubens created the character. It was his idea. It was blah, blah, blah. So I would say to Paul, I would go, well, I don't say a 50, 50 split, but. But for those who are there who are helping to bang some of the stuff out and develop the stuff with you, maybe a 5% or 10% or maybe not even in perpetuity, maybe for the next 10 years or whatever. Check. Yeah, just.

[Tia Carrere]

Yeah, that would have been something symbolic, you know? So that's why they didn't talk. I thought. Yeah. That's interesting the way he said it. I thought he was saying that Phil Hartman went to snl, became a big star, and that's why he didn't talk to me anymore. Our relationship was over. I didn't know it was because of that financial piece.

[Adam Carolla]

I found that everyone gives you their version of the story. They never really give you the. No one ever goes. Phil worked really hard on this show with me, and now he's pissed because I didn't give him anything. That's not the way anyone says anything. We have him. We have the audio. Okay, we have the audio.

[Tia Carrere]

I did a cartoon. Not a cartoon, a commercial with Phil Hartman's voice.

[Adam Carolla]

Oh, really?

[Tia Carrere]

One of those Eminem commercials.

[Adam Carolla]

Oh, he did an M and M. Mamma mia. He was the chocolati. He was the voice of the. Mm.

[Tia Carrere]

He was the voice of the Hershey's bar that melts. And then I don't know if it was Lovett's. Was the Eminem peanut M and M. Something like that.

[Adam Carolla]

Makes sense.

[Tia Carrere]

Yeah. So I did one of those Eminem commercials back in the day, and Phil Hartman was the chocolate bar.

[Adam Carolla]

And you were live action you.

[Tia Carrere]

I was live action me.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah. We don't waste you on an M and M. Let's play the clip, see if it says it.

[G]

Now, were you shocked when you saw that Pee Wee Herman had been arrested in a Sarasota movie theater masturbating behind. I guess he was sitting behind some people or something.

[Dawson]

Yeah, I mean, I was.

[G]

Were you shocked?

[H]

Well, I was shocked it didn't happen in a McDonald's or something like that.

[G]

But you're a good friend of Pee Wee's, right?

[H]

Yes.

[G]

So how did you what do you make of this? I mean, to me, this is unusual behavior. I know a lot of people have excused it, but I still have not excused this behavior. You know me, I thought Pee Wee deserved a prison sentence over this. I really did. I wasn't kidding.

[H]

Yes, it's deviant behavior.

[G]

I have gone to porn over theaters and quite frankly, I would not want someone behind me making love like that. And perhaps God knows what would happen to me to the back of my head.

[Adam Carolla]

I don't know.

[G]

I was not interested in that. So I think that really it's unusual for a big celebrity like that to do something like this. And you can called him afterwards?

[H]

No, I've never discussed it with him.

[Dawson]

Never?

[H]

No.

[G]

But you've spoken to him since the incident.

[H]

Yes.

[G]

And casually. You never say GP it's very unusual that something like this would happen.

[H]

I've spoken with him a few times since the incident. And what happened was I did the Costas show and Costas asked me about Paul Reubens and it wasn't in our pre interview. And I spoke about him and Paul called me and we had been estranged for really since I started Saturday Night Live.

[G]

Estranged?

[H]

Yeah. Just not talking.

[G]

For any particular reason. You're at odds with him, aren't you?

[Dawson]

Yeah.

[Adam Carolla]

Why?

[G]

Because you felt you helped develop the Pee Wee Playhouse and you never received credit or money for it, Is that correct?

[H]

Well, that's part of it.

[Adam Carolla]

It is.

[G]

You were one of the creators of that.

[H]

Yes.

[G]

And Pee Wee took that show, took it to cbs, made a lot of money off it. And you felt that. Hey, wait a second. Where am I in this?

[H]

Well, all of us who created the original stage show, that. That was an HBO special that played at the Roxy Theatre in the summer of 81, we had a contract that said that we get 3% of whatever happens with this show. And then I went on and I co wrote Pee Wee's Big Adventure with Paul and I worked with him on that and a huge movie. Yeah. And. And. And then he decided to do the TV show and all of us were out.

[Adam Carolla]

Out.

[Tia Carrere]

Okay, that's crazy. So they had a contract. They should have enforced it. Yeah, it's the ip. It started with this. And then if it branches out, becomes a TV show, a movie, a DVD or whatever, they should get a piece of it.

[Adam Carolla]

Wow. Oh my God. I just had a horrible thought.

[Tia Carrere]

What?

[Adam Carolla]

What if this whole Don Hodie acting blows up and Dawson's in there living in Anchorage, just hammering checks. He's got his whiskey line.

[Tia Carrere]

You get 3%.

[Jason Mayhem Miller]

It's Dawson territory up there.

[Adam Carolla]

It's.

[Jason Mayhem Miller]

It's in the name.

[Tia Carrere]

Well, you came up with the idea.

[Adam Carolla]

And I come sniffing around because things have slowed down for me financially, and Dawson's like, go pound sand.

[Tia Carrere]

I think you'll be fine.

[Adam Carolla]

Mike's lawyered up, bro. And you're like, you can. You couldn't. I got 7,000 acres here. No one's getting near this place. You think you can drop a subpoena off over here? You can't even come close. I got my own helicopter. You won't get near me.

[Jason Mayhem Miller]

I got my own militia guarded by bears, man.

[Adam Carolla]

And then I'll be like, oh, we got that whole recording of my podcast with Tia Carrer.

[Tia Carrere]

We came up with the idea.

[Adam Carolla]

And they're like, dawson destroyed that that afternoon before he went home.

[Tia Carrere]

Don't give me a podcast. This podcast will self destruct in three seconds.

[Adam Carolla]

Don Hodiak, did Mike get back to you yet?

[Jason Mayhem Miller]

No.

[Adam Carolla]

No. Yeah, he doesn't text. Well, I think that's it. It doesn't matter. I did the Don Hodiak. I remember it was.

[Tia Carrere]

Draw up some paperwork right now. Not that it helped in this story. I can't believe they had a contract for 3% and he never.

[Adam Carolla]

It's funny. I said 5%. Yeah. 3% of whatever comes out of this. Whatever's coming in on Pee Wee, it makes you a multimillionaire, no problem.

[Tia Carrere]

Wow.

[Adam Carolla]

How do you. Okay. What?

[Tia Carrere]

And those are his friends.

[Adam Carolla]

What goes through Pee Wee Paul's head when he wakes up and hears the news that Phil Hartman was executed by his wife?

[Tia Carrere]

Oh, that's right. Because that was before he passed away by many years.

[Adam Carolla]

Does he, like. Let's just say there's a person you have acrimony with, but also, that person can potentially lawyer up at any time and come. Come after you with this contract. And then you find out, oh, him and his wife just killed him, you.

[Tia Carrere]

Know, but they were still friends. And, you know, he knows in his heart of hearts that he was his friend. They came up, like, I know the. I still have friends from my acting class.

[Adam Carolla]

He's sad, I'm sure, but is there any relief in it, you know?

[Tia Carrere]

Oh, my gosh, that's dark.

[Adam Carolla]

It's dark.

[Tia Carrere]

We're talking about.

[Adam Carolla]

We gotta go dark.

[Tia Carrere]

Dead people at this point. It's like, it's too harsh. It's too harsh.

[Adam Carolla]

We're talking about a lot of dead people.

[Tia Carrere]

You're harsh. And I'm like, chill. Look, I'm on the high of the highest weekend of my life.

[Adam Carolla]

I brought you down.

[Tia Carrere]

I'm in my sparkly gown and I'm all sad.

[Adam Carolla]

You know what?

[Tia Carrere]

Where's the Baileys for my coffee?

[Adam Carolla]

Let's talk about.

[Tia Carrere]

Well, somewhat.

[Adam Carolla]

Let's talk about something happy. All right, this is good. I'm switching to happy mode because.

[Tia Carrere]

That's okay. I'm here for you. Whatever you want to do.

[Adam Carolla]

Well, you. Well, first off, they have to have started working on Lilo and Stitches. Live action two, like, three. Whatever they're talking about, they had to go immediately into it. Like, you cannot have this kind of insane success. And not literally Monday morning after that weekend being started on an outline for the next one.

[Tia Carrere]

I'm sure somebody is somewhere. But we're still promoting the first one. This is coming up on the second weekend. So, you know, I'm just telling everybody, go see it on Aloha Friday.

[Adam Carolla]

That's good for you. That's good. More work. And then also for you, for touring, for playing for other roles, for everything.

[Tia Carrere]

Singing with Daniel Ho and Uncle George Kahamoku Jr. Like in the song.

[Adam Carolla]

Daniel Ho.

[Tia Carrere]

Daniel Ho. That's another.

[Adam Carolla]

Don Hodiak's distant cousin. Is Daniel Ho related to Don Ho?

[Tia Carrere]

No relation.

[Adam Carolla]

No relation.

[Tia Carrere]

And his joke is, too many hoes in Hawaii. Yeah, but I'm. I'm not even gonna try to be funny in this room.

[Adam Carolla]

Make me happy.

[Tia Carrere]

Sort of sounds like him.

[Adam Carolla]

That's all he had to do, Dawson. Right? I could do what Don Ho does.

[Tia Carrere]

The tones of Don Ho.

[Adam Carolla]

So Daniel. And he doesn't dare go by Dan Ho.

[Tia Carrere]

No. There we are. Yeah, we've been friends since we were 14. He went to the all boys Catholic school down the street. I went to the all girls Catholic school up the street. And really, we met in the middle at jazz orchestra.

[Adam Carolla]

Any love found between us?

[Tia Carrere]

No, we've always been friends. He's just like the genius musician guy that did all the charts for the whole orchestra. And I was a chick singer. I auditioned for the role and really started singing at, like, the military clubs and the malls and the. Wherever else. They took that little orchestra.

[Adam Carolla]

And he's playing, he's conducting, he's arranging. And you're singing.

[Tia Carrere]

Yeah, yeah.

[Adam Carolla]

And gigs coming up. Where should we send people if they want to find out?

[Tia Carrere]

You know, I really gotta keep up with my website. I'm so bad. I put stuff fast. Breaking news on my Instagram tiacarer, and then tiacarerere with a check mark on the Facebook, and I have my Tiacarer.com, but I promise I will get on that and update that because we have all these dates coming up in like Salem, Oregon, and I'm going to Australia, Melbourne and Sydney coming up in June. And I have not posted any of that.

[Adam Carolla]

Wow. Exciting.

[Tia Carrere]

Don't go on there. There's nothing on there. There's something on there from like I don't know, five years ago because they never.

[Adam Carolla]

All right, Tia, great to see you, my friend. Mazel tov.

[Tia Carrere]

Thank you. Thank you.

[Adam Carolla]

Mahalo and mahalo. All right. We'll take a quick break, come back, do the news right after this. Homes.com Some might say homes.com is the best home shopping site. Maybe it's homes.com's super comprehensive and transparent agent directory. Or Maybe it's that Holmes.com is the only site that always directly connects you with the listing agent who knows the home the best. Perhaps it's because homes.com has the most in depth neighborhood content of any home shopping site that's extensively researched. To highlight the personality of each neighborhood, homes.com goes above and beyond to bring home shoppers the in depth info they need to find the right home. Homes.com we've done your homework.

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[Dawson]

Showtime.

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[Dawson]

Oh my God, I love it.

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[Jason Mayhem Miller]

Here's a memorable moment from the Adam Carolla Show's ACE Awards archives.

[Tia Carrere]

You wonder if I break how much more I of this I can take. But the proof is in my touch and the strength in both of us. I will never lose my faith. No matter where that road may take us. Always know that you safe with me. I'm still here. I'll Never go.

[Jason Mayhem Miller]

The 2025 ACE Awards coming this December. Now back to the Adam Carolla Show.

[Adam Carolla]

That was Tia Carrera, by the way. So you know when she was in studio. All right, you got some news?

[Mark Kriegel]

I do. I do. First up, CNN anchor Jake Tapper recalled out left wing podcaster took a patronizing tone when he shared that his 15 year old son wants to be a cop. Here he explains.

[Adam Carolla]

And on a left leaning podcast that shall remain nameless. And we were talking about my kids because I think they were both people without kids. And they asked me about my son and I said he was, you know, he's, he's a football player and he wants to be a policeman. And their joke was about my 15 year old son. Oh, how does he feel about minorities? Like the idea that he wants to be a policeman therefore he's racist my son. And like, you know, that was the big laugh. And then I got dragged in the comments and all that stuff and I thought to myself, this is why you fuckers are losing elections 100%. Yeah, well also, you know when you're just your average white band young man and you don't care, you don't care, but then at some point you have kids and you start paying taxes and mortgages and fees and dealing with the city and stuff like that and you start changing the way you look at politics, you know, I mean you have a kid and you find out your kid didn't get accepted into UCLA because he's white, you know, and then all of a sudden you go well whose idea was that? And it's like well that's your side's idea. Or your 15 year old's getting called a racist because he wants to be a cop. Whose idea is that? Well that's your side's idea. And you go, or you got some young girl and she's using the bathroom in her high school and the dude comes walking in. Whose idea was that? That was your side's idea. Then at a certain point you go huh, maybe my side has horrible ideas. Now when you're gay and you're single and you're 25 and you live in a rent controlled apartment in Santa Monica, you don't have any of these thoughts based.

[Mark Kriegel]

Tapper red pilled.

[Adam Carolla]

Tapper red pilled side. Yes. Yeah, he's also, I mean listen, his basically his plea to America is either I'm the shittiest journalist in the world or I was lying on behalf of President Biden. Those are the only two we can accept this notion. I was looking back at it when I went on Bill Maher's show with now been over three years and I said famously not cuz it's famous just because I've said it a few times. They were going is Biden going to run for a second term? And I said run? He can't walk, he's not running. And people thought it was a joke. Now that was three years ago. I didn't come up with that thought on the way to Bill Maher studio. I'd been talking about a year before that so if folks can just sit around and stare at their phone and come to the conclusion that this guy is having difficulties in the faculty's department, then why can't journalists come up with this notion? Why did everyone know? It's the same Covid argument. We didn't know. We didn't know. How come all the other doctors that you blackballed knew? How did they know? We didn't know if you could walk on the basement. You didn't. I did. Dr. Drew did. Jay Bhattacharya did. All the guys you blacklisted did. The Great Barrington Declaration doctors did. Why do they know? So don't give me the we didn't know. It's stupid or liar. It's textbook stupid or liar. Jake Tapper is either lying or he's insanely stupid. And I don't think he's stupid. He's lying on behalf of his team. Oh, Jesus Christ. Idea that he tried to pedal this shit is insane. And also, we don't need to listen to him anymore because we already know he's corrupted. There you go. Sorry, ma' am.

[Mark Kriegel]

No, it's fine. I appreciate that, Ace. Next up, Barry Diller. The former CEO of Paramount Pictures says Popeye with Robin Williams was the most coked up film set ever. Apparently, they never went to the set of the Hammer.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah, Booger Sugar. Oh, man, that Bolivian shale, We wouldn't even hit Crafty until we had a few rails of Bolivian shale doing rails up. I would argue maybe, but could it be more coked up than Showgirl?

[Mark Kriegel]

Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

[Adam Carolla]

Cause everything in Showgirls, I was like, everyone's gotta be high on coke. You would never do this scene unless you're beaked out of your fucking brain.

[Mark Kriegel]

It was the 90th thing. Crack had taken over by that time.

[Adam Carolla]

Mm. Maybe the Al Pacino. Great cruising hips or lips.

[Mark Kriegel]

Yeah, that certainly seems like a cocaine crazy set.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah. So Robin was doing a lot of coke. Yeah.

[Mark Kriegel]

I think that we got kind of a display for the audience here.

[Adam Carolla]

Shelly Duvall does not look like a typical coke addict. But she weighs as much as a typical coke addict, right?

[Mark Kriegel]

She's way thin.

[Adam Carolla]

Yes. Here we go. What am I? I'm Papa the Sailor.

[Tia Carrere]

And I am what I am what I am. And I am what I am. And that's all that I am, because.

[Adam Carolla]

I am what I am. You got it? I think so, yeah.

[Dawson]

And I've got a lot of muscle.

[Adam Carolla]

And I only got one eye, and I never hurt nobodies, and I'll never.

[Dawson]

Tell a lie Top to my bottom.

[Adam Carolla]

From the bottoms to my top That's. Was this a musical? I guess it was.

[Mark Kriegel]

Yeah, it was a musical. It famously kind of flopped at the box office and became a cult classic sort of thing. It's definitely has a cocaine influence. If you look right here.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah.

[Mark Kriegel]

The clenched teeth give it away. Really?

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah. This punch. A guy looks like a. You all right? This is weird. I'd be. See, I would have gone, do we need a. It's like when they did. I wish I was in the room when somebody said, we need to do Land of the Lost, the feature. I would have went, you want to take the shittiest part of my childhood, the worst piece of art that's ever been created, and just make it into $100 million full length feature? Yeah. Okay. Why don't we make AIDS the musical? Like, what are we doing here?

[Mark Kriegel]

It's a strong ip. It's a lot of fans.

[Adam Carolla]

I know people have heard. Let me explain. Here's how it would work. Land and Lost. There's two groups of. I won't even say Americans. I'll say, you can take the entire globe and you can break it off into two groups. Groups and only two. There are the people who never heard of Land of the Lost and then the people who've heard of Land of the Lost and hated it. So if those are the only two groups, people, then maybe the IP doesn't mean as much. Do you know what I'm saying? Popeye sucked.

[Mark Kriegel]

Yeah, it did. Yeah.

[Adam Carolla]

Harry Nilsson did the music for Popeye. Harry Nilsson did Cats in the Cradle or that's Harry Potter.

[Jason Mayhem Miller]

Chapin.

[Adam Carolla]

Chapin. Harry Nielsen. But did. Harry Nielsen did the. We got in the car, drove the taxi and getting stoned.

[Mark Kriegel]

I thought he just did TV ratings.

[Adam Carolla]

Nielsen. Nielsen.

[Jason Mayhem Miller]

Nielsen did everybody. Everybody's talking.

[Adam Carolla]

Oh, he wrote that song for Midnight.

[Jason Mayhem Miller]

Urban Cowboy.

[Adam Carolla]

Midnight Cowboy. But that was Glenn Miller. No. Jesus. Getting old.

[Mark Kriegel]

Glenn. Gary Gilgarh.

[Adam Carolla]

No. Glen Campbell. Yes, that was a Glenn Campbell song. Who did the Taxi? Stoner song. Because that's. You guys don't know, but you'll know it. Dawson. That's the greatest song of all time.

[Jason Mayhem Miller]

Anyway, anyway, I'm moving to Alaska to write AIDS the musical.

[Adam Carolla]

Oh, man. You better destroy this tape because these are all my ideas. All right, what else you got?

[Mark Kriegel]

Yeah, what else we got? Brazilian nun goes viral for beatboxing on tv and everyone's comparing it to Sister Act. Check it out.

[Adam Carolla]

All right. You know, I don't. I don't like folks identifying with other folks or like reaching out, like every once in a while. I didn't even, like, remember in high school, once in a while there'd be the cool counselor and the cool counselor. You could tell he's a cool guy because before he sat down, he'd whip the chair around backwards, the folding chair, and sit on it backwards. That meant he was the cool counselor because he doesn't sit on a chair relatable facing the right direction. I don't know what happened to sitting on folding chairs backwards. I don't know why that was more comfortable. It was you going, I'm cool. Like, I'm the cool. I'm not the uptight three piece suit with the pomade and the hair counselor. I'm the cool counselor.

[Mark Kriegel]

Yeah.

[Adam Carolla]

You know what I mean?

[Mark Kriegel]

Yeah.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah. And then there's like, there's the cool cop, there's the cool mayor. It's even clergy. I don't like it. I want the pope to be the pope. I don't want him to be the cool pope. I don't want cool Santa Claus. I don't want cool clergy. I don't want anything. I just want that dude authority figure. Just wear the uniform. That's who you are. That's the job. Same as it was in the 50s. I don't want you relating or identifying with. I don't want you coming down and meeting them on their level. I don't like when you use the language. Oh, oh, oh. O'Reilly Auto Parts.

[Mark Kriegel]

Wow.

[Adam Carolla]

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[Jason Mayhem Miller]

That beat was an earworm. I think I've recognized it. I believe it's Millie Vanilli. Girl, you know, it's true.

[Adam Carolla]

I, I heard that song. That song came on the other day on, like the 80s channel. And it was so bad.

[Jason Mayhem Miller]

Because I'm in love with you, girl.

[Adam Carolla]

Cause I'm in love with you. It's you. It's not you. I'm in love with you, girl. It's like, it's so. It was so. It was so bad. And it also was like, like, did you need somebody to do that song for you? Because I. I feel like any 14 year old who was in music class at any junior high could do I'm in love with you, girl. It's so synthesized and electrocized and filtered through. It's like, why do even. Why couldn't Millie Vanilli sing that? I mean, singing.

[Jason Mayhem Miller]

Yeah, but the, the guys who really did it must have been super ugly, right? Cause it was a pop hit. Why couldn't the guys who wrote the song just released it?

[Mark Kriegel]

Yeah, I mean, I don't know why you guys didn't get caught up in Nilly Vanilli fever, though.

[Adam Carolla]

Well, listen, you're too young, but like CNC Music Factory. Now that was a hottie. I get it. She was a model and she looked hot. And then they had some big tons of fun behind her singing huge. Whoever sung it was a big gal. But the chick on camera was hot.

[Mark Kriegel]

I get it.

[Adam Carolla]

What they're doing there. Millie Vanilla. I don't know why they needed to do that.

[Mark Kriegel]

Later on, they acquiesced to the woke mob and had her out there on tour. Oh, they did Big Lady.

[Adam Carolla]

Oh, yeah.

[Mark Kriegel]

I remember.

[Adam Carolla]

All right. I'm in love with you, girl. I'm in love with you, girl. You know it's true. I love you. It's so. It's just. God, I, I, I, I. The idea that my mind has been corrupted with so much fucking horrible art.

[Mark Kriegel]

But in the 80s, you didn't like say, oh, this is a nice all right song, and leave it on.

[Adam Carolla]

I was living. You got to find out what year that must have been.

[Mark Kriegel]

84.

[Adam Carolla]

No, six or eight. All right. It was later. It was like 88. Even early nights. 88? Yeah. I was living in North Hollywood with my girlfriend. One bedroom apartment. Crazy place. Was a crazy. That was the place where I had my crazy fight story in that apartment. And my girlfriend brought home the Milli Vanilli album and made me listen to it over. It was a cd and we had to listen to it over and over again. It must have been 88 going into 89 or 88.

[Jason Mayhem Miller]

Yeah, we were active 88 to 90.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah. I wouldn't have known. I just knew where I was living at the Time. And then that was the.

[Mark Kriegel]

I was young. I thought it was, like, cool pop dance music. And it was a big scandal when they started bulldozing over their CDs.

[Adam Carolla]

Well, I guess my girlfriend was from England, so I don't know. Maybe she didn't know about music. I don't know. But she brought home Milli Vanilla. And I had to listen to the crap because when you're poor and somebody spends $13 for a CD, big investment. You're listening. Believe you me. You're listening. We didn't have anything else.

[Mark Kriegel]

Being younger, it was like. It was all around me. Like it was on the radio and was like a thing. You have no say in what you take into your head. So Milli Vanilli was a mainstay on the radio, riding around my mom.

[Adam Carolla]

That was the apartment. You're gonna love this story. Mayhem. Yeah. I got in this huge battle in front of somebody's house.

[Mark Kriegel]

We talk a fistfight.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah. Like some years earlier. I'm trying to think. I was in that other apartment. 88, 85. Had to be at least three years earlier.

[Mark Kriegel]

All right?

[Adam Carolla]

And I got into this big, epic battle with all these dudes in the street in front of some woman's house who accused me of hitting her. It was a long story. But the one guy, the dad, they were like. There was the tough Mexican guy, sort of stocky Mexican guy. Then there was the black kung fu guy. And then there was, like, the white guy with the baseball bat that I didn't know about at the time. And then even a fourth guy. I don't remember what the fourth guy was doing. But the Mexican guy, he was hell bent on fighting with me. I was alone. So then I told him I had stitches in my knee from getting arthroscopic surgery. And then he just goes, I'm gonna break your other knee, bro. I remember that. That's pretty good. I said, well, that's good. So then I said, all right. Okay. But it's just me and you. Like, your buddies, they gotta stay out of this.

[Mark Kriegel]

Yeah.

[Adam Carolla]

And, you know, he was like, yeah, just me and you. I said, all right. And we went down and stood in the middle of the street, and. And I just kicked the shit out of this guy. And then his friend hit me with a baseball bat. And then this other friend broke a bottle over me, and it turned to a whole shit show. And then I ended up fighting the black kung fu guy. Later on Final Boss, we had a full karate match in the middle of the fucking street. That went onto People's lawns and shit. And that guy was skilled. And the Mexican guy wasn't skilled. But the black karate guys kind of had hands, you know, And Lake and that thing broke out. But then, anyway, the cop showed up and it all broke up. And then three, must have been three or four years later. I was standing in front of that Milli Vanilli apartment building. Trying to sell my pickup truck to some dude in the recycler newspaper. I was just sitting out front like, I'll meet you out front of the building. Show up at noon. And a moving van pulled up. And it was a moving van. Because a new family was moving into the apartment building. And out from the moving van comes a big stocky Mexican dude. And I look at him, they're like unloading. And I'm waiting for the dude to pick my truck up. So I go, oh, hey, welcome to the building. Neighbors. New neighbors. And the guy's like, okay. Then at some point he goes. He walked by in his real Mexican way. He goes, I know you. And I go, oh, what'd you do? Play some Pop Warner football or something like that? He goes, oh, no, I know you. And I was like, where do you know me from? Did you grow up out here in the Valley? Did you play sports? You go to North Highway High? And he's like, no, we fought. And I was like, oh, oh, you're that guy that.

[Mark Kriegel]

Welcome to the neighborhood.

[Adam Carolla]

Here's a cake. Now I'm standing out there wearing flowered shorts, relaxing and a tank top with my skinny arms hanging down. But I'm like, this dude ain't never fucking with me. Cause I beat his ass already. And I beat his friend's ass. And then he broke a bottle over me and hit me with a bat. And all it did was piss me off. So I go, that dude's never gonna fuck with me. Cause he thinks I'm a fucking maniac. And he never said a word.

[Mark Kriegel]

He just went right till he talks to the hoa.

[Adam Carolla]

You're outta here. What hoa? Turn that Milli Vanilli down, bro. I got Jose Feliciano up here. Yeah, then it's Stan. That's what I should do with my spare time. Stan in a driveway and wait for fucking people to pay me 1200 bucks for a Nissan pickup truck.

[Mark Kriegel]

That you're gonna tell me that Kung Fu man picked up that truck.

[Adam Carolla]

Kung Fu Man? Never got the truck. Never found out with Kung Fu Man. Terry. The guy hit me at the bat. Oh, he was fat. He was found by my Friend Ray, he had a bounty and he was found. So that guy got found. And then that guy turned out to be a commercial, a private pilot. And we tracked him down. He called my radio show. Wow. He didn't want to relive the part where he came up behind me with a baseball bat and went at my knee.

[Dawson]

Ooh.

[Adam Carolla]

The one. Remember I said I. Oh, yeah. On the knee with the back, full swing.

[Mark Kriegel]

Oh, my goodness.

[Adam Carolla]

But he got my good knee. And he got behind the knee. Yeah, and he got above the knee about 8 inches. So it was really just the meaty part of the thigh. From behind. He had to come up from behind because he came up from behind.

[Mark Kriegel]

Damages are minor.

[Adam Carolla]

Nope. Zero. I mean, like a red bat bruise. Red bat mark. That was all bottle busted on shoulder, no mark. Yeah, that makes sense. Shatter, thrown, shattered, Nothing. No glass in the eye, no cut on the face.

[Mark Kriegel]

Human body's amazing.

[Adam Carolla]

No, it's nuts. Yeah, or it can go south, you.

[Mark Kriegel]

Know, But I mean, look, no stitches. Really? You got out of that scot free. I mean, jumping like that. I mean, it sounds like it took some damage.

[Adam Carolla]

I got a busted up lip, and that's all I got out of this.

[Mark Kriegel]

I've been in many fisticuffs and sort of jumping situations. Came out unscathed. You gotta bless your lucky stars for that.

[Adam Carolla]

I learned a valuable lesson, which is telling your group of thugs with bottles and bats to stay out of. It only works if that guy wins.

[Mark Kriegel]

Exactly. Right?

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah.

[Mark Kriegel]

I was gonna tell you, it never ends like this. Gentleman's agreement to fight mano a man o right in the street. Only works out if you lose.

[Adam Carolla]

I thought we had an agreement, but the problem was, is I was beating this guy so bad that his friends.

[Mark Kriegel]

Listen, I've been in that situation multiple times. Yeah, yeah.

[Adam Carolla]

But I ended up being fine, and he ended up moving in, and the other guy ended up being a pilot. And I don't know what happened to the brother. I think the pilot guy said he probably went to jail or something like that. Oh, damn. It was crazy. But, you know, look, we didn't have video games. We didn't have whatever fun you guys have. We had to kind of get out and rustle up fun, you know, we had to find fun or at least activities or challenges or something like that. But yes, 1988, my girlfriend Lindsey came back with Milli Vanilli.

[Mark Kriegel]

You're a carpenter still and you were attempting to break into comedy.

[Adam Carolla]

I wasn't even near comedy. I mean, no, I was. I was a carpenter. And I was probably just not yet Groundlings.

[Mark Kriegel]

Cause I was watching Pee Wee Documentary, and the guy went to Groundlings so much. I didn't realize that was such a huge part of his story.

[Adam Carolla]

I was at the groundlings in 88. I was probably about to be asked to leave the Groundlings. And it was right, probably a few months later, where the Groundlings went. You've come to the end of the line with us.

[Mark Kriegel]

Really?

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah. Well, they didn't say that. They said, you're not going from Advanced into the Sunday Company. You may come back in a year or a year and a half or something and take Advanced again and then maybe make it into the Sunday Company. Or maybe not. And then I was like, first off, when you're 27, 24. 24. When you're young and someone goes, come back in a year and a half, you're like, what?

[Mark Kriegel]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Adam Carolla]

I mean, so long. That's so long. So I knew there was. They didn't say, come back in a year and a half. They just go, take Advanced again and then try to do this again. And then we'll vote again. And then maybe you will or maybe you won't get into the Sunday Company. But for me, I knew that meant it was gonna have to wait a long time before the next class. And then they'd vote again. And who's to say I'd make it after they voted again? And I just went, I'm moving on. And I went to the Acme Theater, which had just formed. And the Acme Theater didn't exist. It was like, they put an ad out my girlfriend.

[Mark Kriegel]

So you're at the genesis of this company. And then you guys began to make shows.

[Adam Carolla]

My girlfriend, the same girlfriend, the Milli Vanilli girlfriend, found an ad in the back of the Drama Log just going like, hey, starting a troupe. You a Groundling reject. Come join us. So I just showed up there, like.

[Mark Kriegel]

Make your own opportunities all the time. That's very inspiring, Ace.

[Adam Carolla]

I gotta tell you, I built the first. Then I built us a theater at some point. And, yeah, then I had a place to go and it concluded.

[Mark Kriegel]

I didn't understand that story. I'm glad that I finally heard it, like, firsthand. Cause I heard this, but I didn't realize that, okay, there was just an ad. And so you were part of this beginning of something.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah, I didn't even. Like I said, my girlfriend found the ad, then just put it in the back of the Drama Log or the Hollywood Reporter or whatever, like, forming group call this, you know, the guy's home number called Mark Sweeney up, said, you know, we're meeting out on Thursday night or whatever. Huh? Yeah. So, yeah, I was rejected by the groundling. I went all the way through the program.

[Mark Kriegel]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Adam Carolla]

I just never became a groundling.

[Mark Kriegel]

Yeah, that seems like a political issue. Like, from what I've heard, you know, grumblings around that point Place is like a strange political decision that gets made amongst the top of the fairies.

[Adam Carolla]

I probably had 15, 16 people in my advanced class and maybe five of them made the Sunday Company or something. And when you didn't make it, it was pretty devastating because it was like five years of work and then. And it's all gone.

[Mark Kriegel]

Wow.

[Adam Carolla]

You know, it would be like you going all the way through the, whatever Naval Academy or something in your fifth year. Just, they go, you're not getting on a boat. You go back to Indiana. So I was pretty low at that point and pretty dejected. And also I didn't have any illusions. Like I wasn't like, I'm the best. They know it. I'm like, well, I guess you ain't the best. You are not the best.

[Mark Kriegel]

But you kind of bootstrapped yourself right there and kept in the game until a Hollywood career worked out for you.

[Adam Carolla]

Well, evidently I did. Cause we're sitting in my building talking to my microphones. All right, hang out there, Mayhem, because Mark Kriegel is going to join us. He's wrote the definitive book on Mike Tyson, but done a lot of boxing, combat sports stuff. So good guy for us to talk to. And we'll do that right after this. Homes.com. some might say homes.com is the best home shopping site. Maybe it's homes.com's super comprehensive and transparent agent directory. Or Maybe it's that homes.com is the only site that always directly connects you with the listing agent who knows the home the best. Perhaps it's because homes.com has the most in depth neighborhood content of any home shopping site that's extensively researched. To highlight the personality of each neighborhood, homes.com goes above and beyond to bring home shoppers the in depth info they need to find the right home. Homes.com we've done your homework.

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[Adam Carolla]

Say Wetna Showtime.

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[Dawson]

In this family we live by the.

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[Dawson]

Oh my God, I love it.

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[Jason Mayhem Miller]

And now Alcoa presents Definitely not a Jew on the Adam Corolla Show, Dateline, Slidell, Louisiana. A 66 year old man, man was arrested for obscenity after police discovered him pleasuring himself at a Lowe's home improvement. The man was caught with a phone showing pornography and a jar of Vaseline inside a display bottle storage shed. Definitely not a Jew.

[Adam Carolla]

Mark Kriegel's in studio's got a book out. It's called the Making of Mike Tyson. It's substantial, man. It's 400 plus pages. This ain't a pain.

[Dawson]

And it ends in 88.

[Adam Carolla]

Really?

[Dawson]

Yeah.

[Adam Carolla]

So it just went up till he was incarcerated?

[Dawson]

No, no, the Spinks fight.

[Adam Carolla]

Oh, the Spinks fight. When did he get incarcerated?

[Dawson]

Now, 92.

[Adam Carolla]

Oh, it was that much later.

[Dawson]

Okay, 92.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah.

[Dawson]

I mean the, you know, Spinks is June of 88.

[Adam Carolla]

Spinks. I mean you haven't seen this in a while. But like, like Spinks in there with Tyson looked like a kitten in with a Bengal tiger. Like he had his knee brace on. He looked timid, like you, you couldn't believe. They're both heavyweight fighters. And Spinks was unbeaten, wasn't he?

[Dawson]

He was unbeaten. He was a hell of a fighter. Do you know what his super menacing ring walk song was?

[Adam Carolla]

Girl, you know it's you by Milli Vanilli.

[Dawson]

No, no. Worse. Worse.

[Adam Carolla]

Only women. This is it.

[Dawson]

This is it. The corniest.

[Adam Carolla]

Oh, a yacht rock. He's entering to yacht rock.

[Dawson]

We wonder why Tyson, Tyson wasn't petrified. Yeah, he's got his like tube socks, which I thought were really cool.

[Adam Carolla]

He's Leon Spinks's brother. He was unbeaten and he was a great fighter. He was. But I don't know if he was like a legitimate heavyweight. He wasn't a big heavyweight.

[Dawson]

No. He was the first light heavyweight to win the heavyweight title. And he did it legit against Holmes, who might be one of the two most underrated or under talked about heavyweight champions.

[Adam Carolla]

Holmes is wildly underrated because he had that great jab. He dominated the heavyweight division for so many years. And later on when he got in a fight, he ran over the top of a limousine in dress shoes and tried to beat a guy, Trevor Berbicker. Trevor Berbica.

[Dawson]

And he jumped on top of a car.

[Adam Carolla]

You don't see guys run across the top of limousines and dress shoes and land Punches, when they get back, you know, that was the greatest move of all time. The thing about Tyson, you can stop to fight. The thing is, Tyson was like a wave. And you're standing in like waist deep water and you see this big wave forming and your first impulse is, I gotta get to the beach. But when you turn and start to get to the beach, you start getting pulled on and you pull on and next thing you know, the wave hits you in the back and you get pummeled.

[Mark Kriegel]

Close the distance, close distance.

[Adam Carolla]

All you can do is swim toward the wave and go through the wave, you know what I mean? And nobody could do it with Tyson. Everyone was so busy trying to, trying to get away from him that he would just catch up to him. The only person that ever started to be effective against him was when they would bring the fight to him. Yeah, even then it might not work, but it certainly ain't going to work. Trying to get back to the beach.

[Dawson]

The first thing you needed was like not to be scared shitless.

[Adam Carolla]

Right? Right.

[Dawson]

And you need to actually believe in yourself. And like there were, there were three, three guys who did it. You can tell when, when Tyson, when Tyson demolishes Spinks.

[Adam Carolla]

Right.

[Dawson]

Evander is being interviewed. You know, no one would listen to him and no one believes him. But he goes, how can he say he's the best, he hasn't fought me. Whatever, whatever the case was, Evander thought he was chosen by God and no one.

[Adam Carolla]

That's, that's why I'm jealous.

[Dawson]

And he like, that's it, I'm going to beat him. And he never had any doubt out the other guy. And they sparred when they were kids. Was, was Lennox Lewis. And there's a, there's a scene in here. I spoke to Lennox. He spends like three or four days in Catskill with customato and Tyson.

[Adam Carolla]

Lennox does Lennox.

[Dawson]

In the 80s they wanted to bring in sparring. He was already a pretty well renowned Canadian International Olympic Canadian by, by way of Britain. He was like, he wore every flag he was in the Olympics, I think for Canada. Canada. He was British. He was a great fighter. And like Holmes, undermentioned and underappreciated because he's not particularly charismatic, you know, he's not going to eat your children. So. So he did it. No, the way, the way that it works today actually, I guess the way it works then that, you know, not being charismatic worked at a deficit. Holmes had the additional problem following Ali. So yeah, yeah, he was screwed from the jump.

[Adam Carolla]

Lennox Lewis was great and the same as home to dominate for so long.

[Dawson]

Clinics. The first day of sparring, they're like 17, 16, 17 years old.

[Adam Carolla]

They're the same age.

[Dawson]

They're contemporaries about the same age. But it was prior to the Olympic trials in 84, so they wanted, they wanted Tyson against a guy who had really high pedigree. So they bring in Lewis and his coach. And the first day Tyson just jumps on him, kicks his ass. The second day is more ambiguous. By the third day, Lennox Lewis is holding his own. And I mean, he had, he had the ingredients. I don't know if he beats Tyson when they're both in their prime and when Tyson is still on the ascent, but, you know, it's kind of like what you're talking about with the street fight. I know I had you, I know I kicked your ass and you can't take that away from me. We both know what happened.

[Mark Kriegel]

Figure out the range, probably, you know, he's a taller fighter, Ranger, so he probably figured out his timing.

[Dawson]

He figured he also had the power to back it up.

[Adam Carolla]

He's one year older. Yeah, yeah. Lennox was a great, I mean, in a way he's like Larry Holmes. They dominated that division for eight years. Or, you know, long run, sort of.

[Mark Kriegel]

Fencers too, like long range guys.

[Adam Carolla]

Long range guys who just weren't great with the microphone and you know, for different various reasons. But you couldn't argue with their results. And by the time Tyson got to Lennox Lewis, Tyson was on the way down.

[Dawson]

No, Tyson. Tyson had been on the way down for a long time.

[Adam Carolla]

Right, right.

[Dawson]

And he did a great job of selling the fight.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah, right.

[Dawson]

You know, I think he anticipates every bit of craziness that we have today. But you know, their press conference came apart. But, but like the height for that starts in earnest when he does, when he's in Scotland and he does the I want to eat your kids. Come on, Lennox, I'll eat your kids speech. What's actually going on at that time time is he's grieving over the loss of this kid he did time with. Oh, he did like, you know, he did juvenile time with him. It's like a legendary like stick up kid in New York I named Darrell Bound. But Tyson's actually in the throes of grief and he starts as he was wanted to do, like speaking in tongues.

[Adam Carolla]

Right? Yeah, yeah. So yeah, he's a year older than Tyson, but Tyson older than everybody at this point on the descent for sure. And then Holyfield was crazy because he was like, God is not Going to let me get hurt or knocked out. And he's going to will me to.

[Dawson]

This victory from the beginning. There's a scene again when they're both trying out for the Olympics. So this would be early 84 and apparently Tyson wants the next game on the pool team table. And he tries to punk. And he's been punking everyone the whole week, right? And he tries to punk Evander. And Evander says no, right. And I think. But he, he holds the ball or he holds the stick. He says, I'm not giving up this stick.

[Adam Carolla]

Right. They're at the facility, right.

[Dawson]

And it was like haha. Then it became like there's that moment where you know, you can go. Then it became like a haha.

[Adam Carolla]

Right.

[Dawson]

But I think that, you know that that sticks in your head. And, and Evander to me was. He was not a charismatic heavyweight in a certain way. He was like the most charismatic heavyweight, Ali. And this is what, to me what made them both invincibly tough to their, to their own detriment. I don't care what you believe in, Jesus, Moses, Allah, whatever, as long as you believe. And those two guys believe they were chosen by God. And that's the end of that story. Story. Also the three guys.

[Adam Carolla]

The two guys. Who are the two guys?

[Mark Kriegel]

Evander and Evander and Ali.

[Adam Carolla]

Oh, Ali. Sorry.

[Dawson]

I'm sorry.

[Adam Carolla]

No, you're right. Ali.

[Dawson]

And the three guys to beat, the three guys to beat Tyson were all mama's boys.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah. Well, Buster Douglas just lost his mom.

[Dawson]

Right?

[Adam Carolla]

Right.

[Dawson]

He wasn't scared. Like, what are you gonna do for me? I just lost my mom.

[Adam Carolla]

I don't really give a. I'd still be scared. But that was Chris Corolla. We had a different relationship than Buster had, evidently. Buster. First off, Buster really put on a clinic in that when you, like if you had a young boxing student, you'd go watch this guy. He's doubling up his jab, he's coming with the uppercut afterwards, like he's putting combos together and doing stuff that.

[Dawson]

He had one great benefit in that fight though. Oh, that looks like, you know, drinking, probably snorting and party all night.

[Adam Carolla]

The whole corner, right.

[Dawson]

It wasn't. It wasn't. He had no corner, he didn't prepare. I mean, he was truly great fighter even to get in the ring, even to make that close and get up and try to stick the mouthpiece in. But yeah, he did no training for that.

[Adam Carolla]

He was like a 50 to 1 favorite or something, 42 to 1. But the, the other Thing did he do? No training.

[Dawson]

I don't think he did it really. I think he. At that point. And this is past where this particular volume goes.

[Adam Carolla]

But this stops at 80.

[Dawson]

Yeah, mercifully for me and for 400 pages. But wait, where were we?

[Adam Carolla]

Again, I'm sorry, Tyson did not train in Chicago.

[Dawson]

Tyson didn't train. But you mentioned something about Buster Douglas putting on a clinic and this is what everybody forgets. I mean, I know these guys weren't like the greatest fighters in the world. World, but they were American heavyweights and they hadn't like washed out, you know, at San Diego State as a tight end or a receiver or an edge rusher or something like that. They had been in the gym since they were kids.

[Adam Carolla]

Well, Buster's dad was a fighter and.

[Dawson]

They, they knew what, they knew what to do. So the idea that, that all these guys Tyson beat on the way up or tomato cans is, is bullshit. There were many of them, most of them were well schooled American heavyweights. I mean, the guys today who would all, you know, be in the running for a title.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah. Remember Bone Crusher Smith?

[Mark Kriegel]

Yeah.

[Dawson]

He might have been the, he might have been the least impressive of the lot and also might be the single worst Tyson fight because he, he was a guy a lot of power. I think he just took out Tim Witherspoon in the fight before, but scared shitless of Mike. And all he did was, all he did was grab for rounds.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah. So there was Holyfield and Holyfield had a crazy strategy which we'll just stand in the middle and trade hooks because.

[Dawson]

He wasn't scared of anything.

[Adam Carolla]

He wasn't scared of anything. Which is insane. I was at the Olympic fight where Holyfield got robbed in the light heavyweight division, which I still to this day don't really understand exactly what he.

[Dawson]

I don't think anyone. I've been to that fight a couple times. I always forget what like.

[Adam Carolla]

I think he was fighting like an Australian guy and they say he was.

[Dawson]

An Eastern European or a white guy.

[Adam Carolla]

And he hit him after the bell, they say. But it was like right at the. I mean, first of all, you're supposed to protect yourself at all times, you know what I mean? So wasn't that much after the. He was throwing a punch and the bell rang and the guy knocked the guy down.

[Dawson]

The Olympics were on a great hot streak there. They followed that up with the Roy Jones robbery.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah, it was followed by the Roy Jones Robin, I think history will bear out.

[Dawson]

Mayweather, I think got screwed.

[Adam Carolla]

I mean, Roy Jones Mayweather, Holyfield, they were global world conquerors. So the idea that they all got beat by some Australian guy or something when they were 18 and a half doesn't really hold water.

[Dawson]

The Olympic committee, though, did not want Tyson. They wanted Terrell Biggs at super heavyweight. They wanted Tyson. They were not crazy about Tyson because they hated his trainer, mentor, custom model. There was like some beef going back to, to the 50s.

[Adam Carolla]

Oh, really?

[Dawson]

So they, they essentially made him compete at 2, 205 and he'd been at super heavyweight the whole time.

[Adam Carolla]

And they made Tyson come down. Down. Is that what you're saying?

[Dawson]

They made Tyson come down?

[Adam Carolla]

Right.

[Dawson]

And he didn't like it. And there's, there's, there's a, there's a box off. What, what he tried to do with what the strategy was, what. What d' Amato and Kevin Rooney told Tyson is he was, he was named an alternate. So after he loses the, the trials. But if you go in and you knock someone out during sparring and preparations, and the guy's got to like, be on the bench for like 60 days, 30 days.

[Adam Carolla]

Oh, if you get knocked out, the.

[Dawson]

Strategy was go in there. I see Terrell picks and he didn't, he couldn't do it, you know, and the Olympic Committee got whatever. The Olympic guys got hip to it and they didn't let him have. They didn't let it happen. They sent, they sent Tyson home.

[Mark Kriegel]

Oh, they caught wind that he was going to knock him out and sparring. That.

[Adam Carolla]

That was the.

[Dawson]

They were talking about it in the papers. Kevin Rooney was talking about, like, this is our strategy. We're still going to go there and try, like, hurt him in the gym.

[Mark Kriegel]

Settle this in the gym.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah, did. I forgot about light heavyweight, 205 and super. I forgot they had super back then even. Right. Because they didn't really have super heavyweight in the Olympics. Like when, like George. I don't think George Foreman was a super heavyweight. I think he was a heavy, just a heavyweight. I didn't know if they had.

[Dawson]

I thought he was a super. I don't know when they came out.

[Mark Kriegel]

Tyson walked at 230. No. Or like in that.

[Dawson]

No, no, no, no, no, no. Back then, maybe about like 211, 212.

[Mark Kriegel]

Oh, wow.

[Dawson]

Guys were, Guys were smaller. I mean, the, the. When I first remember the, the physical dimensions of, of heavyweights changing, it started to me in earnest with Lennox Lewis. He likes to be Len Ox. I always screw that Lenox. He give me a great interview, whatever you want.

[Adam Carolla]

He's A great guy. He's been on the show.

[Dawson]

Lenox Knox and Riddick Bowe. Now you're talking about 6, 5, 6, 6 long. Really good athletes.

[Mark Kriegel]

Yeah.

[Adam Carolla]

I'm gonna one up you with a Frank Bruno.

[Dawson]

Frank was before that. And Frank, Frank was like one of these real muscle battle guys.

[Adam Carolla]

He's a Rick shithouse man.

[Dawson]

And he looked, he looked great. And the Brits I know he wasn't. And he was like the all time Brit guy because the way I don't think it's like this anymore with, with boxing in the uk but back then like the hating was built into the system. So they would, they would love you if you got to a certain place, but if you had aspirations to actually like be the champ, they kind of got down on you. They thought of you as American, immodest. The guy who turned that around was. Remember Nassim Hamed?

[Adam Carolla]

Yep.

[Dawson]

He was like his sensibilities. He's, you know, doing somersaults and showboating. He was very, he was very American in the way he approached showmanship. But like the Brits were not down with that.

[Mark Kriegel]

Yeah, I remember. Yeah.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah. I'm just saying Frank Bruno, man, that guy looked scary.

[Dawson]

Tyson kicked his ass. I know as a, I think a 15 year old he was already a pro. There's a scene.

[Adam Carolla]

Oh really?

[Dawson]

Buddy McGirt is watching. There's a bunch of pros Buddy I, I respect immensely. He's a really good trainer and a great eye.

[Adam Carolla]

He's a fighter too.

[Dawson]

Yeah, hall of Fame fighter. And he's, and he's watching this and Tyson is like 15, 16 years old, completely having his way with Bruno who is now, you know, like 14 and 0 as a pro. Something like that.

[Adam Carolla]

Oh, really?

[Mark Kriegel]

Yeah.

[Adam Carolla]

Oh, we knew it. Well, they got together eventually. So was George Foreman a super heavyweight and then when did they start the super heavyweights with Telefio Stevenson? Was he a super heavyweight?

[Dawson]

Whatever was super. He. Teophilus Stevenson was, he was the highest weight class.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah. I'm just saying. I, I'm, I'm wondering. I thought they went light, heavy. Heavy. I didn't know there was a, there.

[Dawson]

Was a heavy than. There was a. At least by, by 84. I know there was a heavy and a whatever.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah. I want to know when they started that. I'm curious. So. Yeah. So Holyfield, who was the greatest?

[Dawson]

I will report back to you, boss. All right.

[Adam Carolla]

Also, yeah, you brought up Big Daddy. Trying to.

[Dawson]

He was extraordinary town extraordinarily talented.

[Adam Carolla]

Oh boy.

[Dawson]

He shot an album Rick Bo.

[Adam Carolla]

He just likes a great boxer. You know these guys, I mean, same.

[Dawson]

Neighborhood as Tyson, by the way.

[Adam Carolla]

Oh, really?

[Dawson]

Same brown Brownsville.

[Mark Kriegel]

So you got a lot of that, his growing up, the pigeon story, the famous stuff. I guess you.

[Dawson]

I covered that. I, I covered Brownsville. I mean, I, I got into sports writing by accident, but I was covering cops in courts. Basically. I spent like, I covered a fair amount of homicides in Brownsville, East New York, like late 80s. It was, it was nuts. But I spent about a year covering one case in particular in Brownsville. And at that time I knew the neighborhood pretty well and.

[Adam Carolla]

And.

[Dawson]

As a neighborhood for bad guys has outstanding pedigree. There was the original like Murder Inc. Crews were all from Brownsville and East New York. And I mean, one of the things, when I look back on. I was a young reporter and looking back on it now, what you say, it's reflexive. Oh, oh, it's a ghetto. To me now, like ghetto seems woefully inadequate. It was a dystopia. I mean, it was like a science fiction movie with the block after block of abandoned buildings, rubble strewn lots. And then in the middle of this, in, in Brownsville.

[Adam Carolla]

Where is Brownsville?

[Dawson]

All the way out in Brooklyn. And the genius city planners or whatever they were, decide to put the greatest concentration of housing projects like boom right in the middle of Brownsville. So it's like a bombed out city and then something large and like Soviet rise from it. It's profoundly depressing.

[Adam Carolla]

I'm from LA and we had good neighborhoods and bad neighborhoods, but we didn't have sort of moonscape, bombed out destruction, hollowed out abandoned neighborhoods. We just had shitty neighborhoods. But someone was in that shop working on a car or something. You could hear music coming from it. But I'd never seen just abandoned buildings and that kind of stuff.

[Dawson]

Yeah, I mean, that's where he comes from.

[Adam Carolla]

I never really got his parents and where they were and how long they lived and did they ever see any success? Was there ever. Did they reunite? I'm looking at pulling up pictures.

[Dawson]

That's Brownsville, right? I mean, right around the time Tyson gets. I think that the parents. I don't want to sound like, you know, Freud here, but I think that the parents are the two most consequential people in the whole, in the whole story. Worry.

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[Adam Carolla]

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[Dawson]

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[Dawson]

Yeah, I mean, look, almost any fighter there's going to be. You know, you don't become a fighter because you're necessarily a happy, well adjusted person, right? So there's some, so there's some dysfunction in there. And the question is, how does that follow you into the ring? At some point, my experience is more likely than not, whatever's up in your past is going to make you a fighter or break you on the way. But so with Tyson, first the, the dad was like a street guy slash preacher, very charismatic. But the, the important Tyson remark to me, Tyson says I there's a question. Is your dad like delivery cab driver or is he the guy who's kind of like half a pimp? And Tyson's line is, I want it so bad for my dad to be the pimp, the gangster figure. And especially in a neighborhood like Brownsville where you're standing on the street as a tough guy was paramount. He really wanted that. The mom, the dad leaves the mom mom and something breaks inside of her.

[Adam Carolla]

What year? How old's Tyson? When dad leaves?

[Dawson]

Tyson's born June of 66, maybe 68, 67 what I. What I did find is Tyson has a half brother. Really interesting. Like, wonderful guy. Became a teacher, you know, played, grew up in. Grew up in Charlotte. Was part of the first, like, integrated football team for a year. Gets a scholarship to Purdue. Realizes, like, what. What am I doing here, man? And he becomes like, one of these kids at the end of the 60s. He's gonna go find himself, winds up as a. Does all sorts of jobs, winds up as a. As a teacher. And a lot of what I got on the dad's side is from this guy. Jimmy Kirk. Jimmy Kirkpatrick.

[Adam Carolla]

The half brother. The half brother who's the son of the dad.

[Dawson]

Right. Who's.

[Adam Carolla]

How much younger?

[Dawson]

Oh, he. He's born. He's like, senior in high school when Tyson's born.

[Adam Carolla]

Oh, so he's from before?

[Dawson]

Oh, yeah, yeah. No. Oh, I thought he was, but I'm trying to get a picture of the father in this, and he remembers the. The father, Curly Kirkpatrick, Tyson's father, being a great athlete, like, even when he visited him when he lived in Brooklyn, could. Could turn on a baseball, knock it out of the park compact. And Tyson's half brother, Jimmy Kirkpatrick, I think at one point, he led the nation in kickoff returns.

[Adam Carolla]

You know, super athletic.

[Dawson]

Yeah. But also. Also bright, too. And what he remembers is going to. To visit mom and his stepmother in Brooklyn, and they were on the outs, and she had started drinking.

[Adam Carolla]

And it's pretty clear that's Tyson's mom.

[Dawson]

Correct. It's pretty clear from Tyson's account that, you know, the drinking gets heavier. She had been a prison guard in downtown Manhattan. I remember the women's house of detention there. It was another, like, medieval fortress, interestingly enough. She would have been there probably when they brought, like, Tupac's mom in. So what Tyson writes in his autobiography, at the time I was born, my mom was a prison guard there. They would have put around the time that Tupac's mom was incarcerated there, too.

[Adam Carolla]

Wait, was incarcerated there or worked there? Oh, she was incarcerated there because she was, like.

[Dawson]

She's revolutionary.

[Adam Carolla]

Revolutionary. Right.

[Dawson]

Right. She was pregnant.

[Adam Carolla]

Wow. But.

[Dawson]

But the.

[Adam Carolla]

The thing.

[Dawson]

The thing with Tyson, again, I don't mean to sound like Freud. Tyson wants. Tyson wants his dad at some level, to be like, the street guy. To me, that leaves him open to Don King. You know, Don King is like the street guy writ large. It's almost like, luke, I'm your father, right? What, you're gonna go with this old white guy, like this stiff bitch? Are you gonna go with me, or I'm gonna go with you. And. And Don, certainly in this volume, is the smartest guy in the story. Whether you like him or not, he's by far the smartest. As far as the mom is concerned. It's kind of. It's profoundly sad to me. Tyson spends a good part of his life, a great part of his young life, trying to get her to respect him, admire him, acknowledge him. By then, it's like he's already been locked up too many times. She thinks of him as a failure. And no matter what he says, hey, mom, I'm going to be champ. She's like, yeah, you know, there's always someone else. He. He can never get that love. So much so that I found a woman who treated him as a shrink later on, like, on the cusp of his 40s. And. And this. This seems pretty consistent with me the whole way through.

[Adam Carolla]

Through.

[Dawson]

He says to her, you know, she's explaining, I have to go somewhere. I can't really treat you regularly anymore. Okay. But, you know, and Tyson saying, you know, I think, though, I understand that, but I think what I really need now is, would you be my mom?

[Adam Carolla]

Wow. He's in his 40s now.

[Dawson]

It's about late 30s, early 40s, you know, early 2000s. And that's pretty consistent. Like, my argument with Tyson is that he. He goes for Robin Givens. Not despite the fact, like, he loved Robin Givens. She was like, fine to him. She. She hit some sort of note that, you know, you always. Whatever. That's the girl I want. Not smart, but that's the one I want. But he goes for her. To me, not despite the idea that she comes with a powerful, overbearing mother, but at some level, because of.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah, she lived with him, I think.

[Dawson]

Yeah, she ran the whole damn show. She really formidable woman.

[Adam Carolla]

I can't believe we're all humans sometimes. Okay, just a quick real estate question. What's Brownsville like now? Because, you know, all these neighborhoods got gentrified. Super expensive places you wouldn't have gone to after the street lights come off are multi million dollar. It's still Brownsville.

[Dawson]

Brownsville.

[Adam Carolla]

Still Brownsville.

[Dawson]

Brownsville.

[Adam Carolla]

So when does Tyson's mom die and when does Tyson's dad die? Because my ultimate question for everyone is, was your parents around long enough to see you? Whatever. No, Tyson had success at 17, you know, 18, you know, like, so they didn't have to hang on that long to see him.

[Dawson]

She died.

[Adam Carolla]

Was he champ at 19 or something?

[Dawson]

No, 20. 20.

[Adam Carolla]

20.

[Dawson]

She dies I think it's November of. I believe it's 80. The fall of 82, I believe.

[Adam Carolla]

So he's like 18.

[Dawson]

He's won like a couple of junior Olympic titles. But she's. She's been checked out, right? And. And when. And when. When she passes, it's cancer. And, you know, it's brutal. He goes into a deep depression and. And leaves where he had been staying upstate with. With Customato and just, you know, kind of gives himself to the street for a while until, you know, he has kind of like a guidance counselor. She tracks him down and. And gets him back up. She deserves a great deal of credit because, you know, she goes to Brooklyn, she finds me and convinces him, you better get your ass back up there.

[Adam Carolla]

Really?

[Dawson]

Yeah.

[Adam Carolla]

And when does his dad die?

[Dawson]

Dad dies? I believe it's right before he goes to jail. Around 91, 92.

[Adam Carolla]

So he got to see the championship years.

[Dawson]

Yes, he did, but he wasn't. They were never particularly close.

[Adam Carolla]

Did he try to re. Enter his life?

[Dawson]

He did it without forcing his way in. There's.

[Adam Carolla]

And did the half brother try to run him down? No, he never.

[Dawson]

No. And I think that to this day, no, no. But they. They do have a relationship. They did find each other. As a matter of fact, I had a couple of. Couple phone calls with Tyson for the book, and this didn't work out. This is not the book I planned. It was supposed to be a very slim, elegant kind of essay about writing and fighting, and Tyson didn't turn out like that. But he. I'm on the phone with Tyson and I say, listen, I spoke to your half brother, but he doesn't know if he really wants to go on the record. He goes, really? Goes, get him on the phone. He was testing me. Get him on the phone right now, like, see if you really got my brother's number. Get him on the phone. I said, hey, Jim, me, I'm here with Mike. He says, if you talk to me, it's okay to. He'll tell you if it's okay to talk to me. Goes, yeah, it is. So. But then it's like, hey, love you, brother. Love you. It's nice.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, Tyson's an interesting soul, and I've interviewed him a few times, spoke to him a little bit. He's, you know, he's interesting, you know, highs and lows, like, you know, like a Frank Sinatra song, but no one's ever actually lived that way.

[Dawson]

But he's living. Nobody.

[Adam Carolla]

He's. I mean, you're not gonna Find, you know, I was poor and downtrodden, and then I. Then I was rich. But there's not, you know, I don't have the kind of chasm. I wasn't incarcerated and I wasn't king of the worlds. The highs of the lows. I don't, you know, I mean, it's kind of of a challenge. Like, who more so, you know, than. I mean, you might have to. You might have to go back to some Russian czar or something. Incarcerated, taken over or something.

[Dawson]

So he's famous in a way. In like a very particular American way. He's famous in a way that can kill you. Like, it can kill Elvis. It would kill Marilyn Monroe or Tupac or Michael Jackson. He's in a, like. Like that kind of fame is a state of craziness.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's crazy. So his dad sees the success but doesn't really try to seize on it. And the mom just kind of misses it and wasn't by too much, you know, when the mom went.

[Dawson]

He was 82. He was still really in his formative years.

[Adam Carolla]

She went 82.

[Dawson]

Yeah, it wasn't, you know, he wasn't.

[Adam Carolla]

He was like.

[Dawson]

He wasn't seen as a lock.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah, yeah. We didn't know.

[Dawson]

He was still something of a novelty because Cus was so paranoid. He wanted to keep it a little bit on. A little bit on the down low. He'd won a couple of Junior Olympic titles and, you know, kids were calling him like, I think that's Sonny Liston's son.

[Adam Carolla]

Right.

[Dawson]

And he's. And what. The interesting thing is that. That Cus d' Amato had this elaborate. It's more than a theory. It's almost like a theology about fear and bullies. And it's really. It's really beautiful. You have to stand up to the bully. And it was. It was d' Amato who gives Ali the advice of how to deal with Foreman. When everyone thinks, like, Ali's going to his death, right, you gotta go up and punch him in the mouth. But the interesting thing is that he raises tight to be the most feared guy there is. So, you know Patterson with how he stood up to the bully. He's raising a version of Sonny Liston, which was against type. And he made sure that the other fighters on the amateur circuit were scared shitless of him.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah, well, the thing, by the way, I don't know if you guys have access to computer back there, but the Olympics started. The super heavyweight and one. What year was the question that I feel like is on a computer somewhere. We could find that at some point.

[Jason Mayhem Miller]

Sorry, I just looked up George Foreman. He was not a super heavyweight. Let me find out what that was.

[Dawson]

So they didn't have it in 68.

[Adam Carolla]

Right. I just want to know when they started it. But you can also put that on the screen. All right, so, yeah, because George Foreman demolished Joe, right? Joe Frazier. He demolished him. He knocked him down six times. He walked to him. He demolished him. So the idea that Joe Frazier hurt Ali, gave him a real hard time, more than he wanted, and could have won the fight, whatever. The idea that then the guy who destroyed that guy was going to fight the guy who couldn't beat the guy.

[Dawson]

You always mystified when it doesn't work out.

[Adam Carolla]

Styles make fights, but I get it. But when you saw those two fights, you go, well, it's a simple math. That guy's gonna kill that guy.

[Dawson]

Do you remember who Holyfield fought before? Tyson the first.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah, I'm gonna. I'm gonna come up with it. Give me a second. Give me a second. Tyrell Biggs, 84, was the first. Heavyweight, heavy, super heavyweight. Yeah. No, I wouldn't go Tyrant. I'm. I'm. I'm going to go with James the Beast Mugabe. No, he was a middleweight. He was a middleweight. All right, all right. Hold on, hold on. Shit. He was a light heavyweight.

[Dawson]

Correct.

[Adam Carolla]

But I can't think of his damn name.

[Dawson]

It was Bobby Chess.

[Adam Carolla]

Oh, Bobby Chess. Yeah.

[Dawson]

But the point is that the fight is so bad, and Evander looks. Looks like such horseshit against Bobby Chess. Then King turns around. Don King turns around and finally makes Tyson. Tyson Holyfield, like the last time I think anyone had seen Tyson. When he hits, he hits Bruce Seldon's hair and seldom faint, right? So all the geniuses like me are writing like, oh, my God, this is legalized murder. Look what Don King has done. This is a mismatch. This is terrible. And, of course, you see what would happen in the fight, by the way, the Frazier, Foreman fight. And this is typical. And why. Why he was the best. Don King goes there in the limousine with the Frazier entourage and leaves with the Foreman entourage. And the famous line, it's in the book is, you know, hey, I came with the champ, and I left with the champ.

[Adam Carolla]

Did Don King. How. How dishonest was Don King? I mean, he stomped a man to death in St. Louis.

[Dawson]

That doesn't make you dishonest.

[Adam Carolla]

I know. I call it proactive. Yeah, someone owed me 40 bucks.

[Dawson]

That was the second body, though, that.

[Adam Carolla]

Was the second body.

[Dawson]

The first was a guy. One of his bookmaking spots was ruled self defense, but Don killed two people. That we know of.

[Adam Carolla]

That we know of. Right?

[Dawson]

That we know of. There's a couple shots in here with Don't. Fine, I'll find for you. But the. The second one was bad because the guy was like, you know, Don's a big guy, man. Don, six, three, six, four. And the guy killed the guy. Stomped, was tubercular, weighed like a buck and a quarter, you know, owed him money. And Dom was like. It was a runner for Don. But Don, a couple things in here. It's on, and I really mean that. Like, Luke, I am your father. He's like. Like Darth Vader in this thing. He's so smart and he's so resourceful and he's so tough.

[Adam Carolla]

So we talk about Don or we talking about Mike?

[Dawson]

Don.

[Adam Carolla]

Don. Yeah.

[Dawson]

And I think that that made him, in the long run, at some juncture in his life, irresistible.

[Adam Carolla]

Well, I mean, it's. It's. He's a street guy who's killed. He stomped a guy to death, but then he picks his hair out, waves an American flag, and goes, only in America.

[Dawson]

But, you know, like, HBO really needed him. The guy who ran HBO at the time was. Was Seth Abraham. And they would sit down and read and go over these books, like.

[Adam Carolla]

You.

[Dawson]

Know, long, definitive biographies of American presidents and Frederick Douglass and Einstein, whatever it was. But he always knew. Don's really bright guy, but, you know, when he gets. He's 24 years old when he decides he doesn't want to pay the mob boss tribute, all the other bookmakers gladly paying this guy tribute because the guy's scary. He says not, fuck it. Guy's name is Shondor burns. Don at 24, decides, I'm not paying, gets fire.

[Adam Carolla]

Is this in St. Louis?

[Dawson]

Cleveland. Cleveland gets firebombed. It calls the cops. I'll testify again against him. Shotgunned. I'm testifying against him. He was fearless and pretty much indestructible. And the way that Seth Abraham described it, whatever you were thinking, like, if you saw two paces ahead, Dom was already four or five paces ahead.

[Adam Carolla]

Did he rip all these guys off?

[Dawson]

He ripped a lot of them off. Off.

[Adam Carolla]

Did he rip Tyson off?

[Dawson]

If you believe Tyson's lawsuit, which I think that there's an awful lot of merit to. Yeah, but for hundreds of millions of dollars. The other thing with Tyson and I. I haven't gone through this part of, like, the. The. The case file with Tyson King is. You know, there's more boxes than can fit on this table. Yeah, same for his bankruptcy. But Don always gave Tyson what he wanted when he wanted. One of the. One of the problems I think that Tyson had going back to d' Amato is d' Amato is in a race against time to produce the greatest and youngest heavyweight ever. He know. He knows he's gonna. He knows he's gonna go out of the picture, dies before 85, November of 85.

[Adam Carolla]

Before he becomes champ. Yeah, right. Right before.

[Dawson]

Yeah, about. About a year.

[Adam Carolla]

A year.

[Dawson]

So. Yeah, so. But one of the things. Because there's this race against time, you know, one of the words Tyson never hears is no, you know, you get thrown out of school, okay, we'll get you a Tudor, we'll get you a Pigeon Coop, we'll get you a Cadillac Seville. There's something to be said for that, but I'm not sure necessarily. Helped him every which way. Not. Not hearing, no.

[Mark Kriegel]

So wait, Don. King, let me get this. No. Oh, no, I get it. Yeah, of course.

[Adam Carolla]

But I think Don didn't tell him no, either.

[Mark Kriegel]

Yeah, but what was his strategy? To dole out the money as Tyson wanted.

[Dawson]

Whatever Tyson needed, it was done.

[Mark Kriegel]

Oh, I see. But he didn't get to control his own finances there, therefore, he got taken advantage of.

[Dawson]

Yeah, okay, but I mean, what. What. What Don had done with other guys on the way up was unconscionable with Tyson. He understood he had something very public and very special, but he. You know, he was working on getting Tyson far longer than anyone knew. There's a scene. Tim. Tim Witherspoon remembers being in Ohio before anyone had heard of Tyson around the time of the Olympics or going into those Olympic trials.

[Adam Carolla]

Did he have a terrible. Tim.

[Dawson]

Terrible Tim Witherspoon? Yeah.

[Adam Carolla]

Not about terrible. Terry Norris. We can't have two terribles. Maybe one also is terrible of me. I don't know if that's Philadelphia. You know what I mean?

[Dawson]

It really doesn't matter as long as it's alliterative.

[Adam Carolla]

I know you're right.

[Dawson]

But he remembers King addressing all the heavyweights in his stable, say, you all better watch out. This young boy, Tyson. Tyson. And they were like, who? Tyson? So he. He had his sights set on Tyson early on, and. And he understood as much as anybody what. What kind of business Tyson could do. I mean, on one hand. On one hand, Tyson did for HBO what they needed him to do for hbo, what Tony Soprano would do, like a decade later, right? He's like, you're going to give us the, the male demographic from one, what is it, like 18 to 49, whatever that is. Boom. Tyson delivers it. And when Tyson fought, the HBO subscription rate will go through, go through the roof. And there's always been this like incredible economic need for Tyson. Don understood in a way that even the most HBO execs with the most foresight could, that he was worth more than that. And he was angling for a way for him to get, you know, $30 million a fight, pay per view fights, when he was still doing, you know, essentially just, just dates against whatever the next up contender was on hbo. Don saw the whole picture before. Don's alive, still promoting a fight in Florida.

[Adam Carolla]

Promoting a fight, Florida. I've not seen him pop up, up in a minute.

[Dawson]

You didn't see him endorse Trump and all that?

[Mark Kriegel]

I saw it.

[Adam Carolla]

I missed that. Don King. Well, it sounds like you like Don King.

[Dawson]

I think he's an interesting character.

[Adam Carolla]

He is an interesting character.

[Mark Kriegel]

There's nuance because like I tell you.

[Dawson]

What, I really like Tyson. And that's an odd. I didn't want to, I didn't want to do this book because I probably wrote more bad shit about Tyson. Thank you. Than anybody.

[Adam Carolla]

Right.

[Dawson]

Just the way my career squared up. My, my first stop in sports and I covered him as a, as a police reporter.

[Adam Carolla]

Right.

[Dawson]

Running around town.

[Adam Carolla]

Right.

[Dawson]

And I had no real connection to him like that. But then when I, I started. Yeah, that's the picture from the book. He's in a police station in Cleveland. That's the one on the left.

[Adam Carolla]

Don Canada. Young Don King.

[Dawson]

You know, he's in, I think his early 20s there.

[Mark Kriegel]

And what's his connection like how did he, he get into boxing really? Was he just a training. I don't know.

[Dawson]

Yeah, no, no. He goes away for this manslaughter. Oh, and on a Friday afternoon, like the stomping one. Yeah, the stomping one. On a Friday afternoon, the judge doesn't commute the sentence, but he lowers it. So like, so it's basically like a pretty big sentence skid bit now. Right. But then it's like, now it's like a one year, it's a one year mandatory after that, you know, so he winds up doing I think three. But the judge, and typical King thing, the judge issues his ruling on a Friday afternoon, then goes on vacation. Which is pretty consistent pattern with, with King. King always had like, you know, the lawyers. He always, always wired in work.

[Mark Kriegel]

The system.

[Dawson]

The political apparatus is a really astute psychologist. The Way he used to as a young. As a young bookmaker. The way he used to. He devised the system to beat the numbers. You'd have to read the book, but he had someone lay off bets by calling around. So really there was a mathematical genius to him. But also he knew what was in your head. He would wait till the last minute to go into the bar to pay out and have a big sack of cash and make a big display out of paying out. What, you thought I wasn't going to be here? And now it was, tell everyone. Don King pays. And all of a sudden you see this guy at the bar buying drinks for everybody and mounds and mounds of cash. You know, it was. It was great advertising.

[Mark Kriegel]

Yeah. Marketing.

[Dawson]

Don King.

[Mark Kriegel]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Adam Carolla]

God, it's such a. Gotta respect him.

[Mark Kriegel]

You know what I mean? Like, yeah, he's maybe a bad guy, but you have to respect.

[Dawson]

But it's one of the reasons why. Why I. I love. I love covering boxing and covering sports. After a while, it was kind of a pain in the ass. Like, I. I don't. I don't need to hear. Like, I don't need to hear whatever. Jeff Torborg in the post. Post Mets game. I don't need, you know, or how many jets coaches. But boxing. Boxing's like organized crime meets show business.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Dawson]

So it's. It's hard to fuck that up.

[Adam Carolla]

I've been trying to get a hold of Ike Bayabucci. That'll be our next book. All right, let me give it a plug. Baddest man, the Making of Mike Tyson.

[Dawson]

There you go, the book.

[Adam Carolla]

And this is the kind of book you want to read. The author did not want to write it. He was forced. No, you start going down a path and then you realize, oh, this is what it's becoming.

[Dawson]

The guy. I'm laid up with a hamster. I shear my hamstring like, I don't know how. And I'm, you know, over medicated. And I owed the publisher money on another book. And he says, well, would you consider Tyson? I'm like, as high as I was. I'm like, no way. A friend of mine, you can't give money back. So I started thinking of ways to finagle it. Yeah, I was like, could this be like an. Maybe an essay type book? Like, yeah, sure, whatever you want. Like, by 23, I have lunch with the editor. I said, you know, that. That little beautiful book you wanted. I have 80,000 words, and he's still 16 years old. Can you make it two volumes? And that's why you that's so substantial.

[Adam Carolla]

Substantial.

[Dawson]

Monstrosity.

[Mark Kriegel]

Congratulations, man.

[Adam Carolla]

You can get wherever you find finer books, Mark.

[Dawson]

Or even unfiner books.

[Adam Carolla]

Or unfiner books. Always great talking to you. I'm going to be in Salt Lake City coming up on the 13th and 14th June. Wise guys doing a couple of shows there. I want to thank Tia Carrera for coming in here, Mark Kriegel for coming in, and mayhem as well. Until next time, Z Carolla saying mahalo.

[Jason Mayhem Miller]

You can leave us a voicemail message at 888-634-1744 and you can get tickets to see Adam Corolla Salt Lake City at AdamCorola.com.

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[Adam Carolla]

Say what now? Showtime.

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[Dawson]

In this family we live by the.

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[Dawson]

Oh my God, I love it.

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[Adam Carolla]

Showtime.

[Pluto TV Announcer]

That means drama is free with heart wrenching stories from love and basketball power and greenleaf.

[Dawson]

In this family we live by the.

[Pluto TV Announcer]

Spirit and laughter is free with gut busting comedies like Key and Peele the neighborhood, everybody hates Chris and Boomerang Watch all the hits all for free from all your favorite devices.

[Dawson]

Oh my God, I love it.

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