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Adam Carolla
Well, in this episode, really interesting author Brad Meltzer is back on the show. Interesting actor Paul Guilfoyle joins the show as well. Also Alicia Kraus, you remember her, she's on the news and we'll do all that right after this. Hey, it's Adam Carolla from the Adam Carolla Show. Bet Online is the world's most trusted betting platform and your your number one source for all your sports betting action. Baseball season is in full swing now and we're into NBA. Got the playoffs, got NHL playoffs. Bet Online has more ways to stay in on the action with the latest odds, news and scores. Bet online even as live in game betting while the games are are being played. So it's never too late to get in on the action. With the largest selection of odds on everything from NLB, NBA, NHL and UFC, BETOnline remains the best online source for all your sports wagering info. And don't forget golf and professional boxing too. In between games, head on over to BetOnline Casino where with all the top Vegas style games including poker and live casino, Bet Online, the game starts here. Craving your next action packed adventure, Audible delivers thrills of every kind on your command. Like Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir where a lone astronaut must save humanity from extinction. Narrated with stunning intensity by Ray Porter. From electrifying suspense and daring quests to spine tingling horror and romance in far off realms, unleash your adventure aside with gripping titles that'll keep you guessing. Discover exclusive Audible originals, hotly anticipated new releases and must listen bestsellers that hook you from the first minute. Because Audible knows there's no greater thrill than the one that speaks to you.
Brad Meltzer
Discover what lies beyond the edge of your seat.
Adam Carolla
Start your free 30 day trial at audible.com wonderyus that's audible.com wonderyus to see the video version of the Adam Carlisle show, check us out on YouTube and rumble. LinkedIn the description.
Dawson
From Corolla One Studios in Glendale, California, this is the Adam Carolla Show. Adam's guest today, author Brad Meltzer and actor Paul Guilfoyle. Plus the news and trending topics with Alicia Crouse. And now he doesn't do bitcoin, but he does do bits for coins every weekend.
Adam Carolla
Adam Carolla yeah, Get it on. Got to get on. That show's making a remnant. Get it on. Thanks for tuning in. Thanks for telling a friend. Thanks for watching my Malibu and Palisades Fun. That thing's really been blowing up. You guys have been enjoying it. So you can enjoy that@adamcroll.com and find it. Check it out. Spread around. Brad Meltzer is joining us. Brad is a celebrated author, and now he's the muse, the wind under the wings of so many Americans with his inspirational words. He's got a book out that's different than the kind of books that we know Brad from, writing stuff about Stalin and Roosevelt and Churchill and whatnot. This is called the Magic, the book of inspiration you didn't know you needed. And it's based on your commencement address that kind of went viral that we talked about last time you were on, I believe. Good to see you, Brad.
Paul Guilfoyle
Good to see you, brother. Yeah, I was right about at that moment. I got to deliver last year, the commencement address at the University of Michigan. And the fun part for me was I went to Michigan. So I'm staring out at 70,000 people in the stadium, and I'm focused on one because my son's graduating that day, and I can. And the best part was is that, you know, the university says, show us where your son is and we'll put a camera on him. I'm like, oh, yeah, he's the little white Jew. And I'm like, how are you going to find him? Like, you have no chance of finding this kid. But he texted me on stage and said, dad, I got here early. Him and his friends woke up early, and he said, I'm in the 14th row, and I could see him, and I'm focused on my boy. And when I told my son I was going to give the commencement address, Adam, his first words to me were, you. Why you? They have so many better people they could pick. Like, why not Tom Brady, right? And then he said to me, this is a direct quote. He said, it's like a 13th seed winning March Madness.
Adam Carolla
Yeah. I was like, it's in the. I watched the commencement earlier today.
Paul Guilfoyle
I said, as soon as he said, I'm like, there's my opening joke. That's the bit. I got it. Thank you. It was super funny and the whole. And thank you for watching it. But the whole speech was about magic. The book is called Make Magic. It was all about making magic. And if you talk to magicians, there are only four types of magic tricks. You put aside illusions escapes as four types of tricks. One, you make something appear. Two, you make something disappear. Three, you make two things switch places. And the fourth magic trick is you take one thing and you turn it into something else, which is the hardest trick of all, which is transformation. And we can talk about each of the ones. And there's obviously some Fun things in there. But it was the third trick that kind of caught me off guard because, you know, like, it's like when you're doing stand up, when you do a bit, you kind of know where the, where the, you hope, where the jokes are going to land. You can kind of read the audience instantly on what they get. And then there's a new joke you try out. You don't know if anyone's going to get it or laugh or you're just like, let's see where it goes. And I'm going to fix this on the fly. And it was about the third magic trick, which is about taking two things and making them switch places. And I said, here, let's talk about empathy, because that's what empathy is, right? It's switching places with someone else. And I told the story that I never ever in my professional life or my wife didn't even know the story, but I said, When I was 13 years old, my family lost everything. We had nothing left. We had to go live with my grandmother in Florida. We had to move to Florida and we moved into her one bedroom apartment. My mom, my dad.
Adam Carolla
Financial thing?
Paul Guilfoyle
Financial, yeah, my dad just lost everything and it was bad with money at twelve hundred dollars to his name and he couldn't even afford. You know, those were the days when like we knew you don't answer the door at the end of the month because that's when the rent comes due. You don't pick up the phone because that's on the bill collector's phone. You know those days. And we were living, six of us in a one bedroom apartment and everyone in the condo because it was Florida and they're pain in the ass. Like they were all trying to get us evicted and everyone's trying to get us evicted. This one neighbor across the hall saw what's happening to us and she says, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to move out for a couple months. I want you to put your family in my apartment instead. And basically you're going to have some peace and won't be evicted. Nicest thing to this day anyone's ever done for me or my family. And I remember as a kid, her name was Mirsi. Always heard it as mercy. And make no mistake, mercy and empathy is what she was showing us. And I said cruelty and venom and harshly judging those we disagree with. It's become sport in our culture. But cruelty and venom weren't signs of strength. They're signs of weakness and petty insecurity what takes strength is actually showing some compassion to someone else and showing some kind to someone else. And in that stadium, Adam, I felt 70,000 people. And you know, when people kind of clap, you can kind of like keep controlling the crowd. You can kind of talk over them. I couldn't. There's a point. You'll see where I start over in the speech. And I said, what? What was that? And my wife said to me, you tapped a vein you didn't know was there. And I didn't even realize. I just knew. I made a mental note. And I think the culture is just so starving for empathy right now. And. And when the speech was put out there, all these people started tracking me down. They. They found my sister's unlisted number. They were like, I want your brother's speech. They were tracking me down. I want the text of that speech. Give me the text of that speech. I want it for my kids, my niece, my nephew, for graduation. And I've been doing this 27 years. No one's ever asked me for the text of anything I've ever done. And we were like, what is going on? And the thing just started getting shared. And anyway, we made a book out of it called Make Magic. And it's that book of inspiration you didn't know you needed right now.
Adam Carolla
Yeah. I'm listening to you and I'm sort of torn because I feel like we talk about empathy and we talk about helping or not judging or we talk, we talk, we talk. But a lot of stuff doesn't really come out the other end. And then I realize, personally, I don't talk about anything. I'm not nice to talk to about empathy or feelings or sharing. I help a lot of people. I have helped a lot of people and I take care of a lot of people, but I don't have any of the warm and the fuzzy trimmings to it at all.
Paul Guilfoyle
I don't think you need that. But I know you well enough to know after all these years. Remember the first time I was on the show, we talked about our parents, right? And I was telling you these funny stories about my parents kindness and you were kind of one upping me on like. And my parents did this to me. That was like rougher. But you have this thing. I know you help a lot of people behind the scenes. I know that we've talked about it offline when I was there, but it doesn't have to be warm and fuzzy, right? It's. I think the thing you said about helping people that nobody Knows about. That's like, the core to me of empathy. What that woman did for me, she didn't go put in. Not that there was Instagram back then, but she didn't tell anybody. She just did something nice because she saw something was going wrong and said, it's time to step up. And to me, that's what. That's what we need. It's not about being, like, you know, completely like, oh, I got to cry for everyone and worry about everyone and do everything. To me, it's about one person. You be kind to one person, man. That's how you change the whole frigging world. Because you can't change people. You can't change any of that. If you're trying to change people, bang your head against the wall. It's better going and just being nice, man. That's unstoppable to me.
Adam Carolla
So this brings us to this. And just as an example, I'll bring it up once in a while, but I help people, but I don't look at myself as a generous or kind person, per se. And then I realize I forget about it most all the time. And I'll have two things. The one that keeps coming back to me is I have a friend, very old friend. A very old friend. And he'll call me, I don't know, once a year. And he goes, I'm calling you. I'm thanking you. And I always go, what for? What's going on? And he goes, I've been sober for 12 years, and it was on this date. And I go, oh, okay, good. But why are you telling me? And he goes, you paid for my rehab. And I go, oh, all right. Well, I forgot, but good, right?
Paul Guilfoyle
And that's something. I guarantee you. Mirsi has. No. She didn't think it was that big a deal. I guarantee you I'm living with my brother, right? She's like, I'm gonna live with my brother for a couple, whatever, and they'll take my apartment. But for us, the recipient of that kindness, it's a. Like, I know there's some. Whether it's a teacher or a mentor or somebody, you know, that someone who just did that thing to. You're like, man, that was just. I was at my lowest. They were at their high, and they. And that transfer happened. You know, there was this woman. This actually a story. It's. It's a second magic trick, because it keeps going, right? Is when I used to. When I was working in high school, I always had to work for. For money. And for four Years I used to scoop ice cream at the Haagen Dazs in the Aventura Mall. And this woman I remember, she comes up to me, starts snapping her fingers at me. She's screaming at me. She's like, you need to help me right now. And I'm like, ma' am, I'll be right with you. And she says, no. Oh, no, you got to help me now. And I said, you know what, ma' am, you're being rude. I'm not going to help you take your business elsewhere. And I'll never forget Adam. She screams in my face, you're going to be working at this miserable ice cream store for the rest of your miserable life. And I calmly, calmly looked at her in the face, and I said, ma' am, if I am working here for the rest of my miserable life, you're still never getting any ice cream. And I used to. And I'm telling that story because I used to think and laugh about that and be like, oh, you know, that woman didn't bother me, but it totally bothered me, right? Because I was worried that I was going to have the financial struggles my dad had. He always struggled. And I was worried I was going to repeat life like that. But I also realized that woman who, again, she never remembered me, that has no idea who I am, what I did, what. I carry that woman with me 30 years now. And that woman drives me. That woman, like, fueled me. And to me, it's the second magic says, don't make something disappear. But not your fear. You got to use your fear and harness it and. And don't vanquish your critics. Prove them wrong. And to me, again, I'm saying that because it's exactly what you're just saying. Those moments that are so. You don't even remember that it was that. That. That was his day of rehab. But for him, he's carried that with him every single year. Every coin he gets, he's thinking, man, Adam is the one who got me this coin.
Adam Carolla
Yeah. I had my Guatemalan nanny say to me years ago, she goes, I think I'm gonna sell my Camry. What do you think I can get for it? And I go, I don't know. I don't know. Why. Why would I know what you can get for it? And she goes, you bought it for me? And I was like, oh, all right.
Paul Guilfoyle
You know what I love? I love that all the kindness that you put out there that you just bury it.
Adam Carolla
I bury it like it's a good.
Paul Guilfoyle
Dark little part of you. Yeah, you do bury it. I wonder what. So what's a way I gotta know? So what's the nicest thing that you do remember someone did for you?
Adam Carolla
I had a life that was pretty much devoid of kind gestures in my direction. I could have used the hand a time or two. I had a couple opportunities. I remember when I was maybe like a year on a job site, probably 19 or 20, kind of making eight bucks an hour, mostly doing kind of donkey work. There was a plumber and he was a bald guy, and he showed up in his truck and he was making $30 an hour, like some ungodly amount of money. And he saw that I was working hard. I was always working hard on my feet, just moving and everything. And his name was Zapata. And he came up to me and he went, you know, I had this great business and I lost it all and I started drinking and blah, blah, blah. But now I'm sober and I'm looking for an apprentice. And like, you're that guy. I can tell you're that guy. And I'll teach you plumbing. And in a year you'll be making 18 bucks an hour. And in five years you'll be making 30 bucks an hour. And I was like, oh, oh my God, yes, yes, yes. And then he was like, I was like, but don't say anything around the job sites. I don't want the foreman finding out that you're cherry picking me. And he's like, no, but I'm forming this business and I'm coming back strong and you're going to be my guy. And like, I'll be your guy. Teach me plumbing. All this will be awesome. And I don't know, a few weeks went by and I'd call him, like, when are we getting started now, Zapata. And he'd be like, soon. Soon. It never happened. It never happened. It never happened.
Paul Guilfoyle
And crushed the end of the story.
Adam Carolla
It never happened. He never turned back. He'd probably start drinking again. And I had like, I had a lot of bad luck and bad will and just sort of bad stuff for a long time. A long time. My immediate family was that way. I didn't have any luck. I had a couple of coaches. I had a couple like football coaches or something. Say something good that kind of stuck. Didn't do anything but said a couple of things where I went, oh, that felt good, but I really didn't. I avoided luck and charity of all kinds. I got pretty much battered. I'm like one of the few guys I know who's had four motorcycles towed, for instance. It probably shouldn't have had three of them towed. It's just bad. Just bad. Poor downtrodden, bad roommates. Cars towed, motorcycles towed. Bad stuff. And then I met Jimmy Kimmel, and then he's like, well, it's all gonna change now. And I was like, oh, I've been waiting for a while.
Paul Guilfoyle
I mean, that is definitely. I mean, that's the one that I was thinking of, but I didn't know if there was one. I mean, again, to me, like, I don't know, that's the grand gesture, right? That's a grand, massive change.
Adam Carolla
I saved it. It's like I saved all the incremental nice gestures, all the stuff, you know, the tips or the Thatta Boys or whatever. It's like, I literally, from 0 to 30, nothing but bad shit luck. And then I met Jimmy, and it was like a millionaire 18 months later. Like, I saved it all up for one big bank them all.
Paul Guilfoyle
That was a good use. That was a good take out of the bank moment. But I do think, Let me say it this way. I actually think. I think if we start saying, what's the grand gesture have to be? It's impossible because we're just like, I don't have time. We don't have time for the grand gesture. I think it's more fascinating that the people who thank you are thanking you for that thing that you don't even think of, right? It's like, I think the grandest, most powerful thing you can do on the planet is to say thank you to someone, especially someone who helped you long ago. Like, I'll tell you the story. My. I really. My whole family had shit luck their whole life. New York kicked our ass. Everything went wrong with my. In my family. And then when I was in high school, I wound up and, you know, there were teachers that were just one even. They were like. My dad was so angry at this teacher that was so mean to me that I went in for the. I got in trouble for talking Melvin off, and my dad jumped the desk to punch the vice principal in the face. And I'm holding back my, wow. So it was a. It was a. A forever. You know, my dad would throw. You know, we were. There was. We were a fighting family. And so school was crap for me. Everything was bad. And then I get to ninth grade, and this one teacher, Sheila Spicer, this black woman who loved Prince, who used to tell everyone, she would say. She would say, if you say you had to go to the Bathroom. She would say, I got rubber bands for the boys and plugs for the girls.
Adam Carolla
Wow.
Paul Guilfoyle
Used to mess with my head. I was like, how did girl physiology work? Like, I had no idea. And so she said to me, she said, you can write. And I was like, well, everyone can write. And she says, no, no. You know what you're doing. She tried to put me in some honors class. Had some sort of conflict. So she said, here's what we're going to do. You're going to sit in the corner for the entire year. Ignore everything I do on the blackboard. Ignore every homework assignment I give. You're going to do the honors work instead. You'll thank me later. And a decade later, okay, a decade later, my first book comes out, my first novel. I knock on the door to her classroom. She says, can I help you? I said, my name is Brad Meltzer. I wrote this book and it's for you. And she starts crying. And I'm like, why are you crying? And she's like, I was going to retire this year. She says, because I didn't think I was having an impact anymore.
Adam Carolla
Wow.
Paul Guilfoyle
And I said, are you kidding? I said, are you kidding? You got 30 students. We have one teacher, and we become close again. And I send her a free book. Make Magic comes out to. Every book I write comes out. She gets free. She wound up lasting 12 more years after she said she was going to retire. And at the end, when she goes to retire, here's the key of the story is I go back, someone tells me, you know, your teacher's retiring, so we're throwing a retirement party. You got to come send her off. Like, great, I want to go see her. So I go to this. It was at the racetrack, which is like the. I'm like, why is the teacher's retirement party at the racetrack? But I go to the racetrack and here in Florida, and it's in this restaurant where truthfully, it's. It's Friday at like 4 o' clock, 5 o' clock. They give her a, you know, a crystal something. All she has to do is take the crystal something, say to the people, you know, it's a jaded bunch of teachers, and say on a Friday afternoon, I hate half of you. I love half. You have a good life. And I sneak in, she doesn't know I'm there. She has no idea. I'm surprising her. And I'm thinking to myself, when you do that and you go back and say thank you, you kind of risk the memory, because I'm like, what if she's not who I remember? What if she's like Jad now? What if she sucks? What? That ruins my whole memory, my little perfect story, the whole bullshit thing I've created for myself. And I'm hiding there, waiting to be the final surprise after they give her her crystal thing. And she looks out at this group of teachers, I'll never forget it, not knowing I'm there, and says, listen, I'm leaving. You'll never see me again. But I'm just going to tell you, for those of you who think that kids have changed or that it's harder now or the kids are different now, she's like, no, it's you that change. You're getting old. Do not give up on these kids. Do not give up on these kids. She gives a speech like the end of Braveheart. Like, I want to pull a sword and go sign up to be a teacher. And I'm like, oh, shit. This woman is forever that person. And when you go say thank you, like you use that thank you, man. I'm telling you. Anyone listening now, whatever old teacher or mentor, that camp counselor that told, I don't even care if they didn't have to do something nice, if they told you you were good at something, go say thank you and watch what comes from it. And if they're dead, find their kid and tell them what the parent meant to you. Because my father, when he died and I got this idea, my father used to coach baseball for a big sports family. And when he died, this guy called me up. I've never told the story about my father. And this guy calls me up and he says, hey, man, I saw your dad died in the paper. I'm like, yeah. And he said, I got to tell you the story about you. You know what I remember about him? And he's like, I'm like, what? And he's like, when I was 8, 9 years old in Little League, he told me, you throw like a pussy. And I remember being like, my dad should not be saying that to like eight, nine year old kids. And by the way, I wasn't even 8 or 9 at that point. He was just coaching for fun. He had no kid in the league. He just loved baseball. And I said to him, I'm sorry my dad said this. He goes, no, I did throw like a pussy. And I was just like. And that story gave me the greatest thing I ever got that year, which was a new story about my father. And I was like, dude, that is magic. Thank you for that. So go say thank you. I'm telling you, whether it's for Jimmy or whoever it might be, you'll see what comes from it.
Adam Carolla
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Adam Carolla
Yeah, I've thanked Jimmy on way more than one occasion for sure. And I think back on all the teachers I had and I didn't have anybody help me or pull me aside. I got pulled aside by Mrs. Komisar. It's the only time I didn't have a counselor that said anything. It was weird because people would say, people say to me frequently, especially if you become a comedian, did people always encourage you to go up on stage or did your teacher, your counselor say, you're funny? I was like, no, Nobody, nobody in my family, no teacher, no counselor, nobody ever. I, you know, I dug ditches for a living for a reason because nobody told me to do comedy ever. But Ms. Komazar is the only teacher I ever had. She was at North Hollywood High and she was very old and she pulled me aside. It was the only pull aside moment I ever had with a teacher and she said to me, she goes, adam, all the girls like you and you're real funny guy. And I was already thinking, I don't know where she gets this. I've seen no indication of all the girls like me. But whatever. She just said that. And then she paused and she goes, do your parents beat you? I said, no. By the way, my parents, first off, I could kick my dad's ass when I was 11, but my parents were the furthest away. I'm the only person I know that's never been struck by a parent. I'm the only person I know who's been hit by friends, parents, more than my own parents. Most people don't have that ratio. I've been hit by Grandpa Al Lewis and Roberta Messicks and never by Chris Carolla or Jim Carolla. So that's a weird ratio to actually physically been struck by.
Paul Guilfoyle
No, that's a different strange thing. That's a different skill set you're using, right?
Adam Carolla
But no, it was never discussed.
Paul Guilfoyle
And it's weird when she asked you that, what was the end of the story?
Adam Carolla
Well, I realized as she was asking me that, I realized that she had come to that conclusion and she'd also decided she was right and that if I protested too vigorously, she would think I was lying. You know, like, if I went like, no, no, never. Who told you that? You know, like, she'd go, okay, this kid's getting beaten at home. I don't know where she got it from. I didn't show up. You know, it's so interesting.
Paul Guilfoyle
Teachers, you know, but teachers see that stuff, like they read. There are teachers that read those things. And I could tell that, that. That one comment of you by the. All the girls like you as clearly that. That holds spot in your brain for years, right? Because now you've got to replay what girls. Does she know about that?
Adam Carolla
I don't know. I'll tell you what it was, what I figured out. I had a look. There's certain eras in time where there's an aesthetic and it's this, it's that I had a look that appealed to the girls, moms, but not to the girls. And so the girl. Anyone over 50 was attracted to me, but their daughters weren't. But they had some look like a bygone era thing. And I remember I've done it. I mean, there was a Korean girl in my neighborhood that I just thought was like stunning and played the piano and everything else. And I don't know, she kind of liked my son when he was 11 or something. I was like, you ought to hang out with her, she's beautiful. And everyone looked kind of. What? What? Nah, I'm not into that. I'd go, what do you mean? I. After a while I started sounding like a weirdo, but I was like, she plays the piano, she's so beautiful. And I realized I'm into her. She's not. He's not into her. And I think that's kind of. I knew I had some appeal with the older set. So when she was kind of telling me that, I was kind of thinking about the moms who.
Paul Guilfoyle
It's so interesting. I think the teachers, they. My. My wife who went to my same high school. I tell my story and she's like, I had that same teacher. She didn't do, you know, none of that. I don't have any of that story. And I said to her, you know, you have all this. She's like, you have these stories. Not with a lot of teachers, but with a couple here and there that just were like, you, you, you, you should do this, you should do that. And I said to her, I finally realized, took me like decades to realize, like, they did it for me because they didn't do it for my wife because they knew she didn't need help. They looked at me and they're like, this kid needs help. The one thing. And I don't think every teacher.
Adam Carolla
Well, they saw something in you. It wasn't a mercy mission. They saw that you could write, right?
Paul Guilfoyle
But there are a lot of kids who can write. But there's also ones they know, like, this kid's not gonna get to. Like, I'm the first in my immediate family to go to a four year college. I was not going there without teachers going, here, you need to take the sat. I'm like, what's the sat? I had no idea. And I'm like. And you know, someone's like, you taking the sat? I'm like, I don't know what it is, but if you're taking it, I'm taking it. And so those teachers knew I needed the help and so they helped me. And like on that day, your teacher saw something that was like, this kid needs something, whatever it might be. Maybe it's like to have sex with a 50 year old woman is what she thought you, you thought you were reading it as, but like she saw something that you were struggling with. And listen, I don't think she read it wrong. Right. It wasn't physical abuse, but it was some other loneliness thing that you have. That you were looking for and searching for. And whatever it was, man, that teacher was trying to pull it out.
Adam Carolla
She saw something. It ended up just sort of depressing me more because I was like, oh, that's what you think?
Paul Guilfoyle
Well, that's the thing is when someone's wrong, you're like, if you're writing, you say you can write. I'm like, well, then I'm good. But if it's like, are you beaten? And you're not, you're like, what am I projecting around?
Adam Carolla
Well, no one else ever brought it up. It's not. It wasn't like anyone ever thought it. And it was weird. Cause I was like a pretty big guy. And I was like, I don't.
Paul Guilfoyle
How did that. By the way. That's why the parent. That's why the older moms liked you. If you were a big. There was a. Whatever. Whoever the biggest kid in the class is. We had a kid in our high school. There were two kids that were just taller and bigger than everyone else. Where we looked, you know, they were varsity and we were all jv. Like, that's just how it was. And that is a huge difference for, like, you know, that all the moms are like, who's that?
Adam Carolla
It's an aesthetic. So just to drill down on it, because I've given it some thought, we had eras, like in the 50s and the 60s where the big macho captain of the football team, he. Man. And then we entered our sort of scrawny punk rock or Davy Jones kind of Keith Partridge kind of waif model era. We were in the waif model era when I was the captain of the football team. And so the women from the days of yore were into the captain of the football team, but the young girls were into the waif model punk rock guy, which I was not, by the way.
Paul Guilfoyle
I'm obsessed with that because I look at it, I keep it going. And then comes the 80s, and you get Schwarzenegger, and it's like, all muscles. And then it's like, no, sexy as Matt Damon. We don't want the muscles anymore. We want the smaller version.
Adam Carolla
Right.
Paul Guilfoyle
I'm obsessed with why the zeitgeist has to shift to. And Because I don't think it's just a. I don't think it's just a fashion look or, like, it's a. It's how we view men. It's how we view. You know, there's just something of, like, what is considered sexy. Right. Why? And I get. I get the Reaganism of it. All right, that makes sense in those times. But like, why does that go away? Why does that.
Adam Carolla
Well, there's there. I mean, a lot of it is luck of the draw. I mean, you can just pick up a subject like hair, hair. When people had feathered back hair and Leif Garrett and Charlie's Angels and Farrah Fawcett and stuff with hair feathered, cool beach guy hair was a huge deal when I was in junior high. If you had a Jew fro like me, you couldn't do it and you were already screwed. And I have these weird thoughts and I'll put my homoerotic cards on the table here, because I was thinking about this the other day and I did a documentary about Paul Newman and I have all his race cars and I race all his race cars. So I have it sort of qualified to speak about Paul Newman. I remember watching Butch and Sundance and Newman and Redford and then the Sting and Newman and Redford. Newman and Redford. And you make a doc about them and you talk to people and you talk to people now and they're like, God, Paul Newman, so handsome with those blue eyes. And he was such a leading man. He was so good looking. And I remember thinking, because it was the 70s, I remember as a kid going, well, Robert Redford's really good looking, but Paul Newman isn't. Cause Paul Newman had Brillowy hair and Redford had this blonde. I mean, you know, they do butch casting, that Sundance Kid in 1973, but it looks like he just stepped out of a Malibu beach, you know what I mean? Just his blond flowing hair. And I was like, that guy's so good looking and the other guy's not good looking. It was only because one guy had cool hair and it was 1973 and you had. It was all hair now, bald, Brillo head, who cares, right?
Paul Guilfoyle
But. But you know what? I talked to a friend who's a linguist at Georgetown and she said to me linguistically, like, that is. That is what every generation has to do is separate themselves from. That's how we separate ourselves. We do with any way we can express. And it's music and it's our hair and it's our fashion and it's our slang. Like that's why, you know, whatever the Gen Z slang is right now that you and I roll our eyes at, like, but it's their way of saying I'm not you and all those things, whether it's the flare of your jeans or what kind of shoes you wear, it's not Just that it's fashion, but it's. If you look at it from an evolution perspective, it's our way of saying, I don't want to be you and I'm going to put you aside.
Adam Carolla
Right?
Paul Guilfoyle
In the 50s there was a word, you know, the word that became popular, wasn't invented there, but it became in use was the word teenager. It was never used before the 50s. And the reason, what used to happen is used to have people who were whatever you, if your dad was a butcher, you became a butcher. Your dad was a baker, you became the baker, right? Construction, do construction. And then suburbs started being built in the 60s and people started moving out to the suburbs. And what happened there is they got better schools, they got huge education. And once that education shift happened, all of a sudden people are like, I don't want to be my dad's butcher job. I don't want to be a baker. And then they're also like, and I don't want to listen to his crap music. And here's Elvis and here's the Beatles. We just did a book on the Beatles. Like, and here's. And I don't want my dad's president either. I don't want to have Eisenhower or Nixon. I want this guy jfk. Like all those things are the same as like slang, the same as hair, same as it's our way of saying I don't want to be anymore. That, that was a huge generational shift from the 50s to the 60s was, was that it was like a, a knife through culture.
Adam Carolla
I was trying to be fair minded about thinking about, well, who's done stuff, what breaks, who should I thank and that kind of stuff. But I don't think that many people because I have proof, which is when I was in high school, I had scholarship offers to play football in college. Not big football powerhouses like your own Michigan, but good schools like UC Davis and Cal Poly Pomona and San Luis Obispo and some places, good places. No one ever said anything to me. My counselor never said, we should do the paperwork and see what they want. I wasn't going to do anything. No one in my family did it. I literally had papers, scholarship stuff sent to me. I never answered it. And Mr. Tomey, my counselor, never said, hey, you got Cal Poly Pomona here, maybe you could go for free. We gotta fill out some paperwork and stuff, but we should do that. I never had a conversation with anyone about it. I have the letters.
Paul Guilfoyle
That's crazy to me.
Adam Carolla
Isn't that weird?
Paul Guilfoyle
But I will say first of all, it is weird. Yes. No, that's a weird thing. That's the job. You do the job. Pomona, a crazy good sports school to do that, because I know kids will play there. Now, what I will say, though, is I'll, I'll make this wager. If I said to anyone listening now who you've helped to come, thank you, I bet you the thank yous will pour. I bet if you put on, you know, I just know it. You know, we, sadly, we usually wait till our obituaries, you know, are written, and you never get to hear all the nice shit that people say about you, right when they give you your eulogies. But there are going to be people, you know, and you see it now when someone dies. You're like, this person on this day did this thing for me. I, I again, I know you well enough to know there are just all these people, that you've blacked it out. You're like, you don't care. But I know you've helped so many people along the way, and that is the, that's the magic part, right? Like, that the fact that you didn't even, like, learn the magic trick, and no one did the magic trick to you, but you do it to other people, dude, I'm even more impressed by that because it's easy when, when someone does something nice for me, it's easy to be like, I got to pay back the universe. To me, it's much harder to go through your experience and be like, wow, no one taught me to do that thing, but I'm gonna learn how to do that thing.
Adam Carolla
Well, here's what I think. I guess. I mean, it's kind of how I parent. If somebody comes up to you and sort of asks you for something, you should really do everything you can to accommodate them and their ask. I will try. I didn't get that as a kid, but I remember as a parent, sometimes I'd be sitting in my office, it'd be 10, 15 at night. I'd be in my bathrobe, and my daughter would come in and go, can I practice some driving? And I'd go, when? Tonight? I'd go, what do you want to do? Well, just get in the car and we'll go over the hill, whatever. And I'd just go, yeah, all right, let me get my sweatpants on. And I would just do it because it was like, all right, that's what she wants, and I'll try to accommodate her.
Paul Guilfoyle
And, and if somebody, I don't think it's that simple. I don't think it's that. That's what she wants. I think the average person who lives your life, who has that done to him. You know, it's like we were talking about before, about if you're. If you get punched in the face by your dad, the odds are you're going to punch your kid in the face. That's just how violence works. Like, my father used to get punched in the face by his father, my grandfather. And in fact, my grandfather was struck by lightning.
Adam Carolla
Wow.
Paul Guilfoyle
He struck by. Struck by lightning in World War II. And. And that's how he got discharged from the military. And we have the paperwork, the documents, see everything that burns across his body.
Adam Carolla
Crazy.
Paul Guilfoyle
He. He was a boxer in the military, and he used to beat up my father. And my father also got struck by lightning, which was a story my dad used to always tell us. And we were like, I'm telling you, do not be with me in a rainstorm.
Adam Carolla
Like, I.
Paul Guilfoyle
And the truth was, is my dad always told us that story because we were like, is that a little bit of a bullshit story? Like, what? You know, I would be like, okay, dad, sure. You. He would tell us. He was at Cam the Chopa and the thing. And he told. And he grabbed the metal doorkno doorknob. The lightning bolt came through. It knocked him out. They covered him in a white sheet. They thought he was dead. And then he sat up, and everyone screamed. And I was like, good story. But I don't know, dad. The odds of two people in a generation being struck by lightning was a little bit of. So when my dad. When my father passes away, I tell the story at his funeral. Like, my dad was struck by lightning. His father was struck by lightning. I don't know if it's true, but for purposes of this good metaphor, I'm going to use it. And I use it because my grandfather used to punch my dad in the face, and he was, again, a boxer. And my father should have truthfully punched me in the face. That's just how violence goes down, generation after generation. And if you came to my house when we were in Brooklyn growing up, every door and every wall, every door to the bathroom, his bedroom, had a hole punched in it, a dent through it right to the drywall. Except for my room that I share with my sister, it was the only door that was untouched. And because he was just always like, I'm going to be a little better than my father was. And the truth is, that should never happen. Like, what you're Doing should never happen if you were taught, like, you know, if you got all the lack of help you have, you should just repeat it. So I don't think it's just that you're listening to your daughter. I think you're doing it because you're doing what my dad did, which is like, I got to do something better. And I will tell you the end of the story is someone, I put my dad eulogy online, on our Instagram, Facebook page, whatever it was back in the day when he died. And this guy writes me, talk about going and saying thank you. And he said, hey Brad, you don't know me, but I, I saw you don't know that story of your dad being true when he got struck by lightning. But I'm going to tell you it was true. And I know that because I was there that day.
Adam Carolla
Wow.
Paul Guilfoyle
And the guy proceeds to tell me the story with details I didn't have in the eulogy about that day, including how they put. He says, I was struck too. I have my hand on his shoulder. They put white sheets on us, they thought we were dead. And we sat. I'm like, oh my gosh, he knows the whole frigging story. And, and the point is, I think lightning does. It can, it can strike in the same spot. But I don't think in your case it's just because you were like, oh my, I'm listening to my daughter. It's something, nothing at all like bullshitty Freudian about it, but there's something that you're doing that you're changing the course of that river. And that's not easy.
Adam Carolla
I agree and I appreciate the kudos, but I don't think it's rocket science. I had a whole bunch of stuff that I didn't like growing up. I didn't like a whole bunch of stuff about my environment physically. I didn't like not having air conditioning. I didn't like broken down cars, I didn't like depressed parents, I didn't like any of it. And I consciously said, I'm not gonna do any of this stuff that made me miserable with this new set of people called my kids intentionally. And I never thought of it as that magnanimous or that interesting or rocket science. I just look at it as, well, surely you'll do the opposite of what you hated growing up. And I am surprised that more people, you know that thing where, oh, the girl's dad was an alcoholic and so she married the alcoholic, of course, you know, and it's always like so obvious. I Mean, you of all people should know the horrors of being married to.
Paul Guilfoyle
An alcoholic, by the way. But how often does that happen, right? How often does the abusive kid go to the abusive relationship? How much is. I mean, and again, I'm not saying it's magnanimous and, you know, here's your Nobel Prize, Mr. Carolla. But it's sad that we've reached a point where like, you know, I. Maybe we just set the bar so low for ourselves, but it's. I don't know, It's a big deal, man. It's a big deal. It's a big deal to break the train that you're on and do something new to me. I should have struggled like my father struggled like his father struggled. I mean, it was a generational Jew thing, right? That's just how it went.
Adam Carolla
I think you have a kind of intelligence that probably prevents you from getting mired. I always say some people just don't have the mental horsepower to pull themselves out of sort of the mire. You know what I mean? And I do think if you have a kind of high horsepower mental engine, we don't have to call it book smarts, street smarts, whatever you want to call it, but just smart. Like a smart smart kind of helps you not do stupid stuff like over and over again, you know.
Paul Guilfoyle
And I know, I appreciate that.
Adam Carolla
I believe that works for you.
Paul Guilfoyle
No, I appreciate that. But I will say, like, I think my street smarts are not. And I think you're. Listen, I think your survival skills, they're not things that we develop because we were like, oh, we want this or that. They were needs. You had friggin needs that were not met. I had real, as a kid, huge need. Like my parents would tell me about our financial situation that they should never have told me. They should have never told me at 13 years old, like what kind of crapville we're in and who wants to beat my father up and who's coming.
Adam Carolla
Right, Right.
Paul Guilfoyle
Don't tell your kid that. I completely agree, you know, but they, but they put that on you and they put that on me. Listen, from the first time I met you, we've always, you know, bonded over that, like. But I do believe that that need, that need to find that skill set, you can harness it and just do this, you know, I don't want to understate it, man, because it doesn't happen to everyone. There are so many people who just, whatever. Your dad does this and you do that. And I think the hardest thing to do is to Break out of that thing you were taught your whole life. I can't underestimate like how what a huge deal that is.
Adam Carolla
I have a last question for you Brad, because I was talking to Dr. Drew about it and he brought it up, but it's something I've been bringing up to him a lot on the mic, off the mic, but something the way I work is I kind of float around. I don't read articles and I don't listen to lectures. I just kind of float around and try to feel what's next and where we're heading and which way the wind is blowing. And I've been right about a few things and I've been saying for a long time, what's with all the talk? You know what I mean? It's a political thing, It's a little more of a feminine thing. It's now kind of a universal thing where they, you know, you hear Nancy Pelosi, she does the interview, she tells, it's all about the children, she loves the children. She got into this for the children and the children and everyone deserves a seat at the table and they need to be treated with dignity. Everybody needs to be treated with dignity. Everyone needs to be treated with respect. And I'm like, stop talking. I want some action, like do something. And then I realize, oh, the talking satiates and, and I've been saying this for a long time and people look at me sort of cross eyed and I realize that I grew up with these people. I've learned a lot of lessons. My mom, my grandmother was all talk about the people and what they needed and how come they're not getting enough. They didn't do jack shit for anyone ever, ever. But they talked about it constantly. And I was like, you guys talk about it so much that you're actually satiated by the talk. Even though you've never done anything for these people that you speak of. And I realized, I think we're getting into that era where everyone is just celebrities do it, politicians do it. It's just talk, talk, talk about how much they care and how much they weep for the children of the people of this that and then they just go back behind their double gated community and open up their sub zero refrigerator and get some more Haagen Dazs, you know. But I'm like, like it's a weird talk era. We're in a satiation talk. And you know when you're talking about thanking the person and doing it, that makes a big difference. But I now realize we're talking about talk so much, it's as if we've done it. And there is a part and more in the feminine mind than the masculine mind where saying you talked about something sort of gives you some satiation, some feeling like you did do it. My family, my mom and my grandmother didn't do anything for the poor people. But they talked about them so much that they actually, I think, felt like they did something for the poor people and sort of walked through life going, don't look at me, I take care of the poor people. It's like you don't do anything. You just talk about them constantly.
Paul Guilfoyle
Yeah, I have no, listen, I friggin applaud you on it. I have no patience for the talk. None. My grandmother and grandfather had nothing. I mean, they were poor. Not middle class, they were poor. And I remember my grandfather, when we were little, I had to be 10, 11 years old because he died right after. And he took all of our toys that were crappy to begin with. And I remember he took him outside and I thought we were going to throw him away, right? He goes, no, I don't want to throw any away. And he went outside in Brooklyn and he went to the. We were on a stoop that we had to share. They share with another family and kind of like share stoop thing. Knocked on the door and there was this kid Morty. And Morty comes over and. And he was, he was my age, maybe a year younger. And they said these, he said, these are for you. And this kid, he knew Morty had less than we did. Like right when you're nothing. And this kid Morty, I'll never, I will never for the life of me forget this kid being so excited with my beat up crap. I remember being like my grandfather who has nothing and can't donate shit and can't help anyone, always wanted to be a cop, but he just couldn't pass the physical. Like this guy just helped somebody with nothing. And my grandmother, to her dying day, she lived to like 90 to her dying day, would every year send a donation to the hospital that took care of my grandfather when he died. And her donation was a check for $1.
Adam Carolla
Wow.
Paul Guilfoyle
Not to be cute because that's all she had, $1 every year. And I'd be like, nanny, what are you doing? And to me that is more important. Your thing with helping that one guy in rehab, like, I just don't think the world changes by talking about it. I don't think the world changes from politicians pontificating like the world changed by going and connecting with one person and doing something. If you don't do it, then what the hell? You've done nothing. And I do think you're right. We're at this situation where we feel like we put a, you know, a performative thing on our social media. A blue square, a black square, an orange square or whatever square we wear, a pin, we wear, we've done it. We put out a tweet, we've done it. We've done our, that's bullshit. Like writing something on social media is, does nothing. And that's the way we communicate now. So we, that's our badge now is I, I, I retweeted the thing that said we should donate to this or like bullshit, you haven't done anything. So, yeah, that's why my thing was like, don't go to the person, take the action. And that kindness, I really believe kindness is an act. It's not a talk, it's an action. And go help that one person. Go say thank you to that person. Make an actual action. And to me, that's how you do some good in the world. That's how you make magic, man.
Adam Carolla
Make magic. The book of inspiration you didn't know you needed. Brad Meltzer, come back anytime. Always a great conversation with you, Brad. I love following your career.
Paul Guilfoyle
I always love you, brother.
Adam Carolla
Take care. Brad Meltzer, everybody. Alicia Krause going to come in here. We'll do some news right after this. Oh, oh, oh. O'Reilly Auto Parts, pow. Yeah, O'Reilly, man, these guys are in the business of keeping your car on the road. O'Reilly Auto Parts offers friendly, helpful service and the parts knowledge you need for all your maintenance and repairs. I've always used O'Reilly. I worked on my Toyota Supra with O'Reilly, my Isuzu Trooper, my Datsun, many Datsun pickup trucks that I had to drive back in the day when I was swinging a hammer. Always O'Reilly with me. So whether you're a car aficionado or an auto novice, you'll find the employees at O'Reilly Auto Parts are knowledgeable, helpful, and best of all, friendly. So stop by the O'Reilly Auto Parts today or you can visit us online@o'reillyauto.com Adam that's o'reillyauto.com Adam.
Alicia Kraus
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Brad Meltzer
In this family, we live by the.
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Brad Meltzer
Oh my God, I love it.
Alicia Kraus
Feel the free Pluto TV stream. Now pay never.
Dawson
It's time to check Adam's voicemail.
Alicia Kraus
Go.
Brad Meltzer
Calling from Albany. I just got passed by a guy.
Dawson
On a recumbent E bike.
Brad Meltzer
Pretty sure I've never seen one of those before. You and transmission.
Dawson
You can leave us a message at 888-634-1744.
Adam Carolla
Alicia Kraus is in studio. I don't have her plug sheet, but you tell people where we can read your column. Oh, and so forth.
Unknown Speaker
Washington examiner. Check out the Washington Examiner. You can follow me on X and Instagram. I spend more time on Instagram. I haven't convinced you to get on Instagram yet. One of these days.
Adam Carolla
One of these days. Yeah. Recumbent E bike is you're going to get yourself killed because you cannot be seen. You're laying on a mechanic's creeper, scooting through traffic and you're low. So I will go with the recumbent E bike, which that is a way to scoot about town. But you're gonna have to have a nice big flag on it, like a dune buggy.
Unknown Speaker
Like a big old orange flag.
Adam Carolla
Yeah, like dune buggies have flags. Recumbent bikes often have flags because you can't be seen. You're below the bumper line.
Unknown Speaker
Oh, you're right. Those ones are pretty high. I had a moment.
Adam Carolla
Which ones are pretty high?
Unknown Speaker
Like the flags on those bikes, like, tend to be like 6 to 8ft high. I feel like they're really high.
Adam Carolla
Well, yeah, that's the point of a flag. You don't want it low to the ground. Drag it on the ground. Yeah, you gotta have it up so people can see you coming.
Unknown Speaker
I have a question for you. Actually the whole crew. Flag based, kind of, but road etiquette based.
Adam Carolla
All right, I will answer.
Unknown Speaker
Happened to me on the way over here. Yes, GPS took me Forest Lawn Drive because there was a little traffic. And of course you're right by Forest Lawn Cemetery in la for those who don't know. And a funeral procession starts to go by. So me being the good old girl from Oklahoma, I pull to the side and put on my like hazard lights.
Adam Carolla
Uh huh.
Unknown Speaker
Two cars pass me, like it's no big deal and keep driving by the procession, speeding by the way. I mean, I speed, but not insanely. And I was just like, you assholes. Someone's family. Like, the coffin goes by. All of the cars have their lights on. There are two police motorcycles escorting them. They all have badges that say funeral.
Adam Carolla
Yes.
Unknown Speaker
And I didn't keep driving until the last funeral badge went by me.
Adam Carolla
You didn't pass the procession and they.
Unknown Speaker
Were passing me and, like, doing the thing.
Adam Carolla
Right. Cause they're all queued up in one lane and these people went to the next lane and zipped past them.
Unknown Speaker
Yes. And I'm over on the shoulder with my hazards on being respectful. Is that just an Oklahoma thing?
Adam Carolla
Yeah. Life is for the living out here, sweetie. I respect that. I think it's a good impulse, what you did.
Unknown Speaker
You don't do that.
Adam Carolla
I'm trying to think of, like, I've not really encountered a lot of funeral processions, so it's hard to tell. I have people sitting in the right lane, not turning on a red light all the time, and that's something I can get into. But this doesn't happen frequently enough. I would say. I would say a couple things.
Unknown Speaker
I'm a good person.
Adam Carolla
You shouldn't pass them. That's a good impulse. Look, anything's a good impulse. If your kid did it, you would go, oh, good.
Unknown Speaker
Yes.
Adam Carolla
And so that means it's a good thing.
Unknown Speaker
Yes.
Adam Carolla
And then if your kid's anything you're talking about, like, you go, I like to smoke weed. Okay. Would you be happy if your 14 year old smoked weed? And if the answer is no, then maybe it's not good. Just all through the eyes of, if your kid did this, would you be happy with that? Which is how.
Unknown Speaker
Or even your significant other. Right. Like you would judge your husband or your wife if they were like zipping around a funeral procession.
Adam Carolla
Yeah. That's why I always think about P. Diddy's mom going to the trial.
Unknown Speaker
Oh, my gosh, that is so messed up, isn't it? And his children are there too.
Adam Carolla
Imagine just sitting there, it's like, well, sometimes his shoulder would get so tired from beating on his woman that he would just take a break and pee on her for a while. Then he'd get back to beating on her.
Unknown Speaker
Pay somebody else to pee on her.
Adam Carolla
It's like, no, if I was the mom, I would not attend that I would not attend to. Listen to that.
Unknown Speaker
To me, it shows an element of support. Well, everybody remembers the Scott Peterson trial, right?
Adam Carolla
Yeah.
Unknown Speaker
And remember how his parents and I think his sister, until almost the very end.
Adam Carolla
Yeah.
Unknown Speaker
Thought that he was innocent. Thought that he didn't murder Lacey and her unborn child and, like, stood by him.
Adam Carolla
Yes.
Unknown Speaker
There. I wonder. I mean, obviously everybody has an asshole sibling. Like, it happens, or cousin or in law or something. Right. And I don't. I don't 100% blame a parent of like a bad person. Like, it's not 100% the parents fault. But when you have somebody like a Scott Peterson or a Diddy whose mama thinks that they can do no wrong and is willing to sit there and listen to the horrific victim testimonies and act like it's okay and support their son in that way, maybe there's a correlation.
Adam Carolla
Mmm.
Unknown Speaker
Right?
Adam Carolla
Yeah. She may be the original enabler. Yeah. Not my mom. I had two shows on basic cable. My mom didn't even get basic cable. So she would not be in. She would not be sitting there in the courthouse supporting her son. All right. Yeah. Funeral procession. I'm with you. I would like to think I would do the right thing and pull over. I agree there's a couple.
Unknown Speaker
If it was your funeral, would you be looking down from heaven pissed at the idiot in the Tesla that went by me?
Adam Carolla
No. I would expect nothing more from a Los Angeleno behind the wheel of a Tesla. But I will say there's some mitigating circumstances. It depends.
Unknown Speaker
There was no woman in labor.
Adam Carolla
Right, Right.
Unknown Speaker
I'm saying it was a bro who was vaping.
Adam Carolla
Yeah, yeah, I get it.
Unknown Speaker
I think that was probably this close to being like, I bought this before Elon went crazy bumper sticker. Have you seen those?
Adam Carolla
I have. I would be with you. And I think you did the right thing.
Unknown Speaker
I also laid into my horn when he passed me.
Adam Carolla
Oh, the guy passed you asshole. Really?
Unknown Speaker
Yeah.
Adam Carolla
You were off to the shoulder.
Unknown Speaker
I was like, partially on the shoulder with my hazards on because that's the way my mama raised me.
Adam Carolla
I gotta say. You're supposed to pull it on over. When the emergency vehicle is hauling the fire trucks hauling down the street. I look at it as more of a bump draft. Like, okay, we're going. I'm not impeding this person. I'm staying behind them and people are.
Unknown Speaker
Clearing out the situation. For sure. That can work.
Adam Carolla
All right, so thank you, Alicia.
Dawson
The overall message is, welcome to Los Angeles.
Adam Carolla
Lower.
Unknown Speaker
I've been here for 12 years and I expect more of you guys.
Adam Carolla
I wanted to tell Brad Meltzer because his whole thing was on his commencement speech. And I just got into so many discussions with Brad about so many things. I didn't have a chance to bring up the Scott Paley and the Tim Wall commencement speech. But Brad's commencement speech was inspirational. And now they're becoming funeral dirges. Like they're full bummers now. And I'm like, you're supposed to motivate these young people to come out into society, not make them want to eat a bullet before they get out to the parking lot. And I hate. You know what? I'll tell you why I don't like I've seen it. Speaking of, I did go to a funeral once.
Unknown Speaker
Just once. You'd only.
Adam Carolla
I went to a funeral once and again. But I'm saying one of the funerals I went to was a very young man who died 26.
Unknown Speaker
That's hard.
Adam Carolla
Young. And the woman who was not his mom, but it was her, they employed him a little bit nutty and a little bit of a narcissist. And she got up at his funeral and said she made it about herself. She said, who's gonna get me coffee in the morning? Who's gonna. I mean, it was really. It was all about her.
Unknown Speaker
Wow.
Adam Carolla
But anyone who knows a nutty who makes it all about themselves cannot. They also know they cannot stop themselves from making. It doesn't matter whether they're at the airport or funeral home. It's whatever they can say. Like you can say to them, I'm really bummed out because before I met you for brunch, I had to put my dog down. And then they'll immediately go into putting their dog down and how they felt. That was four years ago. But they feel it every. You're done. We're done with you. It's all right. She couldn't help herself. She made it about herself. But I feel when you're doing the commencement and you're making about politics and your own personal politics, you're making about yourself ass wife. Let the fucking. First off, not everyone agrees with you. Not everyone agrees with you. There's a lot of people here who don't agree with you.
Unknown Speaker
But I think that they're in their little bubble and they think that. Or they think even those that they know don't agree with them. They think that they should because they think that they know best.
Adam Carolla
Well, it's not. Sorry. It's not that they know best. They're righteous and you're not.
Unknown Speaker
It's.
Adam Carolla
It's a good person.
Unknown Speaker
You're not headed self righteousness of like I shouldn't even have to have a conversation with you. But I'm going to preach at you now because I think I'm right and you're wrong.
Adam Carolla
All right, well, let's see. We'll watch it. We'll look at Scott's first. By the way, next time he's gonna report some story on TRUMP On 60 Minutes, shall we believe him? I don't. I wanna say this, news people, don't get out and tell us who you are. Newspapers don't endorse a candidate. Louisiana Times endorses Joe Biden. Oh, and there's a bunch of good stories about Joe Biden and a bunch of crappy stories about Trump as a baseball umpire. Don't walk out wearing a Cleveland Indians jersey or Red Sox. I don't want to know who you. Don't tell me who you root for, cuz now I'm worried. Yeah, you see, I want you to call balls and strikes. I don't want to know who your favorite team is. All right, so Scott, don't tell us this. This is why no one watches 60 Minutes anymore. Cuz we don't believe you. All right, here it is. Sorry, but in this moment, this moment, this morning, this is gravitas. Our sacred rule of law is under attack. Journalism is under attack. Universities are under attack. Freedom of speech is under attack. And insidious fear is reaching through our schools, our businesses, our homes, and into our private thoughts. I don't know what the fuck this guy's talking about. To speak, but yet you never stop, do you, America? Wait, pause it for a second. You know what's funny? I was watching this with Drew, and Drew went, oh, he's not an. He's not a reporter, he's an actor. I was like, oh, yeah, that's what he is. This is his greatest role. I'm a bullshit news guy.
Unknown Speaker
Like, if that hadn't been about Trump allegedly attacking media companies and Harvard and all this stuff, like give the guy a Bible and he sounds like a tent pole evangelist. Yeah, going into our thoughts, it's like that fear mongering kind of like. Right.
Adam Carolla
No, it's kind of funny that nobody hates the tentpole evangelist more than this guy or their side, but that's who they are. Exactly. They just do it with the environment.
Unknown Speaker
Exactly.
Adam Carolla
Your children are not gonna have air to breathe or clean water to drink. Fire and brimstone.
Unknown Speaker
You're not gonna have NPR to listen to.
Adam Carolla
Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Who's gonna lie to us if not we get rid of npr. I think there's a little more. Sorry. It's kind of funny. Rewrite history with grotesque false narratives. They can make criminals heroes and heroes criminals.
Dawson
He's auditioning for MacPass that's right.
Adam Carolla
He's holding a skull. Yes. Of the words we use. Wait, go. Go back 20 seconds. Let's just. Criminals power can change the definition of the words we use to describe reality. Diversity is now described as illegal. What? Equity. No. Is to be shunned. Inclusion is a dirty word.
Dawson
He made that word words three syllables, by the way.
Unknown Speaker
It's so funny that he talks. Talks about reality. The definition of reality changing when he's the person that will advocate for like men and women's sports.
Adam Carolla
This is.
Dawson
This is also a. Another prime example of Accuse the other side of doing what you are doing.
Adam Carolla
Yes.
Unknown Speaker
100.
Adam Carolla
I want. First off, I want to. Who the hell signs up for this crap? Get this blowhard out of here. Like somebody throw a folding chair at him.
Dawson
He's at Woke Forest.
Adam Carolla
So I get it.
Unknown Speaker
I actually think I've seen spoken there before. It might have been pre Covid, but I feel like I've spoken there for the YAF chapter and they tried to do all of this stuff to like, shut me and other conservative speakers down. Surprise, surprise.
Adam Carolla
People may not know what the YAFT chapter is.
Unknown Speaker
Young America's foundation, those evil, horrible conservatives.
Dawson
That are against da Southern Poverty Law group qualifies you as a hate group.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah.
Adam Carolla
Yes.
Unknown Speaker
Really? I know they did that with Prageru.
Adam Carolla
It's so funny. These guys are such. First off, they make this bullshit organization called the Southern Poverty Law Center. So they basically. It's like you going, I'm going to take duct tape and I'm going to write on this duct tape, grand wizard of the universe who knows all, and I'll just put on the door in my dorm room. And then. And at some point when you're arguing with someone, you go, I talked to the grand wizard who knows all. He told me, you were wrong, bro. And then that'll be it. I'll just be ripping bong loads in my bathrobe. Southern Poverty Law Center's a bullshit organization that just magically calls every group they disagree with and every conservative group a hate organization. And then dumb politicians trot it out and they go, this was labeled a hate organization by the Southern. Oh, so Prageru's a hate organization. So says you. And by the way, everyone's on the right and it's only people who disagree with them who magically get the designation of hate.
Unknown Speaker
It's typically organizations like the Family Research Council, which remember. Well, you probably remember, but I'm old enough to remember when the Family Research Council actually had like a shooting because they were viewed as one of the, quote, unquote, targeted organizations by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Yeah, but no, no, can't talk about that.
Adam Carolla
At, I think, whether it's Southern Poverty Law center or 60 Minutes or PBS or Rachel Maddow or something, or Jake Tapper, people eventually just go, we're not listening to these people anymore. We're kind of at that point where, listen, just don't listen to anybody. Listen to me. Listen to me. People were scared to death of Scientology and what they would do to you. You're talking to a guy who spoke out against Scientology in 1997 and was threatened and told that my life was going to be destroyed by Scientology and they would make me miserable and maybe hurt me and whatever it was. And I spoke out. Now, sorry, Leah Remini, everyone thinks you're a hero for speaking out in 2014, but this dude was doing it in the 90s and threatened and told what was going to happen, and I did it anyway, and it turned out nobody cared about Scientology. And now Scientology can't threaten people anymore because people go, oh, who cares?
Dawson
Well, the other thing about Scientology is one of their things is they threaten people who care about you. And we've found out that no one cared about you.
Adam Carolla
That's right.
Unknown Speaker
They also, I think, care more about what's within the church. Like, they don't want somebody like Aaliyah going in.
Adam Carolla
What I'm saying is they're not even fear that if you said anything about Black Lives Matter or anything about COVID or anything about the 2020 election, anything about something, they had all the power. And if you said anything, you were gonna be canceled and destroyed. So people were scared.
Unknown Speaker
Yep.
Adam Carolla
People don't give a shit about Southern Poverty Law center anymore. It's just a group that no one listens to.
Dawson
Southern Poverty should be the band at a dive bar playing Molly Hatchet.
Adam Carolla
That's right, Molly Hatchet. Cover band.
Unknown Speaker
By the way, do they only think that poverty exists in the South?
Adam Carolla
They just throw it around. No one cares about your labels anymore. And you can label Prageru whatever you want. Nobody cares. Nobody cares. No one's listening. No one cares. Now, the thing that's weird is Scott Pelli doesn't know nobody cares anymore. He doesn't know he's viewed as a retarded old blowhard, an old sock that just needs to be put out to the hamper of life.
Dawson
Here's my biggest question, though. Does he believe what he's saying? Because if he does, there is. There is a mental Health crisis.
Adam Carolla
Yes, he does. I've talked to these people.
Unknown Speaker
He believes what he's saying, and he believes that what he has to say is very important.
Adam Carolla
But with these people, the thing I never can wrap my mind around is nothing ever happens. And they don't ever consider that. Every single person that was on the news telling us we're gonna die of COVID didn't die. They're all alive. And then every single one of them then went from COVID to talk about Hitlerian oppression and being run out unmarked vans and blah blah, blah, and nothing ever happened. Nothing ever happens to them. So eventually something's gotta happen. I mean, or you need to shut up.
Unknown Speaker
When things happen, though, it tends to be their side doing the atrocious thing.
Adam Carolla
Yeah.
Dawson
On the other side, it did happen. I remember very clearly there was one political party who pushed you to get an experimental vaccine, who censored what you said on social media, and who many a large part of their party supports the destruction of Israel and the Jewish nation.
Adam Carolla
Yeah, well, no, they do it, but.
Unknown Speaker
They'Re not anti Jewish. They're just anti Zionists. That's what they're saying now about this D.C. murderer.
Adam Carolla
All right, we got one more. Cause we got Tim Walls.
Unknown Speaker
Oh, God, you're gonna make me watch this.
Adam Carolla
I like it because in my world I never went. I didn't graduate college.
Unknown Speaker
Me neither.
Adam Carolla
I thought first I thought you had to play that Carpenter song, We've Only Just Begun To Live Wide Lace in prom. Yeah, I thought you played We Only Just Begun and then. And somebody like a Richard Simmons type would come out and try to really get the crowd excited about the future, you know, I didn't know it was going to be old men, blowhards just fucking harshing our mouth.
Alicia Kraus
Stream all the movies and shows you love for free on Pluto tv. Say what now?
Adam Carolla
Showtime.
Alicia Kraus
That means drama is free. With heart wrenching stories from love and basketball power and Greenleaf.
Brad Meltzer
In this family we live by the.
Alicia Kraus
Spirit and laughter is free. With gut busting comedies like Key and Peele. The Neighborhood Everybody Hates Chris and Boomerang. Watch all the hits all for free from all your favorite devices.
Brad Meltzer
Oh my God, I love it.
Alicia Kraus
Feel the free Pluto tv. Stream now pay never.
Adam Carolla
All right, let's just play Tim Wallace because it's fun. Donald Trump's modern day gis capo is off the street. Modern day Cold soup.
Unknown Speaker
She couldn't even say the word.
Adam Carolla
You like a vegetarian Cold soup or Rounds up Juice? They're modern day gazpacho people. Now there's a tomato based who will round up hasidic juice. And then we have a cucumber based gazpacho who will round up some of the Ashkenazi juice. You know, they don't work on the same juice. The tomato base gazpacho does not work on the same thing as a cucumber based gazpacho. But if you like a summer soup, you like a soup during the summer, and chowder's a little too rich for your blood and you need a Jew rounded up, you go with the gazpacho. Okay. Okay.
Unknown Speaker
He can't even say it right.
Adam Carolla
Donald Trump's modern day gis capo is scooping folks up off the streets. They're in unmarked vans, wearing masks, being.
Brad Meltzer
Shipped off to foreign torture dungeons.
Adam Carolla
No chance to mount a defense. Not even a chance to kiss a loved one goodbye. Just grabbed up by masked agents, shoved into those vans. To be clear, there's no way for us to know whether they were actually criminals or not because they refused to give them a trial. A kiss for luck and we're on our way. Yeah, this modern day gazpacho shows up in unmarked bowls and with ladles and ladles out the justice with a side of soda crackers.
Unknown Speaker
So as a mom of four, I'm in Maysember right now, and our kids school does oratorical fairs and I have.
Adam Carolla
Sat through a kindergarten May sember.
Unknown Speaker
It's like May and December because it's all of the events that happen at the end of the school year.
Adam Carolla
Oh, you speak in a code that needs to be deciphered on occasion.
Dawson
Sorry, I thought Maysember was in the gazpacho.
Adam Carolla
That's playmate of the year in 1983, bro.
Unknown Speaker
Literally, there's kindergarteners. So I've been going to these oratorical fairs for my fifth grader, first grader, and kindergartner. And they could say that word better. Like the little kids get up on the stage and they have these hard words to say, like inauguration. Everybody screws up.
Adam Carolla
Ah, inauguration. Gestapo.
Dawson
Gestapo.
Unknown Speaker
But they could say that better. And this guy said it twice wrong for vice president of the United States and is a governor of like a major midwestern state. And he cannot say it makes it comical. It makes the rest of what he's saying. You're right. You tune it out.
Dawson
But you should see him run a pick six under the hood of his international scout.
Adam Carolla
Yeah, he's running a pick six. I had a long talk with my girlfriend about gazpacho and she was like, ugh. I'm like, I know you can do it. You can do it, right? My grandfather used to make it.
Unknown Speaker
Really?
Adam Carolla
It was good. There's such a thing. Look, you're talking to a guy who likes lots of beef and barley and junk. I like a stew. There is a cold vegetarian soup that is damn good.
Unknown Speaker
I don't think I've ever had one that was good.
Adam Carolla
It flies in the face of soup because soup is for a cold day or it's raining outside or whatever. But I am telling you, Laszlo Gaurag made gaspachi, and he was a Jew who fled Hungary. But it was good.
Unknown Speaker
It was good.
Adam Carolla
Yeah. And it was green. It wasn't people.
Unknown Speaker
I've had, like, a watermelon feta mint one before, but it was, like, in a little shot glass. And it was more like, that's an LA appetizer shot thingy. It wasn't Hungarian.
Adam Carolla
Look up a traditional gazpacho recipe. I'm going to.
Unknown Speaker
Are they gonna come get me in a van with their masks on?
Adam Carolla
Unmarked van? Yeah. You have to. It's unmarke. Cause if it says ice and rainbow tape on it, when you come pulling into the neighborhood, everyone scatters. I like the unmarked van wearing masks. I thought you liked masks, Puss. Didn't you like masks?
Unknown Speaker
Are we looking up a recipe?
Adam Carolla
I've been dying. I've been thinking about it a lot lately.
Unknown Speaker
You should try to make it. Any idea for the recipe? Because that's a red. You're saying that his was green, though? That's red.
Adam Carolla
I am telling you what we did. We did the same thing with him. He used to do chicken paprikash, and there's an American version where you just add tomato to everything and you turn everything into a sloppy joe. It's bullshit. Chicken paprikash. The sauce is sort of brown, gold color. It's not red. It's not tomato based. But every recipe you look up, they try to get you to do the tomato part. He didn't do it that way. Two pounds of ripe Roma tomatoes. Yeah. This is like. This is tomato soup we're talking about here. It starts off with two pounds of Roma tomatoes.
Unknown Speaker
That's a lot.
Adam Carolla
And then one small cucumber. This is gonna be tomato soup.
Unknown Speaker
It looks like a sauce.
Dawson
I made chicken tortilla soup last week, and if I had taken it out of the fridge the next day and put it in a bowl, I could have convinced anyone that it was Gaza.
Adam Carolla
Gestapo.
Unknown Speaker
Gestapo, yeah.
Adam Carolla
All right, now, I want. I want Green. I don't want the tomato. That's why I yelled no tomato at the beginning of the thing. You find me recipes. That's two pounds of tomato. Like, look, you're ruining Laszlo Gorog's legacy. Sorry.
Dawson
Let's get to the Laszlo section of the Internet.
Adam Carolla
Section of the Internet. All right, news, what do you got?
Unknown Speaker
Well, there was a girl fight outside of Barack Obama's home.
Adam Carolla
Yeah, I heard about that.
Unknown Speaker
But it wasn't over Barack or Michelle. It was two Secret Service officers who have now been suspended. Oh, we have the video.
Adam Carolla
Yeah.
Unknown Speaker
Oh, fun. I just heard the audio. We got some video for this.
Adam Carolla
Yeah, I heard one showed up late.
Unknown Speaker
And apparently she repeatedly showed up late.
Adam Carolla
And the other had enough. I have a theory, which is women are fighting now. It's on. And women. People don't understand that. I know everything. Women do not have the ability to regulate like men have the ability to regulate. Because we grow up doing rough play.
Unknown Speaker
And when you're having to constantly regulate.
Adam Carolla
You mean constantly regulate. And anyone who's been around a woman, anyone who knows, I will tell you this. It's a simple experiment. Any woman I've ever known, if you're in the kitchen together, let's say I'm making Gestapo with my lovely lady friend. But any guy will tell you this, and you are working at the stove or something, you back up and she's not. And you step on her foot, her arm comes flying out. You step on her foot, but her arm goes sailing out and whacks you. It's almost like a mechanical toy where you push on the foot and the arm goes sailing out. You step on the guy's foot, the guy goes, hey, oh. Or whatever, but his arm doesn't sail out.
Unknown Speaker
There's no instant reaction, right?
Adam Carolla
Because we regulate. We can regulate. If you're late, you're late, but we don't start pushing you or what have you. Women don't grow up in the regulation mode. And then all of a sudden we put them in these weird positions like security guards and stuff. And now it's on.
Unknown Speaker
So apparently she radioed. One of the ladies radioed, I need a supervisor out here immediately before I whoop this girl's ass. But the Secret Service, there's a little.
Adam Carolla
DEI in here, I'm sure the Secret Service.
Unknown Speaker
So that's been speculation on X, right? And the Secret Service told Fox News Digital that the individuals involved were suspended from duty. And this matter is a subject of an internal investigation. The Secret Service has a very strict code of conduct Yada, yada. But this is interesting. The spokesperson added this. So I think that there's more to the she was just late thing, right? Secret Service continued, quote, given this is a personal matter, we are not in a position to comment further. Personal matter.
Adam Carolla
Well, we got rid of the Secret Service chick who was like, listen everybody, if you have a job, that's not an important job. And many people, many people have unimportant jobs. Just nothing. If you're a dog walker, knowing, I don't give a shit if you give out scoops of ice cream or free samples at the Costco, I don't care, do whatever you want. But if you have an important job, like airplane pilot, protecting a former president of the United States, surgeon, something of that nature, Secret Service. And your supervisor gets up there and makes speeches about trying to attract as many women as we can and get as many women pushed up to the front of the line and advance as many women. That bitch needs to shut up. This is an important job. We need the best. Which can be a woman. Probably not, but it can be a woman. And then you can be the best woman, whatever. But we are not gonna shove you up to the front of the line because people could get hurt.
Unknown Speaker
I gotta say, I have been told because in my.
Adam Carolla
Oh, by the way. Or black or hispanic or anything.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah. I've actually been told by people in classified jobs that women do, do a lot of security roles. Well because of our ability to be very attentive and have attention to detail and self awareness and like a motive, maybe even some manipulative factors that we can play.
Paul Guilfoyle
So I think.
Adam Carolla
Hold on. You bust all the serial killers? Cause you're into it. Yeah, I get that part on the.
Unknown Speaker
Podcast and on your computer.
Adam Carolla
You're on the computer all day running downstairs.
Unknown Speaker
But I'm just saying, no, like professionally, at the international like Spycraft Warcraft level, women can be very good at those roles.
Adam Carolla
I agree.
Unknown Speaker
But also, I don't know, this was a girl fight about something I gotta say to these ladies.
Adam Carolla
Wait, what was your point?
Unknown Speaker
You gotta. I think that you can't assume that this was a DEI thing. Maybe it was.
Adam Carolla
Well, I can because. Okay, here's why I'm gonna assume it's a D, I think.
Unknown Speaker
Okay.
Adam Carolla
X. You know, 30 years ago there were zero percent women in these roles.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah.
Adam Carolla
Then you elected people who made proclamations. I want women in these roles and I'm going to get as many in here as fast as I can. And then when the women act unprofessional, or not up to the standards of whatever it is, then we normally will go there. Cuz we'll go. Well, they got shoved up into a position maybe they shouldn't have been in. We did forget about the Trump ladies.
Unknown Speaker
Oh, I didn't forget about them. I also didn't forget about all the male Secret Service agents that got in trouble for like hiring hookers and doing blow and stuff.
Adam Carolla
That's what you want them doing, though. That's what you secret. That's why they're better protecting.
Dawson
They should be let go for letting loose the secret of Service.
Adam Carolla
Yes.
Unknown Speaker
And I got to say to these ladies, I want the ladies. Like, as a woman who believes in equality, I want the best, most capable, badass women in that room.
Adam Carolla
But here's another issue. Trump is six three, 250 pounds.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah. So is every Secret Service agent supposed to be 65 plus?
Adam Carolla
Are men bigger than women?
Unknown Speaker
Obviously women are not small.
Adam Carolla
Dudes, use your brain.
Unknown Speaker
But I'm just saying. So then, in order to protect a president, are you supposed to be physically larger than that guy? I mean, Barack Obama's tall too, isn't he?
Adam Carolla
It would be helpful if you're lying on him, trying to physically protect him. The more percentage of his surface you could take up that, safer he would be, don't you think?
Unknown Speaker
100%.
Adam Carolla
All right, well, thank you.
Unknown Speaker
But I think there's other jobs out there that women could do. And when women like this get into cat fights, it makes other women look bad. That's what I'm perturbed about.
Adam Carolla
But why would you say there are other jobs out there women could do.
Unknown Speaker
Like within the Secret Service? I think that there are jobs. Maybe you're not on potus, like special team.
Adam Carolla
I think there's tons of jobs for everybody. Including ice cream scoopers? No, including uniformed on the ground. But there's things I do not want you shoved up to the front of that line because you have a supervisor who's announcing. This is what we're doing. By the way, I don't want black Secret Service shoved up to the front of the line either. I just want everybody going through the same. Whatever. There's, you know, a physical conditioning part of it 100%. You need to pass it. If you cannot pass it, then you cannot be regardless of what you are.
Dawson
There's a mental issue. Conditioning part of it as well, where I'm sure that all these Secret Service agents at the top of their game know how to leave their personal shit at home, know how not to lose their shit. If their relief is a half an hour late and know how to show up at work on time.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, I think that there's kind of a bro code when you talk about men, like, self regulating. Like, you might be annoyed at your co worker if he showed up a half hour late for the shift, but you'd be like, dude, what the hell? And like. And he doesn't take offense to it. Where, like using the kitchen analogy, if a girl says that to a girl, then it's like, how dare you? We just like automatically feel attacked and then. And shit hits the fan.
Adam Carolla
Yeah. All right, one more, one more.
Unknown Speaker
Well, do we wanna shit on Los Angeles or do we wanna talk about how the end of the world is nigh? Because the CDC has now stopped recommending a COVID vaccine for most children and pregnant women.
Adam Carolla
Oh, yeah? Well, pregnant women and kids should have never gotten vaccinated. I don't know. This became very controversial. I included.
Unknown Speaker
It still is, by the way. Vanity Fair is saying that, like, RFK wants us all to die.
Adam Carolla
They got that information from the Southern Poverty Law center at the time. Covid came around and there was all kinds of speculation about the vaccine. I had very elderly parents and I said my parents should get vaccinated if they'd like because they're elderly. I also have young twins, 14 year olds, probably at the time, who are not going to school because they closed their school. I don't want them being vaccinated because it's unnecessary. I don't think it's dangerous per se, but maybe it is. But either way, they're healthy, they're thin and they're young and they have no pre existing conditions, so they do not need to be vaccinated. And then Chris and Jim Carolla could get vaccinated. And then as far as myself goes, I'm not old, I'm not young, I'm in decent shape. I don't have preexisting conditions. I'll figure it out for myself. There's my controversial stance on vaccinations. And then everyone's like, well, it's anti vaxxer. No, no. But I don't need my kids vaccinated for malaria. Cause they're not going to Africa. They're fine.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, they're gonna be okay, right? Turns out kids were like, always gonna be okay, always.
Adam Carolla
But old people go ahead and get it.
Unknown Speaker
So then media narrative now is that, well, will you even be a COVID vaccine? Like, is RFK Jr gonna ban them all?
Adam Carolla
It's always doom and gloom. Nothing ever comes down the pike. And by the way, to all who are Vanity Fair readers, if you guys didn't, all two of you, if you didn't lie so much about the vaccine, people would not be hesitant. So hesitant to take it. You lied so much for so long at such a high level. And I'll just be charitable, okay, you didn't lie. You were just wrong about every fucking thing that had to do with the vaccine. Okay, well, people would be much more likely to listen if you didn't have a track record of being incorrect.
Unknown Speaker
Or also if you had the cognitive ability to admit when you were wrong, that would help.
Adam Carolla
All right, actor Paul Guilfoyle is waiting in the wings. He's got a book out. I should say a movie out. I don't have your info, so you give yourself one quick plug.
Unknown Speaker
Would you just check out my op EDS over at Washington examiner and follow me on social.
Adam Carolla
Alicia Krause, thank you very much, my dear.
Unknown Speaker
Thank you.
Adam Carolla
Simplisafe. Well, you want a safe feeling when you're at home. And I think that's why you have a home traditionally to feel safe in it. And that's where Simplisafe comes in. Traditional home security systems only take action after someone has already broken in. That's too late. Simplisafe is setting the new standard. And home security. Simplisafe's Active guard Outdoor protection can help prevent break ins before they happen with AI powered cameras backed by live professional monitoring agents who monitor your property to detect suspicious activity. And they do it in real time so you can avoid this before it happens. Monitoring plans start affordably at around a buck a day. We've always used Simplisafe. When you move, you pack up your system and take it with you. It's not all hardwired, not a bunch of holes drilled everywhere. It's not a mess. It's very modular, very sleek and very nice looking. It is Simplisafe, right, Dawson?
Dawson
You can get 50% off your new Simplisafe system with professional monitoring and your first month free@simplisafe.com Adam. Just head to simplisafe.com Adam. Adam. To claim your discount and make sure your home is safe this year. Keep your home, your family and your peace of mind protected with Simply safe. There's no safe like simply safe.
Alicia Kraus
Stream all the movies and shows you love for free on Pluto tv. Say what now?
Adam Carolla
Showtime.
Alicia Kraus
That means Drama is free. With heart wrenching stories from love and basketball power and Greenleaf.
Brad Meltzer
In this family, we live by the.
Alicia Kraus
Spirit and laughter is free with gut busting comedies like Pee and Peele, the Neighborhood, Everybody Hates Chris and Boomerang. Watch all the hits all for free from all your favorite devices.
Brad Meltzer
Oh, my God, I love it.
Alicia Kraus
Feel the free Pluto TV stream now pay Never.
Dawson
The ace man's still on the road. Coming up this weekend in Tacoma, Washington. Two shows Friday night, two shows Saturday night at the Tacoma Comedy Club and then Sunday night, two shows at the Spokane Comedy Club. Then in Palm Springs, California for Freedom Fest on June 11 and a full weekend of shows in Salt Lake City June 13th and 14th at Wise Guys. Get your tickets now at AdamCarolla.com actor.
Adam Carolla
Paul Guilfoyle has joined us. His new movie, Any Day now, which I watched a trailer for, very interesting caper movie. You can watch it on Amazon Prime. Paul's done tons of work. As I look at your bio, Paul, Wall Street, Mrs. Doubtfire, Air Force One, one of the greatest films of all time. Three Men and a Baby, L.A. confidential, Wall Street, I mean, Howard the Duck, Beverly Hills Cop, too, just keeps going. Good to see you, Paul.
Brad Meltzer
Nice to see you, Adam. Good to see you.
Adam Carolla
The movie is kind of older school, heisty tapery kind of movie, which I grew up on and love. And I don't feel like there's enough of those being made these days.
Brad Meltzer
Yeah, I think it's all everything you mentioned it takes place in 1990. So in a way we're kind of true to the time of 1990, but it also has the feel of movies of that time, 1990, even going so far back as Mean Streets. It shows, really, neighborhood of Boston and the kind of funky bunch of the crew, the wacky crew that pulled off this heist. And it's kind of a bunch of local thieves, really. The local group.
Adam Carolla
Yeah. The town comes to mind as a good movie from that era and that town, you know, Bostonian people. I know a few are very interesting to me because they're blue collar as anywhere else but with a thesaurus. And it's weird. They have a kind of smart, but they use it for evil. And it's weird because I tell people I grew up with blue collar lunkheads in the San Fernando Valley.
Brad Meltzer
Sure.
Adam Carolla
And they let their fists do their talk and like to drink and smoke and drive fast and got into trouble. But they couldn't articulate it like the Boston people can, who are really bright. But also that. Which is weird, right?
Brad Meltzer
Well, no, you know, you kind of nailed it. That's true. I grew up in Boston and you know Everybody seems to be that same kind of, you know, their background was always tough and teamsters and like in my family and people who worked with their hands and they lived in kind of these little collectives really in neighborhoods. So they had a really loyalty to the neighborhood, which was very ethnically based, of course, kind of mendacious and had all the problems of a small neighborhood. But you know, it's true that because of the class distinction in Boston, I think, and this is what the movie deals with, there was a kind of a Yankee upper class of sophisticated people who were highly educated and well traveled and continental and even philanthropic and good for the city and really were the sort of ancient and honorable of the city. That all that always filtered down into the. Into the kind of fisticuffs of the working class. So that frankly, education, you had to have education in your pocket as well as some brass knuckles.
Adam Carolla
Yeah. And there seemed to be a kind of a built in humor, even if it was kind of a wise ass humor, but a humor, a blue collar humor, but a humor that like I said out here, the blue collar guys on the construction sites, there's not a lot of humor with them.
Brad Meltzer
Yeah, well, I think it is the pushback, like I said, from the class system where people really were trying to. There's tons of plays. I was in one with George Bernard Shaw, with the late great Richard Jordan as an actor and he played the rich guy and I was his chauffeur. And it's also in Bertolt Brecht, it's like Puntilla and Matty. There's always in Miles Gloriosus from Plautus. Here I am sounding like a guy with a thesaurus. But like there's always the lower class guy knew more than the upper class guy, was more savvy about the street smarts about how to get things done and was kind of brighter with everyday ideas. So that's kind of why that they kind of. They were always kind of has that sardonic twist, but you have that generally going on anyway, that kind of sarcasm and wit.
Adam Carolla
Yeah. People assume I'm from the east coast because I was always kind of assum. Wired quick with a comeback or something. But blue collar and no, I grew up out here with some sort of east coast vibe or appeal or something. And also the valley. I mean, I grew up in the San Fernando Valley. It's just a lot of sort of dudes who. They want to get a new pipe for their jet ski and go to the lake. That's basically what they want to do. That's the life's ambition. And I don't know how it breaks down regionally. It's just that the San Fernando Valley doesn't have culture. There's no age to it. There's no old buildings or churches. Everything is a strip mall. Everything's an aluminum window and a flat roof and. And bad stucco job. Everything was built in 63. There's just. There's nothing there. There's no sense of a culture.
Brad Meltzer
In a sense, the difference between me, you had no resistance to your rebellion. Whereas in Boston the resistance was the upper class. It was a class that controlled things. So you kind of either wanted to rip them off in this case, which is what the movie's about, you want to take stuff from them that you knew more about. You felt like the art thief that I played, he thinks himself as a really knows more about art than anybody else. And so he's going to take the stuff that he knows is valuable and he's going to take it from the so called man where there's resistance in his whole life, in and out of jail all the time, and take stuff that he believes he deserves. The resistance was there. Whereas in San Fernando Valley you had good orange juice, that's for sure. But you didn't have any resistance from are really another class.
Adam Carolla
No, we didn't know. I didn't know where the rich people were really.
Brad Meltzer
Well, that's that great line in Tinder Bar. The real people, you never see them, people who are really rich, you know, you never even hear about them. Especially in la. I mean, they're in modernist houses on the top of Mulholland, you know.
Adam Carolla
Yes. No, I was about to say they lived up in the hills, essentially. And by the way, they weren't rich. They were just kind of rich to us, you know, they were living at the time in Studio City in the hills off of Laurel Canyon and their house was $87,000.
Brad Meltzer
They probably got rich because they worked hard at something that was paying well, you know, that's all. But they weren't rich from generationally like.
Adam Carolla
Yeah, yeah, no, there were no Rothschilds here.
Brad Meltzer
Yeah, there was no. Nobody came on the Mayflower and went to the Fernando Valley.
Adam Carolla
No, that's for sure. They would have been wildly disappointed if they got off the Mayflower and ended up in Reseda.
Brad Meltzer
Yeah. And really a difficult journey from Plymouth, Massachusetts with the Mayflower all the way to the San Fernando Valley in 1620.
Adam Carolla
But strangely, my grandmother was like a fourth generation Los Angeleno and grew up in Beverly Hills for a while, even though her dad was a big cement contractor. So he was this blue collar dude, but he had a good business going and they lived here generationally, for years and years and years. No one else grew up out here that I've ever met. But then he went bankrupt and it all fell apart. But I did come from some old white people who are putting the flag down early in Los Angeles.
Brad Meltzer
Yeah, yeah, that was great about the movie. Even though we're not talking about. But Let There Be Blood. That's a beautiful movie about how hardworking people unscrupulously grabbed a lot of LA and made it happen.
Adam Carolla
Yeah, I wish some of the Corollas grabbed some of LA at some point. Cause I would hear stories from my grandmother. My grandmother would go, you'd get on Wilshire Boulevard and all the way down to the ocean, it was nothing but bean fields, bean fields. And I'd go, why didn't you buy one piece of one of those bean fields, you old bitch?
Brad Meltzer
By the way, preferably the one right on the ocean.
Adam Carolla
Yes, the movie Any day now is 96% with the audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, which is unbelievably high. Yeah.
Brad Meltzer
You know, it must be people from my family, my extended Irish family, that are watching it.
Adam Carolla
No, because they need like at least 50 votes, I think, to chime in before they'll put the percentage up there and you can see it. I mean, there's probably hundreds, but the people will let you know about the quality of a project. And if you get into the 90s, that's rarefied air on Rotten Tomatoes.
Brad Meltzer
That's great. That's great because we can talk about this a little bit. The stuff that we do is either seems to be the branding, selling, promoting, or it's just simply ritual. We won't have a story to tell. And in the theater where I come from work, it's more ritualistic where. Where people come and receive a story and we do it without a lot of, you know, without a lot of commerce. I mean, that's what independent cinema seems to deliver it. It tends to lie in the area that's more kind of ritualistic. I won't use the word artistic. It just. But it just has this. Because it doesn't have enough time and money to get really creatively artistic and cinema and beauty and all that. But it does have a sense of ritual that is kind of, kind of honest. And this is an honest kind of movie story by, you know, a couple of people who were really just set out to make A really good movie without any extra, you know, notion of careerism or branding or salesmanship or even, you know, bank loans have to be paid off. It was done very economically, and hopefully people will respond to it because it's. We tried to do it. It, frankly, as good as we could, and we had no. No expectations about it.
Adam Carolla
How did you get involved?
Brad Meltzer
Well, you know, I know friend. You know, everybody's an old friend of mine because, you know, you. That's what happens. You get old. And if you hang on to a couple of people over your lifetime who you've always knew, a guy named Jan Eagleson who's a real artist, and he teaches at Boston University and. But he was. Did some Hollywood work, but he was really involved in the beginning of independent cinema. And I knew him when he was an actor and we were in the same theater company and we've always been friends. We fall into place, I would say, like two old pirates talking about distant harbors, you know what I mean? We really knew the way around, and so we're roughly the same age. So it was. He suggested, when he was working with the writer who wanted to be a director, Eric Aronson, this is his first directorial thing. He said, here's the guy you should get. And of course, you know, in movies, you start off what. Well, in my day used to be, let's get Jack Nicholson. Let's get, you know, let's get Brad Pitt. You know, everybody wants to get somebody that they can get a put, you know, tickets, sell tickets. But Jan helped me and helped Eric and got us all kind of on the same page. And he really did. Did the work to get me there. I was excited to play the part because I knew a little bit briefly who the guy was, who the character was based on.
Adam Carolla
Well, tell us about the story. I mean, what was the true story?
Brad Meltzer
Well, the true story is that in 1990, you know, a group of probably local thieves who were really, you know, they were headed by this pretty good art thief, decided to steal some museum pieces from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, which was a monument given to the city by Isabella Stewart Gardner, who was kind of a. Like a. She was a fantastic woman who would be. Who was not only philanthropic, but kind of a Fun Love around 1908, and had a lot of great parties and brought all her continental art and put a. An Italian villa on the Fenway in Boston and let it be free to the public. You could come in and enjoy the art that she collected. And I used to go there even as a student When I'd play hockey across the the park at the Boston arena and I'd come over and do my homework a little bit in there because it was so relaxed and way more rel than my home life. So I could be in this beautiful place. I remember the museum a lot. So the movie deals with the heist, but mostly about the relationship that gets developed between the art thief and the young guy who. Is he manipulated or is he helped out by his relationship with this older guy who's trying to teach him how to be actualized, be real. And he, of course they need him to, to leave the door open.
Adam Carolla
Do you reckon? I mean, there's lots of old crazy stories like James Dean's wrecked Porsche. They don't know where it is. It got stolen. It was out there.
Brad Meltzer
Yeah. George Spider.
Adam Carolla
Yeah. Barris is 550. Barris was a car customizer. The guy built the Batmobile and the Monkees mobile and that stuff. He had the car, he was touring it around somewhere around Florida. It's gone and nobody knows where it is. And I don't know, it's worth millions of dollars, but no one knows where it is. And you could get away with that kind of stuff back then because everyone didn't have a ring doorbell and a camera everywhere and a GPS tracking and blah, blah, blah. So it struck me that there was a lot more of that kind of stuff back then. Now there's probably stuff involving Bitcoin or something. But we're not really heisting stuff anymore, are we?
Brad Meltzer
You know, you're kind of right. You're very, yeah, you're very astute about that. Yeah, I think it does have to do with that. And it's like, I mean, and also I think we, I don't know, maybe there was even a deeper dark morality going on then too. Nobody thought of like, why do I want to steal? Like I said, these paintings are really a gift to the city. You know, you could, you could walk in and look at it and you know, there was a sense of honor. You're not going to steal them. I mean, who would come up with that idea? It was like a gift. So. And I think there were definitely. There was, there were the ways to get in. And look at the Brinks robbery. I mean, you know, you just get someone on the inside and go in at night and put the stuff in a big duffel bag and run.
Adam Carolla
Yeah, and also I, you, you probably could fence sense things back then much easier than you can now as well because.
Brad Meltzer
Exactly. Because there's no two step verification going.
Adam Carolla
Right.
Brad Meltzer
You know.
Adam Carolla
Right.
Brad Meltzer
We don't have to, you know, we. We're really so. I don't know if we. We live in a safer world. Is it? And maybe less dangerous to some degree, to some people, but it certainly takes out a kind of Genesee kind of a vibe that I remember, you know, being real. I mean, we live under this guise that everything's safe, but really, frankly, it probably isn't at all, you know.
Adam Carolla
No, I mean, it's all kind of airport security. You know, you take your belt off and, you know, you think you're doing something, but there's a guy in an apartment building with a Stinger missile he got from the Soviet Union and he's gonna blast the belly of your 737. And that's how you're going. But at least you took your belt off, right?
Brad Meltzer
And while they're checking your belt, some other dude is driving away with James Dean's Porsche.
Adam Carolla
That's right, yeah. Although they had to drag it away because it was still crunched up. And all I think of when I think of that is it's in some OPEC nation in some underground bunker somewhere. It's not. Not here. That's all I can think of.
Brad Meltzer
It's amazing, you know, James Dean, you know, because I'm a member of the Actor Studio, James Dean, you know, his work was so raw and real and he lived a life that had this sort of artistic vibe, which you can't do that really much anymore. People just think you're crazy. You know, play some bongos and he would get a come out. I'm. No, I know people who knew him. And he would eat chocolate cake out of the middle by starting in the middle, you know, I mean, he was really. He was always trying to push the envelope. He was almost like a jazz musician in a way. But it's become where the stuff he owned has become the cultural memory of him, not his work in a way. You know what I mean?
Adam Carolla
Well, I think whenever you're exceptionally handsome or attractive, when there's a physicality to you that's universally appealing, then whatever your work is, it gets a little lost in that because.
Brad Meltzer
Well, I don't want to disagree with you at your show, but I think just the opposite happens. I think that when work gets really good and authentic and you're really able to relate and take chances and show and be vulnerable and see openness and curiosity, you know, Montgomery, Cliff, Marlin, James Dean, these guys, even Al Pacino was my friend. I mean, you can you really start to forget what they look like? I mean, I guarantee you it's nice to look at something, but you're brought in basically on the universal truth that they're able to express.
Adam Carolla
Well, listen, I'm not going to argue with you. What I'm saying is if Brad Pitt died 20 years ago, he would, in the minds of many Americans, would be this good looking guy who died. Not everyone understands the craft to the level that you do. They're aesthetically oriented. They don't really understand it enough to really appreciate the nuance.
Brad Meltzer
Well, I think we're having a conversation. It's interesting, but I think they do understand it at a deep level when they see him, a good example because he has, he started as a good actor. You, you understand what he's going through. Even in, you know, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, he's, you see him like he's able to transmit himself. You know, we relate to him. He's relatable even though he's, you know, good looking and. But he gets into situations where maybe not all of us get into, where some beautiful girl jumps in the car. I'm thinking of, you know, Margaret's quality, you know.
Adam Carolla
Yeah. Once Upon a Time. I love that movie and I love, I love him in it and I love that movie. But he's in his 50s and so was I when I saw it and I, and I could appreciate it. And him. I'm just saying if he was, if he went At 23, I don't know that I would have understood.
Brad Meltzer
Well, I see the thing I get, yeah, they'll be iconic and James Dean.
Adam Carolla
Became like a poster. But I don't think people understood how gifted he was and talented. He was, it was like, oh, so good looking, gone so early, you know. But he's an interesting guy. And you know, there's a very, there's a clip I can tell Dawson to look for. We've played it before. It's kind of crazy. Shortly before he died in this car crash, which was. Somebody didn't see him and hid him in this big Oldsmobile, big land yacht from the 50s, 60s. He was doing a public service announcement about safety on the highway. They would get celebrities to say this thing and the tagline was, the life you save could be your own. And it was like, just say no or this is your brain on drugs. It was one of those PSA things. But he changed it. He said the life you save could be mine, which is changing. Could be your own to could be me. And then a very short period of time later was killed by somebody who didn't see him on the road. Isn't that crazy?
Brad Meltzer
That's super ironic. I mean, that's. The irony of that is I never heard that story. That's unbelievably.
Adam Carolla
We can find it. We have audio. It's on the Internet. I'll play for you.
Brad Meltzer
But you know that term live fast, die young and leave a beautiful corpse. I think that's what you're saying too, about James Dean. He sort of lived. Lives on in that sort of. That sort of iconic way.
Adam Carolla
I agree. And you and I are. We passed the Mason Dixon line.
Brad Meltzer
I'm going on like the old Oldsmobile.
Adam Carolla
We'll show you a tape of it. Do we have a clip of it? There's a video of it.
Dawson
There is a video, but we can't do audio during the zoom right now.
Adam Carolla
Oh. Oh, I see. All right, well, we'll play the audio so you can hear.
Brad Meltzer
Take it easy Driving. The life you might save might be mine.
Adam Carolla
Yeah, you're supposed to say your own. Yeah, yeah.
Brad Meltzer
Well, he's super cool.
Adam Carolla
Yeah, I know. And he drove his 550 Porsche to the track because back then you needed to break in a car before you raced it, and the car was brand new and he wanted to race it at Button Willow out here, so. So he said, well, I'll break it in by driving it to the track. And that's what he was in the midst of.
Brad Meltzer
Well, you know, my wife's a modern dancer as a company and was working in Stuttgart for a month and a half and I was visiting her and I got introduced to the mechanic who was James Dean's mechanic, who was. And he walks around in Stuttgart like he's a celebrity with. He's a handsome dude, but he was James mechanic from Porsche and I was introduced him by the Porsche guys. I drive one of those myself. And so he's lived a whole life based upon being James Dean's mechanic.
Adam Carolla
You got Porsche?
Brad Meltzer
Yeah.
Adam Carolla
Which one?
Brad Meltzer
Well, the one I've had a couple, but the one that I like the best is the RS America. It has a Ren Sport feeling. It's pretty cool. Who won't tell you where it's. It's not garaged anywhere near I live.
Adam Carolla
So I don't want to be a 1 upper. But about 20ft away from me is the Ren Sport Y Shock trophy I won about seven years ago in a 935 Porsche. As long as we're talking Porsches. Yeah. Somebody go get it? It's right. It's sitting on the metal table right over there. Yeah.
Brad Meltzer
Well, you should do the James Dean.
Adam Carolla
Ad now for I don't want to Jinx myself, but. Yeah, I was in. I took Paul Newman's Le Mans 935 Porsche over to Laguna Seca and did RennSport in 2018. And one that I think it's called, the Wyshak drove. I got to read it, but I was. Yeah, I won it in that car. It wasn't because I won the race.
Brad Meltzer
You are from the San Fernando Valley, by the way. You are from la, so that's a big deal.
Adam Carolla
I'll put it there. There it is.
Brad Meltzer
Well, congratulations. That's a big deal.
Adam Carolla
Yeah, I don't. Well, maybe I brag, but as long as you're gonna bring up Porsche and the Weissach, the Rennsport edition, I'll show you the RennSport.
Brad Meltzer
RennSport RS.
Adam Carolla
Yeah, that's a killer car. You have any old. Did you have any older ones before that?
Brad Meltzer
Well, I just had an SC that I could, you know, beat up a little bit, and it just would really drive it pretty hard, and that's all. And go to work in it. Yeah, it's a great visit over there. If you do get to Stuttgart, I'm sure you have. It's a very kind of precise way of making automobiles, just for the engineering of it is superb.
Adam Carolla
Yeah, I've never been to Stuttgart. I've been to. Seen many, many a beautiful Porsche collection and have three Newman Porsches, but never been to Stuttgart. But I will say this. As long as we're talking about art or philosophy or James Dean or Porsche's Porsche, the reason people really love Porsche is because it sort of transcends a car. There's just more to it. There's a design part of it. There's a history part of it. There's just stuff. There's stuff to it that is not really just about saying, I'm a car guy, or, I like horsepower. There's a finesse to it. There's a heritage to it. There's just something to it. So when people say, I'm a car guy, and then you go, what do you like? And they go, I like American muscle. You can go, all right, all right. But if someone says, I like Porsche, you'll go, okay. That guy understands something. Hey. Has a. It's more nuanced. He appreciates it on a slightly different level.
Brad Meltzer
Well, that's. That's well put. Yeah, it's more nuanced. It's appreciated on a slightly different level. And the level is the level of quality and completeness, density, stuff like that, rather than just one, you know, aspect, sort of like multi dimensional. Yeah, I get it. Yeah, you're right.
Adam Carolla
Yeah. That's why the people who are into portions, it's almost a religion for them because it's much deeper than just a sort of guy or girl with a car. But it's interesting to me because I was telling someone the other day the whole reason why my car was sponsored by Apple for a season and it ran at Le Mans in Apple Liverpool. The guys at Apple loved Porsche. And now you kind of picture Apple. Yes. Steve Jobs and those guys, Wozniak, they were all Porsche fanatics and drove Porsches and they wanted Apple. Apple wanted Porsche to design a computer for them. Oh, well, yeah. Cause they looked at it. They looked at Porsche as a design company company, you know, not a car company.
Brad Meltzer
I had a Porsche telephone I remember they designed when I was on a TV show.
Adam Carolla
Really?
Brad Meltzer
They designed a. Yeah, it was a BlackBerry. Yeah. Designed by Porsche.
Adam Carolla
What else do you have coming out, by the way, Paul, that we could keep on?
Brad Meltzer
Yeah, sure. Well, the next one coming out is. It's called over your dead body. I don't. I guess that comes through to the James Dean conversation we're having. Over your dead body. It's a. It's a new genre for me anyway. It's called an action comedy. So it's directed by Y. Tacone with Jason Siegel and Tim Oliphant and Juliet Samara Weaver. You know, and it's just six of us and we filmed it and there's a lot of gunplay and. And there's a lot of fast driving that I do.
Adam Carolla
And when's that out and where would we find it?
Brad Meltzer
Well, it just got finished. It just got released and some, you know, it's just had been locked, as they say. And so I think they'll plan a. A release when you can, you know, it's. It's kind of difficult as movies that want to be in the theater. They have to kind of time it pretty well so that people are, you know, in the mood for going out to the theater, you know.
Adam Carolla
But that one's hitting the theater.
Brad Meltzer
Yeah, that's going to hit the theaters and then get streaming. I mean, any day now was in the theater for two weeks in, you know, select theaters. This independent theater does. And now it's streaming in a lot of platforms actually anyday now. Film.com and you can Find it.
Adam Carolla
And also on Amazon Prime. Paul, thanks for joining us. I hope when the next film comes out, pop back in, continue our conversation.
Brad Meltzer
You know, I enjoy talking to you, Adam. Yeah, no, thanks for sharing with me. It's great to talk about all the things in life that are kind of cool and I'm glad to talk to you. Thanks, Adam. Good luck. Yeah, I see you're pretty busy, so.
Adam Carolla
Well, come on out to Laguna Seca one of these days for the historics. You'll see a lot of Porsches there.
Brad Meltzer
That sounds like a good idea.
Adam Carolla
Thanks, Paul. Appreciate it.
Brad Meltzer
Yeah, be well.
Adam Carolla
All right. I should say to people that Dave Asprey's, his book is out as we speak, called Heavily meditated and it's available now. He's going to be on next week and give one of the better interviews you've heard in a while so you can enjoy that also. Me? Yeah. Tacoma coming up this weekend and Spokane coming up this weekend. Brad Meltzer make magic name of his book. And until next time, Sam, for Paul and Brad and Alicia saying Mahala.
Dawson
Go ahead and pick up your telephone and leave us a voicemail at 888-634-1744 and then get tickets to see the Ace man at Adamcola.
Alicia Kraus
Stream all the movies and shows you love for free on Pluto tv. Say wetna show that means drama is free with heart wrenching stories from love and basketball power and greenleaf.
Brad Meltzer
In this family we live by the.
Alicia Kraus
Spirit and laughter is free with gut busting comedies like Key and Peele the neighborhood everybody hates Chris and boomerang. Watch all the hits all for free from all your favorite devices.
Brad Meltzer
Oh my God, I love it.
Alicia Kraus
Feel the free Pluto TV Stream now pay never. Stream all the movies and shows you love for free on Pluto tv. Say what now?
Adam Carolla
Showtime.
Alicia Kraus
That means drama is free with heart wrenching stories from love and basketball power and green leaf.
Brad Meltzer
In this family we live by the.
Alicia Kraus
Spirit and laughter is free with gut busting comedies like key and Peele the neighborhood everybody hates Chris and boomerang. Watch all the hits all for free from all your favorite devices.
Brad Meltzer
Oh my God, I love it.
Alicia Kraus
Feel the free Pluto TV Stream now pay never.
Podcast Summary: Adam Carolla Show – "Secret Service Brawl at Obama’s Mansion + Brad Meltzer + Paul Guilfoyle"
Release Date: May 29, 2025
Guests:
Adam Carolla welcomes his guests, Brad Meltzer and Paul Guilfoyle, setting the stage for an engaging conversation centered around Brad's latest book and personal stories of empathy and kindness.
Brad Meltzer discusses his new book, "Make Magic", which is inspired by his viral commencement address. He elaborates on the core theme of the book: empathy.
Notable Quote:
Brad Meltzer (06:32): "Cruelty and venom weren't signs of strength. They're signs of weakness and petty insecurity. What takes strength is actually showing some compassion to someone else."
Brad shares a heartfelt story from his childhood when his family faced financial hardship. A neighbor, Mirsi, showed profound empathy by offering her apartment to Brad's family, exemplifying the magic of selfless kindness.
Paul Guilfoyle contributes by emphasizing that empathy doesn't always require "warm and fuzzy" emotions but is fundamentally about genuine acts of kindness.
Notable Quotes:
Brad Meltzer (06:32): "Mercy and empathy is what she was showing us."
Paul Guilfoyle (10:27): "You be kind to one person, man. That's how you change the whole frigging world."
Brad recounts another personal story about a woman who, during his tough times, indirectly contributed to his sobriety by paying for his rehab—something he initially forgot but greatly appreciated upon reflection.
Notable Quote:
Brad Meltzer (11:17): "You get anybody listening now, whatever old teacher or mentor, that camp counselor that told, I don't even care if they didn't have to do something nice, if they told you you were good at something, go say thank you and watch what comes from it."
Adam reflects on his own experiences, noting that while he doesn't outwardly express empathy or feelings, his actions have positively impacted many. He shares a story about a friend who remained sober for 12 years thanks to his help, highlighting the often-unseen acts of kindness.
Notable Quote:
Adam Carolla (09:22): "But I know you have helped so many people along the way, and that is the, that's the magic part, right?"
Paul and Adam delve into the challenges of breaking generational cycles of behavior. Paul shares his family's history of violence and how his upbringing influenced his perspective on empathy and kindness. They discuss the importance of overcoming past traumas to create a better future.
Notable Quote:
Paul Guilfoyle (44:50): "It's a big deal to break the train that you're on and do something new."
Brad emphasizes that personal transformation requires intentional effort and cannot be ascribed to mere intelligence or luck.
The conversation shifts briefly to promotions and upcoming projects. Brad talks about his new movie, "Any Day Now", an action-comedy set in 1990 Boston, reflecting on the era's cultural and social dynamics. Both guests share their passion for authentic storytelling and the art of filmmaking.
Notable Quote:
Brad Meltzer (104:55): "It's more nuanced. It's appreciated on a slightly different level."
Adam Carolla wraps up the episode by thanking his guests, Brad Meltzer and Paul Guilfoyle, highlighting the profound discussions on empathy, personal growth, and the power of kindness. He encourages listeners to engage with Brad's book, "Make Magic", and tune in for future insightful conversations.
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This episode of the Adam Carolla Show offers a compelling exploration of empathy, personal transformation, and the enduring power of kindness through the engaging narratives of Brad Meltzer and Paul Guilfoyle.