Jaleel White on Growing up Famous + Johnny Joey Jones on How to Fix America

Summary

Adam Carolla Show – Episode Summary

Guests: Jaleel White (actor, "Urkel"), Johnny Joey Jones (Fox News correspondent, retired Marine)
Air Date: September 8, 2025
Host: Adam Carolla
Main Themes:

• Growing up famous and surviving childhood stardom (Jaleel White)
• Family, success, and American values
• The state of America and practical solutions (Johnny Joey Jones)
• Culture, discipline, politics, and societal change

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Episode Overview

This episode of the Adam Carolla Show is split into two standout interviews. Adam first welcomes Jaleel White—best known for his role as Steve Urkel—to discuss his experience growing up in Los Angeles as a child actor, the realities behind fame, and family values. In the second half, Adam is joined by retired Marine and Fox News personality Johnny Joey Jones to dissect what's “broken” in America, the difference between Republicans and Democrats, and why discipline is the most underrated factor in personal and national success. Both guests bring candor and insight, amplified by Adam’s signature unfiltered humor and sharp social commentary.

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1. Jaleel White: Growing Up Famous

Early Life & Entry into Acting

• Born and raised in South Pasadena, California
• Started acting extremely young—his preschool teacher saw talent in him, and a family friend who scouted for child actors recruited him at age 3.
  • “My preschool teacher thought I was kind of funny… She put me in an acting school. My mom said, what the heck?” (03:40, Jaleel White)

Commercials & The Urkel Breakthrough

• By pre-teen years, had already done “about 50 national commercials”—including Toys ‘R Us, Oreos, Spaghettios.
• Landed iconic role of Steve Urkel at 12 years old and recounts the surreal transition of going from a “regular kid” to a nationally known television star.

Navigating School & Fame

• Jaleel’s mother insisted he attend public school “during the weeks I wasn’t filming” (09:16).
  • He describes attending both predominantly white and predominantly black schools, facing unique challenges in both.
    • “I was the only black kid in my entire school... when I transferred [to a different school], things actually didn’t get easier. They got worse. I talk about that in my book.” (11:16, Jaleel White)
  • Bullying was a serious problem, both racially and because of his fame.

Family, Values & Stability

• Only child but highlights a strong, supportive family:
  • Mom: worked at the post office, grounded but loving.
  • Dad: dentist, “nerdy in thought but jacked in physique”—family stayed together, key to his well-being.
    • “Everyone who had a tougher road… just didn’t have a very strong family life. That’s the common denominator.” (18:59, Jaleel White)
• Cherished family meals: Mom’s homemade enchiladas (“My mom’s enchiladas are fire.” – 15:14), Dad’s legendary French toast on Hawaiian bread.

Trying to be “Normal” Amid Fame

• Mother wanted Jaleel to have a “normal” upbringing despite his unusual career—insisted on chores, school, and humility.
• Balance of being visible on TV and wanting standard experiences like playing on the high school basketball team, despite not always being allowed minutes due to the coach’s perception.
  • “When I look back… I just think he [the coach] thought this kid has enough. He doesn’t need this.” (22:44, Jaleel White)

Financial Guidance and Humility

• Jaleel’s parents kept him from knowing full details about his finances until high school: “They never even told me how much money I was even earning until I was about 14, 15.” (40:26)
• Mom handled his money conservatively, put more in trust than required by law.

Memorable Moment – Celebrity Pressure & Mishaps

• Owning a not-so-fancy car despite fame led to funny encounters:
  • “This elderly woman… said, is this your car? You should really get something better.” (38:39)

Key Quotes & Timestamps

• “Life be lifein’, man.” (20:28, Jaleel White)
• “My mom wasn’t a sandwich mom, but she was an enchilada mom.” (16:22, Jaleel White)
• “She could whip up dishes that she couldn’t even repeat.” (16:29, Jaleel White)
• “The best thing in my twenties—accidentally started traveling in Europe.” (46:50, Jaleel White)

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2. Adam’s Cultural Commentary: Discipline, Fame & Modern Society

Old School vs. New School: The Discipline Rant

• Adam dives into how discipline explains success, from abs to cars to career:
  • “It’s not daddy’s money. It’s not even IQ. The people that are successful in this society are disciplined. Anyone can have abs.” (72:28, Adam Carolla)
• Social tendency to explain away others’ achievements (“It must be plastic surgery, Ozempic, or nepotism”)—a refrain critiquing today’s emphasis on shortcuts or entitlement.

Reflections on Fame and School Days

• Adam reminisces about his own time at North Hollywood High and feeling overlooked, using humor and stories about pranks and mischief.

Modern Youth & Delayed Adulthood

• The phenomenon of Gen Z needing “parental help” for jobs:
  • “We could not wait to be adults when I was a kid… Driver’s license is the difference between adulthood and childhood.” (73:36, Adam Carolla)

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3. Johnny Joey Jones: How to Fix America

Life Story & Resilience

• Johnny Joey Jones lost both legs above the knee in Afghanistan (99:40) and now serves as a Fox News host, author, and advocate for veterans.
  • “The joke is obviously I wasn’t that good at it... but most of it, stuff I got over with pretty quick.” (99:40, Joey Jones)
• His recovery led him into speaking, politics, and ultimately media commentary.

What’s Broken—and How to Fix It

• Differentiates Trump’s current urgency from previous leadership:
  • “Trump’s coming into a second term with so much different perspective… It’s about, I’m going to take my bulldozer and I’m going to get it through there.” (101:53, Joey Jones)
• Sees the Biden administration as the embodiment of government that prizes “security” over “opportunity.”
  • “They want to sacrifice opportunity for security.” (107:01, Joey Jones)
• Contrasts Republican independence and skepticism with what he sees as Democratic “ostrich-like” avoidance and blind faith in politicians.
  • “I just can’t believe half the country just doesn’t give a shit about homelessness and poop in the streets and fentanyl at the border. I have to believe more people care about that than don’t.” (112:13, Joey Jones)

Policing, Law & Order

• Critiques the “defund the police” movement:
  • “It was not defund the police. It was acab: all cops are bastards… The street language and idea behind it was an absolute assault on police officers.” (123:09, Joey Jones)
• Emphasizes common-sense solutions—more police presence, less crime, and direct leadership.

Garbage, Homelessness, and “Absorbing Problems”

• Adam’s take: Democratic cities have become “Orwellian hellscapes” but manage to “absorb” it, while builders like Trump demand results:
  • “The Democrats can absorb it in a weird way…” (108:05, Adam Carolla)
  • On city “cleanups” for high-profile visitors: “If any city that has to go on a frantic cleanup, that’s how you are.” (115:41, Adam Carolla)

Key Quotes & Timestamps

• “Defund the police is a whitewashing of the sentiment and the message that Democrats championed from 2020 on… it was an absolute assault on police officers.” (123:09, Joey Jones)
• “There's more lazy people than there are 6am gym rats.” (72:28, Adam Carolla)
• “Give this guy [Trump] a shot… Democrats either have to invite him in… or they tell him they don’t need him, things stay bad.” (118:53, Joey Jones)

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4. Notable & Memorable Moments

• Jaleel White brings Adam gifts: Jaleel drops off some “Purple Urkel” and shares behind-the-scenes of launching his own brand:

  • “I don’t sell weed, I sell memories. So you gonna remember everything about this and who you smoked it with.” (52:15, Jaleel White)

• Adam’s “Sandwich Mom” Test:

  • Hilarious exchange about how much effort mothers put into making sandwiches—in reality, a measure of parental love.

• Abs, discipline, and envy rant: Adam’s now-viral distillation of meritocracy vs. modern shortcuts (72:28).

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Timestamps: Important Segments

• [02:39]: Jaleel “Urkel” White in studio, upbringing, commercials, school years
• [10:17]: The challenge of attending public schools while famous, racial dynamics
• [18:59]: Importance of strong family structure in child stardom
• [22:31]: Basketball team, being benched, lessons in humility
• [38:39]: Humorous car stories, fame, and expectations
• [46:50]: Jaleel White on travel, coming-of-age, European adventures
• [72:28]: Adam Carolla’s extended discipline/meritocracy rant
• [99:00]: Johnny Joey Jones introduction, story of injury and recovery
• [101:53]: Jones on Trump, current US politics, “bulldozer” mentality
• [120:39]: Defund the police vs. public safety, law enforcement debate

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Tone & Style

The episode is candid, fast-paced, and features a blend of nostalgia, humor, and social critique. Adam’s tone is irreverent, self-deprecating, and at times ranting, while Jaleel White brings calm wisdom and relatable anecdotes. Johnny Joey Jones offers clarity, practical perspectives, and a dry sense of humor.

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A must-listen for listeners seeking refreshing honesty on fame, family, and the state of America—with plenty of laughs along the way.

Transcript

[A]

Well, in this episode we talk to Jaleel White. You remember him, Urkel. Very interesting story. Also, Mayhem's got some news and Johnny Joey Jones from Fox, you know veteran, that dude, he's on as well. We'll do all that right after this. Hey, this is Adam Carolla from the Adam Carolla Show. Betonline continues to be your number one source for all your football betting action. Betonline has more ways to get in and stay in on action with the latest odds, news and scores. Even live in game betting. From every NFL and college game to mlb, UFC and NHL futures as well, Betonline remains your choice. For sports wagering info. Head to the website today and take advantage of their industry leading VIP program with level up bonuses and weekly cash boosts. In between games, head over to Betonline's casino with all the top Vegas style games including poker and live casino bet online. The game starts here. This September, CBS hits are streaming free on Pluto tv.

[B]

Coming in for this month only stream full episodes of Matlock.

[C]

I'm a lawyer. Like the old TV show Fire Country.

[A]

Elsbeth. I do love a mystery.

[B]

NCIS Origins, Watson and ghosts.

[A]

What the hell? This is the most amazing sight I've never seen. All for free. The CBS shows you love this month only on Pluto tv. Stream now.

[C]

Pain never.

[A]

This episode of the Adam Corolla show is brought to you by Simply Safe.

[B]

From Corolla One studios in Glendale, California.

[A]

This is the Adam Carolla Show. Adam's guest today, actor Jaleel White, Fox News correspondent Johnny Joey Jones. And the news with Jason Mayhem Miller. And now he's not gender neutral. In fact, he's not anything neutral. Adam Corolla. Yeah, get it on. Got to get on a choice. But you're going to mandate you get it on. Jal White in studio. Got a game show on the Game show network. Flip side. Second season airs September 8th and you can find it syndicated on a local stationed near you. Also Roku, the Roku Channel. Good to see you, Jaleel.

[C]

What's up, champ?

[A]

So you grew up out here, right?

[C]

Born and raised, dog.

[A]

Where'd you go to high school?

[C]

South Pasadena Junior High. I mean, sorry.

[A]

South Pasadena High School, South Pasadena. So I went to North Hollywood High. Okay, so I'm just a Valley dude.

[C]

All right?

[A]

And there's not too many guys in the business who grew up out here. I know everyone came in from somewhere else.

[C]

Yeah. With big ideas.

[A]

Yeah, but you were here already.

[C]

Yeah, I was already here, man.

[A]

And you. I know, I. If you want Info, by the way, Growing Up. Urkel's the name of the memoir. It's available as we speak. It's out there. So you get that part at 12, but before that you're acting, you're doing commercials and that kind of stuff.

[C]

Probably done about 50 national commercials, from Toys R Us kid to Oreos, Spaghettios, Apple Jacks.

[A]

Is this your idea or is this somebody in your family's idea?

[C]

Nah, this was, you know, it's an old story. So I tried to chop through it as quickly as possible, but my preschool teacher thought I was kind of funny and Asian woman who owned a terrific preschool and in the South, South Central Los Angeles. And her only thought was to put me in an acting school. So my mom said, what the heck? My mom worked at the post office and a woman came scouting kids, and that woman became the most successful child agent of all time. And she picked me at age three.

[A]

Do you think you were, like, advanced at age three? I mean, it was sort of. I don't know. You know, some kids have timing, comedic timing, you know, a skill linguistically. They're funny. Like, they're just. All the other three year olds are eating paste and staring at the ceiling and you're cracking jokes. I mean, were you just like, advanced?

[C]

I mean, again, I'm not gonna use the word advanced. I'm gonna let you use that word.

[A]

Well, you don't have to be advanced now' cause now we're old. But I just mean, look, you were like a. Like a five year old when you were three.

[C]

Yeah, exactly. But put it this way, I was reading it three. So I remember. I went on. I do remember this. I actually have a vague memory of this. I went on an audition for the Toys R Us commercial gig. And as soon as I walked in, my mom said that. They told me, oh, he's too small. He says, why is he too small? And she said, well, he has to be able to read the song, the lyrics to the song. And she said, oh, he could read them. And I was probably about four at that point. And they're like, really? Okay, stand here, read them. And I was like, I don't want to grow up. I'm a Toys R Us kid. They got a million toys at Toys R Us that I could play with.

[A]

It ain't far.

[C]

It was like. My mom said I practically had the job without even going in the room just because I could read the dang, dang poster boards.

[A]

I learned to read when I was 29. I'm serious. I am serious. So you know, I had a sad realization. It's weird that we're talking about Toys R Us, but I was driving in Deep North Hollywood, which I try not to do, but I grew up in North Hollywood. The other day, looking for some warehouse that sold sinks or something. And I was driving down, I don't know, Sherman Way or Van Owen or something like Deep North Hollywood. And I slowed down at some point. Cause the old neighborhood's kind of turned to a barrio now. And I slowed down and I was like that. Wait a minute. That was the Toys R Us building. Like that was Valhalla. Like once a year you'd got to go to Toys R Us. And it was super far away, except for it was still in North Hollywood. And we lived in North Hollywood. It was just considered Deep North Hollywood or something. We had no range back then. But I remember just sitting in traffic, looking at it and being nine years old and thinking back, I'm in the. And it was like a Mexican market now or something. And I got depressed. I did. Cause I was like, o Toys R Us. And they're not even around anymore. I don't think they come back.

[C]

I remember the one in Culver City. It's a Target now. Over there by Jefferson. That was mine when I was a kid. I used to call them and do price checks on toys that I knew I couldn't afford yet.

[A]

Really?

[C]

I wanted to check the availability. You used to have to get on Instagram and open up the Yellow Pages and just call these stores.

[A]

Let's say this about the Toys R Us franchise. They should have been too big to fail. The government should have got involved. Cause they've been gone since 2018. And for guys of a certain age, it's really depressing when you pull into that part of town in your old neighborhood and you look up and it's Kinkos with a Starbucks attached to it or something like that. And you go, that used to be the Toys R Us. It's ruining a lot of psyches and memories.

[C]

I believe that's called a monopoly. And we've allowed that to happen in our country.

[A]

We do it with banks, we do it with other things, you know, railways and things like that. Got some too big to fail money for Toys R Us.

[C]

That would have been nice.

[A]

I got really depressed two days ago when I was looking at that sign in Van Nuys and it was gone.

[C]

Dad, how about Circus City? Remember that one?

[A]

You know what, Jahliel? This is the weirdest thing ever. So. So Sunday, I was lamenting the loss of Toys R Us. About an hour ago, I was driving back. North Hollywood is where the cabinets are and the sinks are, and when you're doing a remod, you got to go to North Hollywood to look at the tile and all that stuff. Literally driving back through North Hollywood an hour ago, past the big Circuit City building. It's now something else, but I knew it well because it had the big red tile.

[C]

The red tile.

[A]

And I just stopped and looked at this is 44 minutes ago and went, man, Circuit City. So I remember pulling into that place after I got, like, my first showbiz paycheck and going like, I'm gonna get a CD changer that holds 80 CDs in it, you know, or whatever it was. A DVD changer. That excitement of buying a piece of electronic equipment back then that our kids. Everything's digital now, so they don't do it. But, like, going in and making that purchase on the cordless phone or a DVD carousel that held 100 DVDs or something like that. Those were simpler times.

[C]

Yeah, man, yeah.

[A]

You grew up in Pasadena. You went to Pasadena High.

[C]

I went to South Pasadena High School.

[A]

But did you. I mean, you had to be tutored on the set, so.

[C]

I was tutored on the set. However, my mother was adamant that I still attended public school during the weeks that I wasn't filming the show. So for my entire time on that show, from 12 to 21, I attended public school.

[A]

That had to be surreal.

[C]

Absolutely. It was.

[A]

Because, you know, nowadays there's 2,000 channels and 5,000 streaming shows, and everyone is like, people will go, that's the girl from Yellowjackets. And I'll go, I don't know. I have never seen that show. I don't know one of those people. I wouldn't recognize any. But there's too many people on tv. But back in the day, if you were on tv, we knew who you were. You could not fly under the radar, so you had to go to school. I don't know how many weeks out of the year you shot, but were you at school half the time?

[C]

So I'd probably say we shot from July to February, and we were on a two week on, one week off, three week on, one week off schedule. And then in the spring, from February until June, I was at school full time.

[A]

So you're just showing up, walking up and down the halls on one of the hottest shows on tv. You're one of the biggest, most recognizable names on tv. And especially in that demographic, you know, young. That's Your demo?

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

So did they get over it or was it just a constant thing every day?

[C]

You know, it was. It was a tough transition. You know, I went to one school, Huntington Junior High School in San Marino for my seventh grade year and it wasn't working out there. And so then I transferred deeper into Pasadena to a school called Marshall Was.

[A]

It wasn't working out because people were bothering you or what was it?

[C]

It was different times, Adam. So it's kind of weird to talk about. I talk about a. I was the only black kid in my entire school.

[A]

Well, you know, it's interesting because Pasadena has a black population, but it's not Huntington. It's not that. And then it has an area. There's no black people exactly. In it.

[C]

So I went to school in both areas.

[A]

Uh huh. So you went to the white school.

[C]

Yeah, went to the white school. And it was half white and half Asian. And now Asian is completely taking over San Marino.

[A]

Right.

[C]

But I was on that line and, you know, it was a lot of weird tensions in 1989 there. So I transferred from that school to Marshall and that. I classify Marshall as fundamental, as lean on me light. We might as well have needed a Joe Clark. And when I transferred there, being on the show, things actually didn't get any easier. They got worse. And I talk about that significantly in my book.

[A]

So that's a black school.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And so you're getting bugged and I'm getting bullied now.

[C]

Flat out bullied.

[A]

Well, I guess, guys, I mean, and.

[C]

I don't mean like modern bully, I mean like where you actually get your ass kicked a little bit.

[A]

Yeah, I know people have microaggressions now. I wish somebody committed a microaggression upon me, or maybe they did. Thousands. And I never knew it. No, this was actual contact.

[C]

Yeah, no, this is. Yeah, somebody like twice your size in the same class because they failed.

[A]

Didn't your mom understand, though? I mean, I like where her head was at. And your mom sounds great. Yeah. Your dad was a dentist, right?

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

So you sound like you had a solid unit there. And I like where your mom's head is at, but at a certain point it becomes impractical. Like, it's just not.

[C]

Yeah, my mom did a lot of impractical things, but she tried.

[A]

I mean, she.

[C]

Her heart was in the right place.

[A]

Listen, I have the same. I wanted my kid to work at McDonald's a few years ago.

[C]

Exactly.

[A]

Here we go. And I was like, get a job at McDonald's. And everyone said, you're Rich. That's your son. He's not working. I go. It's good for him. It'd be good for him. Work at McDonald's. He doesn't need to. I lost the argument. No, no. But I get the impulse as a parent to want your kids to do normal things, even if your tax bracket is not normal or the rest of the. Their experience is not normal.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. So your mom had that impulse.

[C]

She was big on that. My father and my mother were high school sweethearts at Crenshaw High, so she had an idea of how a boy should be raised in the city.

[A]

Mm. Crenshaw. And that's back in the day. But also back in the day. I mean, I think Kevin Costner went to Crenshaw. It wasn't all black back in the day. It was a different neighborhood, Was different.

[C]

It wasn't completely. But, you know, it wasn't soft either.

[A]

No. No. But Kevin Costner's not soft.

[C]

Exactly.

[A]

He's not.

[C]

He's not.

[A]

I gotta ask this question. Sounds crazy, but I try to figure out. I do a sandwich test to see how much mom loved you.

[C]

Uh.

[A]

Oh. What kind of sandwich? How. How did she rank on the sandwich scale? Now, I'll. I'll give you an example.

[C]

All right.

[A]

My mom was a zero. Sandwich mom, no sandwiches. So that. That's not a good moment. It's not just sandwiches. It applies to many facets of life.

[C]

That's what's up.

[A]

Come on. Dr. Drew's mom was a shit sandwich mom, but she made a bad sandwich. But she didn't put a lot of effort into the sandwich. Then there are other people whose moms toast the bread and put the mayo on both pieces of bread. Like real sandwich moms, which really just means they love you. They spend time. They burn calories. They want you to be happy.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

What was your mom's sandwich? How was she ranked as a sandwich mom?

[C]

My mom made incredible tacos.

[A]

Oh, okay.

[C]

Incredible enchiladas.

[A]

Really?

[C]

Pancakes on occasion. On the weekends.

[A]

She made enchiladas.

[C]

Yeah. Oh, yeah. My mom's enchiladas are fire.

[A]

I love enchilada. Underrated, right? Enchilada. I'll tell you this. I think enchilada is the fish and chips of the Mexican menu.

[C]

Come on with it.

[A]

Meaning everyone loves fish and chips, but they don't order it very often. No one orders it, but it's always good, and they love it. Enchiladas always on that menu. No one orders enchiladas. And they're awesome. And I always order enchiladas. I go out to Mexican food place, and I don't mess it up with chicken or beef. I don't put stuff in it. I get cheese. Enchilada and mole sauce can be real good on an enchilada.

[C]

Better know what you're doing, though. Tackle that. Mole sauce.

[A]

Went to a place in Texas. We went to a Mexican place. We pulled in there, the guy said, enchiladas, because again, everyone gets tacos and burritos and everything. Fajitas. I go, give me the enchiladas. Give me enchiladas. It's got American cheese in it. I go, what the hell is this? I go, that's Tex Mex.

[C]

That's Tex Mex, brother.

[A]

Yeah. Velveeta. And an enchilada. Your mom would not abide by that. So your mom wasn't a sandwich mom, but she was an enchilada mom.

[C]

Taco and enchilada mom. And my mom had the uncanny ability to look into our fridge when we said, my father and I, we have no food. And she said, watch this. And she just whip up dishes that she couldn't even repeat. That tasted amazing.

[A]

Well, enchilada's a lot of love because it's effort. It takes some work. You gotta put it together, you gotta assemble it, you gotta bake it.

[C]

Yeah. Now, my mom could cook if she wanted to. She just. A lot of times she wasn't in the mood. But when she was in the mood.

[A]

My mama cook, did she go with the Mexican type cheese. And then shalotta, she would use I.

[C]

Knowry'S the Lowry seasoning in the packet. She was big on Lowry's. And then she would generally use shredded tea, shredded combination cheese in the packet.

[A]

Nice. All right. So your mom making Mexican food?

[C]

Yeah, she made a lot of Mexican food.

[A]

Kevin Costner grew up in Compton, but went to high school at Visalia in Ventura.

[C]

Gotcha.

[A]

Just for clarity, just for fun fact. So your mom wasn't a sandwich mom, but she made enchiladas.

[C]

Yeah, she did.

[A]

And that's good effort there.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

So your mom's a loving mom.

[C]

And my dad made a lot of French toast.

[A]

Oh, really?

[C]

My dad was a French toast guy.

[A]

I prefer a pancake to a French toast.

[C]

I'm a French toast guy.

[A]

Well, how'd your dad do it?

[C]

The secret is Hawaiian bread.

[A]

Oh, well, that's cheating, man.

[C]

Come on. That's not cheating. That's creative.

[A]

That's a little bit of cheating. That's Creative. That's good. I don't know. Little cinnamon, little vanilla extract if I was a kid. Your dad sounds like he knows what he's doing. Although a dentist is a job I could never do. I could never be a dentist.

[C]

He's a math and sciences guy, though. That's just, you know, that's just who he is, personality wise.

[A]

So is your dad kind of nerdy?

[C]

What's funny is he's nerdy in his thought processing, but physically he was never nerdy. My dad was a big weightlifter.

[A]

Oh, really?

[C]

So my dad was a lot hunkier and sexier than I ever was.

[A]

Buff dentist.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Weird but impressive. Impressive. Once in a while you'll see some doctor or dentist who shredded, you know, and you go, oh, man. Brains in, Brian. Like. Like you're a renaissance man.

[C]

A little bit. Love it.

[A]

So are they still together?

[C]

Absolutely.

[A]

So your parents been together for 55 years?

[C]

Yeah, some disgusting number that I've forgotten, but I still call them on February 19th when their anniversary rolls around.

[A]

Oh, really? So you're good. I mean, your family's good, you're good with them. A lot of showbiz kids, they resent. They're angry. Money.

[C]

Well, you know, I always try to, you know, it sucks that the narrative gets kind of like, I don't know, hijacked by tabloids. But there's a lot of young people, man, a lot of people that grew up working in the business young. And the common denominator always was, did they come from families that had values and that chose to stick together? Pretty much everybody that had a tougher road, they just didn't have a very strong family life. And I see that as the common denominator.

[A]

No, I agree. And the great Danny Bonaduce from the Partridge Family once he told me, he said, you know, everyone does this thing about child actors and rehab and trouble and money and all the things you hear. He said, but think about just an average person. Like half the guys I went to high school with had substance abuse, got into trouble, bad marriages, divorce, you know, And I'm like, yeah, I guess that's just. It's not child actors. It's kind of one out of every three people I grew up with has some sort of issue. And they weren't on tv.

[C]

Hello, you dropping gems?

[A]

And also, they don't. Half of them don't even talk to their family or like their family. It wasn't. Cause their mom forced them into acting camp when they were seven. It's cause life, you know, so it's not like the outside world is pristine when it comes to this kind of stuff.

[C]

Life be lifein', man.

[A]

So did you have brothers and sisters?

[C]

Nah. That's what makes me a bit unique though. I'm an only child. I am an only child, but I share my food.

[A]

You're a food sharer?

[C]

Yeah, my wife comes from a giant family and she won't share her food and then I've had to coax her and say, hey baby, you know, we can order as much of this as we want.

[A]

Does she eat like, does she put her elbows out when she eats, it gets aggressive. So she's got lots of siblings?

[C]

Yeah, my wife is like friggin four siblings.

[A]

And is she from out here?

[C]

Nah, she's from Stockton.

[A]

No, that's not out here, but it's not. It's kind of strange that you're very California centric, you know, I'm telling you.

[C]

Man, I'm so Los Angeles. Spike Lee can offend me at times.

[A]

So you have all this success, all this notoriety. I can't imagine how surreal high school would have been in the middle of your success. And I don't know. Did you say I'm sick, I can't go in a lot?

[C]

Nah, that's. Listen, you know, that's my dream show. That's really my dream show that I've always wanted to make. I just, I felt like it's such a unique point of view that most people didn't realize that, you know, I was going to prom, I was sitting in class, I was taking tests, I was getting bullied, I was trying to play for my basketball team, not getting minutes, you know, and you didn't have these camera phones recording everything on camera. So even though it was, it was still, you know, you had, you went through your shock and awe periods, you know, they got past it because there wasn't anything to share about it other than just what you knew.

[A]

Was it like, I know you love basketball and you're on the team and you're trying to get minutes, but your coach is in a kind of weird position. Like on one hand it's kind of fun to play you. On the other hand, he's trying to win, he wants the best five guys out there.

[C]

But we sucked.

[A]

The team sucked.

[C]

Yeah, our team sucked. So I think it was just really a, you know, when I look back on it, I just think it was a thing where he kind of thought, this kid has enough.

[A]

Uh huh. He doesn't need this. Yeah, he doesn't need the Crowd cheering. Cause he's already living that life.

[C]

Exactly.

[A]

Do you think you're better than some of the guys that were working for.

[C]

Oh, I was definitely better than certain guys. It's not even a question. I'm not patting myself on the back. It's just when I look back on it, there's no reason that I should not have played at all. But, you know, I just think it was a. I don't even want to use the word jealousy. I just. When I. The proper context is, I think he just looked at me and was like, this kid has enough. Put it this way. I remember one time we were playing in a tournament, and sometimes I would miss the team bus because I was at work. I was at Warner Brothers filming, and so we were playing a tournament in Glendale, but they let me off work just a little bit early enough so that I could make this particular game. I thought I was gonna have to miss the game entirely. And I caught up to the team bus on the 210, beeping my horn.

[A]

Really?

[C]

And all the dudes came to the back, was like, yo, he's yelling Jahliel, but I'm driving a Range Rover.

[A]

Right.

[C]

And I could tell when the coach came and looked at the back, out the back, you know, back window, it was almost like he wasn't happy to see me.

[A]

Right.

[C]

And that was the first moment that I kind of felt like, I don't know if he wants me on the team.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And it was, you know, it was a little awkward, but it was. It was a very memorable time for me, even if I didn't play very much. I learned a lot about team dynamics. And if I had to do it all over again and still not play, I'd do it all over again. Because I think it's important for a guy to know what it's like to be on the bench. Mob.

[A]

No, I agree. I look back sometimes and think about. I had a weird flashback recently, and so I was a football player. I was.

[C]

What position?

[A]

I was pretty good, but I played linebacker and guard.

[C]

You were hitting people?

[A]

I was hitting everyone all the time. And so I was good enough to be. End up being like, all Central Valley. I was the first team All Valley player.

[C]

That matters, baby. That's grade one eight.

[A]

I agree. I'm glad to have that clipping of that newspaper. But when I was in the 10th grade, I was on the B team and I wasn't starting, and I was kind of. I had a guy who was ahead of me, who was a senior when I was in the 10th grade on the B team, which is weird, but he was a senior, so I just think they let him start. And I was busting my hump in practice and working real hard, and, like, I felt like I could contribute and I should get playing time, But I was sitting on the bench, and I had this weird flashback to us sitting in the gym before a game toward the end of the season. And Coach Smith was standing there, and he was kind of looking around, and he'd go, you ready to play today? You ready to play today? And he was like, pointing to the starters, and then at some point he pointed at me, and he goes, you know, he goes like, caroll, are you ready? And everyone kind of looked at me and went, well, he's not doing anything, so why does he need to be ready? And he goes, this guy's good enough to start at about three or four positions on this team. And he busts his tail. Just because he's not starting doesn't mean I don't know he knows how to play football. And he may get in there. Then I was just kind of like, what? I didn't know. I didn't know he thought about any of this or knew any of this stuff.

[C]

You better land this, man. You better land this story. I love it.

[A]

I ended up getting in the game at some point, made a good tackle, and I remember doing the tackle, and everyone looked at me like, you just tackled somebody out on the field. And I was like, yeah. And they were like. They weren't used to seeing it. But the weird flashback I had was like, him pointing at me in the bleachers and everyone kind of looking at me and him going, you could play a bunch of different positions. Just because you're not starting doesn't mean I don't know you can play and stuff like that. It's a weird end of season kind of thing he had. I never thought he was. I was surprised he knew my name kind of thing. And I just had that flashback. And the next year I started on varsity, and then I started both ways on varsity the next year, and that was all fine, but you have flashbacks to the quiet moments or the not playing or the sitting on the bench, like, a lot, a lot to be.

[C]

Learned, a tremendous amount. I mean, if you'll indulge me, I have a similar story with a different ending. Yeah, I remember the coach telling us at the beginning of a game we were about to play La Canada, and he goes. He starts laying into us real good. Practice was trash this week. Anybody could get in the game. He's like, I'm shaking up the whole lineup.

[A]

Like, whoa.

[C]

Like he's gonna name a new starting lineup. He's like, anybody can get in the game this week. And so, you know, that just kind of changed the whole spirit of the layup line, right? And he didn't play anyone different. This bastard didn't play anyone. I mean, the rotation could not have been more the exact same. And we lost. So at the end of the game, it was a visiting game. You know, girls and stuff from the other team would recognize me sometime. And then on this rare occasion, there were like four or five girls that wanted to meet me right after the game.

[A]

Was this in La Canada or in Pasadena?

[C]

This was in La Canada.

[A]

My kids went to that high school. That's the reason I've been to volleyball games and basketball games in that auditorium.

[C]

We were the visiting team, Right? So you know, when you getting your ass kicked or, you know you about to lose and you on the bench mob. I mean, there's nothing better than making eyes with some girls in the crowd, and they want to get to know you after the game. This was the only time in the entire time I played on the team that he made it his personal business, my coach, to make sure that I got to the locker room protected from the crowd.

[A]

Oh, really? It was.

[C]

He must have seen us at the end of the bench, you know, communicating with these girls or whatnot. And you know, you know how that goes. It's when the team loses the bench mob. If you didn't play, you don't feel responsible for that loss.

[A]

Right.

[C]

So we just wanted to get out of the locker room and go meet the girls.

[A]

Right.

[C]

He lectured us for a complete hour in the locker room after that.

[A]

Sounds like he had a little personal beef.

[C]

Oh, yeah. That's why I was like, this was so petty. When I look back on it as an adult that it's just laughable. Like, I can't even be bitter about it. I gotta be like, this guy.

[A]

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[C]

Could you hit a curve?

[A]

It was easy. I was okay. Tommy Lassorta told me I could have played professional baseball, but he would have had to throw me 100 curves a day starting at 18, which is an interesting thing that you said hit a curve because he said, you'd have to. I'd have to throw him to you or something. So I said I could play good enough. Yeah, I was pretty good. But baseball practice was kind of fun. Football practice was torture and literally torture. And so to go through the torture and then sit on the bench for the game, that's called lose lose. Because when I was starting both ways at the end, and practice is torture, but you're starting, so you're out there. And it's pretty good. Sitting on the bench after being tortured all week, week in and week out, that's the tough part. But I think mentally it probably builds more character because you kind of go, if this kid sticks with it and doesn't quit and does all the sprints and all the jingle jangles and all the stuff, goes through all the pain, only to sit on the bench for the whole game, then that kid's got character because they don't quit.

[C]

That's what it was about for me. I didn't want him to have the satisfaction of making me quit.

[A]

So you played all three years or four years?

[C]

I actually only played my senior year. So they changed the shooting schedule to allow for me to attend our home games. And specifically for my senior year, I never thought I was gonna get a chance to play. During the summertime, I would usually just go to basketball camps. I went to Arizona. I was friends with Lute and Bobby Olson, may they rest in peace.

[A]

Lute Olson, that's right.

[C]

I went to Duke basketball camp. Coach K and Mickey, they welcomed me out there. So my mom basically just turned my summers when I was a kid into just my basketball season where I could just go to any camp I wanted to. I even went to Michael Jordan's camp in Elmhurst. That one wasn't more for five star kids, but it was still cool because anytime I did stuff like that, they'd always kind of give me a little bit of special privilege. Cause I would draw a crowd even at the camp with the campers. So like the other campers would go back to the dorm and I'd get a chance to stay with the counselors and watch Mike play the counselors at night. And like Larry, our counselors were Brent Barry and Grant Hill.

[A]

Really? So you'd watch Michael Jordan play those guys at night? Yeah, that's crazy.

[C]

You know, as a, you know, we're talking about like as a 16 year old.

[A]

That's an amazing experience.

[C]

Yeah, it's kind of cool.

[A]

But also the kind of pressure of being notable and people knowing who you are, if you suck or you really screw up, it kind of, I don't know, exaggerates. It puts a finer point on it. Harder. I mean, I guess it's like. I'll put it to you this way. If you get a dui, as a person who works at the Home Depot or the post office or something, like a regular person getting a DUI sucks, you're unhappy, and it can screw you up. But if you're a celebrity and you get a dui, it's a much bigger deal because everyone knows about it, it's more embarrassing, so on and so forth. Right. And so it's the same act. I mean, missing a layup is the same thing, except for if you're a celebrity, then people know it.

[C]

Yeah, no, it's. I got really lucky, though, in that my parents weren't big drinkers. My parents, they thought they were doing something when they had Seagram's wine coolers in the fridge. And. And then my mom would shame me into not being around liquor and stuff. She would always kind of like, my mom had a. She had great manipulative powers over me. And she'd be like, hey, you know, if these kids drink liquor, you know, at your apartment, and they. They leave out of here, you know, they can sue you. So she would, like, scare me with stuff like that. And then I became really good friends with Penny Hardaway when I was about 17, 18 years old. And then, ironically, Penny didn't drink or smoke, so it was almost kind of like it. Just like it was by divine order. I was protected to stay away from alcohol and smoke during that time period because the cops would hunt you. Like, if you were a brother driving the kind of cars I was driving in high school and college, you know, you were being hunted and to roll down that window and smoke was billowing out, or you'd been drinking. Absolutely. You would have ended up in the press. But I was hanging out with all these co. You know, cool people who didn't drink. Penny did not touch anything. We played ball and we played video games, and, you know, we looked for girls.

[A]

Penny had the little puppet in the Reebok commercial, Right?

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah, I was saying that. Well, I'm glad we're talking about drinking anyway. But I was using it as, like, a metaphor, which is, if you suck in basketball, everyone knows he sucked. They know who you are.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

So that had to feel pressure filled. No, I was.

[C]

I wasn't giving you a tangent. What I. It's just interesting to me how, like, you go through these periods of life where you were, you know, you were protected from something and you didn't realize you were protected from it. Because all my values at the time is, oh, I'll never touch this stuff. So I had my first real sip of liquor. I went through all of college and never drank.

[A]

How were your parents, or did they have any thoughts about you driving an expensive car at a young age? It's your money. But I could also go, you know, they kind of put a target on your back or save that money for blah, blah, blah.

[C]

Yeah, no, my car journey was dope. Like, again, that's something I would love to see at a TV show. Because my first car was actually just my dad's old car, which was Acura Legend Sedan. So my first car was not fancy at all. And I remember I pulled into a valet and this elderly woman in Beverly Hills got my autograph. And she said, is this your car? 17 years old? And I was like, yeah. And she was like, you should really get something better.

[A]

It's not your image, because she knew who you were.

[C]

Yeah, I just signed an autograph for her. So, you know, I just remember that moment at 17 years old, I have a grown woman getting my autograph and telling me, basically, you drive a crap vehicle. And I remember my car broke down. My dad's old car broke down after a taping that I did on the lot. And I mean, I had actually. I remember this so vividly.

[A]

What lot were you guys on?

[C]

We were on Warner Brothers. Warner Brothers. Right there.

[A]

That's close enough.

[C]

Yeah, right off a pass, right? And. And I had crushed it this night. Like, I had crushed it. And it was like I was trying to get to City Walk with my friends. And, you know, that's what you did. You tried to finish the show by 9 o' clock so you can get to City Walk and go hang out and get recognized and find girls, right? And. And my cars broke down. And I remember my EP drove by me and he was in his Lexus coupe, and he was like, jay, you okay? You need a ride anywhere? And I was like, I'm just waiting for aaa, Dave. And he'd be like, all right. He's like, I feel bad for you, man. You did a great show tonight. But driving good is feeling good. And he rolls up his window and he drives off. And I'll never forget, he was like, driving good is feeling good. And, boy, I pitched a bitch that night with my parents. I was like, this is ridiculous. Like, you know, how come I can't get a car that, you know, makes some sense. You know, everybody else on the show drives a Mercedes or whatever. And I'm driving this Acura sedan, which, by the way, they were very smart to make me drive because I would bottom out on that thing terribly. I didn't take good care of it, and I scraped it on every fricking curb I could find. But I remember the next day, I went and bought a Range Rover.

[A]

Like, the next day, were you able to just go, and you're under 18, right? At that point, but it's your money. Are you able just to go, I'm just gonna go do this.

[C]

It don't work that way in a black household. Dog. Like, this whole my money thing. My mom was awesome because she put more money in my trust than legally was necessary. So 25% supposed to go to your trust? She put 33% in. But my parents never even told me how much money I was even earning until I was about 14, 15. So I did probably about 60, 70 episodes of that show just on the love of the game, knowing that I'm making money to go to college, but not fully understanding this is bigger than just college now at this point. So I didn't have this concept of I'm rich or anything. I just didn't. It was like my mom kept me in public school, exposed to other people, but she also kept me in a bubble in terms of my spending and my expectations. So I remember if I ever needed money for anything, my mom would just give me $300. She was like, what do you need that for? I said, man, I just want to go to the warehouse and buy some CDs. It was like, all right. She gave me $300. And it wasn't until I got to. It wasn't until I got to college and I started using the ATM myself more that I realized I'm like, my mom always gives me $300 because that's the maximum you can get out at the atm. So, you know what I'm saying? It was like I had this innocence that I look back on that was very contrived from my parents point of view, but it was my reality.

[A]

Yeah. So, I mean, it seems like they did, and. And you kind of got the best you could get considering where you're at, what you went through, how visible you were in the town you lived in. They made it about as sane as they could make it.

[C]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

And about as humble and sort of, I guess, regular. They made about as regular as they could make it for you.

[C]

Yeah, I had such a. The other thing about my childhood is, like, there's a Forrest Gump kind of aspect to my childhood also. And you'll be like, where's he going with this? But, like, graduation day. I remember having a graduation meal at the top of the Bonaventure Hotel. And I'm arguing with the bartender, can he please turn on the Knicks versus Houston NBA Finals? And he's like, I just. I can't, man. He's like, I know who you are, but everybody wants to watch this situation that's going on the news. And it was OJ's Bronco chase.

[A]

Oh, really?

[C]

Going right by the 110 freeway. And so everybody's like, faces are plastered in the window watching O.J. go by. And I'm arguing. I'm literally arguing with Bartram, like, man, don't nobody care about these Broncos. The game is on, man.

[A]

Yeah, it was in the middle of the game. They broke away from the game, I think, to talk about it.

[C]

Yeah, like, they stopped the game. They stopped the coverage of the game.

[A]

The bon event.

[C]

So eventually he was like, I told you. Like, they stopped the game. So it's not even on anymore.

[A]

The bon event. That weird talk to the bartender about the TV thing is the weirdest. I've had a million of those where it's like, they got women's golf out in the middle of Saturday, and there's college football, you know, And I go, could you switch it over to Ian? They go, I'm not allowed. Also, I don't know what the thing with the. You sit around and you serve people booze all day. What do you mean? You're not allowed to handle a TV remote and no one wants to watch ladies golf. But the Bonaventure Hotel is where my senior prom was. And it's a famous modern. It was modern in 1976, but I swear to God, you can look it up. The movie Logan's Run, I think when they were looking for a modern thing like building wherever, they used the Bonaventure Hotel because it was state of the art and modern circa 1975. Now it's an old hotel.

[C]

This was a fancy post graduation meal that was going on, man.

[A]

So you went and you went straight away to college. You went to UCLA after that?

[C]

Went to UCLA right after that. But again, I went to UCLA while I was still on the show. So that was even kind of surreal, too, because that's when you start to lose a little bit of your cool, because it was Cool to be this character. And when you were in middle school in particular, probably about the ninth grade was about the coolest time to be the character. But then by the time you get to college, people are aging out. And, you know, the rap battle east and west is huge. And everything hard is huge. And being, you know.

[A]

This is 95.

[C]

Yeah, this is 95. Right. So it was like, you know, I'll never forget they played the movie Friday on campus at Kirkhoff at ucla. And it was a free movie. And like, back then, like, that was a big deal. Cause none of the kids had any money. And, you know, that's where, like, I wanted to. I wanted to feel normal. So I went to the folding chairs free screening of Friday at Kirkhoff. Cause, you know, all the girls were there that night. And I remember watching that movie and the impact that it had on me. Cause I was like, damn. Like, I can be this funny, but within the context of tgif, I'm not allowed to be funny like this. You know, we were cracking jokes off the stage, you know, me, Kelly and Darius, Lauren, Eddie, et cetera. That's how other people know them. But, you know, that were age appropriate, but we couldn't cross certain lines. I knew right there in that moment, I was like, this is about to be tough on us because we're not allowed to follow our instincts right now because we're part of a brand that is just very family oriented.

[A]

And so what'd you major in in college?

[C]

I went to film school.

[A]

Oh, okay. So it was always gonna be that.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

But then. And then later, I'm guessing now you have to sort of undo Urkel or something. Sort of try to be seen as. Not this. I mean, it's a pretty old story in Hollywood.

[C]

The twenties were weird. The twenties were weird. But I had a good time. I had some good friends that I did. The best thing I did in my twenties was I accidentally started traveling in Europe.

[A]

Oh, really?

[C]

Yeah. I had a football player friend of mine that called me one day and was like, hey, man, you need to come out here. I'm in Iceland right now. And I'm like, what? He's like, yo, it's popping out here. I remember my. I don't know what my dad was going through or what. I was working on a script for Imagine Entertainment, of all places. And as a writer, because I was really. All I wanted to do was write, man. That's all I wanted to do. And I had gotten a little gig with Imagine Entertainment, but it didn't really have kind of a hard deadline. And I was like, dad, Fred just asked me to go to Reykjavich. And my dad was like, go. I was like, what do you mean? I was like, you know, I was always that kid. I got my homework done, you know, and it was like, go. And I was like, all right. I literally. I booked a flight, and two days later, I'm landing in Reykjavik. My buddy picks me up with a blonde and a Doberman in the back seat of an suv. And the adventure started there. It was Reykjavik, it was Greece, it was Spain. It was.

[A]

How long were you there?

[C]

I probably stayed out there for probably about a couple weeks, started buying clothes on the road and. And then after that, it became an annual summer thing. Like, as soon as. As soon as he was done with my boy, was done with the football season, he's like, all right, where am I meeting you?

[A]

He's playing Euro League.

[C]

And then it was.

[A]

What'd you say he was playing European league?

[C]

No, no, he's playing NFL.

[A]

Oh, he just went, yeah, he was playing NFL.

[C]

But during. As soon as the season was over, he was out.

[A]

Fred. Fred Dreyer from the Los Angeles Rams. I'm guessing it wasn't that. There's also.

[C]

I'm gonna say his name. I'm saying his name, man.

[A]

The hammer.

[C]

Freddie Mitchell.

[A]

Freddie Mitchell.

[C]

Freddie Mitchell. I just want to thank my hands. Freddie Mitchell, who played for the Eagles, man, He. He actually went to the. I know your producers knows it. He actually went to. He went to ucla. So that's where.

[A]

That's how you. That's how you knew him.

[C]

That's where I got to know. That's where it's like, once I got to ucla, that's where my life kind of starts to become a little minor version of Entourage.

[A]

Uh huh. It's so minor version of Entourage in that you seem to like women.

[C]

I mean, who did?

[A]

No, I agree.

[C]

Fred went to the Playboy Mansion every day. I'd never been before.

[A]

The problem when you're 22 is you really like women. But. But I, you know, you did like the wrong ones. I was poor and I drove a pickup truck and it just wasn't happening. You know, for me. I didn't have Reykjavik money and I didn't know Fred and I didn't have any connections. You know what I mean? So you like. Yeah, I think it's kind of like I would tell people all the time when they go, like celebrities who cheat or something like that, you know, guys, the guy's a dog stepping out and I said, listen, dog. No, but I said, look, when I used to be on mtv, I've had the experience of walking into, like, a bar in New York, sitting down and looking up, and my show's on all the TV sets while I'm sitting at the bar. Oh, yeah, because they put it on MTV at night. And then a couple of good looking women came up, started talking to me, and then asked me if I want to go back to the hotel room and hang out with them. Now, what I'm saying is, now, the.

[C]

Proper way to say that, Adam, is would you like to party?

[A]

Party with them and watch them party? Well, my point is, before you go judging the guys, a long haul trucker would do that as well. They just don't have the women coming up to them, asking them if they want to go back and party with them. That's the thing. And it's one thing. Here's what I would say. It's one thing to find a wallet on the ground at the subway and pick it up and turn it in, but it's another thing to find cash on the ground. Most of us won't return cash. And I'm not gonna analogy. I'm not gonna judge you for not returning cash.

[C]

Are you a fool with two o's?

[A]

Well, Jaleel, I know you got a heart out here, so I'll give you. We'll go out on a nice laugh.

[C]

If you just want to get rid of me.

[B]

Get rid of you?

[C]

I got no heart out talking like this.

[A]

It said 12:30 is what your people said to me.

[C]

My people have to protect me, man. They don't know if I'm gonna start having a good time.

[A]

Let's talk about Purple Urkel, though.

[C]

Oh, oh, oh, oh.

[A]

Purple Ur. Oh, that's right. The show is called Flipside, by the way. Two season, second season, September 8th, Game Show Network, and also various local stations and the Roku channel. Well, so you're local, so you should come by periodically, plug, hang out, tell stories.

[C]

I would love that. Man, I had no Idea what a SoCal dude you are. Since your man mentioned that, you know what? I actually brought him a little treat. I brought him a little Purple Urkel for anything.

[A]

Oh, really? Oh, Dawson's a big Urkel fan.

[C]

Our filters are. Our filters are very unique. We use a piece of rotini pasta.

[A]

Ooh. Oh, my Italian mother will love that. Taking this home.

[C]

So we got the noodle joint for you. And I'm telling you, dog, I don't sell weed. I sell memories. So you Gonna remember everything about this and who you smoked it with.

[A]

That's only something a stoner would probably go. Yeah, well, do. I was gonna give this to you. Take it, boss. You take it, Jaleel White.

[C]

If I gotta bring some more for you, I will. Since I got the carte blanche to come back anytime.

[A]

Jaleel White, everybody. We'll do the news right after this. Huel man. H U E L All right, we all know mornings can be a little chaotic, sometimes a little hectic. You're juggling the dog and emails. Where's the keys? Skip breakfast, grab some coffee, go flying out of the house. That's what I used to do. And then I found Huell Black Edition. Seriously, grabbing this on the way out saves a whole morning. It really does. And a ton of time. Fall is here, so school, work, everything, it's all ramping up. You want a meal, not a candy bar and a latte, which is, let's face it, what a lot of people are serving up and calling it breakfast. Huel. H U E L gets it. Their Black Edition powder is a complete meal, so you feel full, focused and ready for the day. And get this, they just dropped the Huel Daily Greens. Ready to drink. First of its kind. It's your greens, but sparkling in a can. No powders, no nonsense. Just pop one and go. Made by real dietitians. It's Huel, right, Dawson? Try Huel with 15% off for new customers today by using our code [e-mail] Adam15. Fuel your performance with Huel today. Homes.com Some might say homes.com is the best home shopping site. And maybe homes.com's squarespace super comprehensive and transparent agent directory. Or Maybe it's that homes.com is the only site that always directly connects you with the listing agent who knows the home the best. Perhaps it's because homes.com has the most in depth neighborhood content of any home shopping site that's extensively researched to highlight the personality of each neighborhood. Homes.com goes above and beyond to bring home shoppers the in depth info they need to find the right home. So if you're looking homes.com that's the site you should be on. I go there just to see what's going on in the neighborhood. Check out the comps. Homes.com we've done your homework. Foreign to check Adam's voicemail. Hey Adam. John from Colorado. Just wanted to say thanks for all the laughs you and the crew have given me during my brutal divorce over the last year. It's it really is a moisture and takes your mind off things, which is. Which is good. And also get your ass back out to Denver. Comedy works. It's been almost two years, man. Get it on.

[B]

You can leave us a message at 888-634-1744.

[A]

Yeah, I will, and thanks. I love it when people say they were going through a tough time and I distracted them just a little bit. But Mayhem's got some news. He's out here. I had a thing. I was sitting around last night. I was watching that movie Varsity Blues. Classic. Yeah. And I was looking and I thought, ah. I was thinking about a couple guys I went to high school with who died in a car crash right after they graduated. Football guys, I recall, on a football team. And I thought, I wonder if those guys are in the memorial something North Hollywood High or something. So I just put their names in and said, like, north Hollywood and see if there's some story about it. They had some story in the newspaper or something. And then it came up a thing. It said notable North Hollywood High people over the years. North Hollywood High is 90 years old or something. And it had lots of like, Marilyn Monroe went to North Hobbit High. So then I was looking at it and it had a bunch of famous people and then other people that were not as famous, but you kind of recognize him. And then some names you didn't recognize. No. Adam Carolla, by the way. I know, I know. Got deleted from the UFC hall of Fame. I know. And then I saw Michael Hutchins and I was like, what from in excess. And I'm like, no, that guy's from Australia, New Zealand or New Zealand, wherever. Why is he in my high school and I'm not in my high school? And then it said something like, you're my kind. Yeah, he went there for a year or something when his dad came here to work from Australia or something. He went there for a short I. Three years. All Central Valley first team, no mention. The ace man. Class clown. Come on now. Nothing. The liberal woke student council won't let you on.

[C]

I didn't.

[A]

I was too lazy to check every list. It was just a list I went to, but it was. I don't know if you put in notable North Hollywood High. Michael Hutchins beat me out. Fine. But also there's a bunch of other names I didn't know. I saw Michael Tilson Thomas up there.

[C]

I know him.

[A]

He was the conductor of the San Francisco Symphony. There you go. Okay. Includes Terry Garr, Brian Austin Green, all Right now, Allyson Hannigan, Mayim Bialik. Well, I mean, she just got beat out by Blossom. Eden Everly. I don't know who Eden Everly is, but Michael Tilson. Again, other figure school. Oh, okay, get to me. Actress Mary Bellock. All right, Comedian Adam Carolla and director Frank Darbont. And then where did Mike. What's the Michael Hutchins list? All right, so I got honorable mention down there, but I just feel like first things first, I was a full time student. You know, there's no on set tutoring. I was there playing football, playing baseball class, clowning it every day, putting the hours in. And I got Brian Austin Green. Just think of the five slots ahead of me. Think of the pranks, you know, just think of the days that Adam Crolla roamed the halls of North Hollywood High, a menace to society. I had a, greatest, the greatest moment. I thought about one of my greatest moments, which was, it doesn't sound like anything, but it was very impactful for me. And I was thinking about it the other day. There's somebody down, way down the hall. And everyone's lockers were in the hall, right? And it was a female student, like sort of friend of mine I sort of knew. And it was crowded in the hall and she was probably about 40, 50ft down the hall in between class. Everyone was walking up and down and she had her locker open and I had an apple that was about done with and I just had the core pretty much. And I saw her like down and I saw her locker door was open. I could see the inside of it. And because I was just a douche, I took the apple and apples to me. Apple cores. Back then you had to throw everything you were done with. You couldn't take it and put it in the trash can. It was basically tantamount to peeing outdoors. Like, if you ever pee when you're camping, you stand there and you're pissing and then you're like, yeah, look at that ant. All right, that's something, you know, or there's a trail. I'm going to see if I can roll that twig down this hill. Like, I'm not just going to pee, I'm going to do something with this pee. And so I had this apple core and the girl's locker was open and she was like talking to someone and I thought, it's going to be funny. I'm just going to chuck this apple and I'm just going to splat it on the inside of her locker door. And so I threw it a pretty good distance. I was on the baseball team. It was like, you know, 40, 50ft away. And she never looked up. She just turned, and right as the apple got to the door, she just slammed the locker door and walked away. And I realized there's now an apple core inside of her locker that she could never account for. She would never. She's just gonna open her locker next time, and an apple's gonna. A core's gonna fall out, and she's gonna think she has a brain tumor because she's gonna think she ate the apple and put the core in there, or she's not. She'll have no reasonable explanation for how she literally. As the apple got to the door mid flight, she slammed the door, and so she couldn't hear it, and she entombed it in there. And when you came back, there's ants everywhere. You had a piss everywhere. I did have fruit flies in my locker because I had some old fruit apples in there. But I just remember being. I remember thinking, I can't tell her about this. Whoa, okay. And then I remember thinking, I love the timing of this. And then I remember thinking, it really was nothing. It was a nothing burger. But it stuck with me all these years later. I was very happy with myself. The key, I think, Carolla, you missed out on a chance to, like, walk up and see her, realize she had an aneurysm sometime during third period English.

[B]

You went around and told Ray and Snake and everybody.

[A]

I told every. I had to tell everyone, by the way. We didn't have. That was the only entertainment. Was it Ray or Snake that would shit in her locker? Well, it was Ray, but look, it was unclear whether it was Ray shit or Chris's shit. Sorry, that hit me in the air. Sorry. I didn't mean to get into that. I'll tell you who delivered it. Ray delivered it. But I don't know. You can't really dust for shit in that situation. Big adrenaline dump. All I had to do, all I needed was to get home. That's all. I've never been over. I've never hopped the fence that fast. I hit that fence full stride and was over it. And it didn't slow me down. I just landed on the other side in full stride again. There was a security guard there, too. He's just going, hey, whoa. And I was just like, nope, going right by. Michael Hutchins. Lived in North Hollywood for a brief period during teenage years and went to North Hollywood High School. That was a weird one. That Never came up. Also when I looked up Michael Hutchins. I remember when you guys of a certain age, Dawson, you know, when he killed himself, you go sad. But he had a pretty good run. 37, not. Not in his 40s, in his 30s. We thought of him as a little bit older. Not really like in his 30s. Well, he had a blast. Yeah, he had a good time. They're one of my least favorite bands. I'm just tripping on how they spell that name. That does not make any sense. They made a show where they tried to replace him, like making the band or something like that. Remember? How can you replace the guy that. All right, what happened? I can't remember. All right, so also I got a clip from recent when they had RFK. Oh, God, poor RFK Jr. Had to get up and have Liz Warren question him. And did she give him a talking tube? Yeah, he can't get a word in edgewise, but it's a perfect chick think argument. Which is because he does not recommend the booster vaccine for healthy people under 65. Because it's unnecessary. And it was always unnecessary. So my son getting vaccinated when he was 14 as a healthy and thin male was always unnecessary. And I. I wish he hadn't gotten vaccinated. I didn't take him to get vaccinated. His mom took him to get vaccinated. And I didn't really get a vote. What was her reason for that? Everyone had to get vaccinated. They wouldn't let you back in school. They wouldn't let you on a fucking eat at a restaurant. It was an old big. Sorry I brought it up big line. A big push to get people. I don't want my kids or anyone to get any vaccinations they don't need. If they need a vaccination, then they should get it. But there's potential downside or danger, even if it's small statistically. But if it's zero the danger, then they don't need it. So it was always an easy equation for me. Covid doesn't pose a danger to young people. So, no, don't get vaccinated because how could it hurt? I don't know. Yeah, but could. But it could. So RFK is basically going to. And I'm not going to recommend a vaccination for people who don't need a vaccination. Especially now. By the way, who the fuck are the people getting booster shots in the end of 2025, but not Liz and all these fucking bitches and all these assholes have to retroactively try to make themselves right about something they're wrong about that happened and they lied about. So they have to get in these bitches. Big argument. So she wants to know what's going on with him recommending this. Now he's saying. Basically what he's saying is I'm not going to stop anybody from getting a booster vaccine. I will recommend. I will not recommend it if you don't need it, which seems, you know, logical to me. But she's not having. She's not having anything of it. And you notice whenever he tries to answer her, she'll just talk over him. Fucking waste of time. Here we go. Pocahontas confirmed. In this job, you're going like this, that is.

[C]

You promised that you would not take away vaccines from anyone who wanted them. You just changed the classification of the COVID vaccine.

[A]

I'm not taking them away from people, Senator.

[C]

It takes it away if you can't.

[A]

Get it from your pharmacy. Well, most Americans are going to be able to get it from their pharmacy for free.

[B]

Dollars. Most Americans will be able to get.

[A]

It from their pharmacy for free. Question is, everyone who wants it?

[C]

That was your promise.

[A]

I never promised that I was going to recommend products with which there is no indication.

[C]

When you said, and I know you've taken $855,000 from pharmaceutical companies.

[A]

I love that.

[B]

Did you hold up a big sign saying that you were lying when you said that?

[C]

Because you are the one who said.

[A]

You would not take them. It's such a waste of time. I'm not taking them away from any secretary.

[B]

You want me to indicate a product.

[A]

For which there is no clinical data. Is that what you want? Secretary Kennedy, you said you wouldn't and now you did. I'm not taking them away. Everybody can get access to them. No, it's like you want me to recommend a vaccine that is not good for people and unnecessary. Is that what you want? Now he's saying, she's saying you took it away, man. He hit her with the upper right there with 825. Ooh wee. Yeah, that hurt. Did you just say upper? I think she may have. The point is, I mean, I'll throw an upper gun every once in a while. Now, here's the thing. First off, what is she arguing for? Literally for booster vaccinations for people who don't need booster vaccinations. You already know, Ace. He just said it. You know what I mean? Gotta cash them check somehow. That's such checking. God, it's Crazy. And he never took them away. And also this world, this imaginary world where no one has access to things. You know, like Hobby Lobby is not paying for birth control, so he's denying acts. Who does. Who can't vote, who can't get an id who can't get a booster shot. Like, I don't. Who are these people? Who are these people who are still pushing something that we were told it was going to work, and then it didn't work, but no, we all still have.

[B]

I don't. I don't get it.

[A]

They're retroactively trying to make themselves right. Yes. They're science deniers. And you don't need to be working at Hobby Lobby then whoring around horn around at the lobby. All right, what do you got? I got some crazy news about Drake. He's addressing his plastic surgery rumors, specifically. He didn't get a bbl. What is that? It's a Brazilian butt lift. Oh, okay. Now, Kendrick Lamar made it famous. Bbl. Drake really got him good with that. And, you know, now he's with Bobby Altoff, who has a career somehow. Who is Bobby? Al. Exactly. But check her out.

[C]

People think you got a procedure done.

[A]

Really?

[C]

You know?

[A]

Procedure?

[C]

Yeah. An OB1.

[A]

Yeah. Did you do that? No.

[C]

Is that a thing?

[A]

I'm sure it is.

[C]

Why do you know that?

[A]

Because people do it all the time.

[C]

Oh, do they?

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

You've never done that?

[A]

No. People also say that I got a bbl, right? They call me BBL Jersey, so.

[C]

Oh, that's true.

[A]

Did you. I don't know if my, like, wagon looked crazy when I walked in here, but his wagon, you got a BBL and sculpted. Did you do it?

[C]

I didn't. Look at your body when you walked in here.

[A]

Do you want me to 360?

[C]

I don't.

[A]

So then, like. Like, if it didn't stand out to you. No, I. Me, personally, I've never looked. I think that pic just, like. I think it was just like, I came from the gym. I was sweaty in that pick. Maybe I, like. Maybe I, like, went on face to and, like, put, like, like, details up, you know, and you can, like, like, make it.

[C]

Don't even admit to that much then.

[A]

Sorry. Yeah, I was like. Maybe I, like, heightened the, like, saturation or something. Like. Okay. I think I, like, hit it too hard. I hit it too hard.

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

They don't look like that.

[B]

You saw the.

[A]

By the way.

[C]

Don't make that weird.

[A]

Yeah. You know that SNL skit, the Californians? Yeah. That's who she is. She's like. You had ARB work. You ever hear that song by Steve Miller called Abba Kadaba? I was just saying in here, it seems that Bobby girl is getting becoming a parody of herself. You know the Swedish band ABBA? Take the 101 to the 405, down to the 5. You know, take the connect way. Did you see the Liberace film? The Candelabra. The Candelabra. You know what I like for breakfast? Abacava toast. Got a date tonight? I'm gonna taste some biographer at the beginning. Go. Do you have your abu? Yeah. Is she Canadian or something? Where. What is. She's an industry plant. Okay.

[C]

People think you got a procedure done.

[A]

Really? You know, procedure?

[C]

Yeah, an OB one.

[A]

Really. There's no chemistry here. She's like 12 years too old for Drake. Who is she? I think she got major fame. She's just a social media person. She got major fame for interviewing that one actor or the one musician that she said was a musician. But the lady said, I'm not a magician. Oh. So. But this is a throwback to how she entered because her and Drake did a famous interview just like this. And I will say her deadpan comedy is not to my liking. It's getting old. Has Drake got too much of the Roomba vacuum robot in his. His stuff is robot. I don't like the auto toony. Weirdest stuff. Listen, he got obliterated by the other kid, Kendrick Lamar. Now he's hilarious. So it's another, like, you know, he's on the radio. He's milquetoast. You know, my favorite artist is obstruct. Okay, I have to go talk to my obstetrician. All right, so that's that. So he may have. It's a picture of him standing with his shirt off. Yeah. They say he got ab surgery. You know what I mean? Some kind of Microscopedin or something like that. There is a thing. There's a thing, but I don't. I mean, what is. All right, well, what is working out? Like, we're not. I mean, I'm not asking you, but here's what I'm saying. Here's what we're getting at. Here's what we're getting at. Here's what we're getting at. Because you have to kind of get to the crux. Oh, I see. Of things. You have to get the crux of things. You know what I mean? And working out. Okay. I look better than you do with my shirt off. But what Are we talking about, like, what are we really striving for or talking about as human beings in general? And I've never really distilled this down, but let's distill it down. I'm gonna make it easy. Aesthetics, you're saying? No, we argue a lot like, oh, that, you know, so what happens? So some chick loses a few pounds and every bitch is like, she's on those. She's on Ozempic. And then I'm always like, how do you know she's on Ozempic? Maybe she just, you know, cut the carbs back, hit the gym a little bit. Oh, no, no, no, no. She's on Ozempic. And it's like, well, look, could be she's a 34 year old woman, she dropped 20 pounds. Maybe she's just working out. Maybe she's just getting up in the morning, maybe she got a trainer who knows, she's done. She's doing this epic. Okay, so there's that, right? And then I'm leading to something powerful. And from a sociological psychodynamic standpoint, oh, very well. And then there's like, look at that rich guy over there. Oh, man. Yeah, born on third base, thought he hit a triple. You know, it's daddy's money. You know, it's daddy's money. You know, somebody, I mean, it's like, they'll go like, well, if you never met Kimmel, then. I met Kimmel 35 years ago. He accounted for the first four years. And then after that I had to work. You know what I mean? If you never met. So then you think to yourself, like, ozempic. You met Kimmel, you daddy, daddy nepo, baby. And then daddy's money, family money, then you get into, that's those abs, that's your surgery, you know, he did that with the surgery. Okay, so what are we saying here? What are you saying? Well, here's what we're saying. In order to get those abs or that money, the conceit would have to be, that guy works harder than you. You fucking, you like eating Taco Bell? He likes Taco Bell too. But he doesn't do it because he's got more discipline than you. And that guy over there in his fancy car with his money. He works weekends, and while you were out partying, he was home studying. And while you slept in, he got up at 6am and hit the gym. So that fucker's outworking you and he has more discipline than you, and you don't like the way that feels. So we're going to chalk his abs up to Ozempic and we're going to chalk his car up to daddy's money. Money. And then I can feel better about not being disciplined enough to be successful in this society. The people that are successful in this society are disciplined. It's not daddy's money. It's not even iq. It's not your looks, not your hairline, it's not your height, it's your discipline. The discipline people. Look, anyone can have fucking abs. You do not need a plastic surgeon. Now. I am not disciplined enough. And also, although if you find that old boxing picture, man, those are some abs. But the point is, is I will fuck it. I'll do comedy. Like I don't have to look good with my shirt off. You're speaking right to my ears because I got a couple kids, man. Two guys, both of them had similar physiology where they're both very strong fighters. One of these guys worked his ass off, has two fights under his belt in the past month. The other guy want to kick back, smoke weed. Hey, he's sent back to Jacksonville. Goodbye discipline. Well, look at those ass. You are a buff guy. Corolla in that picture for sure. But why does it look like it was in the 50s? The guy had black and white. He's a very artful photographer. Jesus Christ. You look like Sammy. All right, let's get off there. The whole point is this. We are in such a struggle not to. The fucking lazy are inheriting the earth, right? And the politicians have decided that the lazy are their constituency. And that's why they give the speeches like you think they're better than you. They need to pay their fair share tax. Bitch, they pay all the tax taxes. All the rich people pay all the taxes. You're talking to people don't pay taxes and you're trying to convince them to be angry at rich people essentially who pay all the taxes. And they get it. There are many more lazy people than there are 6am gym rats. And they all in the comments section, right? And so somebody goes, they think they're better than you. They are because they're more disciplined than you. Yes. Here's the deal. Universal. Literally nobody wants to get up at 5 and go to the gym. And there are a handful of weirdos out there, but nobody wants to get up at 5 and go to the gym. And nobody wants to eat jicama and blanched chicken breast without the skin for dinner. We want fucking nachos. Okay, I don't know what you're saying because There's a lot of guys that want to wake up at five in the gym. Do the gym. A lot of guys want to. To put in the suffering. For glory. Well, for glory. But I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. No, no, you become, if you get it where you want to go, do that. And it becomes Psycho party. When I say a lot, I mean less. Way less than 1% though, is what I'm saying. Your average American wants to fucking eat whatever they fucking want and look like they went to the gym, but they don't because they don't have the discipline. Look, there's tons of comedians who are super funny, but they don't want to fucking write and they don't want to memorize and they want to work out. It's the same UFC thing. It's like they don't want to put the hours in, so they're not going to get rewarded. But my point is this. We have a cottage industry about trying to figure out who's doing the sit ups and who's doing the Ozempic and who's getting the plastic surgery and whose money is daddy's money and whose money is your money? Because the lazy and the weak are intimidated by discipline. They fucking hate it. That's why they hate competition. My mom was one of those hippies like, why do we have to keep score? Of course you don't want to keep score, bitch, because you'd lose every single game. The people that are working hard and kicking ass want to keep score. The hard work. The students that are studying on the weekends want them to have grades and GPAs. The lazy ones don't want that. That's how it fucking works. But it turns out there's more lazy people than there are 6am gym rats. Or people studying on weekends or guys going out and working on their material instead of going out to Taco Bell and having some drinks. Well, you're gonna freaking love this next story. All right, all right. Gen Z faces some workplace challenges. At 73% admit to parental help and job assignment. What's happening right now is that a lot of people getting. Young people getting jobs need their parents to come in and negotiate pay raises or. Really? Yes. Scheduling this type of thing. Yeah, it's a strange thing. I think Covid broke everybody's brain and the young people are stunted a bit and there's a weird hand holding going on. We wanted. We could not wait to be adults when I was a kid. Yeah, look, it's a real easy equation in Our modern society, the thing that makes you an adult, and it's not a bar mitzvah, is a driver's license. Driver's license is the difference between adulthood and childhood. Because the day you can fucking get in that car and take off, off to the reservoir or go wherever, the day you get that driver's license, that's the day you're an adult. And we had people first off, historically there are people like, I lived on a farm, I drove my dad's truck when I was 13. You know, there's like a lot of that. Then it turned into, got my learner's permit at 15 and a half, took driver's ed first year, 10th grade, took drivers training the second semester. So when I got out of the 10th grade, I went right to the DMV. I grew up with guys on their 16th birthday were celebrating at the DMV. Right. Okay. That's how everyone. I grew up with, oh, no mas anymore. You talk to 19 year old dudes who are like, okay, now we could be talking about a driver's license, but really what we're talking about is entry into adulthood, tradition. And you going at 18, 19, 20. I don't have my life, so I don't really care. Is you saying I don't want to be an adult? Yeah, we wanted to be adults badly. So Dave prolonged this adolescence. And now the more time you spent in the nest with mama feeding you, well, that's the more hand holding you're going to need when you're 25. I mean, shit, when I was trying to think, but I mean, I mean by the time I was like 19 or 20, I was just like, dudes, apartments, trucks, you know, weed, beer, park, you know, fucking fighting out, trying to escape, swinging a hammer, buying tools. You know, I was just living adult life and I never looked back. I mean, I never went back home or did anything. That was just it. Yeah, yeah, that's a new thing. Hiring managers have shared with Resume.org stories of job applicants laying in bed during virtual interviews, doing the interview in car, even chewing tobacco and spitting in a cup mid interview. That guy would hire a guy, dips during the interview, just spit tune, spit tune. There used to be spittoon humor in cartoons. Yeah, like, I don't know who invented spittoon humor, but it was a, it was a pretty big part of my childhood. Cowboy said some cold ass line and ding. And that was where it was born. I get him. And Mel Brooks. Wait, was it Mel Brooks? Those alive in that era? Somebody was old it's not a round bell. And by the way, you could be at a bar having a couple drinks and hear that ding and like pop up and think you're going into the fourth round. Right? What round is it? What round is it, Coach? All right, what else? Malcolm Gladwell says he's ashamed of being cowed into supporting trans athletes and women. Women's sports. And I remember this clip of him in there kind of the way here, let's run this. We'll play it.

[C]

If we did a replay of that exact panel at the Sloan conference this coming march, it runs in exactly the opposite direction. And it would be, I suspect, near unanimity in the room that trans athletes have no place in. In the female category. I don't think there's any question. I just think it was a strange. I mean, I felt. I mean, I was the reason. I'm ashamed of my performance of that panel because I share your position 100%. And I was count the idea of saying, saying anything on this issue. I was in a. I believe in retrospect in a dishonest way. I was, I was objective in a dishonest way.

[A]

No, I thought we were gonna play the clip of the. This actual incident where he had gotten. I remember he's one of my favorite authors, so I was paying close attention. I like him too. And when he got like kind of bullied in like that kind of queer way, you know what I mean? Like they kind of bullied him into being like, oh, yeah, okay. All right. So he's now reversing his position, realizing that he kind of got bullied into that saying. Yeah, it's fine for a female boxer to take on a used to be man. Well, part of. I'm glad you brought up, cuz it speaks to a bigger issue, which is the trans thing is kind of a novelty in the sense that it doesn't really affect any of us practically. I don't have a trans kid. I don't compete against the males who used to be. I have no problem with the trans community. They're fine to exist. They should do their thing. It does not. So it does not exist practically in terms of impactfulness. But what it does do is it's an interesting thought experiment in a world where some people believe in Bigfoot and some people believe in a Loch Ness monster and some people believe in aliens. Flat Earth. And some people think Elvis is still alive. No moon land. The craziest of all beliefs, Jews did 9, 11. Right. The craziest of all beliefs is that A man can be a woman, and a woman can be a man. That's the craziest. And we figured out a way to make people go along with that, which is essentially what happened was. And then that all spilled into Covid, and that all spilled into Stolen election or Hunter Biden's laughter. It just spilled. January 6th. It just spilled this thing where essentially, here's where we're at. You sit at a table with six people, and they're all sitting around going, you know, Elvis is still alive, right? And then you're like, oh, he is. And then you go. And then they go, yeah, yeah. I saw grainy footage of him down at the Piggly Wiggly. And he's around. He's put a little weight on. He's in his 80s now. And there was like. And at some point, the table looks at you and they go, adam, you think Elvis is still alive, don't you? Well, what I've learned, Sadly, is that 96% of Americans go, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I do. 100% of women almost. And like, 89% of guys just go, yeah, yeah, Elvis is alive. Yeah, yeah. Wait a minute. I don't want to get yelled at by the tape. Well, I mean, for me, am I trying to bang somebody or everybody at this stage? Well, there's that element of it, too. But we are able to get people to go along with shit because they're scared of being ostracized. There's no way everyone had the thoughts they had about COVID There's no way they didn't wear their mask. Right. Half the people I knew had the fucking mask around their chin or their face. I'm madman, like a pirate. Yeah. They didn't care. So there's no way they cared that much. But you got them to care because you scared them, because they're weak and you're going to ostracize them. And I, like I said, I remember going to brunch years ago in Hawaii and had a whole table turn on me. This whole table at brunch turned on me about Mexicans and leaf blowers. And I just kept. I remember. So two things I remember. I remember, a, this is uncomfortable. And then B, I was like, there were dumb chicks at the table that were all sudden experts on leaf blowers and Mexicans. And I was like, fuck, do you bitches know about Mexic? You never even brought it up. You don't know anything. By the way, the same way they became experts in hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin and the same way they all became physicians in like a two week period. Right. So I realized at that point, people will pile on. They will happily turn all their weird ire toward the one guy at the table who's saying something unpopular. And most people at that island resort would cave and not do the angle I did on Mexicans and leaf blowers. But I didn't. And it's not because I have anything other than this is what the truth is. So I don't know. Would it make you happy if I pretended to be dumb? I would just say you were anti leaf blower. I know that much. And why was everybody pointing at you with the forks? I have the burden of information, mayhem. I know that it's a burden knowing things. It's a burden with dumb people that are headstrong. I had read an article and I'd used my crystal brain and I said, listen, leaf blowers have been outlawed in Los Angeles since 1999. They're outlawed, but they continue to be used ubiquitously, every day, all day, every day, but they're outlawed. Why is it not being enforced? And the answer is the only people who use them are poor brown Mexican dudes. And the city council doesn't like the optics of coming down on poor brown people. That's their constituency, so they don't enforce the law, by the way. What do you think all the street vendors are poor brown people. Why doesn't the LA City Council crack down on them? They don't. That's their constituency. They never stop talking about. Do you think Mayor Bass is going to come down on poor brown people? All she does, she wants to fight ice. She's literally telling people to fight ice. Okay, so it's a law. It's not enforced because of the color of their skin, because of their ethnicity, and because of the city council doesn't like the optics of it. And then everyone screamed at me that I was wrong, even though they didn't know jack shit. And I was just like, I don't know what you want me. First off, I'm the only one at this table that knows this subject. I read an article on it. I've heard before, there was a million Mexican march on City hall with leaf blowers. They all came in on skateboards for with leaf blowers. I was in an office chair just doing circles. That's right. They were listening to Fleetwood Mac and drinking pineapple juice or whoever that guy was. Anyway, the point is this. It's not comfortable. And so I get when Malcolm Gladwell gets up there and he's surrounded by a room of people that want him to say a certain thing, then he'll say it. But this is the problem, people. This is how we get into trouble. Because a bunch of fucking scared people came caved, and now Tinhorn Flats is shut down because we didn't support outdoor dining. And it's a character full out of cave. I mean, it's understandable. But you know what, though? Is it a character flaw when something is genetically built in to. Human beings like to fear the mobile. They fear that mob man. Yeah.

[B]

Why are you immune to it?

[A]

No, you gotta fight back. Me too. I love everybody disagreeing with me. Get at me in the comments. I don't enjoy the feeling of ruining brunch or being yelled at by my daughter about COVID to take my shoes off. I don't enjoy any of it. I have a unique thing, which is I can remove myself from any equation. Equation. And once I can take me out of the equation and go, is this correct or isn't this not correct or correct? And then I will give the answer, but I will remove myself and my feelings from the equation. Yeah, yeah. That most people factor themselves into every equation. So much so where, like, there's extreme versions, you know, where they'll go, like, people go like, yeah, I took that guy's laptop because anyone dumb enough to leave their car window open and their laptop on the seat while they're in the Starbucks deserves that. It's like, no, you're not doing them a favor. You're a criminal. But you somehow, by the way, if they stole your laptop, you'd be rip shit pissed. Yeah. My feeling is one mode. Take yourself out of the equation. It's real. It's real easy. You treat. You treat the microwave at work the exact same way you treat the one in your kitchen, and we'll have a utopia. That's the world I'm living. All right, let's see. Joey Jones. Oh, we're going to check on him. You know the guy. I don't know what his injuries were, but he definitely lost his legs. And it's definitely a Middle east tour thing. And I definitely see the guy on Fox all the time. Funny dude. Got a book. We'll take a quick break and we'll talk to him right after this chime. Let's talk about money headaches for a second. I've had them all. Missed payments, overdraft fees, wishing I could have saved a couple extra bucks. Chime gets it. Every dollar is a big Deal with Chime's direct deposit. You unlock fee, free perks that actually help you get paid up to two days early. Super handy when that car repair comes up. Free overdraft coverage up to 200 bucks so you're not stuck at the register looking foolish. We've all been there. Open a checking account. No monthly fees, zero maintenance fees. Seriously? No sneaky charges popping out of nowhere. I like seeing balance updates and transaction alerts in real time. It's helped me spend smarter when I need support late at night. Chimes 24. 7 Customer service actually came through. I use Chime. You should use it as well. Right? Dawson, Work on your financial goals through Chime today. Open an account in two [e-mail] Adam that's chime.com Adam Chime feels like progress. This September, CBS Hits are streaming free on Pluto TV.

[B]

Coming in for this month only.

[A]

Stream full episodes of Matlock.

[C]

I'm a lawyer. Like the old TV show Fire Country Elsbath. I do love a mystery.

[B]

NCIS Origins, Watson and Ghosts.

[A]

What the hell? This is the most amazing sight I've never seen. All for free. The CBS shows you love this month only on Pluto tv. Stream now. Pay never.

[B]

Here's a memorable moment from the Adam.

[A]

Carolla Show's ACE Awards archives. When are we going to reopen the schools? Because that's been. I'm in California. The schools have been closed for about a year now. Do you have a stance or policy on that, Mr. President? Look, first we got. What we got to do is figure out what your question was. Second. Second we got to do is open the school is a little bit of time, right? First you open the front door. That's where kids get in. Not the teachers, man. Then you go down the hallway, open the hallways.

[C]

Next.

[A]

Mayor. Mayor June. Yeah, right. Then. Then you are to open the classes. Man.

[C]

It's like the.

[A]

It's like the locker room, man. You gotta. Can't bend over. First half. Don't give it. Don't give it all away. Come on, man. The 2025 ACE Awards come coming this December. Now back to the Adam Carolla Show. Johnny Joey Jones is joining us via Zoom Beyond. The Badge is the name of the book available as we speak. It honors first responders and those who risk their lives for the safety of others. And I see Johnny Joey Jones on Fox all the time. I don't even just sort of everywhere on Fox, but I don't know where. I see it regularly, but it's good to see.

[B]

Yeah, you know, I don't I fill in hosts for people. So if somebody wants a day off, they give me a call. I can sit there on the five and, and duke it out or get on Fox and Friends and pretend to know how to throw a football. It's, it's fun to be on Fox.

[A]

So your journey is an interesting and unlikely retired US Marine Corps Staff sergeant, Bomb technician injured, lost both legs. I don't know from what point, knee down or thigh down or what your injuries were, but why don't you kind of walk us through that and then let's talk about the journey to recovery and where you are now. Yeah, happy to.

[B]

Yeah. I got blown up on August 6, 2010. I was working as an EOD tech or a bomb tech. So I guess, you know, the joke is obviously I wasn't that good at it, but so I lost my legs from above the knee down on both sides. So I have two prosthetic knees now and there's a bunch of other injuries. My wrists are fused and stuff like that, that. But most of it, stuff I got over with pretty quick. And it was just kind of a crazy series of events. As I recovered in Washington, D.C. i started speaking for some of the nonprofits that was helping me out. And I learned about the just, you know, technical kind of legislative problems that wounded veterans had, things that they, that could be changed and you could lobby to change and had somebody that could speak well, maybe get attention to and kind of involved myself in that. Learned about politics that way, learned about policy that way and learned how to speak to a crowd that way. And all those things came together several years later when I had a chance to go on Fox to give an opinion about the military or guns or things that I was involved in or had experience in. And over the years, in 2019, they signed me and in 2020 we had Covid. I had a home studio and they needed somebody to host, so they gave me a shot and I've been doing hosting ever since.

[A]

What's your take on what's going on currently? Trump is obviously trying to make up for lost time. It feels like he's trying to make up for lost time. And I'll explain. Joe Biden seems sort of inert. He just seemed like, sort of like a sea sponge. We didn't really make much of an impression on the world. We took a few steps back. I think we kind of let the world, we kind of sent the world a message saying, look, you can kind of do what you want to do during this period. Cuz we're just not going to be that proactive, offensive, or do much. And it feels to me like Trump, who's always in a hurry, is out there going, I got to undo as much of this as fast as I can do it. And as many messages as I can send, as many flyovers or as many, many Venezuelan dinghies as I can blow up, I'm doing it.

[B]

I think Trump's coming into a second term with so much different perspective on everything. I mean, you're talking about a guy that came in, caught everyone off guard. I think our economy is kind of just held back by President Obama. I don't think it was crippled by President Obama. And he came in and just did a bunch of common sense stuff. The economy took off. Life was great for our country in a lot of ways. And then you had Covid, and that's a whole thing we can litigate a million times. Now you have President Trump coming in four years later and, you know, blame Biden, blame whoever. Our country's kind of broken. It was broken economically broken, culturally broken in so many ways. Our military was looking terrible, couldn't get people to join Afghan withdrawal. Something that a little bit more germane to what I cover. And. And President Trump comes in and he's got a plan, and that plan includes doing things his way with his people. I mean, just look at the makeup of the Cabinet and so any of the legislative things he's pushing. And it's not about, can I play this game better than they can. It's about, I'm going to take my bulldozer and I'm going to get it through there. And he's doing it with a House and a Senate that's barely Republican majority. And I think that it's something that maybe we haven't seen in a long time, or at least in our lifetimes. I mean, even if you go back to Reagan, there was still this kind of gentleman's club about it that doesn't exist now. And so making up for lost time. I don't know. I think that those four years in between, as bad as they were for our country, really added clarity to President Trump and what he wanted to do for his policy and just personality for being president.

[A]

No, I think in a weird way, it was a mitzvah in the sense that if Trump had put the two terms together into eight years, he would have just sort of rolled right in. There would have been a lot of the same people. I think in life, it's probably a good idea to stop. You know, look if you got married and then you get divorced, you probably shouldn't remarry in the first six weeks. You should probably take a couple years, get your head straight, figure out what you did wrong in the last one, and sit back and do a little, you know, autopsy work. You know, let's look at. See what we did here and then go, you know what? Next time, here's what I'm gonna do. And I think that four years was good also. Joe Biden was so insanely bad as a president that I think it also gave. And I know I'm certainly in the minority here in Hollywood, but he was such an inert sea sponge of a horrible president that he was just melbatose. I mean, who even knows who was running the White House? But the point is, it was literally like, here's a president that does nothing, who's senile, who has no concepts and no policies and really doesn't care. And there's a bigger contrast now with Trump because there would have been no contrast if he just went back to back, because you'd only be contrasting the old Trump with the new Trump, which would be marginally different. Different. But the difference between Biden and Trump, that is a chasm.

[C]

It is.

[B]

And I think you're also something that I've tried to find words for. And I think a good analogy is you go to undergrad, you go to college, and you get a degree in finance, and then you go right into a master's program or a graduate level program, and now you've got all this time behind you, and you didn't take time to learn if you even like this job or not. You just kind of stayed on the railroad track. And I've always said, hey, listen, no, go get a job, go get some experience. Go see what works for you. Maybe you want to do something different. And I think it's similar for President Trump. You're exactly right. Had he just continued into his second term, Covid dominated in a way that it probably would still be a big part of our conversation. That might actually be a good thing, because maybe some of these wars wouldn't have happened. But I think it really did. It gave President Trump time as a private citizen to find out what really are the priorities for this country. Okay, I've had four years in the swamp. Swamp. What are the problems there that I can tackle? Or what are the problems there that I have to tackle? And the other part of it is probably something we don't look at and give enough credence to is like Starting all over. Starting over all again. I mean, going from zero, not from 50 to 100. I mean, he literally had to go find people to donate, people to be a part of his Cabinet. A whole new cast of characters, a team of rivals, really, when you think about RFK Jr. And Tulsi. And he doesn't have to be beholden to anyone. And I don't know that had he stayed in D.C. that whole time, it would be that way. But when you look at Joe Biden, I mean, man, you almost feel sorry for Democrats until you realize that's what they wanted. And then it's like, wow, now I feel sorry for me that I have to live with you. It really is kind of crazy to me that there are people in this country and it's a real simple decision. They want to sacrifice opportunity for security.

[A]

Security.

[B]

If you talk about guns or economy or any type of really social program, their belief is, hey, I know I'm going to be limited. I know I'm only going to be able to live off or enjoy what the government allows me, but there's some security there. I won't be able to go chase my dreams. I won't be able to go take a risk and maybe even lose it all, but there's some security there. And I think that's the main ideological difference. And I guess the two presidents kind of embodied that. I mean. I mean, they wanted security from Joe Biden, knowing he was incredibly limited in his actual political talent. And President Trump is, hey, if you roll the dice with him, we might change this country for the better forever. Or the Democrats might go up against him and take him down. They were trying to get him in prison. And so that difference in ideology was really represented in candidates. I mean, there are a million things about President Trump that I'm just not sure of about. But I do know as a president, he's going to go out there and fight for things in a way that nobody else has. And as far as it goes today, those things have been things I believe in.

[A]

Well, the Democrats are really tolerant about being tolerant and absorbing things, which is the homeless situation. If you just use that as a metaphor, even though it's not a metaphor, it's a real situation and it's an issue. But you just take homelessness and you take my state of California growing up, if you woke up and some dude was sleeping on the sidewalk in front of you or pitched a tent in the park across the street, it would have been unthinkable. You would have been like, what's? This guy doing here? What's going on here? Let's get him out of here. This is outrageous. Unacceptable. You know what I mean? And then what happens is more and more and more, and it's kind of at the point where couples go out to dinner and are walking around homeless guys that are flopped out on the curb and literally, it's literally like stepping over bodies going, you know, the restaurant's just another couple hundred feet up the thing, and there's another guy taking a dump into a trash can over there. And your wife has to step over this person. Oh, watch out, there's a syringe on the ground. And you realize you're gonna just go end up at this restaurant. And then you're gonna sit there and you're gonna have a meal and a glass of wine and you're gonna go, you know, I was talking to the kids about something and you realize, wow, we can absorb anything. We can sort of look past the Democrats. Los Angeles and many Democratic run cities are filled with garbage. Literally garbage. Graffiti, Winnebagos, busted down, you know, busted down. Cars, shopping carts, kids, toys, like real Orwellian hellscape garbage. And I drive around and go, what the fuck is going on? What's going on? Why is it. Why is there so much garbage? The homeless encampment right there, there's 10 guys, guys, there's a tent, there's plywood. I'm like, what's going on? But I realized the Democrats can absorb it in a weird way. They can go, okay, there's a bunch of homeless people and there's a bunch of garbage, but you can just kind of work your way around it. And Trump, who's a commercial builder, he shows up and he goes, hey, no, I don't want any of this. This. And then Chicago goes, hey, man, there's only 18 guys shot last week. And by the way, 11 of them survived. So what's your thing, man? And Trump's like, I don't want anyone shot. That's my thing. I don't want any garbage. And they're like, whoa. The year before, in the same week, we had 28 guys shot. This year, 23 guys. All right, so I don't know what you're doing. And he's like, I want nobody shot. And they're like, well, you gotta have some people shot. You gotta have some people dying in the streets, and you gotta have some garbage places everywhere. And it's like, no, no, no, you don't need. We don't need any of it. We can have zero people shot, zero people dying in the streets of fentanyl overdoses and zero garbage. Garbage and zero graffiti if we want. And that's what Trump. It's like you talk to these guys like Rick Caruso or Trump, they're commercial builders. Like, well, you could have some homeless people in your commercial building and some garbage and some graffiti and they'd be like, no, no, I want nothing. I want pristine, I want nice. And the Democrats somehow can absorb like how many illegals, I don't know, maybe California has, I don't know, 10 million. It's like, I don't know. Or 4 million. Or how many undocumented people? Like, I don't know, certain amount. Like, how about none? Yeah.

[B]

You know, when we say Democrats, I think there's two different groups of people. There's Democrat voters, Democrat politicians, a lot more malice. And to Democrat politicians, I think Democrat voters, voters, maybe a lot or a lot like conservative voters. They have to do their job, they have to live their lives. They don't pay close attention. They know that the other politicians are the ones they don't like, but they don't always know everything their politicians are doing. And the one thing you got to give it to them is their politicians always have some spit in your face and tell you it's reigning answer for everything. It's like the opposite of gaslighting. It's like, no, no, I'm fixing that. Trump's the reason why that's a problem. And they just, I guess believe it. I don't think that, that they're ignorant to the problem. And I don't think they always accept the problem. I think that they are believing the snake oil from Gavin Newsome, I mean, the guy that's 25 years into his 10 year plan to get rid of homelessness, you know, and as long as those politicians are just clever enough to somehow shift blame completely away from their own failures, I guess people keep voting for them in places like where you live. It puzzles me, but I try to make rational sense of it because I just can't believe half the country just doesn't give a shit about homelessness and poop in the streets and fentanyl at the border. Like, I just, I have to believe more people care about that than don't. Just for some reason they believe they're politicians. But when you think about the Democrat politician element in their minds, they've made the calculus. Whether they say it out loud or not. All the fentanyl in the world is worth importing Enough voters to get more representatives in their state. And that's how we get circumvented on voting is. Is when we do a census and we count people, we don't count citizens, we count people. If you add 2 million illegals to California, they're going to get a handful more representatives. That's the idea there. You will not convince me that isn't a part of their strategy. We live in a world where the House and Senate is divided by one vote, two votes, three votes. Every single seat in those chambers matters. And they've given up the hard fight for the easy one. I mean, look at what Newsom's doing right now to, I guess, push back against Texas. And so that's kind of where they are. It's about power, it's about keeping control, because they think they can tell their voters pretty much anything they want to. And as long as they say it with a good enough smile, they'll kind of believe it. I don't know that Republican voters are the same way. I mean, President Trump came in as a cat, as antithetical to everything that the Republicans had to offer. Jeb Bush, President Trump, pick your warrior. Look at the coalition he created. I mean, Republican voters and Republican members of Congress are a lot more independent. I mean, if you look in the Republican Senate, they don't vote down the party line very often. It's usually that's the problem is there's a handful of Republicans that are going to vote against this thing, not because someone told them they had to, but because they. They wanted to for some other reason. And so it's just we're more independent. When you're on the right, makes it harder to win elections sometimes, especially national elections, but it also makes you more skeptical of the people that represent you. I think Democrat voters are almost like the. And I hate to just lump everybody. They're almost like the ostrich that puts its head in the sand and says, well, I can't see it, so it doesn't exist. It's not a problem anymore. And I just. I'm blessed that as a conservative person, I don't live my life that way. I would rather see the danger coming and do what I can to fix it.

[A]

Yeah, and it is funny about Newsom and about all these guys, which is they sort of act like everything's good, and they argue and they argue and argue, but as soon as the premier from China is coming to town, they clean it up real fast. And as soon as the Olympics are coming to town, they clean it up real fast. And it's, it's like, well, wait a minute, you guys said none of this was a problem, so why are you cleaning it up? And it kind of reminds me, you know, it's an interesting thing. It always reminds me of people. There's people that are like, lazy and incompetent and they screw everything up and you can't motivate them. But once in a while, something comes around that they want to do, and all of a sudden they're Johnny on the spot. They figured out everything, they're up early, they got the tickets for the concert, they booked the hotel, they've done it. And it's like all of a sudden, wait a minute, when did you turn into this efficient person? And it's like, well, I turned into this person because it's something I want to do, not stuff you want me to do, which I've experienced a lot in life. So it's sort of like Gavin Newsom. If you're doing. If everything is fine, status quo, then why are you frantically cleaning if you ran a pretty tight ship? Let's just say your home was orderly and it was clean and it was nicely, it presented nicely. That's how. Let's just say some people do that. Their home is clean, it's tidy, it's well kept. Okay, fine. Well then when your boss came over for dinner, you wouldn't be frantically running around trying to clean and throw junk in the closet. And why would you? The house is in order. I mean, so it's like, if any city that has to go on this frantic cleanup means, that's how you are. It means San Francisco is a piece of garbage. And that's why you have to snap into action or LA's garbage. And that's why when the Olympic Committee comes to town, we have to get rid of all the homeless people along the road route from LAX to the hotel that they're gonna meet at. That's a bad sign. It's the same way. It's a bad sign that if the boss was coming over in an hour and you and your wife were running around throwing everything in the closet, it just means that's how you live normally.

[B]

Well, I mean, think about the argument that's happening right now. It's kind of the same thing, right? Trump goes into D.C. and it's like, wow, miraculously, we go almost two weeks without someone being murdered. Murdered. And so then you look at, he points, he immediately he finds success in dc. He points the attention to Chicago, Louisiana. Places like that. New York. And the reaction isn't, we don't have a problem. Here's why.

[C]

It's.

[B]

Yeah, but our statistics are trending in the right direction, right? It's like you've been in charge of this city the entire time. So when it was really bad, that was your policy?

[A]

Policy.

[B]

When it was a little better, but still really bad, still your policy. You're telling me it's trending in the right direction, but it's still bad, still your policy. So what are you doing? How is this an argument against what Trump wants to do? You said it earlier, 28 people last year. Well, it's only 23 this year, so we're getting better. Yeah, that's still more than two dozen people that didn't have to die this weekend. Maybe it's how you're policing or how you're holding your police back or how you're hiring someone that hits enough colors in the LGTB rainbow to be your police chief. I mean, you know, we had a fire chief down in Austin that, you know was not necessarily hired because he was the best qualified. And all of a sudden he denies request for emergency services to a rural area of Texas. And what happens? People die. And so those were bad policies, bad practices, hiring for the wrong reason, not making sure people are qualified for the job they had. It's not always matter, malice. It's not always you want your people to die from fentanyl. It's not always you want your people to die from illegal pistols that gangs carry around. But even still, the policies just aren't working. Give this guy a shot, you know, I mean, Trump's in a win win situation with this. He made D.C. the plan that everybody can look at and say, oh, that's how we do it. So Democrats either have to invite him in, which they're eating crow and saying the way they want to do it doesn't work, or they tell him they don't need him, things stay bad, and the way they do it doesn't work. So he's in the catbird seat. They're in. Lose, lose. The problem is the real losers are the people that have to live in these cities and live with the idea that they may get shot in the crossfire of two teenage gangs shooting at each other over nothing.

[A]

Well, you know, if you think about it, there's an easy way to kind of reach conclusions. You go, okay, we tried a little experiment called Defund the police a few years ago, and it. It was a shit show. Okay, so you go, what happened? Well, defunding the police. Turns out the bad guys find out they're defunded, and then they come out and they commit more crime with impunity. And there's less cops, so there's more crime. So when you defund the police and the police fall back, then you have an upsurge uptick in crime. You go, okay, well, what is Trump doing? What? Well, what Trump's doing in D.C. is the opposite of defund the police. It's more police. It's uniform guys. It's a presence on every other corner. Oh, and what happened to crime? Well, it went down dramatically. All right, so let me just get this math right. When you take the police and you pull them back, you get more crime. Right. But if you take the police, you put more of them out there and have a greater presence, you get less crime. Right?

[C]

Right.

[A]

Okay. That's all the information I need in terms of how crime in a city is going to work and how to get less of it or more of it. And this notion of, like, well, you're gonna have these guys coming to town and they're gonna intimidate citizens. Only if you're a criminal. I was saying to Dr. Drew, you go to a ball game. Game. You go to a ballpark. You go to a football game, they have security. And I go there and I bring my son and we watch the Rams game, and there's security. I'm not intimidated by them. I'm glad they're there. If some Raiders fan gets drunk and starts throwing punches, I want somebody to intervene. You know, that's fine. I didn't sneak into the stadium. I bought a ticket, so I'm fine. And I don't feel oppressed, and I don't feel intimidated. I feel like these guys are here and they're doing a job job. That's fine. And if somebody said, well, would you like half as many of them there? I'd probably go, no, I might like a few more of them there, but that's fine. Either way, they're there. They're doing a job. They're standing at the top of the aisle. That's fine. I don't know. There could be a terrorist attack. I'm happy they're here. That's all. I don't have any opinions about it because I'm not involving myself. I'm not going to run out onto the field and try to steal someone. Someone's helmet.

[B]

You know, I always. You talked about the book I wrote behind the Badge, and I spent a lot of Time in this issue. Defund the police is a whitewashing of the sentiment and the message that Democrats champions from 2020 on. It was. It was not defund the police. It was acab. All cops are bad. All cops are bastards. The really, the street language and the. And the idea behind it was an absolute assault on police officers. It looked no further than every police officer that was indicted on public opinion. Every time they had to pull their weapon and defend themselves and their fellow Americans against someone who was trying to do something bad. It wasn't about defunding the police. That's what politicians, that's what Democrats want us to say. It's easy for them to argue if we're talking about the funding, because that's technical, right? Well, we didn't necessarily defund them. We moved that money over here. And sure, we would like more money for police as well. They can argue themselves right out of it. But when you really get down to it, who they were pandering to, who they were trying to rile up when they're standing beside Jesse Jackson on the bully pulpit because some poor police officer had to pull his gun out to save his own life and the person attacking him just happened to be black. When they were, when they were getting the emotions going in the Summer of Love so people would riot in the streets, they were, they were honing in on this odd idea that police officers were inherently evil, that our country is inherently racist, that the idea of having law and order is a form of oppression and that the people that commit crimes, even violent ones, are simply victims of the system. And that was the message.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And when you make that the message, of course you're going to have more crime. Of course you on top of that, bring in Soros or whoever funded DAs and prosecutors that refuse charges that make Bell $0, that let murderers back out on the streets.

[A]

Street.

[B]

It was a complex and very much specific movement towards this. It wasn't simply, we're going to change how we spend our municipal dollars. I don't say defund the police because that gives them an out. They truly did attack the idea of there is a good, there is a bad. There are people for law and order here to help us and there are criminals that for whatever reason they became them will hurt us. They attacked that entire notion.

[A]

I completely agree. And you're right, it wasn't a dollar and cents thing. It was like a visceral, emotional thing. Beyond the badge name of the book, it's available as we speak. Joey's on Fox whenever all the time, it seems like to me. Hopefully I can be a guest on one of the shows you guest host one of these times. I would love it. I would enjoy that. Johnny Joey Jones, great to meet you, even via Zoom. And I hope to see you in person real soon.

[B]

Thank you, brother.

[A]

Thank you. All right, that's Johnny Joey Jones. Also Jahliel White. Fun conversation, Flip side. Name of the show. I'm gonna be in Albuquerque at the Chemo Theater and then Flagstaff, Arizona at the Orpheum Theater. Just go to for all the live shows. Until next time, Sam for Mayhem and Jaleel and Joey saying mahalo. Pick up your phone and leave us a voicemail at 888-634-1744 and get tickets to see Adam Corolla at AdamCorola.com this September, CBS Hits are streaming free on Pluto TV.

[B]

I'm coming in for this month only.

[A]

Stream full on episodes of Matlock.

[C]

I'm a lawyer like the old TV show Fire Country.

[A]

Els Beth I do love a mystery.

[B]

NCIS Origins, Watson and ghosts.

[A]

What the hell? This is the most amazing sight I've never seen. All for free. The CBS shows you love this month only on Pluto tv. Stream now. Pain never. This September, CBS hits are streaming free on Pluto tv. I'm coming in hot for this month only Stream full episodes of Matlock.

[C]

I'm a lawyer like the old TV show Fire Country.

[A]

Elsbeth.

[B]

I do love a mystery, NCIS Origins, Watson and ghosts.

[A]

What the hell?

[B]

This is the most amazing site I've never seen.

[A]

All for free. The CBS shows you love this month only on Pluto tv. Stream now.

[C]

Pain never.