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Adam Carolla
Well, interesting comedic firestarter Bridget Fetisi is going to join us today. Lots of good stuff to talk to her about. And then Larry Charles, oh, I don't know, from Seinfeld and then from Curb youb Enthusiasm and from Borat and everything else, he comes in for a very revealing conversation. We'll do all that right after this. The ace man's keeping busy. Why don't you join us for a live podcast in Irvine at the Irvine Improv on July 10th, and then four shows in Covina, California at the Laugh Factory Covina on July 11th and July 12th. Tickets for these and more shows are available at AdamCarolla.com hey, it's Adam Kroll from the Adam Korolla Show. BETOnline is the world's most trusted betting platform and your number one source for online betting. From the earliest odds to in game live betting. BetOnline provides you with all the action and the ability to watch and bet on games as they happen with the largest selection of odds on every everything from football, NBA, college basketball as well. BetOnline has NHL, MMA and championship boxing. All your betting needs in one place. Head to betonline today to get in on the action with America's most trusted site for online wagering. So have some fun. Make these games and these events and these combat sports a little more interesting with bet online. Bet online. The game starts here. From Carolla 1 Studios in Glendale, California, this is the Adam Carolla Show. Adam's guest today, writer, podcast host and political commentator Bridget Fedese. Plus writer, director, producer, Larry Charles. And the news and trending topics with Jason Mayhem Miller. And now when he buys a Newman car at auction, he also gets one big beautiful bill. Adam Carolla. Yeah. Get it on. Got to get on the troops. We can mandate you get it on now. Good to see you, Bridget.
Bridget Fetisi
Hi. Thanks for having me.
Adam Carolla
My pleasure. Bridget's got herself a show. Dumpster Fire with Bridget Petacy. I know this says Petacy.
Bridget Fetisi
I like that.
Adam Carolla
Well, it's a weird typo because if they just put an F there, it would have come out the same way. But I saw the P and I was like, I know where we're going. But then no H. Anyway, you can see that on YouTube and also interactive video show, 7pm Eastern Time. By the way, that'll be on Wednesdays. That's on the two way network.
Bridget Fetisi
Yes.
Adam Carolla
Where do you find the two way Network?
Bridget Fetisi
Pretty much all over the Internet, wherever the Internet is available. And then Twoway tv, it's a new network where you have Zoom. And you interact with normies, and it's fun, actually.
Adam Carolla
It's a new world order.
Bridget Fetisi
It's a new world order.
Adam Carolla
I don't mind it. I don't know. I wonder. Hmm. All right, you ready?
Bridget Fetisi
I'm ready. I mean, let's talk about all of it.
Adam Carolla
Okay. I like the fact that everyone has a platform potentially now. And, you know, I'm old. And when I was trying to break into, like, broadcasting, I would find myself sort of driving my pickup truck and listening to all the morning radio shows and Kevin and Bean and Mark and Brian and Rick D's and the Baker Boys and all this kind of stuff. And all I did is sit in my truck and go, I'm fucking funnier than all these guys. God damn it. I'm funnier than all these guys. And then I'd show up at a cabinet shop in an industrial park in Chatsworth and get yelled at by a guy named Tom. Cause I was four minutes late. And then I'd be thinking, but I'm funnier than these guys. I didn't know what to do. And I find myself walking the halls. Right before I met Jimmy, I'm at Pasadena City College. I'm walking around going, do you guys have a radio place? Like a station? Like a radio program or something? And I go, you're not. You can't. Could I broadcast? I go, you don't broadcast. You don't even go to this college. You need to take voice and diction and get in line, you know? And I'm like, I'm old. I'm not doing that. And I just, like, went home and sat. And I didn't have a place to broadcast. What was I gonna now?
Bridget Fetisi
No gatekeepers.
Adam Carolla
No gatekeepers.
Bridget Fetisi
But, you know, my first gig in Hollywood. Extra on the Man Show.
Adam Carolla
Really?
Bridget Fetisi
Yeah.
Adam Carolla
Tiki Talkie. Tiki Talkie. Oi, oi, oi.
Bridget Fetisi
The very first. A woman who is your. Like, she was your secretary, answered the phones. Amber. She was my roommate. And so she got me. I came to visit her, and I was an extra on the Man Show.
Adam Carolla
I loved you on the trampoline.
Bridget Fetisi
I was not hot enough to be on the trampoline. I was like, a true extra.
Adam Carolla
What man show bit? Were you an extra?
Bridget Fetisi
There was one. I remember I was in a bar, and I was too young, I think, to even be at the bar. They made me be at tables or in the background because they were like, I don't know if she's even allowed to be at a bar that's not open. I was 20.
Adam Carolla
Uh huh.
Bridget Fetisi
But I was in. So I. I mean it was so like this is like over a quarter of a century ago at this point. So I am.
Adam Carolla
Yeah, well, not necessarily over, but right there.
Bridget Fetisi
No, I was 20. I'm. Well, I was 20.
Adam Carolla
Well, yeah, it could have been season one.
Bridget Fetisi
Yeah, it was. No, it was brand new. Oh, brand new, yeah. Yep, it was, it was the brand new show and you're the lover and that was the thing that inspired me to move to Hollywood.
Adam Carolla
Oh yeah. I said, Jimmy, I said, bar patron number seven. She's got it. I remember seeing that.
Bridget Fetisi
She's got what it takes.
Adam Carolla
I was looking in the back of your head going, who's this mystery talent, this underage young gal?
Bridget Fetisi
That is. The funny thing about being an extra, though, is that because I moved here, I was so young and I did a lot of extra work and I would be there. Like I could do this, you know, you're an extra on like Felicity or whatever.
Adam Carolla
I think a corpse could do it. I think they call it background now. Yeah, because they're trying to.
Bridget Fetisi
Trying to make them feel okay about themselves. That seems less, actually.
Adam Carolla
Yeah. Well, okay. It's an interesting thing, you know, we have to gussy up things. Like we go like a woman's like, I'm thinking about donating my eggs for $41,000. That kind of donation.
Bridget Fetisi
Yeah. Is that really a donation?
Adam Carolla
Go look up the word donation. I know you feel bad about selling your eg, but let's call it what it is. It's selling your. And you know, they do a lot of access to healthcare and stuff. Like they can get healthcare. It's not provided for free by the hobby lobby. Whatever. We do like a lot of wordage stuff and we change stuff. Like we change dwarf and midget to little people. Little person.
Bridget Fetisi
Unhoused.
Adam Carolla
Unhoused. We like sex worker now mysteriously more than prostitute. More so syllables, smooths it out. Sex worker sounds bad to me. Yeah, but hoes sound worse. Yeah, but prostitute sounds sort of official. Classy. Classy.
Bridget Fetisi
What I'm saying is that was definitely hooker, though.
Adam Carolla
Background and extra work. Extra background doesn't sound better than extra. No, you're right, is what I'm saying.
Bridget Fetisi
It's one of the ones that got worse.
Adam Carolla
But extra work is what you did. And now if you did that, it would be background.
Bridget Fetisi
Yes, I was doing it when it was classy.
Adam Carolla
Yes, that's right. Immensely. So let me float you this idea. I was getting at this four and a half minutes ago, but I got caught Up. There's no barrier to entry now, but in life, we still recognize that. You can't just go, I bought an airplane. I'm going to start my own airline. You go, no, no, you got to be a licensed pilot. You got a license. You know, I got to be a certified welder. You know what I mean? Like, there's. You want to cut hair in California, you got to get a license.
Bridget Fetisi
Yeah.
Adam Carolla
How about, like, just a perfunctory test for creating content. Like, I've seen too many fucking bitches stand in the kitchen going, this is how I make veal cutlet. And they're just standing there pounding cutlet. Nobody wants to see this. What are you doing? You're not doing anything. What about just. You know, when I got a motorcycle license, I take my motorcycle down to the DMV and they put cones up. You know, you gotta ride the bike through the cones, like, for content. The Adam Corolla test. Get your license in under seven days. There's a waiting period on your podcast mayhem. Somebody. You just sit there.
Bridget Fetisi
Yeah.
Adam Carolla
And somebody comes in and goes, look, give me a fresh take on Nickelback. Go. You know? And you go, I don't know, dude. Fuck those dudes. Okay, you're out. We don't need to fuck those dudes. I need something interesting.
Bridget Fetisi
It is too one of the things that you realize where everyone goes, oh, anyone could do media. And then you start talking, interviewing people. You've done this with radio, and you're like, no, you can't. You're long winded. You don't make your point fast enough. You're telling a story that's boring.
Adam Carolla
Yeah, well, when you do a radio tour, that's when you really notice it, because the radio tour digs deep into the hamper of radio talent. You know what I mean? It's one thing to go sit in with Howard Stern or something like that, but it's another thing to do, like, 32 radio stations in one morning. And that's when you get the guys you've never heard of, and then you immediately hear that they're not up to.
Bridget Fetisi
Is something that is a skill. When I kind of found my way into media, you just learn. It was a steep learning curve. I kind of came out of a blackout, literally into the culture wars when I started writing for Playboy and in 2015, and then I started talking publicly, and I was like, oh, this is a shit show. You need to. People do go to school for this for a reason.
Adam Carolla
Yeah. I remember once Dr. Drew and I did a Live show, a Loveline live show in Syracuse. And we had this auditorium with like 3,000 Syracuse students in it. And somebody brought up broadcasting or getting a degree in broadcasting or some communications or whatever. And Drew did this long winded. What a waste of time it is. And the audience was getting, like, uncomfortable. I could feel them shifting around in their seats. And Drew was like, it's a waste of time. It's a waste of money. You want to learn about Broad, you show up at a radio station, you intern, you get mic time sitting in a classroom. It turns out it was a big communication school and everyone there was in the. Everyone was paying 40 grand a year to do what Drew said don't do. It was a waste of time. And they paid money to hear him tell them whatever they're doing was a waste of time. And I remember feeling that audience, like, shifting around. You know, when 3,000 people get uncomfortable, you can feel it. Not Drew, but I could feel it. My student loans.
Bridget Fetisi
Like, Drew, you probably should have gone to this school.
Adam Carolla
Yeah, you would have felt this. Yes. So, thoughts? You're hitting all the hot takes out there.
Bridget Fetisi
Yeah, somewhat. I saw you were talking about I went to the Palisades. I know you've been on talking about that. You've been out there, right?
Adam Carolla
Got a whole video blog about it. Check it out. Adamcarolla.com. thank you. Yeah, I got a whole video vlog about it.
Bridget Fetisi
So we went out there two days ago.
Adam Carolla
I was down there a couple days. Yeah, a few days ago.
Bridget Fetisi
So there's, you know, like three things being built.
Adam Carolla
I'll tell you the truth. I. I went into Malibu through the canyon, so you can kind of go the backside the back way across Pepperdine. And then when I was going home, I thought, well, I'll just go home the front way. So I went down pch. And so I checked everything in Malibu. But then I said, now, on the way home, we should turn up Sunset and see what's going on in the Palisades. But they blocked off Sunset, so we ended up just sort of driving through and going home. So to be accurate, I saw no building in Malibu. I can't say for certain what was going on in the Palisades because Malibu is so rich and so affluent and so whatever that if there's nothing being built in Malibu, then there's probably nothing in Altadena or Palisades either.
Bridget Fetisi
It was like three. There were probably three buildings that were being worked on in various stages.
Adam Carolla
You saw like, framing wood.
Bridget Fetisi
Oh, yeah, Framing, definitely. And there Were people working? And I was. It was, but it really was. You know, I've seen your video. I've seen many videos. It was. And I worked at Cafe Vita in the Palisades and burned down. And it was. It is shocking to see it in reality.
Adam Carolla
Just to be accurate, Cafe Vita burnt down 14 years earlier when you passed out smoking in the break room. So it did technically burn down. But I know people. You think you're attaching it to the fire happen much earlier than that when you got drunk at work again, my dear.
Bridget Fetisi
No, no, it burned out.
Adam Carolla
I do remember reading about that. And I said, she's the extra. I mean background. Jimmy corrected me.
Bridget Fetisi
She was in. She was background.
Adam Carolla
So you worked there. It burned down. You went out and toured it.
Bridget Fetisi
Well, no, I just went. I. Because I spent so much time in the Palisades. Yes, it was. I knew a lot of the people that live. And it was shocking. The Alphabet.
Adam Carolla
It's all gone.
Bridget Fetisi
I was not prepared for how shocked I would be. And seeing it with my naked eye.
Adam Carolla
Yeah. And it's, you know, going through sunset and through the Palisades, kind of the main drag. It's fine. But as you got up into the hill, you'd see total devastation. And it's also weird when they clear it. Cause once they clear it, if you don't know the area like up in the hills. Up in the hills. Or you never would go unless you live there. But there's certain spots where you go, oh, well, this area didn't look like it got hit. And someone go, there was a school there. Yeah, they just cleared it. Like some stuff. You can't tell up there again.
Bridget Fetisi
It's disorienting. It's starting to grow back. It's weird too, because now the Palisades is very much like a cult. It was a cult of the Palisades. That there's same with Altadena. Just multi generational families. Everyone's like, oh, they were rich. I'm like, not everyone there was rich. It was people who had lived there for generations. And there are like American flags in certain. You know, like, you see the flags just on an empty lot. And there was a kind of haunting grill that was left.
Adam Carolla
Yeah, it's weird.
Bridget Fetisi
There's one fireplace that's remains.
Adam Carolla
All the fireplaces remain, ironically. Yeah, yeah. It's. It's the only thing. It's brick and mortar, you know, it's meant. It did its job well. It's meant to have a fire in it and around it, apparently. Damn. Yeah. Everything around it goes, but it remains.
Bridget Fetisi
It's pretty.
Adam Carolla
You know, I have a philosophical thought about the chimney and the fireplace.
Bridget Fetisi
Okay, let's hear it.
Adam Carolla
LA is pretty much. You know, we don't have tornadoes or anything. We have earthquakes and fires, riots and mudslides. That's right. We have riots and stuff too. The mudslides are. Yeah, but that's only in certain parts. But earthquake will hit everywhere. Fire can hit a lot of pretty good reach. But we have earthquakes and we have fires. In a fire, when the fire goes through town, I mean, Andrew can find the clip of me talking to the army Corps engineers guy about the fireplace. Made sort of a joke about it. But we'll find the only thing left is a chimney and a firebox. It's a fireplace and a chimney. It's nothing else. And then there's like a 30 story brick chimney just sitting there. Got it. It's the only thing there. Hold on. That's in a fire. Only thing left standing. In an earthquake, it's down first. As a matter of fact, earthquakes will hit the San Fernando Valley. The house is fine, only the chimney is down. So there's a feast or famine thing with these chimneys. It's either last man standing or first man down. Because a earthquake takes a chimney out immediately. And the rest of the house is like wood and stucco and it like rocks and it'll get some cracks, but it doesn't. It's not destruction. Yeah, but in a fire it'll be the only thing. Yeah, I was just thinking, make houses out of chimneys. That's the, that's the old comic black box. If they make the whole plane out of a black box, that's hacky. I didn't know I was hacking up my bad hacky 80s comic.
Bridget Fetisi
Hey, I also feel like it goes against this point that like it would be the first thing the whole down the whole house.
Adam Carolla
Hey, a big bad wolf. No problem. It'll be if you anything out of masonry in an earthquake. Done. Done. So wait, didn't you do earthquake rehab for years. And it was like I had. I did earthquake rehab work because all those shitty slummy apartment buildings in Koreatown are all the brick facade.
Bridget Fetisi
So were you retrofitting them?
Adam Carolla
Yes, as a matter of fact, Larry Charles is coming in here. Seinfeld fame. I got bone to pick with him because everyone knows this. But I'm going to say it again. On the exterior of the Seinfeld apartment in the sitcom that go the exterior of the brick. It's got plates on it. Earthquake Plates. A Los Angeles earthquake. Plates, they don't have in New York. You can go, he's supposed to be in New York, not in New York. Because if you walk in all anywhere in Brooklyn, anywhere in New York. Look up, see the apartment. You don't see those steel plates on the outside of the building. Those are called sheer anchors. I used to put those on. They're welded to a piece of continuous strap that goes all the way around the floor. They literally bolt the floor. If you see them, it's spread out like eight feet. It's. Each floor has plates on it. So they went and shot the exterior of a brick, what looked like a Brooklyn type thing for Seinfeld. But that was in Los Angeles because they wouldn't have those plates. And that's why they needed me as a technical advisor.
Bridget Fetisi
They've totally missed the boat.
Adam Carolla
That show could have been great.
Bridget Fetisi
That show could have been huge.
Adam Carolla
I could have given it wheels or wings.
Bridget Fetisi
It's too bad, all that continuity, they really just messed it up.
Adam Carolla
Well, obviously, many Americans can't watch it. Here we go. Here's the real deal right here. That apparently this. Yeah. Is all right. You can see the plates on the outside of the building. They, by the way, they just primered steel plates. That's all they did. Stick steel plates, spray paint them, Primer. And at the top, at the very top, those are parapet braces. If you see the very top of the thing, those are parapet braces.
Bridget Fetisi
Okay.
Adam Carolla
Put those parapet braces on, and as you go down, you'll see those steel plates going all the way around the stupid building. You can kind of hear this photograph. Yeah. The apartment is in Koreatown where I worked putting the fucking plates on about the same time. This could have been mine. I should have copywritten the outside of this building.
Bridget Fetisi
Never noticed the shadow of the palm tree in this either.
Adam Carolla
You're right. They just didn't care that much. You know what I mean? Also, back then they were like, it's a fucking TV show. Shut up. Who cares? You know what I mean?
Bridget Fetisi
Just be grateful you have a show on tv.
Adam Carolla
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Larry Charles
That way it's a two story structure.
Adam Carolla
Okay, now makes sense. Oh, Corolla acted job on there. You got the log. Yeah, One take. Army corps engineer guys. Take that background.
Bridget Fetisi
That poor guy is just trying to fucking do his job.
Adam Carolla
And he's serious.
Bridget Fetisi
You're just trolling him in real life.
Adam Carolla
Brian saucer. I go, just, just wait till I'm done. And wait till I'm done. Don't say anything. Just when I'm done, I'll look at you and then you just say it's two stories. And then don't worry about it after that.
Bridget Fetisi
Okay?
Adam Carolla
That's how we're gonna do this.
Bridget Fetisi
Okay. So he was not just being taken along for a ride.
Adam Carolla
It would have been better. I did the same joke with Glenn. You can find that one in the American flag. You brought up the American flag. I did the same thing. I found that the less people know, the better. That's how I handle my relationships. Don't worry about it. I just go, don't Even think about anything. I'm just going to talk and talk, and then at some point I'm going to turn to you and you just say this, okay? And that's all. That's all you need to know.
Bridget Fetisi
That's it.
Adam Carolla
Because when you start breaking it down, then I think they get up in their head, right?
Bridget Fetisi
Yeah, yeah, It's. It's. I want to see Altadena. Have you been there, too? Did you do a whole tour? Yeah, I just, like, toured this, but.
Adam Carolla
So the vibe. I drove through Altadena yesterday.
Bridget Fetisi
Okay. Yeah, the vibe. I was, I will say, as someone who lived here for 17 years and then was here two days before the fires because I was visiting family and then left. The vibe is off here. It's weird. Well, it's very strange.
Adam Carolla
So my dad lived in Altadena, sold his house two weeks before he died or something. I went to go see if his house was still there. I didn't know if his house was still there. It is. And then I talked to Dr. Drew, who's a Pasadena native, and I started going like, I'm coming up on whatsit Street. Where's the fire? Where should I turn? Where should I go? And he kind of navigated me. I was talking about other shit, but he navigated me through it. And I went to. Yeah, so I've been to Altadena, Pasadena, sorry, Altadena, Palisades, and also Malibu. And I've seen there was no building whatsoever in Altadena either. I'll show you the Glenn joke. This is the same thing where I just. I took a civilian. I went, look, just play along. Don't worry about this civilian ironically in army clothes. You know, I gotta say, my heart is filled with pride that even after the devastation you see all around you, steel melted, stucco on the ground, total devastation, still the American flag survived. It somehow made it through the fire, and I think that's emblematic of this country and our sense of resistance. Isn't that amazing, Glenn?
Larry Charles
We put it there this morning.
Adam Carolla
Oh, the dejected Corolla case is my favorite.
Bridget Fetisi
It's probably the first time you were allowed to fly an American flag in the palisades in, like, 10 years, too.
Adam Carolla
I'm sure some lesbians threw coffee at it or something. Oh, man, this is a hate symbol. So you're saying the vibe is off? Yeah. Vibe check. What does that mean?
Bridget Fetisi
It's weird. It's. It's weird because you still have la, and I know you have to go on with your life, and we must, you know, Palisade Strong and all this stuff. But you, you see all these women and they're jogging still and it's just like whole neighborhoods are burned down. I don't know, it's very. It's very strange. I cannot. I haven't been able to articulate it correctly.
Adam Carolla
What I'm starting to realize is that our capacity to sort of absorb negative and kind of live with it is almost that of a hoarder. You know what I mean?
Bridget Fetisi
Just in la, or in general. Humanity.
Adam Carolla
Humanity. When you walk into a hoarder's house, you're like, holy fuck. Fucking shit, man. Where do you sleep, bro? It's like I sleep on the cot in the corner.
Bridget Fetisi
The pathways of the newspapers.
Adam Carolla
What happened? I don't know. I brought in a box or two at a time and that was 17 years ago. And here we are, you know, and you're like, this is horrible. They're like, I don't know, I kind of call it home, you know? And we're like. We went from like one homeless person to like stepping over encampments of homeless and kids toys and tents spread out everywhere. And like, I'll just walk in the middle of the street because I don't want to go through the tent city on the sidewalk, you know, until like, what, so what are you going to do? You know what I mean?
Bridget Fetisi
Yeah.
Adam Carolla
And then we got into some sort of world in Los Angeles where it's like literally after being displaced from the fire, I'm looking at rental houses and you know, Studio Village. Studio City, whatever. Looking for houses to live in and pass by the haunted treehouse. This really cool just happenstance, just like heading on a side street, you know, Hesby street in Studio City, like places you never go. But I'm looking for a rental and I look up and I go, that's an amazing tree house. It's like a two story tree house. I used to be a builder. I was like, somebody that ain't slapped together by some shitty kid. Like, that's nice, you know? And then immediately the next thought is, I can't believe the city let him build that. Yeah, I can't believe the city's not fucking with him. And then I went, eh, they got bigger fish to fry now that everything's burned to the ground. Two days later, city's involved, he's tearing it down. And I'm like, I drove through three homeless encampments where they're building two story plywood houses with this queen on them on the sidewalk. And you guys are focusing Your energy on the. And I'm like, I'm totally outraged. And everyone else is just like, I don't know, man.
Bridget Fetisi
But you're here for a reason still, right?
Adam Carolla
Sort of, yeah. But I'm leaving, too. I mean, I've given up, but I'm like, we are living in a place where half the place burned to the ground. The other half. So half the population of Los Angeles is legitimately homeless, sleeping on the street. The other half is homeless. Cause their homes burned down. And the city's focusing on this guy in Sherman Oaks and his treehouse tearing a tree. They're gonna take his tree house down. That's where their energy lies.
Bridget Fetisi
And Karen Batts will probably get reelected.
Adam Carolla
I don't. Sacrilege.
Bridget Fetisi
I'm telling you, I have learned to be. I've learned. It's why I left.
Adam Carolla
Manage your expectations.
Bridget Fetisi
I mean, I left family. I left. We had reasons to stay here that are not like, I'm sorry, where are you now? We're in. I'm moved to Texas.
Adam Carolla
Oh, okay. I see.
Bridget Fetisi
Yeah.
Adam Carolla
Well, if she doesn't get elected here. Karen Bass, second term for mayor.
Bridget Fetisi
She'll be president.
Adam Carolla
Is there. What is. What is Ghana? Have they have a prime minister or something? Like, what are their rules?
Bridget Fetisi
She'll just run for governor or something. It's like the next path on the failing upwards.
Adam Carolla
Oh, man, it's so insane. So every time Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass talk, all they do is talk about fighting ice. And it's like, how about a little permit talk? How about a lot of permit talk in there? So sprinkled in amongst the fighting Trump and fighting ice and suing the federal government. I have a little permit update. I have a little update on the permit situation. You know, well, the thing that is funny, I find funny, as I was saying the other day, which is, I just want to evolve. I want to just keep going better, getting better. It's like, hey, in 1908, Henry Ford came out with the Model T, and it had wooden spokes, and you had to crank it to start it. And now we have a Tesla that drives itself. Yeah. Now, the first car was a car that had four wheels in a steering wheel. You know what I mean? And a Tesla is a car. It's got four wheels and steering. But they just kept getting better. And that's what I sort of was hoping for, for society not, you know, going backward all time. And then, you know, defund the police. Oh, shit. Show. All right. Fund the police. Let's go back. Well, they already burnt down 75 stores. Well, fucking rebuild it, all right? Let's go forward again. You know, it's like. Like, can we just go with what works? And so now Gavin Newsom, recently, he's talking about. He's like, I'm gonna streamline all the red tape so we can get some homes built at a cost effective. It takes too long and it costs. You mean all the red tape that you guys have collected over the last 20 years since made building impossible and too expensive? You wanna come cut that now? Why did you need to put that in place in the first place? This is my whole thing. Can we just keep moving forward? So our plan in LA and in California is like, hey, listen, there's no building going on and there's no production going on. Okay? Why? Because you guys put too much fucking red tape in both departments. You charged too much. You got too greedy. The builders went away, the production went away. And then you make announcements where you go, we gotta get rid of this stuff that we put in.
Bridget Fetisi
Yeah.
Adam Carolla
We gotta unfuck what we already fucked up 20 years ago. So. Okay, so let me get this straight. It's an endless cycle of you guys fucking shit up and then unfucking it and then fucking it up again. Well, they're gonna try to get production back. It's like, okay, good luck. We're gonna try to get building back. Okay, good. Look, it'll be helpful, but I have a novel idea. How about not fucking it up in the first place? But it's a circle of fucks. It is. But there is a way to do this where you just don't fuck us in the first place.
Bridget Fetisi
But that seems like a feature, not.
Adam Carolla
Oh, yeah. Not a bug, baby. Yeah. And it seems.
Bridget Fetisi
That's kind of. That's what I came to the conclusion of. It had to be, because they held in there, and it was not getting better.
Adam Carolla
Gavin Newsom says sorry. The days of affordable housing and infrastructure in California being blocked by endless delays are finally over. Who ushered in all the blocks and the delays? You and your fucking Coastal Commission homo brothers. I know. Well, good. Oh, okay. Who should we blame? Sam Yordy, mayor of Los Angeles, 1961.
Bridget Fetisi
He's the guy in the hot dog costume. The meme, like, I'm trying to find the guy that did this. You know, he. He'll stand on. Remember when he stood on the train tracks and he was like, we've gotta reduce crime and we're gonna stop?
Adam Carolla
It was better than that. He stands on the train tracks and he goes, what's going on? I don't know what's going on, skipper. The Valdez that just fucking ran his tanker into. Into rocky shoals. I don't know what's going on. Alcoholic skipper. I don't know who's steering a fucking ship. I don't know. You want to know what's all the oil in the bay for? You ran your ship into the rocky shoals when you were drunk. That's what all.
Larry Charles
What's.
Adam Carolla
Why are all the seals dying? Okay.
Bridget Fetisi
Yeah.
Adam Carolla
You've run your fucking lawless state into the ground. That's what's going on.
Bridget Fetisi
I will tell you. My husband's blood pressure down when we left Los Angeles by a lot.
Larry Charles
Really?
Bridget Fetisi
Yeah.
Adam Carolla
He checked it.
Bridget Fetisi
Well, he just went to the doctor to do his thing, and he was like, my blood pressure has dramatically gone down.
Adam Carolla
You got Texas blood pressure?
Bridget Fetisi
And I was just. But I will say, this rage that I was living with all the time when I was paying. I mean, I couldn't do my taxes. I was like, I can't do my taxes in this state anymore. It makes me too mad.
Adam Carolla
I'd like to see. I imagine your doctors like your. Your husband's doctor's, like, let's see. All right, let me check here. Change your diet at all? No. You exercising more? No. You getting better sleep? No. Not being governed by retarded people. Yeah, that's something. Is that on the list? Okay. Yeah, that's on there. Okay. Should be on the list. It's on the list. What is the rest of Gavin Newsom's speech here? Because it's great. He says he just signed a historic. By the way. I like that. It's historic. It's just to undo the shit. His history. It is historic. It's his history. It's their history being undone. Okay, I'm glad you keep scrolling to the picture of him, but I'm reading the text part. He signed a historic package of laws. I do like that we got. Kind of reminds me when the pharmaceutical companies came up with a pill because people.
Bridget Fetisi
We're taking too many opioids.
Adam Carolla
Yeah. So they're like, I got it. Like, someone's, like, sitting in the Pfizer meeting, and they're like, one guy's like, maybe we should prescribe less opioids. Like, ted, you're fine. Who else has another mark? You got an idea? Yeah. What if we come up with another pill to then unblock the bowel blockage caused by our opioids. Now you're talking.
Bridget Fetisi
This is kind of out of the pocket thinking that was. Remember they did the super bowl commercial for that pill. That's when I was like, holy shit, America has a problem.
Adam Carolla
We'll find out. But holy shit is right. Hold on. So it's a historic package of laws, simplifying, building cuts and timelines and more affordable. Yeah. By the way, you don't have to simplify. You can leave people the fuck alone. They can build. It's easy to do. So anyway, now he's historically signed something to undo shit that never existed 25 years ago. It's not really that historic. You know what I mean? It's like if slavery didn't exist and then you implemented slavery in 2001, you signing a bill outlawing slavery wouldn't be that historic. You brought in slavery, you fucking retard.
Bridget Fetisi
This is so much of a.
Adam Carolla
It's like repealing prohibition right now, specifically. They started doing that in like 2001, you know? Is that the time they started? Okay, everybody, listen to me. Listen to me. I did this for a living. Before I was a big star. All I did was build. I had to pull permits. I had to deal with inspectors. I had to deal with a lot of inspectors. Inspectors. I've had many different run ins with inspectors. I've had on more than one occasion. Do you understand? Yeah. Sexual nature. I don't know where you're going with this.
Bridget Fetisi
It's like fisticuffs.
Adam Carolla
You got the word fist right? And you both are right. You both take a laugh, victory laugh on this one. I've had inspectors walk into a house that I own, that I was working on, and just walk in and go, who's in charge here? They don't knock. They just walk in the front door and they go, who's doing it? I go, who owns this home? And I go, I do. You got a permit? I go, no, I'm just doing some drywall work. Shut it down, down. And they'll literally say to a guy who's on a ladder, get off the ladder. Get off the ladder. Put your tools down. Leave. Everyone out, out. By the way, don't, you know, break at lunch and wrap it up or any of that. You. You, and you, drop your fucking tool bag. Really get the fuck out of here. This guy wearing a badge and a gun.
Bridget Fetisi
Now it sounds like running around going like, I'm Colin Ice.
Adam Carolla
I'm like, go, go, Gadget. Get out of here, bro. So. And they go, you go in, get a permit, blah, blah, blah. Apply for a permit, go to plancheck, whatever. And then when you get your permit, these guys can all come back and finish that. I've had that happen to me two times. Another time, working on a commercial building, they come walking in. They will walk in. If they see a dumpster parked out front or a couple of pickup trucks or hear a little ranchero music, they'll come right in and they'll just look around. They'll go, shut it the fuck down. So they'll do that to you. They'll come on to the jobs you can have. I had a job in West Hollywood. So did boys Townie. Working for the craziest couple ever. It was this gay guy and his lesbian sister who just. He wanted me to remodel his house. The sister paid for it all. She was like wearing the pants. And she'd come in and yell at him and yell at me. It was a crazy relationship. But. But you got to picture this huge deck off the back, right? Big wooden deck, screened in, framed in deck. The guy I was building it with, about three weeks in, my partner I was building with, he just went, I'm going back to Detroit for a few months. And I was like, what? And he's like, you can't leave me with this crazy lesbian bitch and her fucking impact brother. They're nuts. And he's like, I'm going to Detroit. And he's just like, left and had to pull permits and do everything. You pull permits. When you pull permits, you get a plan. The plan gets drawn up. Then the plan goes to plan check. Then they scrutinize it and they go, you should have some more Teco clips here and I want straps. You don't need to put the plates on the outside unless this is a Seinfeld opening or whatever. So you do all. They get the plan check, and then they stamp the plans and they go, okay, now you can build to these plants, right? This is your model, this is your menu. Keep it to what's exactly on this plant, okay? Built this big porch that went out the back. The porch is held up by pads, cement pads that were poured into the ground, steel in them and whatever the post holder and whatever the plan set. And then like a four foot post that went up to the bottom of the thing, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, got it all poured, framed the whole thing. Framed the whole thing out. And you gotta call for framing inspection. You call for framing inspection, you call for drywall inspection, call electrical, plumbing, all the different. They keep coming, they keep coming. They don't come out one time, they come out 13 times. Guy comes out I got about 20 of these posts, like 3 foot, 4 foot high going down to the ground onto these cement pads. Executed exactly how the plans said. Got the whole house, the whole big porch, add on, add on house, porch room thing sitting on all these posts. Guy comes out and goes, what's the four by four post going down to the cement pad? I go, well, that's what the plants call for. He goes, well, we can't have the cement. We can't have the wooden post going down to the soil line where the pad is. I go, well, why not? Well, it could soak up water, whatever. That's not right. I go, well, I'm just building what the plan said. And the plans were approved and drawn off. He goes, no, it needs to be 6 inches of cement underneath the thing above the soil line. So you got to put, you got to put like a 6 inch block on top of those pads and put the post on each post. I go, there's 20 posts. They're holding up the whole thing. Got to pull everyone out. You gotta cut six inches off, you gotta put the pat, you gotta put the riser on there so the post isn't going down to the soil level. I go, look, it's on the plans. And the plans are stamped by your office. And I'm building off the plans. And they were inspected by your office and stamped by your office. And that's what I built. And he goes, I don't care.
Bridget Fetisi
Oh my God.
Adam Carolla
Hey, Ace. He wanted a fat Hyundai, you know what I mean? He wanted a little grease of the palm action. I think he'd give you a simple solution.
Bridget Fetisi
This doesn't sound like the kind of guy who would be.
Adam Carolla
I already bid the job. And the fucking lesbian bitch is not gonna tack on extra three grand for me to jack up the whole fucking place and pull out. No, I unbolted every thing. Pulled out every motherfucking yes. What the fuck? Fucking tell me about work, everyone. Fucking assholes. American Giant. Do you know that 60% of clothes we buy end up in a landfill within a year of being made? Historically, our clothes were something we held onto for a long time. Remember that? Remember back in the day? But big apparel companies constantly find ways to make clothes faster and cheaper. Turning clothes disposable. American Giant is about durable non disposable products. They make clothes built to last. So buying from American Giant is an investment. And not just in the clothes, but in a community trying to do things the right way. I'm wearing my hoodie right now. American Giant this stuff is. It's quality. It's not disposable, it's not junk. I hate that landfill business. Hang on to stuff. Bequeath it to your kids through American ingenuity and innovation. They went against the current to do better. They believe in a new kind of conscious buying because small changes can add up up to something big. It's American Giant, right, Dawson? Support American Made Terror free clothing with American Giant. Get 20 off your first order when you use promo code Adam@AmericanGiant.com. that's 20 off when you use code Adam@American-Giant.com. this summer, Pluto TV is exploding with thousands of free movies. Summer of cinema is here. Feel the explosive action. All stars summer long with movies like Gladiator, Mission Impossible, Beverly Hills Cop, Good Burger and Transformers. Dark of the Moon. Bring the action with you and stream for free from all your favorite devices. Pluto tv Stream now. Pay never. Wait.
Bridget Fetisi
Do people get mad at you about work?
Adam Carolla
People are like, you don't need to dad a second show to that. I don't give a. You know what I used to do, people I don't look at talking or stand up or writing or anything as work anymore after crawling around and doing what I did.
Bridget Fetisi
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Adam Carolla
I don't do that. And also, don't give me your fucking hardscrabble life and my white privilege. Go fuck yourself. Oh, okay. That's the other thing.
Bridget Fetisi
So people don't think that you do this is work, but you don't think it's work either.
Adam Carolla
It's tough today. Yeah. But when we get a good guess, it fucking flows. Hey, you're known for your unpopular opinion. What's your most unpopular opinion? Right, unpopular opinion.
Bridget Fetisi
My most unpopular opinion, probably boys and girls are different. I don't know.
Adam Carolla
Come on. I do love that.
Bridget Fetisi
That's controversial oldie, but a good but. I mean, if you're asking me what's my people literally scream when I do stand up like women from the back. Cause I would just. Every time I'd hear birthing person or you, I'd be just on my show, I'd be like, women. Like just say fucking women. What is wrong with you, gu? Why can't you say this?
Adam Carolla
I don't know. It's like a weird thing where they go. They get Ketanji Brown, Jackson. Like, can you say what a woman. I'm not a biologist. Can you say what a woman is? I don't know what you're saying.
Bridget Fetisi
No.
Adam Carolla
What is a woman? I do not know what you are saying. What is a woman? It's crazy. I don't know what that is. Yeah, it's like. It's the weird. It's a fucking cult. It's weird or something. You know what I mean?
Bridget Fetisi
It is truly like, Douglas Murray, Madness of crime. You know, it's like that. It is something that I don't fully understand. But then you read about, like, those weird dancing. Remember when they used to dance until they went crazy?
Adam Carolla
Oh, yeah.
Bridget Fetisi
There were, like, these cults of people who would just dance and.
Adam Carolla
Oh, I didn't know that.
Bridget Fetisi
Oh, yeah, it's wild.
Adam Carolla
I just think, oh, like Ellen, she was just wanting people to think she was nice. Was this cultic group of bitches that wanted people to think they were nice.
Bridget Fetisi
It was like in the. I forget what year it was, but they would dance until they went hysteric. They were hysterical, and they would not eat or drink or anything like that.
Adam Carolla
But let's.
Bridget Fetisi
Can we Google this?
Adam Carolla
I went to a lot of raves in the 90s. Yeah. I got dehydrated. But let's define. Let's talk about the difference between then and now. All right?
Bridget Fetisi
Social media.
Adam Carolla
There's always crazies.
Bridget Fetisi
Yes. There's always crazies.
Adam Carolla
And there are always crazy cults. And then we looked at those cults and went, those fucking guys are crazy. But we didn't agree with them.
Bridget Fetisi
No.
Adam Carolla
We didn't defend them well.
Bridget Fetisi
And they didn't have bots making it seem like their opinion was more correct than it is.
Adam Carolla
Right.
Bridget Fetisi
So a lot of these crazy people are inflated by foreign interest people who are like, oh, we'll make this crazy person look like they're popular.
Adam Carolla
Yeah.
Bridget Fetisi
So that we can destroy America from the inside.
Adam Carolla
But the real problem is not the crazy cult. It's the people too scared to say anything.
Bridget Fetisi
Yeah.
Adam Carolla
And it's the same with the trans thing and the what is a woman thing and the gay and lesbian and LGBT and whatever. It happened a lot with COVID It happened a lot with Black Lives Matter. People being scared. Shit. Let's just go. I disagree. I don't know what the fuck you're talking about.
Bridget Fetisi
And it's common sense. The most unpopular opinions right now are just. Just common sense.
Adam Carolla
Oh, 100%.
Bridget Fetisi
That's why it's so crazy right now, because the common sense people are going, wait, what? Like, how does it. This. Am I the minority? And I do think that this recent Trump election was a little bit of the normies going, like, fuck this. I'm not listening to this anymore. But still, People are like, woke is gone. I'm like, no, it's not.
Adam Carolla
It's not. No, they're trying.
Bridget Fetisi
It's hibernating.
Adam Carolla
Yeah. It's just a lot of retarded ideas that don't really have any application.
Bridget Fetisi
Yeah. But even look in New York.
Adam Carolla
Yeah, I know. Because they don't factor in human nature. And that's the problem with everything. And every idea that they have is based on some trait that humans don't possess. And I basically. I've said this, but I mean it. It's my sort of pumpkin shitter theory.
Bridget Fetisi
Okay.
Adam Carolla
I don't know what this is.
Bridget Fetisi
I like how you got really serious about that.
Adam Carolla
You don't know my pumpkin shitting thing. Ears wide open. Well, all these ideas where they go, like, look, we're gonna take the unhoused community. There's a lot of hotel rooms that are vacant. They have many bars and fridges. But we're on the honor system. We'll put them into these things. So they now become housed. And then they'll be able to shower and clean themselves up and live in dignity. And then once they get them a nice donated suit, they can go out on jobs and they can get themselves a nice job. And just temporarily, they're going to live at the highest Regency downtown. You open the door, two days later, there's fucking raccoons shooting up heroin in the room. And the guy smeared. He wrote Helter Skelter and fecal matter on the wall. Right? Okay. Sounded like a good plan. Sounded like a good plan.
Bridget Fetisi
You know, it sounded like a good plan.
Adam Carolla
You got these homeless people here. They got these open rooms over there. Remember, they're unhoused. They're not street junkies. They're unhoused people. We'll put them in the house, house them a little dignity, clean them up, they can go out on job interview. Okay, Sounds good. All right, pumpkin shitter, you ready?
Bridget Fetisi
I'm waiting. I'm waiting for this.
Adam Carolla
We do this where we need. These people need a judgment free zone to inject their drugs. They need clean needles so they don't spread the heroin, they don't spread the hiv, and that's hepatitis C. They need an environment where they can do it. Yeah, okay. Shit show. Shit show. Okay. Pumpkin shitter theory. We live in a society where if on Halloween there's the nice family that's out of town and they put the pumpkin, the plastic pumpkin, and they fill it full of mini candy bars and they put it on the porch and they go, limit yourself to One, please. One. One. Yeah, one. And the first kid comes up, looks around, sees it, takes the pumpkin, and he dumps the whole fucking pumpkin into his bag, right? Next kid comes up, sees there's nothing in the pumpkin, and takes a shit in the pumpkin. Okay? Third kid comes up, sees there's a shit in the pumpkin, and kicks the fucking pumpkin through the bay window in the living room. That's our society now.
Bridget Fetisi
We're just starting it on fire.
Adam Carolla
The day. The day we have a society where 10 kids in a row can come up and just take one Snickers bar and leave. That's the day we can implement your fucking lefty ideas. Trick or treat, America. Free bus rides. Free this. Live in dignity. We'll do all of it. If we can get to 8 out of 10 kids taking one candy bar. But we don't. We ain't there. Gotta have a discipline system. We a lot of pumpkin shitters in our society.
Bridget Fetisi
I have a random question before. I know you'll probably have to go soon, but what do you think about. It's totally off topic, but I like your pumpkin shitter theory a lot. That's actually true, but because you're a car guy. It is true. It's a really good theory. You should write a book called Pumping Shitter and How to Change American Children. What do you think about. Do you think that one of the fights we'll live to see is the autonomy to drive? Because I do.
Adam Carolla
Oh, you mean they're gonna. Well, okay, let's.
Bridget Fetisi
They're gonna take it away.
Adam Carolla
Let's globally look at what we're dealing with.
Bridget Fetisi
They're gonna take it away.
Adam Carolla
Okay, okay, I'll start.
Bridget Fetisi
You're talking about the Teslas.
Adam Carolla
I will grant you this. They would like 100% control over everything all the time. I mean, that's their. They don't say it, but everything they do points to that. They wanted you to mask outdoors. The first thing they did was take the bulldozers and fill the skate parks at the beach with sand, cut down the volleyball nets at the beach and weld iron over the. Over the hoops at the park. Okay? So don't try to convince me that they don't want 1000% control all the time, which is sad and weird and it's very un American, But I'm with you. They've showed their hands. They've shown their hand. That's what they want. So they would like that for everything. So as long as the car falls under the heading of everything, then, yes, you're Correct. And. And it's very uniquely American. And see the USA in a Chevrolet. That shows guys with motoring freedom. Freedom. Yes. They don't like freedom. They want control. And yes, for that they will make entrees into whatever the car version of that is. I mean, they're already starting to do like a mileage. The floating mileage tax. There's the city congestion tax, there's the outlaw internal combustion. Yeah. Yes. They want.
Bridget Fetisi
I'm already starting the ante.
Adam Carolla
They want everything.
Bridget Fetisi
I mean, the symbol will be the seat belt. I'll be like. This all started with seatbelts.
Adam Carolla
Yeah.
Bridget Fetisi
Cause people used to say this is just a slippery slope to more control. Now I'm like, the seatbelt people were right.
Adam Carolla
We'll have a Boston belt party. We'll take all the belts and throw them into the bay.
Bridget Fetisi
Because my husband was saying, and our daughter, who's three, will probably never need to learn how to drive. Which is bananas thought, but also accurate.
Adam Carolla
Yeah, yeah. Or she'll marry me. She'll be my trophy wife, and I fucking drive. Because you don't have to learn. You don't have to learn how to drive with me.
Bridget Fetisi
Yeah.
Adam Carolla
I can't stand being a passenger.
Bridget Fetisi
She'll be just. You'll be like 90 when she's 18.
Adam Carolla
Wow. To be fair, like 83. 83. Anything about 18. Come on, man, give it the time.
Bridget Fetisi
Oh, yeah, that's right. Well, there's another slippery slope.
Adam Carolla
I'm one of the few people who doesn't tolerate I'm a horrible passenger. But most people are horrible passengers because they're telling you to slow down. I'm a horrible passenger because you don't drive fast enough for me. And the only person I'm agreeing I let drive me around is Mike August, who drives like an asshole all the time. So I'm perfectly fine.
Bridget Fetisi
What do you think the last state to fall will be for allowing people to drive on their own?
Adam Carolla
Oh, I think I've decided that the states will be divided up between safe spaces and octagons. And the octagons, like Florida and Texas and stuff, are never gonna go in for all this shit.
Bridget Fetisi
Yeah, I think it's actually more like Luddite versus, you know, like the techno, like people downloading their consciousness into a new skin or whatever. And then there will be the Luddites that are just like Ted Kaczynski will be their God.
Adam Carolla
And listen, I'm a Luddite leader. I think first off, I chronicled the whole self driving car thing. Dawson will back me Up. I don't even know if it's recorded anywhere. It must be, but Navageddon, I made an action movie out of this. It was. It's not just the government. It's the Chinese satellite. The range for an electric car in 10 years can be 1,000 miles. Your daughter is gonna get into this futuristic car one day and just sit in it. All of a sudden, the doors are gonna lock automatically from the rogue Chinese satellite. And things gonna start steering toward the Grand Canyon. And your daughter. And the Chinese flag's gonna come up on the screen, you know, with a laughing Chinese guy. And all of a sudden, they're just gonna drive us all into the. We're going Thelma and Louise. They'll just drive. And you'll be trying to get out of the car. You'll be trying to pull stuff of.
Bridget Fetisi
The Silicon Valley episode where he drives into the shipping container and just drives him into a shipping container and like, door shops.
Adam Carolla
Yes, we have the audio of navigating. I don't know what I was pitching to, but luckily, old school astronaut at the time, it was Bruce Willis, act one of the movie. He comes pulling up in his 69 Ford Bronco and everyone's making fun of him. He's driving that old picture. What are you late for again, Bob? Ah, it overheated. Why don't you get a new car like everyone else? Ah, like the old school, you know, that's where it starts.
Bridget Fetisi
Yeah.
Adam Carolla
Cause he still got the old school.
Bridget Fetisi
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Adam Carolla
You have the audio? No, he's listening. I worked this whole thing out. It's called Navageddon. Takes place in future Chinese Rogue. You know, they'll be working with the California government. Don't get me wrong, he had a good take on it in the movie Leave the World behind, where they had all the Teslas crashing into each other like making a big wall.
Bridget Fetisi
Yeah, that movie was haunting. Yeah, I still think about that movie all the time.
Adam Carolla
Fast and Furious did a thing with self driving cars, too, but I did this in 05. You were on the cuz. Yeah, yeah. No, always. Always on the vanguard of all bad movie ideas. It's movie time.
Larry Charles
I'm gonna lay back.
Adam Carolla
All right? Let you and Mr. McGee, if you want to chime in and help color our world, that's fine. What's this pitch, by the way?
Larry Charles
I'm curious.
Adam Carolla
It's a thriller, okay. It's a glimpse into the future. Got it. And it's a cautionary tale about the Patriot act and Big Brother spinning out of Control. I can dig it. All right, we're going ahead, but not too far. The year 2000. Seven and a half. No, we'll go up to like 222. Okay, it's like 15 years ahead of now. The military is working on a satellite. It's military satellite. Now I play Colonel Duke lacrosse. Okay, I'm in. I'm in a top secret project that is working on this satellite that has artificial intelligence. It actually can think. It doesn't just command, you know, obey commands from the earth anymore. It can actually think for itself. I realize this is spinning out of control. I want no part of this project. But I know too much. I get out. I do that. I. I give in. My. My papers, my resignation, and I'm out. So our protagonist lacrosse has a conscience. That's right. That's. That's good. Protagonist. Yes. That's a good guy.
Bridget Fetisi
Okay, I'm with you.
Adam Carolla
Okay, so that's me. I go home. I'm a fan. Family man. Got it. Now this, by the way, this. This. This satellite which is now thinking for itself, you know, and starting. Starting to beam evil things back down to earth. Because of course, every time you give a machine an idea, whenever they can think for themselves, they always turn bad. They never want to give you a BJ or I'll go walk this dog or anything. They turn on your ass. They turn on your. And now it's getting into cars, navigational systems, the GPS, because it's the year 222. Every car has a GPS now, and it's. It's beaming its satellite down. It's evil information down through the antenna of these cars, and it's telling good people to drive toward the Grand Canyon. Everyone is being forced toward the Grand Canyon. Oh, you think you're going out to get a quart of milk or pick the kids up from school? No way. Turn left here. Oh, the. The nursery schools. To the right. Turn left. I know what I'm doing. Boom. Next thing you know, you're in Arizona and you're driving into the Grand Canyon. Well, it's going after me. It's targeted me because I know. It knows I know too much, and I'm the only man who can take it down. Okay. By the way, it's called Navageddon. It's the end of the world via the navigation system that is built into every car now. Yeah, that was one of the Navageddon pitches. And there are others with the self drive. It evolved. And because I saw a car in a commercial like parallel park itself. And I was like, oh, Navageddon's gonna drive itself in. Yeah. All right. Anything else about the future you wanna know?
Bridget Fetisi
Oh, I was just curious about your take about that. I wondered how you felt about AI in general. As someone who's kind of a. I'm.
Adam Carolla
A regular old Ray Kurzweiler.
Bridget Fetisi
Yeah, a regular old Ray Kurzweiler.
Adam Carolla
I still. I believe that there is something important about. I have a notepad, you know what I mean? I make notes, you know, like tactile stuff. And I, like, wash my car, even though everyone says go to the car wash, you know, and I build stuff. Like, I think. I think the important part of life is a tactile sort of physical part of life and the outsourcing of everything. Like hiring a dog walker is a bad idea. No matter how much money you have, no matter how busy you are, you are depriving yourself of the experience of walking your dog. And there's a lot of that. And now it's digital, you know what I mean? So it used to be, hire a thatcher to fix the roof, you know, and they go, all right, makes sense. I'll go to work at the mill and that guy can come fix my roof or whatever. But then we started getting into, you know, nannies and dog walkers and personal chefs and guys breaking in your loafers for you. Although I've combined the dog walker with the guy breaks in my loafers because, you know, it's belt tightening time. Speaking of that, if you talk to the guy breaks in my belts. All right, the point is, now we're gonna outsource ideas, and now it's really getting dicey. And what I would say to people is as archaic as it feels. Don't dive down that hole. You get your pen out, get your buck, slip your paper, whatever, and start writing stuff.
Bridget Fetisi
That's all right.
Adam Carolla
That's where I'm at. Yeah, it'll do what it's gonna do. It'll take the trajectory of whatever. Porn, self driving cars, they're all just gonna go somewhere. We have no idea where it's going. But for your own personal sanity, get out a pen and a pad.
Bridget Fetisi
I have young nieces, nephews, who are. Well, they're young adults, and they're like, why would I take. That's like telling me to take a horse when I could take a car. You know, this is kind of the argument.
Adam Carolla
Yeah, no, I. Everything is faster and everything is cheaper and you're wasting your time to listen. It's like at a certain Point. It's gonna be a waste of time to be alive. Come on, Adam. Your time is much too valuable to breathe.
Bridget Fetisi
That's gonna be the robot saying that.
Adam Carolla
I know. It's just gonna be a fucking waste of time to actually do just stand up. What are you getting dressed in the morning for? Come on. It's a waste of your time. Have someone else get dressed.
Bridget Fetisi
That will be your humanoid going, all right. Why am I doing this? This guy is a waste of time.
Adam Carolla
All right. I'm gonna bring in legendary writer director Larry Charles. Speaking of Seinfeld, Curb youb Enthusiasm and Borat and everything else. Bridget, I will give all your stuff a fat ass plug. Thank you when the show ends.
Larry Charles
Thank you for having me.
Adam Carolla
Mayhem. Thanks for nothing.
Bridget Fetisi
Mayhem.
Adam Carolla
Take that news. Take a quick break. Back with Larry Charles right after this. Homes.com. some might say homes.com is the best home shopping site. It may be that homes.com this is a super comprehensive and transparent agent directory. Could be the reason why people love it so much. 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. homes.com. We've done your homework. Home title lock. All right, listen up kids. This isn't some far off scam. This is happening right now. If you own a home, you better listen to this. In today's world, scammers are using AI to fake documents to steal home titles. One forged signature, a phony notary stamp and suddenly your house, it's not yours anymore. They can drain your equity, even sell your place out from under you. When's the last time you checked your home's title? Yeah, that's what I thought. Never. That's why I'm telling you about Home Title Lock. Use my promo code. Adam. @hometitlelock.com Get a free title history report and a free trial of their million dollar triple lock protection. They'll monitor your title 24 7. Send you urgent alerts if anything changes. And if fraud happens, they'll spend up to a million bucks to fix it. Don't wait until it's too late. Protect your home and your equity today. Do what I did. Home title lock. Do it now. Right. Dawson, go to hometitlelock.com and use promo code ADAM. That's hometitlelock.com, promo code ADAM. It's time to check Adam's voicemail. Hey, Adam. Steve from Alaska. Colin, regarding your end of civilization signs, I also think that showing cornhole tournaments on ESPN is another sign of collapse. Thanks. Doing great. You can leave us a message at 888-634-1744. Larry Charles in the studio. The book Comedy Samurai, 40 Years of Blood, Guts and Laughter. It's available now wherever finer books are sold. And Borat and Curb and Seinfeld and some of the most iconic comedies ever. Good to see you again, Larry.
Larry Charles
Good, thank you. Some big failures, too. I'd love to talk about those. They're in the book. They're in the book. I got fired by Robert Redford. I mean, I've had some very monumental humiliations.
Adam Carolla
What did he fire you for? Or what project was that on?
Larry Charles
It was on a movie called A Walk in the woods, which was a great book, and he was gonna star in it. He was about really 30, 40 years older than the actual character from the book who's a real character, a real person. And the script that they had with Nick Nolte was the co star. The script that they had was kind of weak. And I offered to rewrite the script, and I told him what I was gonna do. And I went back to the book as source material and I wrote a much darker, funnier, more extreme script.
Adam Carolla
Were you gonna direct it?
Larry Charles
I was gonna direct it. And we were about to go off on the scout to the Rocky Mountains, to the trail and everything, and he read the rewrite, which he had approved of, and he called me up and he went, and this is Robert Redford saying this to me. He's like, larry, what were you thinking? And I was like, you know, my dad doesn't really talk to me that way. So I was like, that was the end of the project. That was it for me. He made it anyway. But it's a forgotten movie because it wasn't very good.
Adam Carolla
Yeah, no. Three Days of the Condor or. Or Jeremiah Johnson. Or is it man in the Wilderness? I think it was. Jeremiah Johnson was one of those.
Larry Charles
Jeremiah Johnson was a man in the wilderness. Yeah.
Adam Carolla
So it's interesting. Let's break this down.
Larry Charles
Yes, sir.
Adam Carolla
I too, have been involved with the creative process and I've had people. The problem with the creative process is there is no real way to measure good or bad or funny or unfunny. Just have some. Some fucking Asshole going, I don't get it. It's not good. You know what I mean? And then someone else would go, that's the greatest idea I ever heard in my life. And so you never know. And in other worlds, when I was a carpenter, I would hang doors. A door opens, it shuts, it latches, the deadbolt throws or it doesn't.
Larry Charles
Correct.
Adam Carolla
But if someone's lifting the door up, trying to get the deadbolt to lock and you're explaining, I did a great job hanging that door. They're going, no, you didn't. But on the other hand, they can't accuse you of hanging a bad door if you just shuts, latches and locks.
Larry Charles
Correct.
Adam Carolla
So it's very, it's mechanical, it's tangible. And there is a right and a wrong and an up and a down. And in a way it's boring, but also it can be defined.
Larry Charles
It's satisfying too though, right?
Adam Carolla
And it's satisfying.
Larry Charles
It fits.
Adam Carolla
Right. But I've sat with program directors and I said, well, what if I do a show? You know, this is 30 years ago. What if I did a show with my buddy Jimmy Kimmel? And they go, that guy's not talent. He's a behind the scenes guy. He's a producer. He's not an on microphone in front of the camera. He's not that guy. And I had to sit there and go, I think the door shuts fine. And he was like, well, he didn't. And that's not what we're doing. And we got the checkbook here. So Jimmy's not gonna do this now. You know, hosted the Oscars four times. So I'd say, of course, say there's some talent there.
Larry Charles
You have instinct.
Adam Carolla
Yeah, I did. Well, I did. I was like, that guy's good, but who's gonna listen to me?
Larry Charles
Right? But instinct is all you have. And that's what the creative process is so much about.
Adam Carolla
You could wrote a killer script and then Robert Redford's gonna go, what are you thinking?
Larry Charles
Right, exactly.
Adam Carolla
And here we are.
Larry Charles
Yeah. So creativity is a variable that everybody in the corporate world that we are trying to not be part of is trying to quantify in some way, trying to make it fit like a door. But it can never be that way. It's always something that's elusive. Nobody knows what's funny. Mel Brooks doesn't know. Larry David doesn't know. I don't know. You don't know. We hope it's funny, we trust that it's funny. We have instincts that we think it's funny from all our years of experience, but nobody knows if the door's gonna fit or not, and that's the beauty of it. But the corporations who control the funding of those things, that's what makes them very nervous.
Adam Carolla
Yeah, and then I get. They see some guy like Larry David or something, and they go, I could see him writing or creating or something, but he's not the star of. Look at the guy. He's not a star of the TV show. Come on now. You know what I mean? And that's sort of how it works.
Larry Charles
They didn't even trust him as a writer, though, originally. They didn't trust him as anything. And he really didn't engender trust because his personality was such that he had so much integrity. He could not. He was like the Howard Rourke, the fountainhead of comedy. He could not compromise. And so they were always very nervous about him being in charge of anything. At first on Seinfeld, he wasn't the boss. They had showrunners from kind of traditional sitcoms being his boss originally. So he has defied all those expectations.
Adam Carolla
Yeah. And it doesn't always work, but it helps if you're. You're actually talented and actually funny. Funny kind of finds a way. Talent sort of finds a way. Lots of setbacks. Can't expect people to recognize everybody all the time. But at some point, it'll find its way. I don't know anybody. I sort of say to people and they go, you know, it's tough out there. The economy stuff, Everything. Stuff. I go, who do you know who's really good at their job? That's ever really strange.
Larry Charles
Exactly.
Adam Carolla
You know, anyone who's really good at their job and struggling. Well, it's a tough economy. You check the Nikkei Average. I'm like, who do you know who's good at their fucking job? Who's struggling? And the answer's nobody, because it sort of works that way.
Larry Charles
Yeah, well, but. And failure is not something to be afraid of. That's something that I think all the risk takers share. They're willing to risk failure. You have to be willing to risk failure. Know that it's part of the equation of success. And if you don't risk failure, you have no. You know, it's like no balls, no blue chips. You know, that is a kind of a philosophy of life that I've lived by, you know, and I. And I think most of these people. And probably you have lived by that same philosophy.
Adam Carolla
Well, it's. You know, you don't look forward to it, but it's baked in.
Larry Charles
Yes, exactly.
Adam Carolla
And I think there is nobody who plays major league baseball that's devastated that they're not hitting.900. You know what I mean? They can live with 321 and get.
Larry Charles
Us the hall of Fame.
Adam Carolla
Yeah, they'll go to a hall of fame at 321. You know what I mean? And so they're getting rich, and they're going to the hall of fame batting.300.
Larry Charles
Right. Missing most of the time.
Adam Carolla
Missing most of the time, yes. And if you said to them, wasn't that that kind of tough on the ego, they go, no, it's baked in.
Larry Charles
Baked in.
Adam Carolla
Right.
Larry Charles
And also, because there's so many games in baseball, that's a perfect sport for an analogy. You're going to lose a large, vast number of those games.
Adam Carolla
Yeah, No, I always yell at people because I don't really like baseball that much, but I like to use it as an analogy. But they get upset, and I'll go, oh, pivotal game. 39 out of the 162. Boy, they really needed that one, didn't they? Now they're 30 and 19 or 20 and 19.
Larry Charles
That's why I like football better, because every game is an important game.
Adam Carolla
I agree.
Larry Charles
Everything's on the line in each game.
Adam Carolla
I agree. I totally agree. Like, I just feel like in baseball, you lose five games in a row and nobody really cares.
Larry Charles
Right. Nobody's paying attention.
Adam Carolla
Also, baseball, okay, I'll just tell you this. If you go to the side, you know, people complain because I make fun of baseball, but. Okay, if you go to the sideline of an NFL football game and you. They'll put the camera on the sideline every once in a while, and you'll see, like, the defensive coordinator is screaming at, like, three DBs, are sitting there and he's pointing at stuff, and he's pointing at a dry race board, and he's out of his mind. And then the quarterbacks are looking at the tablets, and he's on the mic with the guy up on the booth, and then the other guy's practicing, kicking over there, intense. And then you go to. You go to the dugout of a major league baseball game, and they're trying to make a pyramid out of seed husk, you know, the other guy's got his fucking rally hat inside out. They're fucking around.
Larry Charles
They're down the locker there fucking around, right?
Adam Carolla
It's like, what are you guys doing? Why you guys eating? Yeah, there's a game going on yeah, we're eating. It's like, well, you're eating. Nobody's eating on an NFL. It's not intense enough.
Larry Charles
Yes, I agree.
Adam Carolla
So your world starts where. Let's just go all the way through it chronologically.
Larry Charles
Well, I mean, I didn't know how to break into show business, but I knew I wanted to be part of it. And I knew that Woody Allen had sold jokes to comedians. And when I came out to California with just an idea.
Adam Carolla
From where?
Larry Charles
From Brooklyn. Brooklyn, New York. I lived in a place called Trump Village, which was a low income housing project in Brooklyn. Seven buildings, 23 stories, 22 apartments on a floor. Everybody moved in at the same time. It was like a prison yard there. The demographics, all the boys moved in at the same time. And it was very Lord of the Flies, like.
Adam Carolla
And that was Trump Senior. Senior. Senior. Not Senior senior, but Trump's dad, Donald Trump. Fred.
Larry Charles
Fred, yeah. And Donald was around at that time. He would come around with frequent. Fred looked just like Satan. He had a really bad mustache and a kind of really badly dyed hair. And he just had an evil kind of thing about him. His demeanor was very evil. And Donald looked the way he looked now, only 14, 16 years old, almost like a joke. And so my father was a failed comedian and his stage name was Psycho, the Exotic Neurotic. And so you can imagine why it didn't work out. And he came out of World War II and used the GI Bill to go to drama school and just. It didn't work out, you know, but he planted the seeds of show business in my head. He would ask me, he didn't care about math or science. He wanted me to repeat the dialogue from White Heat, you know, with Jimmy.
Adam Carolla
Cagney, Half of the world.
Larry Charles
Yeah, all that kind of stuff. Yeah, if that battery's dead, it's gonna have company, you know, that kind of stuff. And. And he would take me into the city to see his friends who remained in show business even though they weren't actors anymore. They were like technical directors or lighting directors. And we would go to the Ed Sullivan show where he had a friend working and watch the rehearsals. And I was like, I can't believe this is how a show is done. Because all I had done up until then, like most kids, was watch it on tv. Now I'm seeing the cameras, I'm seeing how many people are involved in making a TV show. And that really stuck to me as I grew up, you know. And then I got Woody Allen and I had the same birthday and I was very Into Woody Allen in the late 60s and bananas and Take the Money and Run. And I read a lot about him, and he's from the same neighborhood. We grew up, like, in this kind of. Oh, really fixed in Jamaica of Brooklyn, where, like, instead of inventing reggae, like, Jewish comedy was invented there. Mel Brooks, Larry David, all from the same little triangle.
Adam Carolla
Don't forget love and death.
Larry Charles
Love and death, of course, joke for joke.
Adam Carolla
Woody Allen movie.
Larry Charles
Yeah, there's a lot of good ones back then. Also, it was really fun to go see a Woody Allen.
Adam Carolla
I loved it.
Larry Charles
And Blazing Saddles was coming out not long after that. It was a very fertile time for comedy. And so I was very caught up in that. And I read that he sold jokes to comedians. Woody. And so I decided eventually, you know, to jump a few years to come out to California. I was about 19 years old. And I wrote jokes, hand wrote them, by the way. I didn't have a typewriter. And I would stand in front of the Comedy Store, which at that time was a golden era of the Comedy Store. Pryor was trying stuff out, Robin Williams was trying stuff out. And the two kings of comedy at that time were Jay Leno and David Letterman. They were the kings of the Comedy Store. And I would stand in front of the Comedy Store. It was a very loose atmosphere at that time. And when comedians came by that I recognized, I would literally say, you want to buy a joke? Like a drug dealer? And some of those guys started buying jokes. Jay Leno bought my first joke.
Adam Carolla
Really?
Larry Charles
And he said, I like this joke, and if it gets a laugh on stage, I'll give you 10 bucks.
Adam Carolla
Really?
Larry Charles
Yeah, it was on consignment.
Adam Carolla
Wow.
Larry Charles
Yeah, yeah. And I eventually got a reputation as somebody who had good jokes.
Adam Carolla
Do you remember what that first joke was?
Larry Charles
It was something to do at that time. There was a commercial about Delta Airlines, the airline run by professionals. And I think my joke was like, what do they have in the other airlines? Amateurs, you know, some joke like that that Jay could make people laugh at.
Adam Carolla
And he bought it.
Larry Charles
He bought it.
Adam Carolla
He went and took it on stage.
Larry Charles
I watched through the window of the Comedy Store.
Adam Carolla
In the original room.
Larry Charles
Yes. And I saw it get a laugh. And I made 10 minutes wait.
Adam Carolla
Is that the original room in the front there?
Larry Charles
I don't know. I guess so.
Adam Carolla
There's the big one, the medium, and then the belly room.
Larry Charles
Right?
Adam Carolla
That's upstairs. Yeah, the original room.
Larry Charles
I think it was the original room, yeah.
Adam Carolla
So you watch through the glass.
Larry Charles
Yeah.
Adam Carolla
And you listen.
Larry Charles
And I knew I'D made some money, and I sold a few more jokes to him. I sold to Tom Dreeson, to Gary Mule Deer, Joe Restivo. I mean, you know, a lot of the comedians needed material. And then a lot of those guys worked for Jimmie Walker as writers. David Letterman, they all. Jay Leno, I think they all wrote jokes for Jimmy Walker because he had money. He was on tv, you know. And I wrote some jokes for Jimmie Walker as well. So it was like it became kind of a thing. I couldn't make a living at it, though. But one of those comedians who I had met and wrote material for was a guy named Darrell Igus. And he got a job on a TV show called Fridays. And I happened to call him and find. I called his wife, actually, because she was the editor of Chic magazine, and I had written porno humor to make money. Also. I wrote for Screw magazine and I wrote porno novels and I called her up.
Adam Carolla
Wait, who edited. Who owns Screw magazine?
Larry Charles
Al Goldstein.
Adam Carolla
Al Goldstein. I was thinking about that character.
Larry Charles
He's a one of a kind guy.
Adam Carolla
Yeah, Al Goldstein.
Larry Charles
He was like a dirty old man. And yet a complete freedom of the press advocate. Interesting, dude.
Adam Carolla
We went back. Dawson can help me here. And visited. I told everyone who didn't know. I was like, do you know how insanely racist the Hustler cartoons used to be? And everyone's like, huh. They were weird and racist. And everyone's like, hustler, Hustler. And I was like, insane racist cartoons. And Bernard's like, huh? And we look some up. They're crazy racist. And I'm not talking about from 1967. I'm talking about in the 80s.
Larry Charles
Yes.
Adam Carolla
I mean, there's one where, first of all, black people were just insane. I mean, I don't think people knew it or cared or it got flew under people's radar or something. But if you find, like, Hustler's most racist cartoons, it's crazy.
Larry Charles
Well, it doesn't really surprise me that at that time, you had Richard Pryor kind of forging this new path, and a lot of white comedians would sort of follow in his footsteps and use the N word, you know, very liberally.
Adam Carolla
White comedians.
Larry Charles
Yes, white comedians. And it was like everything was kind of okay. Everything was, like, up for grabs still at that time. So it doesn't surprise me that they had racist cartoons. Really?
Adam Carolla
No, not at all. But looking back on it, it seems sort of insane.
Larry Charles
It does seem insane.
Adam Carolla
So. So then, what year are we in? When you're riding, let's see. We have some pretty racist cartoons. I just remember. I'm not uptight, but I just remember thinking, wow, that's really racist. And then laughing. They had a good one. They had a picture of two guys. A drawing. Hold it for one second. They had two guys just from the waist down in the drawing. Just from the waist down. One white guy, one black guy. Guy. Both of them were wearing basketball trunks that were sort of pulled down to their knees. So exposed their genitalia. White guy, micro penis. And it said Larry's bird. And then the other one had a huge black dick and it said Magic's Johnson. I remember going, that's kind of funny.
Larry Charles
It's kind of clever.
Adam Carolla
Kind of clever.
Larry Charles
Yeah.
Adam Carolla
All right. Sorry. We have a racist one on we can put up. Let's see. It is a black neighborhood. Whenever there's a black neighborhood, it's got a can of recycling cans. It says aluminum cans, glass, paper. And then one that says unwanted babies. And meaning the black people throw their babies away.
Larry Charles
They were rough. They were rough.
Adam Carolla
The Magic Johnson a little better. But all right.
Larry Charles
There's a little bit of wit involved in the magic strings.
Adam Carolla
I saw one. One where a black guy just walks in. There's a lot of walking in on your old lady holding a beer. A black guy always had a beer and a cigarette, no matter where he was. It could be an air traffic controller be holding a beer and a cigarette if he was black. He walks in, there's a six foot cockroach banging his wife. That's how they rolled in the neighborhood.
Larry Charles
That's great.
Adam Carolla
So you.
Larry Charles
I could tell you a funny Larry Flint story.
Adam Carolla
Larry Flint? Yeah, Larry Flint.
Larry Charles
Larry Flint. You know, Fridays got to be sort of somewhat popular at a certain point.
Adam Carolla
The TV show.
Larry Charles
Yes. And he had already been there. Had been the assassination attempt.
Adam Carolla
Yes.
Larry Charles
And he lost the ability to walk. He became a paraplegic. And he came to. And if you remember, I don't know if you remember this. He became a born again Christian at a certain point. And Ruth Carter Stapleton, Jimmy Carter's sister, became his spiritual advisor.
Adam Carolla
Wow.
Larry Charles
And, yeah, it was like so surreal. And Althea, his wife, they were all like on drugs quite clearly. And they had Hell's Angels as part of their entourage. And they came to the show and they were sitting in the green room. And we, the writers were in the sub basement of the building. And I got word. We got word that Larry Flynt wanted a joint. And I immediately volunteered to roll a joint to bring it up to Larry Flint. And I rolled a joint. And I ran as fast as I could because the show is about to start as fast as I could over to the studio, to the green room. And I'm running towards the green room and suddenly I get tackled by these big guys in suits and they're Secret Service guys. And they go, what do you think you're doing? You know, And I said, I have a joint for the president's sister. And they went, oh, okay. And they let me in and I gave the joint to the. To Larry Flint. Wow. Yeah. That was.
Adam Carolla
Carter's sister was there.
Larry Charles
Yeah. Exactly.
Adam Carolla
What year was that?
Larry Charles
1980.
Adam Carolla
And Friday's a sketch show.
Larry Charles
Sketch show Kind of. Yeah. It was, you know, a Saturday Night Live derivative, although we hated having it be perceived that way. And so we were pretty radical writers. Larry David was on that show. Michael Richards was on that show. And that's how I connected with them.
Adam Carolla
Larry was writing on that show.
Larry Charles
Writing and performing.
Adam Carolla
Oh, and performing.
Larry Charles
Michael, too. Writing and performing, although mostly for themselves. Writing for themselves.
Adam Carolla
Michael stretched out that whole white guy using the N word premise a little deeper.
Larry Charles
Yes, yes.
Adam Carolla
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Larry Charles
That was one of the problems I think.
Adam Carolla
Oh, okay. And so they wrote. And when Seinfeld started, how did that. What are we talking about, 86?
Larry Charles
89, I think.
Adam Carolla
Oh, later. 89.
Larry Charles
Yeah, 89, I think. They did a pilot. Jerry had the wisdom of asking Larry to do this with him. They did a pilot. There was not a lot of enthusiasm for it. They let it sit for a year, then they said, okay, we'll pick it up for four more episodes. They did four more episodes. This was all without me. Larry wanted me to work on the show, asked me right from the beginning to work on the show. He gave me his original scripts to read. So I read the Chinese Restaurant and the Busboy and all those original scripts, which were amazing. But they wouldn't hire me because I had no sitcom experience and he was not the showrunner of the show. So they did the four shows. They still couldn't make a decision. They waited another year or so, and finally they picked it up for 13, made Larry the showrunner, and he was finally able to hire me. And that's when I started working on it.
Adam Carolla
Oh, I should ask you, and how long did you work on Seinfeld?
Larry Charles
Four seasons, 80 episodes.
Adam Carolla
Oh, Marjorie Grossman.
Larry Charles
Marjorie Gross.
Adam Carolla
Gross.
Larry Charles
Sorry. That's okay.
Adam Carolla
Chewed her up.
Larry Charles
She was there, like maybe the last season. I was there.
Adam Carolla
Yeah. It's a weird encounter. I mean, weird story with her.
Larry Charles
Oh, tell me.
Adam Carolla
I've told story on the show a few times, so I won't bore people. But I was a builder and I built her and entertainment unit for her newly bought home in west la. Bought a little Spanish type place over there off of Santa Monica. And what is Boys Town now? But I don't know. Back then it was still kind of Boys Town, but it was a nice little place and I wanted to get into comedy and I talked to her. I was working for her and she was Canadian, I believe, and loved hockey. And she was telling me she wrote for Seinfeld. I was like, oh, oh, dream, dream job. And I remember she's, oh, we turn around, we bounce off ideas, make judges laugh. Then we ordered lunch, you know, and I was like, oh, oh. And I'm installing her stuff and, you know, 10 months later she's dead.
Larry Charles
Right.
Adam Carolla
And I apologize.
Larry Charles
Is that the punchline of the show?
Adam Carolla
Yeah. Thank you. Now, I remember thinking I literally wanted to trade places with her when I met her. Like, I can't imagine. And going for where I was at, was a carpenter at the time. The notion of like sitting in a writer's room, I didn't dream of being on stage alone, holding a microphone or having my name on the marquee. My dream was sitting in that writer's room with a bunch of people, making them laugh, ordering food, like. Like punching something up, collaborating. That was. I mean, it sounds stupid or humble or whatever, but that's really what I thought.
Larry Charles
That was like a great club to be in.
Adam Carolla
Yeah. I wanted to get in a room. I didn't want to be alone in the room. I wanted to be with 10 other guys trying to make them laugh.
Larry Charles
Well, Fridays was great like that for me because I had been a parking valet and a bellhop. Those were my last two jobs. And then suddenly I was a TV writer. I'm in that room with all those other writers and, you know, with Larry and Michael and. And a bunch of other cool guys. And that was like a dream come true. I mean, I was, like pinching myself every day that this was real. But for somebody like Larry, who was almost 10 years older than me, he was already a man. He was a grown up, you know, and for him, it was much more of a frustrating experience. For me, it was like a dream.
Adam Carolla
Yeah. Different stages, different ages. So then you end up at Seinfeld and. And it goes from people not really knowing what it is and not being particularly hot on it to it really taking off. And then if you were in a writer's room, there was a thing. I don't know if it's still a thing. It probably isn't anymore. But there's a thing where it's like a lot of guys back in the day, they'd go, so this guy worked on Letterman, he worked with Letterman, and that guy worked with the Simpsons. And then that guy went from Letterman to the Simpsons and you go, oh, okay, well, then hire him.
Larry Charles
Well, those guys went to Harvard also, which is something they all showed.
Adam Carolla
Right. But it was like a lot of those guys turned out not to be that funny. But it was like he worked with the Simpsons, he worked at Letterman, he went to Harvard, he worked for the Lampoon. So hire him. You know what I mean? It was a lot of. If you worked for. You're in the writers room at Seinfeld, Letterman letters room at Simpsons, you could get a job. You could kind of do what you wanted after that.
Larry Charles
Yes.
Adam Carolla
Stamp of approval.
Larry Charles
It's true. And I think there was a lot of overrated people involved in these shows.
Adam Carolla
Yeah. Because the writers room had 13 people in it, and four of them were funny and the rest were just eating.
Larry Charles
We didn't have A writer's room at first on Seinfeld. And that's why it's kind of anathema to me. I mean, I enjoyed it on Fridays, but on Seinfeld, really, I sat in my room by myself, and Larry and Jerry sat in the other room. And that's all there was for a while. And we, you know, he. Larry wrote most of the scripts. I wrote a couple. And also they were kind of unfiltered. The writer's room is sort of like an early version of AI In a way. It's like throw all these different minds at something. But the end result was it took the edges, the idiosyncrasy off of a lot of the material. And I thought it wasn't really constructive to the scripts. What made Seinfeld special was that idiosyncrasy was that unique, singular point of view. And I think once they started hiring a lot of writers, like other shows, it also kind of took the edge off of a lot of the stories. It became more like replicating the code of the show, the formula of the show, rather than kind of forging a new path.
Adam Carolla
Well, it's an interesting thought because if you say, well, what is unique about Larry David or Rodney Dangerfield or Richard Pryor or whatever, you go, well, they're idiosyncratic. Or the way they move or the way they speak or their cadence or the look, it's a collection of a million things. Or Seinfeld. And they go, well, what if you just took 12 other people and you made them all equal parts and then poured them back into the Seinfeld? It's like, well, you'd have one sort of generic comedian.
Larry Charles
Exactly.
Adam Carolla
You know what I mean? But you'd remiss. And it's true. When you do the whole committee thing, then it's no longer Seinfeld, it's the committee that's riding the thing. And so you end up tacking toward a sort of center.
Larry Charles
Correct.
Adam Carolla
That is sort of like saying. It's sort of like saying, well, what do you like on your pizza? And you go, I like anchovy. And then someone goes, yeah, but more people like pepperoni. And they go, all right, how about we'll have pepperoni? Put a little anchovy on there before you know it.
Larry Charles
Yeah, it's a cloning process. The more something gets cloned, the further away from the original it goes.
Adam Carolla
Right?
Larry Charles
And that's kind of what happens with TV shows that may start with a very original, unique idea, but when they start throwing all these Writers at it. And of course, the writers right now are under siege because of AI, you know, but when you keep throwing writers at it or putting it through AI, it's like a cloning process where eventually it's going to barely resemble the original. You're gonna lose the idea of what made it great in the first place.
Adam Carolla
Yeah, you lose the DNA.
Larry Charles
Yes, exactly.
Adam Carolla
And then how did Curb youb Enthusiasm work for you?
Larry Charles
Well, I did a little cameo on the pilot. And again, Larry had, at that point, decided he wanted to go back into standup. Because the first time he did stand up, he had great material and he was a great comedian, but he had no tolerance for the dynamic with the audience. And he would often storm off the stage, he would throw the microphone. I saw him spit at times at the audience. I mean, he really was not. He was not comfortable dealing with the audience, like a Richard Belzer or somebody like that who lived off of that. So then after the success of Seinfeld, he felt like he wanted to give that a try again. And Jeff Garland worked down the hall from Larry at Castle Rock at that time post Seinfeld, and said, you should film that. So that's what the pilot. It wasn't even a pilot. It was just a special. And then it came out so well, and I actually did a little cameo on it. And it came out so well that they came to Larry and said, we think this could work as a series. He didn't really see it at first, but eventually kind of saw a way into it and started to do the show. And Chris Albrecht, who was in charge of HBO at that time, had been Larry's agent, had been the bartender at the Improv originally, and he loved the idea of the show. And they started to do the show. And unlike Seinfeld, with the network restrictions, there were no restrictions on Curb. And as soon as he started doing it, just like he made me, really, I often say he kind of made me a Man on Fridays by teaching me about integrity and, you know, craft and discipline and things like that. And then he really made me a writer on Seinfeld by kind of, you know, bringing me into that show. And then when he started doing Curb, he said, you know, you should direct one of these. And I was like, okay. And that's how I became a director. It was that simple.
Adam Carolla
Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of. But I'm not a director. I had wanted to be a director.
Larry Charles
I had never voiced it to anybody. I was ashamed being from Brooklyn.
Adam Carolla
Yeah.
Larry Charles
I didn't want to say, oh, I want to be a director, I would have got my ass kicked. So I kept that to myself. And even all through my successful years on Seinfeld, Mad about yout, all those shows, I didn't say to anybody I really wanted to try to direct. But he knew from Seinfeld, I would come to the rehearsals with him. All the rehearsals and all the. All the edits and all the casting sessions for as long as I was there. And he knew that I had an eye. Something he didn't really care about the visual. Boy, if you move the camera in on him, when he says that line, you get a bigger laugh, that kind of stuff. So he knew that I was thinking about those things, and he had a good instinct. Again, back to that word. And he said, why don't you direct one of these? And that was a great instinct. And I was smart enough to go, yes.
Adam Carolla
When did Borat come into play?
Larry Charles
HBO had these. You know, they had the great boxing matches at that time. And Ari Emanuel was my agent, and he. He was Larry's agent. And we went to a championship match at the Staples center, which was unusual, usually there in Vegas. We would go to Vegas quite a bit also, but this was downtown at the Staples center, and there's like a VIP area before the fight. And Ari was also representing this other guy, Sacha Baron Cohen. And he brought him over and introduced us, and I started talking to him. We had a great conversation, really hit it off. Didn't think anything more about it at that point. And a couple of years later, he had started making the movie, it fell apart. And he called me up and said, would you be interested in directing this?
Adam Carolla
Really?
Larry Charles
And I had known the Ali G Show, and I saw some of the footage they shot, and I immediately said, yes. And I got Larry's. I was working on Curb at the time, and I said, I can't do it unless I get Larry's blessing. So I went to Larry and I said, I have this opportunity. And he was like, you must do this. So he really pushed me to do it.
Adam Carolla
Yeah, you know, that film got brought up, I don't know where. I read literally just the other day. It was a sort of, I don't know, 100 best films of all time or something like that, or 10 best films.
Larry Charles
Well, a little periodical called the New York Times.
Adam Carolla
Yeah, well, my problem is everything's little because it's on my phone now, and people just tweet or something like that. But I don't know what did it just get, Because I remember seeing it and thinking, you know, you think on the Waterfront or Gone with the Wind or something. You don't think sort of gorilla shot, docu something faux docko. Whatever. Improvised something. But I started. I just was looking at. It wasn't in preparation to talk to you, and I just wanted to go, well, it was really groundbreaking and, like, really funny. And. Yeah, why shouldn't it be on this list?
Larry Charles
Well, my thing is that Sasha should have won the Oscar that year.
Adam Carolla
I mean, talk about who won that year.
Larry Charles
I have no idea.
Adam Carolla
Find out that year who got. He wasn't nominated by somebody. No, not even nominated. It's almost. It's kind of a weird thing because I do. I've always kind of said this about performing. You know, when you do stand up and stand up is sort of like. It's like watching the gymnastics in the Olympics where you go, God, I could never do that. You know, people stand around and go, you know, sometimes you go, I do stand up. They go, I could never go up. Just alone with a microphone. That's the hardest. That's the bravest. Whatever. I used to do a lot of sketch. Sketch is different. People go, did you see snl? Sketch sucked. That wasn't funny. Fuck, I could do that. What Guys I work with on the loading dock are funnier and that, you know, so. So it's like, sketch sort of seems easy and it's really hard to do. Well, sure. And it's every bit as hard as stand up to pull off. And also it's one and done. You do a new one the next, it's a real taller. But it seems doable and kind of easy. And weirdly, what he does and what comedians do, like in the films, you go, oh, come on. I could. Anybody, I guess, whatever. But what they don't really realize is what he's doing is a much taller order than what a serious actor is doing with a serious script.
Larry Charles
Well, people talk about Laurence Olivier being a breakthrough actor or Marlon Brando being a breakthrough actor, and maybe that's true. But what Sasha did was act 16 hours a day sometimes as Borat. Not breaking character. Having to be this close to a real person who has to believe, no matter how broad or crazy things got, that Borat was a real person. That is a performance that is an amazing, one of a kind Bravora tour de force performance that nobody had ever done. And it was one of a kind. It really kind of broke through what acting was. It was a new form of acting. And I don't think he Ever got the credit for that?
Adam Carolla
Well, 10 minutes ago, we asked who won the Oscar that year, but we don't know yet.
Larry Charles
It's gonna be some unimpressive name, I can almost assure you.
Adam Carolla
Borat's number 53 in the 21st century. Three times best. The Departed won best. We're asking who the best actor was from that year. That's all I've gotten. Every piece of information. Nominated for adapted. Nominated for this box office Receipt. Horst Whitaker, best actor for the Last King of Scotland.
Larry Charles
Yes, Right.
Adam Carolla
Black guy can't be the king of Scotland.
Larry Charles
He played IDI Amin, I think, in that, actually.
Adam Carolla
Oh, was it? Well, first off, they already made an IDI Amin film called Big Daddy, I think.
Larry Charles
Right. There's a couple of IDI Amin films. He was a character. But really, I mean, I love Forest Whitaker. No, you know, I'm not throwing any shade on him.
Adam Carolla
But it's not on this list, this times list. And it didn't affect us like this did.
Larry Charles
Exactly.
Adam Carolla
And we're not going to be talking about the last.
Larry Charles
And if you think about what he did. Did. How difficult what he did was that he was. He was in constant, you know, about to be. About to be hit, about to be threatened.
Adam Carolla
Eaten by bear.
Larry Charles
Right. The police are there. He's dealing with the bear. I mean, that was a performance that is unprecedented and got absolutely no real respect from the Academy.
Adam Carolla
They never. They're weird.
Larry Charles
Yeah. I mean, it's almost. You have to dismiss it, you know.
Adam Carolla
Well, they don't. I'll tell you. I'll tell you what. What the system doesn't like. They don't like sort of outsiders poking around. Like when I started making some documentaries, started sort of showing up at. Going around Sundance and stuff like that. And they were like, who? I was like, man, show guy. Oh, that fucking idiot. Fuck you. You're not part of our world.
Larry Charles
We had the same thing with Religionless, you know, I said, don't even market this as a documentary. Cause documentary people are gonna look down on it. You know, call it a nonfiction comedy or something like that.
Adam Carolla
Bill Maher.
Larry Charles
Yeah. Because people are really protective of their little niches. And that's the case with the Academy also. It was true with Seinfeld. Seinfeld had a very outsider status even when it was really successful. The networks were afraid of replicating Seinfeld because we didn't have a writer's room because we did stories that were extreme and strange and farcical all at the same time. And they didn't want to have to copy that. So if you notice, there are not a lot of knockoffs of Seinfeld. None that were successful, really. You know, they still are doing like the Cheers model and the Mary Tyler Moore model. That's really the model still. For TV shows that try to track.
Adam Carolla
Listen, you're referencing good sitcoms. Yeah, I mean, they're still doing kind of 80s Alf kind of. Although I like Alf, but. Yeah, they're doing a kind of basic Tim Allen Y kind of stuff, you know.
Larry Charles
That's right.
Adam Carolla
And listen, that's kind of the ranch dressing of life. You know what I mean? Like, it's just. There's a place kids like it, dumb people like it. Like, it's. That's how it works. There's a rhythm to it that people kind of respond to.
Larry Charles
You don't need to pay attention, but you don't wind up having that kind of resonance that something like, we're still Talking about Seinfeld 30 some odd years later and quoting lines and, you know, people are still obsessed with it, even this many years later. It's crazy.
Adam Carolla
I just met with some Netflix people and they were like, well, we want you to do an animated Curb youb Enthusiasm. And I'm like, oh, that sounds good. But the point is, is I don't go, what's Curb youb Enthusiasm? I've heard of it. I haven't seen any episodes or anything. They don't go, watch a few episodes of Curb youb Enthusiasm. We want to do an animated sort of version of that. That with you as Larry David. They just go. They don't say the whole word. They just go, curb. We do like an animated Curb. And everyone goes, oh, okay.
Larry Charles
They get it.
Adam Carolla
Yeah, I know what that means. Which is, you think about it. But whether you're doing art, comedy, sitcoms, or you're professional tennis player, if someone's heard of you. I tell people all the time, if you're a NASCAR driver and people know your name, that's pretty good. Or a tennis player or a golfer, that means you're in some kind of rarefied air. And then people go, was he any good at golf? I was like, well, you know his fucking name, right? How many, you know, three golfers names? You know that guy's name. You know what I mean? So it's like if you know the sitcom and if people can reference it without even explaining it.
Larry Charles
Yeah, it's permeated their consciousness, you know, that's very hard to do and it's not something you could even intend to do. It's something that happens almost by accident. It's some kind of weird dynamic that occurs between the audience and a show or, you know, it happens like, you know, not to compare it to the Beatles, but, you know, it's like there's certain elements that made the Beatles the Beatles. You can't recreate that. It happens kind of by accident. It's a synchronicity.
Adam Carolla
You know, I see the headlines now. Larry Charles. Charles says Seinfeld is bigger than the Beatles, and the Beatles said they're bigger than God. So thus you claim that Seinfeld is bigger than God.
Larry Charles
I would say it's true at this point.
Adam Carolla
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Larry Charles
Well, I did, I did with Sasha. I did Bruno.
Adam Carolla
Oh yeah.
Larry Charles
And again, I've been around the world. Everybody has seen Borax. But for some reason, and I'll tell you the reason, many of those people, most of those people have not seen Bruno. And the reason is Bruno was about a flamboyantly gay character and homophobia is still so rampant, even though Bruno might even be funnier than Borat. People just shied away because they didn't want to watch a flamboyantly gay character go through his journey the way they were very patient about. About Borat going through his journey.
Adam Carolla
Borat was. I mean, I'll push back a little in that. Lightning in a bottle, hard to grab twice, and you go, but the other thing was better than the last thing. But more people bought that thing. And it's sort of like.
Larry Charles
I didn't say it that way.
Adam Carolla
No, no, no. What I'm saying is, like, there's so many artists who probably put out an album that said this is much better than the one that went platinum, but for some reason, it. It just didn't, you know, whatever. And there's a lot of elements.
Larry Charles
Yes.
Adam Carolla
And one of them could be the homophobic side of it. But it's also. It's just also the expectation of even coming close to replicating what Borat was.
Larry Charles
The surprise was over. The phenomena was not going to happen. But I compare it to the Beastie Boys.
Adam Carolla
But Borat was very funny.
Larry Charles
Yes, Borat was funny, and so was Bruno.
Adam Carolla
I. Sorry, meant Bruno.
Larry Charles
Yeah. But the Beastie Boys did License to Ill, their first album, and that was a party album, and it was just, like, fun. And then they followed it up with a second album called Paul's Boutique, and that was a much more jagged, weird kind of album. Also really cool, but not what people wanted, really, as a follow up to License to Ill. Yeah, you gotta fight for the right to party.
Adam Carolla
And I think in the Larry David tradition of, you know, integrity, that's just what you gotta do.
Larry Charles
The price you pay.
Adam Carolla
Yeah, and. And I think the ones that are just kind of replicating what they did in the past, I mean, it's a way to get paid, for sure. It's a way to sort of be relevant, but big picture, especially when folks have enough money, it feels a little bit like the opposite of art.
Larry Charles
Yes, for sure. I mean, I've never done a sequel. I avoided. When we finished Borat, they wanted us to do a sequel. Sasha himself was aghast at the thought, trying to recreate it. And then many years later, he wound up doing that. But the idea of just repeating something, I mean, I'm not here. I didn't get into this, certainly for job security, for just kind of doing things by rote. I like the gambling. I like the rolling of the dice. I like taking the risks. So I did Bruno, and then we did the Dictator also together.
Adam Carolla
Well, someone will put on my screen more of these films because I can't remember all of them, but I'll look down and we'll find them.
Larry Charles
Don't worry. I could always remind you.
Adam Carolla
I agree. I did the man show. We did 100 episodes. And when we're done, Jimmy's going off to late night, and they wanted me to do more man show stuff, and I just said, nah, I'm gonna go with Jimmy and work on the late night show and sit in the writer's room.
Larry Charles
Yeah, you finally got that dream.
Adam Carolla
Yeah, I need for free. And it was the weirdest thing ever. I was like, I am so happy to sit in this room with these guys and not walk out on stage. And I could remember sitting there. It's a weird wiring. I have. I guess the man show was successful and all that. And we just sit in this writer's room and sort of argue over what we're gonna order for lunch. And then at some point, like, somebody with a headphone would, like, come in and go, like, okay, Jimmy, we need you on stage to do rehearsal now. And Jimmy would go, oh, okay. He'd get up and leave. And I just look at him go, sucker. I'm waiting. I'm still. I'm eaten.
Larry Charles
When you come back, no pressure, no makeup.
Adam Carolla
It was nothing. It was like, I'm just getting paid, hanging out. And also, I'll be like, look, I'll pitch a few jokes for the monologue. You want to use them, use them. If you don't, well, then don't. Yeah, I don't care.
Larry Charles
Yeah, well, you were in a great. That was a great position to be in. I worked on Arsenio before I did Seinfeld, and Arsenio. Yeah, I wrote jokes for him. And the last six months of my contract, I didn't get a joke on the air. And I was kind of desperate. I needed the money, I needed the job. I had a baby, all that kind of stuff. And then finally I got fired. But the next day, I went to see Kenan. I got an offer to go meet Kenan Ivory Wayans and work on In Living Color. He stood me up. And then I got a phone call from Larry saying, hey, I'm doing this show. Seinfeld will do 13 episodes. It'll get canceled. You make a little money, we'll move on with our lives. So because of those things, I wound up doing Seinfeld.
Adam Carolla
Yeah. And also, it's just so unchartable and predictable.
Larry Charles
Very.
Adam Carolla
Yeah. But it's like, it's the most that people. When I got. When I got into show business sort of thing, and I don't even know if I ever got into show business. But, like, I started out I had a conversation with Bob Ringwald, who was Molly Ringwald's dad, who I knew growing up.
Larry Charles
He was the jazz pianist.
Adam Carolla
Yes.
Larry Charles
Right.
Adam Carolla
Blind.
Larry Charles
Blind, yes.
Adam Carolla
Yeah. Interesting. I think playing the piano is about the only thing you can do better. Blind. Maybe sex.
Larry Charles
George Shearing. I don't know if you know, he is.
Adam Carolla
Yeah. Blind.
Larry Charles
I think it helps my pianist, Richard.
Adam Carolla
Yeah. Because when you can see and you're playing the piano, all of a sudden the hot cocktail waitress walks into the.
Larry Charles
Club, very distracted over there.
Adam Carolla
You're always in that zone. And I've always. I frequently close my eyes. Like, if you said to me, look, Adam, I'm gonna give you directions to my house I live up on, off of Mulholland, up in the Hollywood Hills. I'll give you directions to my house. I'll give you $5,000. You can get there, but you can't write it down. I said, okay. I would close my eyes immediately, and you'd go, okay, up Laurel Canyon. All right. Right on Woodrow Wilson. And down Mulholland Street. Mulholland Way. And I would close my eyes immediately because I want to get this in. And I believe sight sort of distracting, you know what I mean? So. So Bob was a jazz. But he played Dixieland, which is another funny. I had a conversation with him when I was, like, 16, and this two conversations I remember with Bob Ringwald, who died. When. When did Bob pass? I liked his other daughter, Beth. I had a crush on her. And they grew up up the street, North Hollywood. There was.
Larry Charles
Is that where you grew up? You grew up here?
Adam Carolla
Yeah. They had a little. Little dinky house off the alley. 800 square foot ranch. Nothing. I mean, Molly wasn't making. Molly was 10 when I met them.
Larry Charles
It was Pre Breakfast Club.
Adam Carolla
Pre Breakfast Club. And I was. I don't know why this made Penn Jillette laugh real hard, but it made me really. He died in 20, 21. I'll see how old he was. But anyway, we're standing outside some kind of patio barbecuey thing, you know, I was 15, 16, and he's 80. And he said to me, adam, he liked me, I guess. He said, adam, you know what I love? I go, what do you love, Bob? He goes, I love comedy, and I love jazz. And I said, you know what, Bob? I love comedy and I love jazz. And he said, yeah, Dixieland and Galaxy. Thank God he couldn't see my face. But I remember thinking, oh, that's how life works.
Larry Charles
Yeah.
Adam Carolla
I'm picturing this and that. He's doing that Coltrane and Prior, that's where my head's at. Right, right. I'm a George Carlin, Stan Kenton. I would wide it up a little. So. And that's where I realized, oh, we're both right, but we're talking about. About different stuff.
Larry Charles
Incredible. Yeah.
Adam Carolla
But he said to me I'd just gotten into TV or show business or something mid-90s, mid or later-90s something. And I somehow came across him and he remembers me as a 15 year old kid who was hanging around his house talking about Dixieland and I think he'd went through it with Molly being as big a star as there was and by now not really wasn't working a lot in the business by the later 90s. And he just kind of looked at me and he just went, it's here today, going tomorrow kind of business. It don't last and just enjoy it while you can. And I remember thinking, I didn't say anything to him, but I just went, well, I'm good, so I'll be around.
Larry Charles
Right, right.
Adam Carolla
And that's all I thought. Like I didn't get into it with him and I didn't. Whatever contradict him. I realized he'd seen his daughter be the biggest star in the world at like 16 and a half and now she was 29 and not really landing roles and kind of meant something to him. And he'd seen that and he'd understood. He had a young son who was originally going to be the young singer and the musician and is going to follow in his footsteps. And he died of a childhood disease when he was like five or something. So saw his other daughter Beth, come out to California to be an actress and got a job in Beautiful Blonde and cast early and things kind of fell apart. Never realized career wise for her. And I think he was kind of saying to me, hey man, it's a tough business.
Larry Charles
Well, he's right. In the larger sense, things are temporary. Life is temporary. But careers are a much more elusive path.
Adam Carolla
Well, I think if you work at it and you have the goods, you.
Larry Charles
Gotta have the goods.
Adam Carolla
I think Seinfeld and Larry David have been kicking around for a while now. I met Jimmy in 1994. He seems to be more popular than ever. Perhaps more popular than ever. Not with my fans, but yeah, yeah, no, he is. Well, because he's good and he works.
Larry Charles
Real hard and he is who he is. I mean, he's pretty much presents as who he is, which is something that Larry David does also. They have a kind of connection with the audience that is Authentic. And an actor has a more difficult time with that because an actor is defined by their role, not by their personalities. That's why Jack Benny, George Burns. Comedians can have really long careers because they are basing it on who they are. They don't have to turn and twist and create new Personas to connect with the audience. Now somebody like Sasha has more of that challenge because people know him as Borat or like Paul Rubens. They knew him as Pee Wee. It's a little harder when you want to sort of break out of that into something else. It's kind of like a role that you get stuck in that you get typecast in, like a Carol o' Connor as Archie Bunker or Jon Hamm as Don Draper. It's much tougher for an actor who's played a very defining role, James Gandolfini, to break out of that and have another connection that deep with the audience. But Larry is Larry, and, you know, Jerry is Jerry, and Jack Benny was Jack Benny. And so they're able to sort of sustain it a little bit. Bit more easily. They don't have to recreate themselves over and over and over again.
Adam Carolla
How much of Larry and Seinfeld are them authentically versus them sort of playing themselves to some degree like. Like, I know Seinfeld a little bit. I don't know Larry Well, I've talked to him a little bit, but, like, I was doing some car thing with Seinfeld, and Seinfeld was kind of being Seinfeld in a weird way, you know? And I don't. I'm not accusing him of being inauthentic. What I'm sort of saying is this kind of. There's like, no one would go to Larry if they went to Larry David and went, hey, can you help us move this weekend? He'd go, are you kidding? He'd go right into Larry David David mode. And then you'd go, all right, don't help us. I'll get an ugly son of a.
Larry Charles
Well, you make a good point. I mean, I think they both, to some degree, have been almost swallowed up by their Persona. You know, like the Jerry that became Seinfeld on the show, he's become more like that Persona on the show than maybe who he really was. And Larry, too, I think, strangely enough, as authentic and as real and as honest and as kind of stripped down as Larry David was, I think he did get caught up on being this TV version of himself where he can get away with anything. And I think that does have an effect. And that might Change you. And you know what? I didn't know Jack Benny that well. Maybe that happened to him, too, you know, not that anybody even knows who Jack Benny is anymore. That's a whole other discussion, you know.
Adam Carolla
Yeah. If you can find. I got Seinfeld talking to Spike about seeing my 935. You're gonna hear some of that. But I was at an event with him and I wanted him to come see my Porsche. And he was like, what? I have to see the Porsche. What's that gonna change? How's that gonna be different for you and me? And I was like. I felt like he was doing Seinfeld.
Larry Charles
I can understand that.
Adam Carolla
Seinfeld.
Larry Charles
Yeah.
Adam Carolla
And I. Again, you know, I don't know.
Larry Charles
That's a weird phenomena. I think it is a phenomenon that takes place, you know.
Adam Carolla
Yeah. And it's not really. I don't like the Don King part where he stomps a man to death in St. Louis who owes him 700 bucks and then waves a miniature American flag around and yells, only in America. And hugs everybody. Like that. That's a weird one. There's a sort of politician version of that.
Larry Charles
There's so much disparity between those two.
Adam Carolla
Yes. Yeah. But the Seinfeld sort of becoming Seinfeld is funny. You'll hear him here. So I just. I ran into him at. Let's see, Rennsport, the big Porsche thing and the infield, the Laguna Sec of the racetrack. And he was showing his car. So I said, I got my car. Come check it out. It's the, you know, the most important Porsche 935 in the world. It was like 80ft from where we were standing. And he said, no, no, he didn't do it. Right.
Larry Charles
Yeah.
Adam Carolla
All right. But this is him talking to Spike, I think. Yeah. I talked with Adam Carolla. Oh, yeah. Who wanted me to see his Paul Newman 935. But it was so many people around, and there was so much, you know, interaction going on. It was kind of difficult for me to. To maneuver. And he kept pushing me. You've got to see my 935. I go, why? Why do I have to see it? What will happen in your mind that will be so great? Will it be me going, wow, cool car. And then what? All right, you're going to pause because he is being. Doing some. He showed up.
Larry Charles
He's doing a bit.
Adam Carolla
He showed up to a German car convention to look at German cars. So I have a very significant German car that was parked next to his German Car. So I said, would you like to look at the German? What's going to change?
Larry Charles
Yeah, yeah, right. Exactly. No, I hear it all. I hear exactly what you say.
Adam Carolla
You can hear what I'm saying?
Larry Charles
Oh, yeah.
Adam Carolla
I mean, if you showed up to a Beanie Baby convention and then I said, look at my Beanie Baby and go, why? What's gonna change? I don't know. You're at the Beanie Baby convention.
Larry Charles
There was a time where if you went up to him, it's very likely he would have been really excited to see that car. And instead, he fell back on kind of like his Persona.
Adam Carolla
Yes, that's right.
Larry Charles
And that allows him some distance so he could get out of whatever he wants. And Larry David has that, too, where he can now be like, no, I'm not interested in this. Or what? You know, he could be, like, so blatantly honest that it's. It gets him out of situations.
Adam Carolla
We'll hear a little more of this. But, yes, I agree with you or me. Then nothing. The big winter boot came down. So you said, I'll just say it now. The winter boot came back. Go back. Sorry. Go back. Let him repeat it. What will happen in your mind that will be so great? Will it be me going, wow, cool car. And then what? Then nothing. The big winter boot came down, so you said, I'll just say it now. The winter boot of reality. You'll say, I'll say it now. Yeah. Nice car.
Bridget Fetisi
It's a nice car.
Adam Carolla
Yeah. Great. You're great. But it is weird. Isn't it kind of cool to meet another guy with a 935? Look, right over there, there's a 935. I don't own that car anymore. You don't? No. That car has been sold. Sold. That was the one out at Gooding, right? That's right. Well, we're gonna get into what's going. All right. So he had a 930, by the.
Larry Charles
Way, wouldn't you have a conver. Wouldn't the idea be that he'd come over, you'd wind up having a conversation about the intricacies and the uniqueness of the 935?
Adam Carolla
I was envisioning something like that.
Larry Charles
Right. You weren't just saying, oh, Jerry Seinfeld looked at my car. You were hoping to, like, engage him in some sort of maybe meaningful dialogue about it, you know?
Adam Carolla
Well, I would say, yeah, we wouldn't talk about comedy.
Larry Charles
Right, exactly.
Adam Carolla
And then we'd probably talk about the car and that car. I drove that car. And it won the Ren Sport Wysock trophy, like, three years earlier at that same event. So we could go, hey, I drove this car here at this event before and won this cup or whatever it is. Yeah. There could be some discussion about, you've.
Larry Charles
Got to develop your Persona enough in the public to be able to have that ability to kind of blow people off if you want to.
Adam Carolla
Yeah. Larry. It was funny. Larry came up to me after, during a commercial break doing the Alec Baldwin roast, and he basically walked to the edge of the stage, like, during a commercial, and he just, like, waved me over. And I don't know him, I've never worked with him, but he's like, that joke you told, that's, like, the greatest joke ever. And I just want to tell you that. And I was like, oh, thanks. And he's like, yeah, that's amazing. And then so later on, I thought, well, shit, maybe he wants to come do the podcast, because I'd like to interview Larry David. Sure. And I called him up, and I don't know who got his number or something. And he picked up the phone and talked for a second, and I said, why don't you come do the podcast? He went, if I did your podcast, I have to do everyone's podcast. I said, no, you wouldn't. You could just do my podcast. Everyone start bugging me and whatever. And I realized he went into Larry David. He went into Larry David and Seinfeld at the Ren Sport reunion. Went into Seinfeld.
Larry Charles
They have a bag of tricks now, and in that bag of tricks is their Persona that they could pull out at any time they want to or not pull out. Also, if they do want to engage, they don't pull that out. But if they don't want to engage, they could pull out the Persona, and that's a way to buffer them from the real world in some way.
Adam Carolla
Yeah, it's interesting.
Larry Charles
It's a weird. It's a weird phenomena.
Adam Carolla
Right. So in a way, you have worked with Sacha Baron Cohen, who had this different Persona.
Larry Charles
Right.
Adam Carolla
And then you worked with Seinfeld and Larry David, who had a Persona on their own Persona.
Larry Charles
Correct? Correct. I think in some ways, Sasha longs for a Persona that he could use that way, but for him, it's only worked by using these kind of very. These characters who are also sort of, in a way, in a weird way, a part of him as well. There's a part of him that's Borat. There's a part of him that's Bruno. There's A part of him that's the dictator, even, but who he is, I think that's maybe what he's still figuring out.
Adam Carolla
My experience, and I don't know Sacha Baron Cohen, but my experience is the guys who did the biggest characters were kind of most quietest in the group. When they weren't doing what they were doing, they were quiet, and you wouldn't even maybe know what they did for a living.
Larry Charles
Well, it's almost like Peter Sellers, who was a big influence on him in a way. My take on it is that when you are losing yourself and immersing yourself in Personas that are very, very different from you, it has to do, to some degree with the fact that you almost don't exist. And I don't say that in a bad way, but it's like you are sort of. Of more alive inside those characters than you are when you take off the makeup, so to speak. And I think that's sort of true even with somebody like Robert De Niro, who used to really get inside a character to the point that you didn't recognize him, like Raging Bull. But when you hear him being interviewed, he's very, you know, he's almost inarticulate sometimes, you know.
Adam Carolla
No, I listen. I've said a million times, we sat around. I remember sitting around going that De Niro is a genius. He said genius. The guy said, genius. And everyone's like, do you agree? Oh, I agree. And everyone agreed because no one heard him on the View. And Bruce Springsteen was the same. Those two guys are just geniuses. I don't know what they do. I don't know if they stand for. I've never heard them interviewed, but they're fucking geniuses, both of them. And then they both started showing up places and kind of speaking, and then they're like, oh, that guy's an asshole now. He should have never done it. Yeah, because De Niro was an enigmatic genius the whole first two thirds of my life. Yeah, that's right.
Larry Charles
Total mystique.
Adam Carolla
And then he shows up on the View and he starts yelling, fuck Trump and stuff. And it's like. It's not even a political thing. He's inarticulate, right? Like, you go, oh, he's a dope. Who? But he's a dope. He's like. It's like Herschel Walker. Like, he can do what he does. No one thinks Herschel Walker's a genius, but he can do what he does. You know what I mean? It's kind of like that. And for some reason, when you're in the arts, we ascribe this genius layout.
Larry Charles
Well, you know, there's this marketing thing, too. We're now expected to go out and, you know, I don't have this kind of burden to carry. But someone like Robert De Niro or Bruce Springsteen, you're right. They never needed to go out and be themselves. They could just. He could be the Boss and he could be the great actor, and that was enough. We were satisfied with that. But now you're expected to go out and promote these things and be yourself in that guise. And then you're just a regular person and it's not that impressive, you know?
Adam Carolla
Yeah. And once in a while, there's somebody who kind of comes along where it's the reverse of that, where you go, man, that guy's super funny and fast and more interesting than I would have ever thought of. And there's a list of those guys definitely, too. But by and large, you're never gonna live up to genius.
Larry Charles
Right? Right.
Adam Carolla
And De Niro should have just shut up. Should have just been a quiet. He would just. Don't say a word and everyone will think you're a genius.
Larry Charles
That's why he did all. He was an artist, I would say, who was able to do all his expression, all his work, work within these characters. That's what he needs to be judged on. But he has to also sell the product now, and he's got to push that product. And that forced him out there without these characters and being himself. And it just wasn't nearly as compelling. If he came out as Jake LaMotta from Reaching Bull, it would probably be a better interview.
Adam Carolla
Yeah, especially Fat Chick. Larry, let me plug the book over here. Comedy samurai, 40 years of blood, Guts and Laughter. It's available now. Wherever you find finer books, Larry, you.
Larry Charles
Gotta come back anytime, man. Thank you so much for having me.
Adam Carolla
Always a fun conversation. My pleasure. I'm gonna be doing Stand up all over the place. I'm gonna be at The Irvine Improv, July 10th. Then I'll be in the Covina Laugh Factory July 11th and 12th. I'll be at Zany's and Rosemont, Illinois. You can go to AdamCoroll.com for all the live shows. And Bridget Fantasy Dumpster Fire with Bridget. Misspelled her last name. Sorry, I'm saying. So till next time, Adam, for Bridget and Larry and Mayhem saying, Mahala, you can leave us a voicemail at 888-634-1-7448 and you can get tickets to see Adam Corolla Live Podcast and Irvine Coming up next week, get tickets@adamcola.com this summer, Pluto TV is exploding with thousands of free movies. Summer of cinema is here. Feel the explosion explosive action all summer long with movies like Gladiator, Mission Impossible, Beverly Hills Cop, Good Burger and Transformers. Dark of the Moon. Bring the action with you and stream for free from all your favorite devices. Pluto TV Stream now pay Never. This summer, Pluto TV is exploding with thousands of free movies. Summer of Sin Cinema is here. Feel the explosive action all summer long with movies like Gladiator, Mission Impossible, Beverly Hills Cop, Good Burger and Transformers. Dark of the Moon. Bring the action with you and stream for free from all your favorite devices. Pluto TV Stream now pay never.
Summary of "Bridget Phetasy on Fleeing California + Legendary Writer and Director Larry Charles" – The Adam Carolla Show
Release Date: July 2, 2025
In this episode of The Adam Carolla Show, host Adam Carolla welcomes Bridget Fetisi, a comedian known for her show "Dumpster Fire with Bridget Fetasy," and the esteemed writer and director Larry Charles, renowned for his work on iconic shows like Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm, as well as films such as Borat. The conversation delves into the challenges of breaking into the media industry, the impact of California's housing crisis, and the intricacies of creative processes in comedy writing.
Adam begins by discussing the evolving landscape of media accessibility, highlighting the absence of traditional gatekeepers. He reflects on his own struggles when attempting to enter the broadcasting world, expressing frustration over being perceived as funnier than established radio personalities but lacking the necessary credentials.
Adam Carolla [05:09]: "No gatekeepers."
Bridget concurs, emphasizing that while platforms are more accessible now, certain industries still recognize the need for formal qualifications.
Bridget Fetisi [10:22]: "It is a skill. When I kind of found my way into media... you can't make your point fast enough."
Bridget shares her early ventures in Hollywood, recounting her time as an extra on The Man Show.
Bridget Fetisi [05:17]: "My first gig in Hollywood. Extra on the Man Show."
Adam reminisces about Bridget's appearance on the trampoline, highlighting the challenges of being an extra.
Adam Carolla [05:20]: "I loved you on the trampoline."
The conversation shifts to California's ongoing housing crisis and the bureaucratic red tape that impedes construction and development. Adam criticizes the cyclical nature of policies that hinder affordable housing initiatives.
Adam Carolla [34:21]: "It's an endless cycle of you guys fucking shit up and then unfucking it and then fucking it up again."
Bridget shares her personal decision to relocate to Texas, citing escalating frustrations with the state's regulatory environment.
Bridget Fetisi [31:32]: "I have learned to be. I have."
Bridget provides a firsthand account of the devastation caused by wildfires in affluent neighborhoods like the Palisades and Altadena. She discusses the eerie remnants left behind and the disorienting reality of rapidly growing homeless encampments juxtaposed against economically prosperous areas.
Bridget Fetisi [16:54]: "It's disorienting. It's starting to grow back. It's weird..."
Adam reflects on the resilience of structures like fireplaces amidst widespread destruction, drawing philosophical parallels.
Adam Carolla [17:03]: "LA is pretty much... when the fire goes through town... the only thing left is a chimney and a firebox."
Larry Charles joins the conversation, bringing his extensive background in comedy writing and directing. The discussion transitions to the creative processes behind successful shows and films.
Adam Carolla [24:12]: "Now, we have the video of me with the chimney..."
Larry and Adam delve into the challenges of the creative process in comedy. They discuss how originality can be diluted when multiple writers collaborate, leading to a loss of the show's unique essence.
Larry Charles [75:52]: "Creativity is a variable that everybody in the corporate world is trying to quantify... but it's always something that's elusive."
Adam shares his experiences with showrunners and the importance of instinct in creating engaging content.
Adam Carolla [78:01]: "You've got to be willing to risk failure. It's part of the equation of success."
The duo explores the development of Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm. Larry discusses his initial struggles to be involved in Seinfeld and how both shows maintained their unique voices despite industry pressures.
Larry Charles [94:08]: "Seinfeld had a very outsider status... We didn't have a writer's room because we did stories that were extreme and strange."
Adam highlights the significance of maintaining originality and resisting the pressure to conform to mainstream expectations.
Adam Carolla [99:51]: "You lose the DNA... it's the most fragile thing in comedy."
Larry critiques the standardization in writers' rooms, arguing that it leads to homogenized content that lacks the distinctive flavor of shows like Seinfeld.
Larry Charles [100:34]: "And that's kind of what happens with TV shows that may start with a very original, unique idea, but when they start throwing all these Writers at it... you lose the idea of what made it great."
Adam draws analogies between creative originality and maintaining consistency in other fields, such as carpentry.
Adam Carolla [97:41]: "How much of Larry and Seinfeld are them authentically versus them just playing themselves..."
The discussion touches upon the looming influence of Artificial Intelligence in media and creative industries. Both guests express concerns over AI's ability to replicate the nuanced, instinctual aspects of human creativity.
Bridget Fetisi [53:16]: "I have young nieces, nephews, who are... Why would I take a horse when I could take a car."
Concluding the episode, Adam and Larry share personal stories from their careers, emphasizing the unpredictable nature of success and the importance of perseverance. Larry recounts his experiences with Fridays and the significance of authentic storytelling in comedy.
Larry Charles [137:55]: "And success, they say, it's an equation of risk."
Adam reflects on the fleeting nature of fame and the importance of staying true to one's creative instincts.
Adam Carolla [140:14]: "And De Niro should have just shut up. Should have just been a quiet guy."
This episode offers an insightful exploration into the complexities of breaking into the media industry, the detrimental effects of excessive regulation on creative endeavors, and the delicate balance between maintaining originality and collaborating within writing teams. Through candid discussions and personal anecdotes, Adam Carolla, Bridget Fetisi, and Larry Charles provide listeners with a nuanced understanding of the challenges and triumphs inherent in the world of comedy and entertainment.