477: Adam Carolla Has Some Thoughts

Summary

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Episode Summary: The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe

Episode 477: "Adam Carolla Has Some Thoughts"

Release Date: March 31, 2026
Host: Mike Rowe
Guest: Adam Carolla
Co-host/Producer: Chuck

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Overview

This episode features an honest, wide-ranging conversation between Mike Rowe and comedian, author, and podcaster Adam Carolla. Adam offers his unfiltered takes on California's political climate, disaster recovery bureaucracy, the construction industry, writing books, podcasting, and the attributes of effective communication and leadership. Rooted deeply in Adam’s own recent experiences with the destructive Palisades fire, the discussion moves from personal stories to trenchant analysis of societal dysfunction, always peppered with humor and pragmatic insight.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Adam Carolla: A Man of Many Titles

• Introductory Banter (00:05–03:30)
  • Mike and Chuck discuss Adam’s career: comedian, author, podcaster, interviewer, “citizen journalist,” and observer of the human condition.
  • Adam’s trajectory from “Loveline” to podcasting pioneer is recapped.

  “He really does always tell the truth.” – Chuck (00:36)

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2. Life After the Fire: Firsthand Reflections

• The Palisades/California Fires (02:11–03:45, 26:07–34:06)

  • Adam recounts the devastation: his home narrowly survived, while much of the neighborhood did not.
  • Explains the surreal aftermath: six months before returning home, time spent “camping out” in rentals and guest houses.
  • Mike reflects on seeing the fires in person and their apocalyptic effect.
  • Adam observes the community’s resilience, but rues the “paralyzing” bureaucracy and lack of progress in rebuilding efforts.

  "Everything in front of it and most of the stuff to the right and behind it and stuff, everything kind of around it burnt down." – Adam (27:51)

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3. Government Bureaucracy & Disaster Recovery:

• The Permitting Quagmire (35:24–67:05)

  • Adam, leveraging his experience as a contractor, details the nightmarish, slow, and expensive process of rebuilding—even for basic restoration.
  • Describes the massive (and escalating) engineering requirements for new homes: drilling “caissons” five stories into the ground, seawalls, 3,000 yards of concrete for a single foundation.
  • Makes an extended metaphor about regulation and “the end game for safety” that ultimately renders rebuilding “impossible.”
  • Adam laments that, even if fast-tracked, bureaucratic overreach makes projects financially and functionally unfeasible.
  • Mike analogizes to American attitudes about automotive fatalities: “The degree to which we're willing to mitigate automotive fatalities allows for 35,000 deaths ... but the degree to which we're determined to mitigate an environmental problem is zero..."

  "The county simply adds things on and they never peel anything away. ... All they know is how to keep ratcheting up the thing that they always hide under the umbrella of safety."
  – Adam Carolla (59:01)

  "This is a metaphor for California. ... How come we don't have [low-cost housing]? ... Because you guys make it impossible to do because of regulation."
  – Adam (57:46)

  “You want to know how come there’s not enough low cost housing…? Because you guys make it impossible to do because of regulation.” – Adam Carolla (57:46)

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4. Podcasting, Writing, and Candid Storytelling

• Creative Process and the Evolution of the Medium (07:05–25:04)
  • Adam explains his pragmatic approach to book-writing (incentivized, never for “art’s sake”).
  • Both discuss blending autobiography with observations about the world; Mike shares an anecdote about Paul Harvey Jr.’s supportive letter.
  • Reflection on podcasting as an “audio diary” that offers immediacy and candor missing from the static memoir.
  • Adam values podcasting as both a guest and a host, likening the roles to a “decathlete” needing multiple modalities.

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5. Reflections on California’s Political and Social Climate

• California’s Future and America’s Mirror (30:24–107:01)

  • Mike and Adam worry aloud about the state’s trajectory and stagnant political leadership.
  • Adam laments the “wait until we hit rock bottom” mentality; seeks proactive course correction instead.
  • Extended discussion of the practical and philosophical consequences of political inaction and regulatory excess.
  • Notable anecdote: Adam references Suzanne Somers’ inability to rebuild in Malibu after a fire due to Coastal Commission resistance; calls such bureaucratic cruelty “insane.”
  • They discuss Fareed Zakaria’s recent reporting on blue vs. red city issues, the absence of humility among California’s leaders, and the exodus of residents driven by dysfunction.

  “We're spiraling into deep addiction and people are saying, wait till we flatline. And I'm like, or we could just go into rehab. We should change things now.”
  – Adam Carolla (31:43)

  “The bluer the state gets, the more that enzyme [pragmatism] is missing.”
  – Adam (102:30)

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6. The Problem with Misdiagnosed Solutions & “Access”

• Homelessness, Regulation, and Political Language (91:22–98:52)
  • Adam recounts a revealing interview with Gavin Newsom, where Newsom identifies homelessness as mostly "moms with two kids and a full-time job," rather than addiction/mental health—underscoring the impact of misdiagnosing root problems.
  • Critiques the use of "access" as a political buzzword with little substance.

  “That’s not going to solve the termite problem, is it? You’ve misdiagnosed what’s going on.” – Adam Carolla (98:20)

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7. Trades, Work Ethic, and Real Solutions

• Vocational Training and Urban Opportunity (112:10–115:18)

  • Adam and Mike discuss the complete absence of Black laborers in LA’s trades, despite a widespread need for vocational opportunities. Mike references Baltimore’s Project Jumpstart as a working model.
  • Both call for industry-led (rather than government) intervention to empower inner-city youth with construction jobs, dignity, and a practical path out of poverty.
  • A mutual, if impromptu, pledge is made to pursue such a project themselves.

  “Can somebody go down to the inner city and find these kids that are on a bad path, ... and get a hold of them and go, there's good money to be made, there's dignity, there's pride. ... You need a trade, man.”
  – Adam Carolla (111:21)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Regulation and Rebuilding:

  "You could rebuild a home the way it was built before, but this is total insanity. ... And it's the end game safety thing we talk about all the time."
  – Adam Carolla (57:46)

• On Interviewing Gavin Newsom:

  "He labels something something else and then moves on. ... The homeless problem's gotten a lot worse because he diagnosed it as a mom with a full time job who just got divorced."
  – Adam Carolla (97:48)

• Humor About Messaging and Authenticity:

  “Here's what we're desperate for. I think we just want to hear the truth. The best cough drop I ever saw...their slogan was: tastes terrible, works great.”
  – Mike Rowe (79:06)

• Pragmatism and Construction as Life Philosophy:

  “There's a kind of pragmatism that is missing from what we're talking about. And it can be found on the farms and in the barns and on the job sites. … The bluer the state gets, the more that enzyme is missing.”
  – Adam Carolla (102:30)

• Meta Moment:

  "It's just about whether or not Chuck can find this ... at this point."
  – Mike Rowe, during a multi-minute attempt to find Adam's construction footage (56:27)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Intro and Adam’s Background – 00:05–03:45
• The Evolution of Adam’s Career/Podcasting – 07:05–25:04
• Palisades Fires & Disaster Impact – 26:07–34:06
• Permitting/Construction Challenges Post-Fire – 35:24–67:05
• Extended Policy Discussion; Overregulation – 57:39–107:23
• Vocational Training Solutions – 112:10–115:18

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Tone & Delivery

The conversation is candid, humorous, and direct—anchored in Adam's typical straight-shooting logic and Mike's curiosity. Both are unafraid to call out failures in policy, leadership, or common sense, favoring honest (sometimes caustic) diagnosis and real-world examples over platitudes or political talking points. Humor surfaces naturally, even when discussing serious topics.

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Conclusion

Adam Carolla and Mike Rowe deliver a dynamic, far-reaching dialogue about the problems and possible solutions facing California and, by extension, the country. Their exchanges offer valuable insights on the hazards of misdiagnosis—of both people and problems—and the need for authentic, practical leadership. Listeners are left with both a sobering assessment of institutional inertia and a call to focus on candor and action.

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For listeners who crave unvarnished truth, pragmatic problem-solving, and some classic Carolla wit, this episode is essential.

Transcript

[Adam Carolla]

Foreign.

[Mike Rowe]

Adam Carolla is standing by to share some thoughts with you, which is why this episode of the Way I Heard it is called Adam Carolla Has Some Thoughts. Chuck, I thought I'd go just guns blazing with all the literalness I could muster.

[Chuck]

You really hit it on the the head, man.

[Mike Rowe]

You know, I feel it's in keeping with the tenor of this conversation to speak clearly and to tell the truth and to not obfuscate in any way. It, it's always fun to talk to Adam.

[Chuck]

Go ahead.

[Mike Rowe]

Well, you never know where it's going

[Chuck]

to go, but you always know that he's going to be honest with you. He's just always got a truth cam on him. Yeah, he really does always tell the truth.

[Mike Rowe]

It sure seems that way. It's funny, you know, you look around and you realize all of a sudden that guy's kind of been in my life, you know, like all the way back on Loveline with Dr. Drew. Right. You know, the first time I came out to LA for any length of time in my car, I just remember listening to these two in the middle of the night going, oh, man, that is a very unusual show, you know, for radio. And then he kind of blew himself up. I think he got fired from K Rock. Maybe it was.

[Adam Carolla]

Did he?

[Chuck]

I don't know. I don't remember that.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah, there was all kinds of radio drama and then he was one of the first guys to podcast, you know?

[Chuck]

Yeah, that I know.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah, I think he still has the get. Well, I can't imagine this. I guess it's true.

[Chuck]

The most downloads or something. Yeah, it's a Guinness Record, something, blah, blah, blah.

[Mike Rowe]

Think about Adam is, you know, I've done his show, I don't know, three or four times, I guess, and he's been on here before remotely. This is the first time he actually came by and sat in our new chairs here at our new table.

[Chuck]

Sweet. It's really cool.

[Mike Rowe]

But it's difficult to know how to introduce the guy, which I'll demonstrate briefly. I mean, what is he? You know, he's a best selling author. Is he, is he a comedian? I mean, sure, yeah, he does stand

[Chuck]

up, you know, and he's done stand

[Mike Rowe]

up shows too, up the thousands. Yeah, yeah. But he's also an interviewer and he's a podcaster and of course he's a great guest. And now I, I. Citizen journalist, raconteur, observer of the human condition. What?

[Chuck]

Yes, citizen journalist for sure. I mean, what he's done over the last year because of the Palisade fires, which is his backyard. He was personally affected by this, and he called it from the get. The very first day that he broadcast after those fires, he said, nothing's going to get fixed here, guys. You know, and he explained exactly why. And like a prophet, he has. He has been correct.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah, well, we're 14 months now. T minus 14 months or so.

[Chuck]

Yeah.

[Mike Rowe]

From the fire. Virtually nothing has happened. The government here in Santa Monica and LA in general, and California for that matter, in my own view, is paralyzed. Apologies in advance. You know, we're gonna talk candidly and maybe a little uncharacteristically about some political issues, but I just think we're at such an extraordinary inflection point in California.

[Chuck]

Yeah. They're local issues for you and me. We live in this state and we love this state and we wish it were run better.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah. And gosh, how many of my friends, how many people in our industry have just left, I mean, up and left a lot. Anyway, Adam, I just thought would be an interesting hang because I wanted to talk to him about all that stuff and whatever else is on his mind. And of course, Adam Carolla has some thoughts.

[Chuck]

Yes, he does.

[Mike Rowe]

About virtually anything and everything. So much fun to talk to him. It was great to see him again in person. I think you're going to enjoy every minute of the 1 hour and 40 some minutes we spent, give or take. Who cares now. You don't care anymore, do you?

[Chuck]

No, I can't.

[Adam Carolla]

You know why?

[Chuck]

Because it doesn't do any good. Doesn't do any good to care.

[Mike Rowe]

Well, it's true. I just.

[Chuck]

You do not care that I would like this. That I care?

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah. No, I don't. You know, I mean. And honestly, if I'm being totally candid, I don't care if the listener cares either. Because, I mean. No, I say that with love and respect, but look, I mean, how hard is it to stop listening if you don't want to listen anymore?

[Chuck]

That's so true.

[Mike Rowe]

Or fast forward.

[Chuck]

You can always do that.

[Mike Rowe]

You know, it's just like you want

[Chuck]

people to listen to you at double speed.

[Mike Rowe]

That's an interesting question, man. No, I feel like double speed is too much. It's off putting.

[Chuck]

What's your limit?

[Mike Rowe]

Well, it depends. If I'm listening to, say, Ben Shapiro, who talks at double speed anyway, you

[Chuck]

got to listen to him at half speed, right? Just.

[Mike Rowe]

Just a. Well, you know, I'll tell you what, man, you can get used to virtually anything. And I remember you and I were out just walking. It was around here and I gave you an airbud. I'm like, here, listen to this. Right, Right. I forget who it was, but I had it at like 1.75.

[Chuck]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mike Rowe]

And you were like, dude, what is this, Swahili? Yeah, like what's even happening? And it's like, the truth is I felt that way at 1.25 and then 15 and then. And you just get used to it. Yeah. So look, if you want to listen to me at double speed, you can do it. I can't stop you. But you'll be cheating yourself out of a rich, well modulated baritone.

[Chuck]

Say that three times fast.

[Mike Rowe]

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[Adam Carolla]

to hire.

[Mike Rowe]

So how many books total at this point?

[Adam Carolla]

Well, you know, technically seven books, but I don't really count the first one. That was just a book me and Dr. Drew wrote a long time ago.

[Mike Rowe]

I mean, at what point does it come. Joining me today is Adam Kroll, author. Yeah, I mean, seriously, seven is not a. I mean, I wrote one just because everybody said I oughta, but I found it. What's the word? Laborious? Or is it soul deadening? Or is it futile?

[Adam Carolla]

Well, I mean, it depends, because you can look at it from an interesting perspective in the sense that, like, let's say one of my books was an autobiography of, you know, was myself. And so.

[Mike Rowe]

Sorry, there's so many autobiographies.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah, no, there's autobiographical, and then there's autobiography. But. Sorry. Well, I would never write a book about myself unless someone paid me to write a book about myself. But when they do, then you have a book about yourself, and you would never do it before. But I would never write any of my books if someone didn't pay me. So they come to you, and they probably should have done this when I was in high school. They just go, we'll give you one quarter of the money up front for the book report. And I'd go, well, I want all the money up front. They'd go, no, no, no. If we give you all the Money up front, Mr. Carolla, we're never gonna get a book report, and we want a book report. So I'll tell you what, Mr. D. Minus, we'll give you one quarter of the money up front to write that report on Levi Strauss. And then once you hand it in, we'll give you another draw. We're not giving you all of it until you graduate and until it gets proofread. And what it essentially does is they force guys who may not be good at writing books to write a book by incentivizing them. And it's kind of how the human mind works, and it's also how humans are wired.

[Mike Rowe]

Well, did they give you an advance? Was there any of that?

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah, well, what they do is they go, yeah. They go, we will give you, I think, the first book. They go, we'll give you a $350,000 advance. And you go, that sounds pretty good. And then you get a check for $71,000, and you go, what happened to my big fat advance? And they go, well, that's just part. If we give it to you all. Imagine giving comedians. Imagine. Artie, language. We got a $1 million advantage for you, and you're getting it all up front.

[Mike Rowe]

Right.

[Adam Carolla]

Do you think Artie Lange is going to give you a book? Right. You will never see that book. You will see him in court years later when you try to wrestle some of your money back that's been spent, by the way.

[Mike Rowe]

Was the first one autobiographical?

[Adam Carolla]

No, the first one was in 50 years wall be Chicks, which was just sort of a take on society and life. And then the second one was not Taco Bell material, and that was biographical.

[Mike Rowe]

That's awesome. A publisher asked me to write a. I guess a memoir, which I just thought was indecent because you shouldn't do that until you're very old. Like, really kind of done, it seems. Because there's just so much opportunity to be so wrong.

[Adam Carolla]

Ariana Grande is probably working on her third autobiography right now. Like, some people write him at 19, you know, but, I mean, it kind of depends. By the time I got to my mid-50s or early-50s, I guess when I was asked to write that, I feel like I'd had so many different lives at that point that somebody could get some use out of hearing about starting here and then going there and then ending up here.

[Mike Rowe]

Sure.

[Adam Carolla]

So. But there's still more. There'd be more life to live. For sure.

[Mike Rowe]

Was it like publishers love a look into the world or a world that most people don't know? I know in my TV life, they became besotted with the idea of, you know, okay, we're going into the Amish world, or we're going into the Alaskan bush people world, or we're going into this world. That's the hook. That's the whole thing. We're gonna show you a world that you didn't know, which is very different than an autobiography. But you slap the two together, and maybe you get some. Maybe you learn something about comedy and Adam at the same time or construction or whatever it is you're gonna riff on. But for me, I was stuck. I wound up writing. I took, like, 30 short stories about famous people that I had written as mysteries and interrupted them with, like, two pages of things that happened to me growing up. So it was like half autobiography, half biography. I thought it was terribly clever, but as it turns out, it just. It confused a lot of people.

[Adam Carolla]

That's got a little Paul Harvey to it.

[Mike Rowe]

That's what I mean. He called it. The rest of the story, I called mine the Way. The way I heard it.

[Adam Carolla]

Yes.

[Mike Rowe]

And Chuck, you remember we got a. You got FedEx here. Oh, God. I mean, I hadn't written the book yet, but I was doing a show and a column called the Way I Heard it. And it was a FedEx from Paul Harvey.

[Chuck]

Certified mail.

[Adam Carolla]

Certified.

[Mike Rowe]

Certified mail from Paul Harvey Jr. Oh, really? This can't be good. This can't be good. Because I'm Literally talking about his dad and the influence he had on me and how I'm shamelessly taking his idea. He said, my old man is looking down and giving you two thumbs up. And I'm giving you this check for your foundation because I love it.

[Adam Carolla]

Wow.

[Mike Rowe]

And I felt like such an ass because I was like, I just expected the absolute worst.

[Adam Carolla]

I think it's up there. I'm the same way. If anyone says, you know, can we talk after work? I go, oh, God, what is this? He knows I'm banging his wife. He knows it. He knows it. Yeah, it's always, it's always. It's only three guys in the office, but so it's not everybody. But if you just go, like I have a kind of a wiring where someone goes, oh, so and so was talking about you. I go, I don't want to hear it, I don't hear it. But why not? Like, why wouldn't it be good or a nice thing? Yeah, you know, I mean, it's such a. Somebody is writing. It's such a weird. I guess we're always trapped in our sort of eight year old mind or something. Somebody's writing a long detailed expose on me and first thing. Okay, I don't even know how to describe it. He works for a major newspaper. I can't remember the name one, but he writes these big long exposes like Norm MacDonald and guys like that in the past. A lot of like luminary type. So my first impulse is, why are you talking to me? What are you talking to me for? Why would you talk to me? And he's like, well, you're interesting because you do this, you do that, but you're not really this and you're not really that and I gotta follow you around for days and write about you. And he goes, well, who could I talk to about you? That was sort of interesting? Like, who do you know that'd be cool, you know? And I said, well, I, you know, I'm kind of friends with Kevin Costner, but I don't know, I don't want to bother him. Like, I felt that way about every person. Jimmy Kimmel, Alec Baldwin. I said, these are all guys I know and they're interesting guys and they like me, but I don't want to hassle them, man. They're all so happy to do it and waxed on and were very gracious. But my default setting is like, why are you hassling these guys? And it's like, it's such a weird default setting. Well, not weird, but well, do you

[Mike Rowe]

feel that way, like, when you get the. When somebody puts the long arm on you? Maybe it's a forward for a book or even just a blurb or. Or something. Is your, like, Is your first impression. God. Homework.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah. I mean, I tried to stave you guys off for as long as I could. I mean.

[Mike Rowe]

You really did.

[Adam Carolla]

It's been.

[Mike Rowe]

Oh, I did, like, five years. I came on your show five, probably five years ago.

[Adam Carolla]

I'm a big fan, and I listen. I am a very soft touch in that I love to do people's stuff. I interview people for essentially, a living. I don't always want to talk to everybody. I'm not interested in every person I interview, and I love being interviewed, and I love the format. And I've always been, like, a radio guy and a broadcast guy, and so anybody's podcast or anybody, you know, can put the arm on me. I'm always happy.

[Mike Rowe]

Are you a better host or a better guest?

[Adam Carolla]

I think I'm a better guest. And that the guest is sort of the freestyle.

[Mike Rowe]

Well, let's see.

[Adam Carolla]

And the other part's the compulsory. Yeah, yeah. Although, when you interview enough people, you get pretty good at it, but.

[Mike Rowe]

Sure.

[Adam Carolla]

But it's not, you know, when you're interviewing, you're kind of there to interview and not necessarily be the life of the party.

[Mike Rowe]

You know, when did you feel like you were good at it? And, like, the difference between coming in with, like, questions or the comfort and freedom. Just have a conversation. And I don't mean with a comedian either, because you guys don't count as a cohort because you just live in a different sort of zip code for that. But I mean, like, the real business. There's a scene in a movie called the Big kahuna. It's Danny DeVito's best work. Right. It's that whole character riff.

[Chuck]

Yeah.

[Mike Rowe]

And he says this thing to. Well, it's not Kevin Spacey. It's whoever the kid is.

[Adam Carolla]

I remember the movie.

[Mike Rowe]

They're salesmen, and they're like, at a convention. And he says, you know, the last time you talked to somebody, you know, like, really had a conversation, ask him about his kids. Not come in with a picture and agenda. An idea. Because once you do that, then you. You put your hand. That's what he says. He says you put your hands on it and you guide it, and then it's not a thing. That's a really. And it really struck me at the time, because that is our business. And, you know, you get six minutes on the news, or you get 10 minutes, you're doing a hit with O'Reilly. Once upon a time, you can't really have a conversation. You have a moment, you know, and so I don't know, like, how do you think about all of that in terms of just being understood?

[Adam Carolla]

Well, you know, I think there's so many different formats, and I feel like you have to be a little bit of a decathlete these days. You know, you don't have to be a world champion in long distance running or the javelin or the shot put or the long jump or whatever, but you should be competent in all those. And if you're competent in all of them, you may. They may add up to a gold medal. And so, like, I would do, you know, Dancing with the Stars, and they'd go, you know, there's no swearing. This is prime time. You know, this is. This is network prime time. And then you would do terrestrial radio, and there was some, you know, you know, you could say, you know, this guy's a GDA hole. You know, everything was sort of abbreviated

[Mike Rowe]

with the letters right?

[Adam Carolla]

You know. You know, it's always funny when you do terrestrial radio, you. You get like, I know people who swear a lot. And I go, you shouldn't swear so much. And they go, you know, why the not. You know? And I go, because then when you get in front of people and you don't want to swear, you end up swearing. And they go, I can handle my. And at some point, they're like, in front of the judge, and I go, this mother going 80 miles an hour, your honor. And I'm like, you can't stop yourself from doing that.

[Mike Rowe]

Dumb. Never before, not in my life anyway. Have so many businesses, big and small, struggled to answer the same question at the same time. With so much at stake, the question, of course, is how do we make AI work for us? One answer is to become an expert overnight. Good luck with that. The other is to put AI to work today with NetSuite by Oracle. NetSuite's the number one AI cloud ERP out there. They're trusted by over 43,000 businesses because they offer a unified suite that brings your financials, inventory, commerce, hr, CRM, everything into a single source of connected data that automates routine tasks and delivers actionable insights and actually helps you cut costs, which gives you total flexibility. With NetSuite's AI connector, you can use the AI of your choice. You got your Grok, you got your Claude, your ChatGPT, whatever else they're coming out with. Next. It's all compatible. It connects to your actual business data and automates all of the time sucking soul, deadening manual processes using you've grown to hate. This is AI built into the system that's currently running your business. It's seamless. Learn [e-mail] Mike and while you're there, get their free business guide demystifying AI. The guide is free to you or anyone at netsuite.com mike it's worth your time. Netsuite.com mike that's netsuite.com netsuite.comnetsuite.com netsuite

[Adam Carolla]

yes, netsuite. I said netsuite.com he said netsuite.com/mike. So when you do terrestrial radio, you'll find yourself on the weekends going these GDA holes with their effing.

[Mike Rowe]

And your buddies are going, what does

[Adam Carolla]

that all do a word. And they're like, nah, I can't. I gotta have one mode. But for me, it's like, you know, you can do a podcast, you can get dirty, you can go do network tv, you can keep it clean and you can interview someone seriously and have a serious conversation. You can talk to a comedian, but you need to have, like, different modalities. And I kind of learned it early with people and partners because I've had a number of partners in my career. I was partnered with Jimmy Kimmel, I was partnered with Dr. Drew, I was partnered with Skip Bedell when we were doing our home improvement catch a contractor show. And Skip and Drew and Jimmy are all wildly different. And when you partner with Jimmy, Jimmy is the alpha. He's going to throw it to commercial. He's gonna welcome back from commercial. And so I would sort of step aside a little and go, yeah, go ahead, throw it to commercial. Take it back. We get paid the same. Talk more than me. Fine. Then when I get partnered with Drew, I'm now the host and I'm throwing to commercial and bring it back from break and interviewing the guest or whatever. And Drew's become the sidekick. And when I was working with Skip, Skip didn't have any on camera, real experience. So I was kind of setting up and sometimes even literally just moving him away because the camera, he was getting his back in front of the camera, you know, the camera Kai couldn't see him and stuff like that. But I realized you can't just have one mode. You have to have I'll be alpha, I'll be beta, I'll be teacher, I'll be student, you know, and if you can kind of learn who people are and kind of understand who they are, then it's much easier. You can't have, like, two alphas interview each other. It just becomes kind of cluster at these.

[Mike Rowe]

I would say, well, it's such a different world to this. I mean, I'll call it the host paradigm, for lack of a better host, interview, narrator, raconteur, whatever, than an actor, certainly than a comedian. Like, back to the book thing for a second. The reason I wanted to riff on that initially, not that I had a plan, but now that I think about it.

[Adam Carolla]

Hmm.

[Mike Rowe]

Like, it's hard because once you write the thing down, it's there forever. It's on the shelf, and it's between the covers. And it. There's no excuse, man. Whatever's between the covers must be exactly what you want it to say. But the minute you're done, there's a fire in the Palisades, and now you give a damn about something else entirely. And now there's, you know, whatever's going on in your life. Right. And so the book, it's like, ah, it's like the snapshot of this moment, but it never goes away. It just sits on the shelf forever, and people read it. But it's not who I am anymore. It's not who you are anymore. That's my favorite part about this. Like, what you do and what you did in podcasting initially, it was so. It was so immediate, you know, for better or worse, you did it, and then you come back the next day and do it again. It's the opposite of writing a book, really.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah. I mean, to a certain extent, you know, if you go and look at an autobiography, you go, well, that was me. Zero to this age. And it doesn't include the Palisades and the Malibu fires, because it was there. But it's a historical account of at least what I was doing from that year to that year. Year.

[Mike Rowe]

Sure.

[Adam Carolla]

And then you're right, it's locked off. You know, the thing that there's stuff that's interesting about podcasting is if you ever listen to one of your own that's like 15 years old, you can hear him go, oh, I had to come back from this place. And then I drove that way. And then my kids, you know, were three at the time, you know, and you're hearing it kind of. It's a Dear Diary. I mean, it's an auto. It's an audio diary. Now, if you're doing Paul Harvey show, then it really isn't. But if you're doing a free flowing conversational podcast, then, yeah, you would be talking about COVID or the Malibu fires or how you were affected. You know, I had to flee during the Malibu fires, for instance. And so I would be saying, oh, I had to get up at 2 in the morning and take off and went to Burbank. And. And if I heard it, or my kids heard it 20 years from now, they'd go, that's what happened that day.

[Mike Rowe]

Or they might say, flee, dad. Really? You use the word flee like you couldn't leave, you couldn't escape, you couldn't vacate, you couldn't run. You fled.

[Adam Carolla]

I evacuated, yeah. There was a fire about a week before that where I didn't want to go, and then at some point could see the flames and decided to go. But yes, I fled the fire. I think it was like 2am it was the middle of the night.

[Mike Rowe]

Well, in a weird way, I may have seen you, sort of. I was here. I landed that day.

[Adam Carolla]

Oh, you were here.

[Mike Rowe]

I landed that day. I was filming a thing down south, not far on the other side of Venice, and driving up. I mean, like, alarms were going off and you could see smoke, but people were still shopping. It was the strangest thing. And then I went up on the roof here as the sun was going down. Geez, dude, I'll never forget that, man. I will never forget how orange and horrible and apocalyptic it was. And then coming down over there at the Huntley, up in that restaurant, which looks dead in that direction, standing next to a woman who was watching her house burn, who turned and told me that her dog was in it and they wouldn't let her in. And just going like, this is, like happening. I mean, obviously it's so much bigger than a dog, but it was such a little moment. And I thought about all my friends who live there, and I'm like, tomorrow's gonna be a crazy day. And I mean, has your life even been remotely similar since then? Just the old days?

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah, I'm pretty resilient. My place did not burn down. Everything in front of it and most of the stuff to the right and behind it and stuff, everything kind of around it burnt down. And I think people sometimes use a little hyperbole. Like, my whole neighborhood burnt down. I was the only one that survived. But it's pretty close to that. Every single structure in front of me along the ocean is gone. And about 60% of the stuff on the hill I'm on is gone. It's mostly gone. I'd probably be Maybe out of 50 structures, 10 survived. Let's say out of 50 or 60 structures, I happen to be one of them. So that was good. But you couldn't go back for six months or what have you. So I was just kind of renting houses and sort of out and about and sleeping on people's guest houses and that kind of stuff, you know, it was a pretty big inconvenience, but I realized I grew up on a service porch on like a cot mattress, and then later moved into a garage with no heat, no air and stuff, and had one bedroom apartments with three roommates and slept on futons and stuff. I was pretty, pretty used to camping out. It had been a while, but I was always kind of resilient that way. I was just used to roughing it a little bit.

[Mike Rowe]

But your camping in those days wasn't the, the result of a calamity, it was. Right. More or less. In fact, I couch surfed for a couple of years and I, I remember it like almost romantically. It's kind of fun.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah, it's fun. You know, when you're young and you have energy and there's people, you have a crew to sort of be miserable with. You sure.

[Mike Rowe]

Is that from our roof, Chuck?

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah, it's a picture from the roof. That is really dramatic, dude.

[Mike Rowe]

And that wasn't even, I mean, it got worse, obviously. The darker it gets, the more apocalyptic.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah. So my place is just sort of past that wall of flame. It was sort of miraculous that it didn't burn down. But like I said, I'm kind of philosophical and I can handle stuff. And I was, you know, ready to roll with whatever it was.

[Mike Rowe]

On a micro level, I get it. But you know, I was, I try and stay in my lane. I don't want to make undue trouble, but I've lived in this state for, I don't know, 20, 20 some years. You were born here, right?

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah.

[Mike Rowe]

So, you know, our friend Elaine Kotti was here about six months ago and we were just texting. It looks like she's going to be running for governor. And I've made it a point to, to stay out of overt politics. But this feels different to me. Like the fate of the state, it feels so consequential right now. Not just for the state, but I mean, I think a lot of the countries looking here and taking their cue from our elected officials and trying to try and weigh and measure all of that, and I wonder, like, to the extent that I have any influence I got the little platform here. I find myself wanting to talk about this stuff. And I know. I mean, you've been blogging constantly. You know, Elaine, you've been. You're really paying attention to it. So I guess if there's a question in here, it's like, to what extent are you doing this to. To change the course of the state's trajectory?

[Adam Carolla]

Well, yeah, I've been here my whole life, and I've. I've seen where it's heading, and it's not going in a good direction. And I would say frequently, several years ago, I would say, when are we going to change direction and pick a new chart, a new course? And then people would say, the number one answer, which is always sort of sad, is, well, we haven't bottomed out yet. We got to bottom out. And I said, why do we have to bottom out? Why can't we just see we're heading to the bottom and change course? I go, well, you got to bottom out. I said, this is like me saying, it's like if you had a teenage son and he'd walked in his room and he found heroin syringes, and then he got a couple of DUIs and been arrested a few times. And, you know, let's wait for the overdose. Yeah. Let's wait till his flatlines, and then we'll get him some help. And I'd be like, no, no. A good parent would see what's going on, and before the kid's heart stops, get him into rehab. That's what we should be doing. And so we're, like, sort of spiraling into deep addiction in dark waters, and people are saying, wait till we flatline. And I'm like, or we could just go into rehab. We should change things now. Now, the fire may have been the bottoming out. Could have very well been that moment of bottoming out. For me, I felt interested in sort of cataloging all the destruction. It was so visually compelling to me to live in that neighborhood when everything was just flattened all around me, and that you could go down the coast and drive for a mile and just see nothing but devastation. You know, I guess it's like being a war correspondent or something. Like, there's a part of it that's very sad, but there's another part that's very visually compelling to just see, you know, what was a $25 million mansion at the sea, and now there's, like, just one piece of rebar sticking out of the ground, and there's a crow sitting on it.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah.

[Adam Carolla]

And you're just kind of looking at it and you're going, this is so visually insane

[Mike Rowe]

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[Adam Carolla]

so I thought, well, I should start sort of capturing it and then also kind of discussing what it would be like to rebuild and the permitting process and things of that nature. Because I realized that I was pretty intimately familiar with that, being a contractor for so many years in this city and sort of having to deal with the city and plan check and bureaucracy and all of that's coming. And I was very aware of it in a way that was most people who were either comedians or commentators or had a vlog or a podcast or something. I didn't know anyone who had an intimate understanding of building and codes and construction. So I was like, I think I should be the guy who talks and knows how to talk, but also understands what these guys are dealing with in terms of a construction, engineering, permitting and that sort of thing. I think I can take them both. So it was kind of interesting. I fled to Burbank and then checked into hotel at literally like four in the morning and the following day got up to speculation of whether my home was there or not. Nobody knew. It was a lot of footage of everything in front of my house. I could see the news crews, you know, were on the street. I could see everything in front of me was gone.

[Mike Rowe]

So what'd you take with you?

[Adam Carolla]

I really just took, like, socks and underwear. Like, I didn't really grab any keepsakes or anything, but to be fair, most of my stuff worth keeping is at my warehouse anyway. This was just sort of beach housey stuff, you know? So I woke up the next day to rumors that my place was gone. And I was doing the math because the fire was started up on the hill and it ended at the ocean, and my house was on the hill and everything at the ocean was gone. So I did a math, which is everything in between that and the ocean's got to be gone, and I was in between. But literally the restaurant and the buildings, everything just below where I live are all gone. So I was like, I guess it's gone, but I can't verify it because you can't get back in. And something. Something. So. But we had a podcast to do, and the winds were so powerful that they toppled over a electrical pole, telephone pole, and the power was out where my studio was. And so now I'm like, well, we've, you know, the power's out, everything's a mess. It's Helter Skelter. And do I really need to do a podcast like every single day? Like, can we just run a best of. I Talked to Seth MacFarlane for over an hour. Just run that, you know, and I started thinking about it. I go, yeah, but I think people are going to want to hear what, you know, you're in the middle of all this and they're going to want a little checkup on what's going on. So I just, in my hotel room, just kind of moved a table, moved the chair and set the thing and put the mic on the table and shut the drapes, you know, and somebody with an iPhone kind of thing. We just kind of. And I said, you know what? It's only gonna be 10 minutes. I'm just gonna check in, let them know I'm okay and here's what's going on and blah, blah. And of course, it went an hour of me complaining, but it was. It was that morning after the fire where I just sort of explained everyone, there's not going to be permits. You think they're going to talk about fast tracking stuff and city's going to snap in action. None of this is going to happen. There's going to grind everyone to a nub. They're not in the business of handing out permits or Fast tracking, engineering plan check. I've dealt with this. It's a bureaucracy. They're not going to change. And you think they would under these emergency conditions. They have no intention of doing it and it's never going to happen. And you people who love these people formally are going to learn to hate these people when it's time for you to pull a permit. And it was a little like eight hours after the fire.

[Mike Rowe]

And you're talking about people who voted for those particular officials.

[Adam Carolla]

I'm saying in general, those areas of this part of the city where we're at now, Malibu and Palisades, they like those types. They're progressive, blue leaning type in general. I, I would say this is, you know, not a lot of them do anything for deer hunting season or do a lot of bass fishing or wear their Oakley Blade sunglasses on top of their truck or hats. There's not a lot of not Ram Duallys parked in the parking lot. It's an electric car, vote blue kind of go Gavin kind of crowd. I said, you guys are going to be in for a real rude awakening because you're going to find out what this city does and how it does not function or perform and you're going to find out how sort of arrogant and cruel they are because they're not going to be in any hurry to help you and they're not even going to pretend like they're here to help you. And I don't even know if they want, they don't want you to rebuild as far as I'm concerned. So good luck. This is what's going to happen. Look forward to this. And you know, that was 13 and a half months ago. And now everyone's wandering around going, where are the permits? Where? How come no one has a permit? It's like I told you, where they were. You're not getting them.

[Mike Rowe]

That last guy I told you about, Jeff Childers, who writes that column, coffee and Covid. Today's column was called I told you so. And you know, he's coming from a point of view as a lawyer who fought mask mandates and a lot of other adjacent things five years ago. And now the evidence demands a verdict.

[Adam Carolla]

Right?

[Mike Rowe]

And it's clear. I shared your podcast that day. I thought it was brilliant. Not brilliant. I thought it was smart.

[Adam Carolla]

Thank you.

[Mike Rowe]

I thought it was really smart to do it because I think the initial impulse on a lot of people would have been exactly that. Seth MacFarlane's funny. It's a great interview. Let's just put it up. I'M dealing with stuff. But back to the book thing. This is not the guy you are in the books you wrote before. Now you have an audience and they trust you, man. You've got an enormous amount of permission to be as candid as you want and to share as much as you want. I think generally the country is super hungry for that. The fact that you hunkered down and did that on a couple of iPhones was just interesting. It reminded me. This is a bit of a stretch, but remember when Bourdain was caught in Beirut probably 10 years ago now? Well, I mean, you didn't have to do a show. You just needed to turn the camera on and be a reliable narrator or a witness to whatever that was. And that's what I meant by permission. You grew up in this state. You live in that zip code. You know how to communicate, you know how to be a host, you know how to be a guest, and you've got a front row seat to something. But what was interesting for me when I, when I shared that, the comments, I still remember a lot of people going, well, you know, he's. I mean, he's being very pessimistic. You know, he's like, be very much of a Cassandra, you know, a prognosticator. You know, we'll just see. Because it sure seems like all. All the brass are saying, oh, no, no, no, all the bureaucracy is gone. All the roadblocks are coming down. They were talking about issuing thousands of permits in months, and, dude, you were right, they haven't. What have they done?

[Adam Carolla]

Well, they've done a little bit in the Palisades, a little bit, and pretty much zero in Malibu along the coast, because I think the Coastal Commission had to get involved with that. Plus, it's kind of academic. Like, what people don't really fully understand is I could issue you a permit for these places that live, these lots that were burned down along PCH on the water side, on the ocean side of Pacific coast highway. And, you know, picture tells a thousand words. So there are. There's some stuff out there, Chuck, that is me chronicling a job site. There's one job site on pch, I don't know, Adam Carolla, PCH foundation work or something like that. I literally got the drone up in the air and tell me all this stuff. So what I'm saying is, even if you had a permit to build your home back on pch, part the engineering for that home that you're going to rebuild is 35 caissons that are 36 inch in diameter, going five stories into the ground. Now we'll find you the pictures. I'm not using any hyperbole here. It is caissons, which are drilled with a caisson rig and a giant auger bit. It's essentially just drilling down into the earth, but not drilling down 15ft. Drilling down five stories and not seven of them, like 35 of them. Now we need video, Chuck. I'm working on it. It's out there somewhere.

[Mike Rowe]

This is it.

[Adam Carolla]

It's in. Oh, it's in my vlog, though. You'll see it in the vlog. I don't think you'll see it as clearly in my show. Well, you'll find it anyway.

[Mike Rowe]

Caissons alone deserve some sort of rhetorical detour. I mean, just so people understand, you

[Adam Carolla]

know, I mean, yeah, that's a vlog, but now you have to. What are you typing in? And I'll see if I can help you. That's the vlog.

[Chuck]

I typed the drone footage. Adam Carolla, drone footage.

[Mike Rowe]

Look at that. Look at that.

[Adam Carolla]

But you didn't put the word foundation.

[Chuck]

I guess not.

[Adam Carolla]

That's why.

[Mike Rowe]

There you go.

[Adam Carolla]

You're not seeing it. That's why I said foundation. But that's earlier stuff where it's destroyed now. So the architect told. Now, by the way, that's just the caissons, then there's the sea walls, then there's the slab. The engineer architect, he told me there'd be 3,000 yards of concrete in this. In this foundation. Three. All right, you're. You putting the word foundation in?

[Chuck]

I did, yeah.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah.

[Chuck]

I'm not doing good.

[Adam Carolla]

We'll get a new one, A new video pop up.

[Mike Rowe]

How'd you spell it?

[Adam Carolla]

So let me get this out of here. It'll be a construction site is what I'm saying. This is stuff at just a burnt out place. But all right, for your audience, 3,000 cubic yards of concrete. A full size concrete truck holds 10 yards. So one truck is 10 yards. Each caisson is about 20 yards. So each caisson is two full trucks pumped, and there's 30 some odd caissons. And that's just for stuff poking up from the ground.

[Mike Rowe]

Why do you need a case on in this case? You don't, you know.

[Adam Carolla]

So I'm talking to the engineer and he goes, I'm looking at this and I'm anxious for you to see it as I sound bug. And Chuck, because you're going to go, oh, my God, like, I had no idea. All right, Chuck, what are you poking in now.

[Chuck]

Okay, so I got something on Instagram.

[Adam Carolla]

All right.

[Mike Rowe]

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[Adam Carolla]

What'd you type in?

[Chuck]

I typed in Adam Carolla, PCH Foundation.

[Adam Carolla]

All right, this. Let's see, let's see. This has a couple of quick shots of it. Let's see. Put in the word.

[Chuck]

Okay.

[Adam Carolla]

Get rid of, get rid of foundation. Put case on.

[Chuck]

Okay.

[Adam Carolla]

Which is an interesting spelling. I think it's C, A, S, S.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah, I think there's an eye in it too. Yes, but those were the things that, like, that's. They used to build bridges with these.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah, they build bridges with them. They hold up freeway overpasses. I mean, they go down into the

[Mike Rowe]

ground and you pressurize it underwater. And that's what lets you work in an area and pour concrete, you know, 50ft underwater or more.

[Adam Carolla]

Yes.

[Chuck]

Might this be it.

[Adam Carolla]

What's it say? Rebuilding real estate nine months after the blaze. Now, this will be like the most recent one, I think.

[Chuck]

Okay, so this is not it.

[Adam Carolla]

Now this is me explaining that the Equinox Gym across the street's been closed for nine months, but the Taco Bell has been open the entire time.

[Mike Rowe]

What is it with you and Taco Bell, man?

[Adam Carolla]

I tried to get a. I tried to get a job there once and they denied me.

[Mike Rowe]

Well, that was the second book, not Taco Bell material.

[Adam Carolla]

That was it. Yeah.

[Mike Rowe]

And here, I mean, look, the irony of that. And now today, doing standups on Instagram

[Adam Carolla]

on an iPhone I know.

[Mike Rowe]

Chronicling one of the greatest, you know, disasters.

[Adam Carolla]

Pick. Do a picture. Do a photo.

[Mike Rowe]

Hey, there you go. Images.

[Adam Carolla]

Images. Case foundation. Pch. Adam Carolla Image. Right. Think something.

[Mike Rowe]

You know, I can't imagine a more really like right now to be. Chuck has. Has to be one of the most annoying things I know. You've been on Rogan and you've seen Jamie

[Chuck]

thousand of these. Hold on.

[Adam Carolla]

All right, now, just found a foundation that's being rebuilt.

[Chuck]

You want it like from the last.

[Adam Carolla]

How well, last. The last ones. Let's see those. The most recent. I'm in the most recent past month. So nothing came up. The guy, as they're pouring 3,000 yards of concrete, I'm sitting there talking to the architect and I go, and what about the old foundation? Because you had to pull out a bunch of stuff. And he said, oh, those were all just piles. Just telephone poles pounded down in the ground, build piers and everything on just a telephone pole that got whacked in the ground. And he goes. I go, wait a minute. There was no. He goes, there's no concrete. I said, none. He goes, no, no, it was all wood. Everything was wood. I said, it lasted for 70 years and then the fire got it. But the foundation never gave way. And he goes, no, everything was wood. That's the way they built it in 1957. And it was going fine until the fire got him. And I said, okay, how much is this foundation? He said, about 2.5 million. I said, 2.5 before you bring in the first two by four to build. He said, yes, you're going to be into this about 25 with just foundation. And then you can start building your home here after you're into that 2.5. I said, who's got the money for this? Who can do this? And by the way, the time. I mean, they got full Kshon Riggs, like a five story piece of engineering role and, you know, tank tracks and everything. Shovel, steam shovels, backhoes. Like it is. It is an insane proposition. The mount they're putting into that. Each caisson has a rebar cage that's essentially looks like a long slinky made out of number six rebar, which is like three quarter inch thick. Rebar bar has to be hung up on a giant crane five stories long and lowered all the way down into each one. Times like 36. All right, Chuck, there's no way you don't have a picture of that foundation.

[Mike Rowe]

I think he. I think he drew one.

[Adam Carolla]

He's got.

[Mike Rowe]

I think he's got. He's pretty talented.

[Adam Carolla]

Go up the coast and get a quick shot and come back.

[Chuck]

This is not working out well at all.

[Mike Rowe]

This is.

[Chuck]

Oh, shit.

[Adam Carolla]

Well, let me ask you this, Chuck. Do you know what a foundation looks like?

[Chuck]

Like, yeah.

[Adam Carolla]

Okay.

[Mike Rowe]

Like if you were to see one, you would be like, I got a

[Chuck]

picture of some kons right here. There you go. But I don't think that's what you're looking for.

[Adam Carolla]

Those are the oldie ones I got. Well, maybe I'll just pull my phone out.

[Mike Rowe]

I mean, at this point.

[Adam Carolla]

At this point.

[Mike Rowe]

Well, I mean, like, he'll. Oh, we'll find it. But the moral of the story, Vlog

[Adam Carolla]

from the fires will probably have something Last vlog the date on it'll be, I don't know, three weeks old or a month old. But anyway, go ahead.

[Mike Rowe]

Why are you doing this?

[Adam Carolla]

It's nearby where I live. I am very fascinated with all forms of building. So I will come poking around. If you're building and I'm walking past whatever it is you're building, I'll just come poking around. Like, I just like it. I like seeing how it's built. It is kind of my Reese's peanut butter cup. It's taken sort of comedy and commentary and sarcasm and humor mixed in with building and kind of put together my peanut butter cup. Like, the two things I kind of like, you know, assembled, essentially.

[Chuck]

This is one month ago.

[Adam Carolla]

All right, let's.

[Mike Rowe]

Now we're getting somewhere.

[Adam Carolla]

Let's see what this is. This is health consequences. Let's see. Nah, I don't think it's this one. Ah, for the love of all that's holy, go the one. Go forward. You can scrub it for.

[Chuck]

Can I?

[Adam Carolla]

No, I don't think it's this one. One. One more before this one. Probably. Let's see.

[Chuck]

Okay.

[Adam Carolla]

One year later, they're trying to see if that one's One year later.

[Chuck]

One.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah.

[Chuck]

I thought I hit that one already.

[Adam Carolla]

Oh, maybe you had. Nine months later, I think.

[Mike Rowe]

I mean, how many. How many vlogs have you done?

[Adam Carolla]

I've done a lot. I've done a lot of them. It's definitely not this one. That much I can.

[Mike Rowe]

No, well, that's. There you go.

[Adam Carolla]

We'll find.

[Mike Rowe]

I don't know.

[Adam Carolla]

I walk around, I just look at it. But the point I'm trying to drive home that I'm not doing a good job.

[Chuck]

Is this it? This is the one year later.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah.

[Adam Carolla]

You just let it run.

[Mike Rowe]

Well, now it's really no longer about your story. It's just about whether or not Chuck can find this.

[Adam Carolla]

It is more about Chuck at this point.

[Mike Rowe]

At this point. Yeah.

[Adam Carolla]

All right, here's my point. My point is what used to take no money and little effort is now herculean and involves a lot of engineering and a lot of permitting and stuff. There it is. You can stop it there for a second, Chuck.

[Mike Rowe]

Oh, Kenny.

[Adam Carolla]

Oh, can.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah, there it is. Okay, good.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah, we'll let it even get even closer. But that's the job site. And those are all the caissons that they're pouring that are. Yeah, let it roll a little more. Let's see if we can get a little closer to it.

[Chuck]

Trying.

[Adam Carolla]

Okay, that's all right. Yeah, there it is. You let it roll there. Those. Those things go five stories into the ground. That's just for single family residents. That's not, you know, it's not the Germans at Normandy. That's just a single family home with seawalls filled to the top with rebar, with doweling into the rebar with the seawall goes 20ft down in the ground.

[Mike Rowe]

Explain why that is a thing.

[Adam Carolla]

All right, you just pause it there for a sec.

[Mike Rowe]

Nice job they have.

[Adam Carolla]

Good job, Chuck. You're back. They have to build a seawall, basically, because they're gonna put a septic system in there. And they're essentially building a 20 foot high, 14 inch thick concrete wall all the way around it so the septic system can't leak and go into the ocean. Are you kidding? Should be the name of my next podcast. This is total and utter insanity. And it's what the city makes you do. And so my point is, this is a metaphor for California. You want to know how come there's not enough low cost housing? How come we don't have this? How come? Because you guys make it impossible to do because of regulation. See, we could rebuild a home the Way it was built before, but this is total insanity. And it's the end game safety thing we talk about all the time.

[Mike Rowe]

Sure, but what's the end game? What's in it for the county making it impossible? I mean, that house, when it's done, is going to be tens of millions of dollars. Yes, easily.

[Adam Carolla]

Yes.

[Mike Rowe]

And like to your earlier point, who's got the dough? How are you going to build back with those kinds of protocols?

[Adam Carolla]

The county simply adds things on and they never peel anything away. So if the regulation 20 years ago was number four rebar, now it's number six rebar, soon it'll be number eight rebar. And all they know is how to keep ratcheting up the thing that they always hide under the umbrella of safety. It's always some sort of safety related thing. But like I used to say when I had houses from the 20s, 1923, maybe 1927, my first couple house, and I'd be building some stuff and you get the engineering. And I'd go, this is way over engineered. And they'd go, we're an earthquake country. I'd go, yeah, where do you think the house. Do you think the house was in Idaho in 71 when the big one hit and in 94. 94. Thank you. When the Sylmar one hit. They're both here. Nothing happened. There's nothing. They weren't engineered for anything. There's no caissons, there's no anything. It's just here it is here it's sat. So yeah, there's nothing wrong with engineering, there's nothing wrong with being safe. But building 1000 fold as strong as you need to is like saying, you know, everyone goes sell a car should have an airbag and a crumple zone in front. Okay.

[Mike Rowe]

And a safety belt, but it doesn't.

[Adam Carolla]

And a belt, but it doesn't need a fire suppression system and a fuel cell and a roll cage.

[Mike Rowe]

Right. Because the actuarial.

[Adam Carolla]

But it would be safer.

[Mike Rowe]

It would be safer, but it's not practical. So the actuarial. Like I. I'm fascinated with that argument with the car thing because. And people just. I broke a few eggs.

[Adam Carolla]

Look at that.

[Mike Rowe]

Look at. That's a beauty.

[Adam Carolla]

By the way, all those caissons that we're seeing now and we're not seeing all of them. Some are underground, but they're all going five stories into the ground.

[Chuck]

Wow.

[Adam Carolla]

I mean, I can't imagine that's for our house. That's why I need to show you the picture, Chuck.

[Mike Rowe]

Okay, good Work. Good work. So we start every year knowing 35 to 38,000 people are going to die on the highway. We know it. And you can have your crumple zones and you can have your double airbags and your restraints and you do it all. But that's doing all that gets you 35 to 40,000 fatalities.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah.

[Mike Rowe]

You want to knock it down to 20. I get the speed limit to 35. You want it down to 15. Mandatory helmets, you want it down to 5,000. No, left turns. Right. You want to get it down to zero.

[Adam Carolla]

Correct.

[Mike Rowe]

Wrap them. Yeah, wrap them in rubber. And I mean exactly. Right. So you start with the idea that you could absolutely eliminate automotive fatalities. But it's been weighed and measured, and we've decided 35 to 40,000 fatalities is something we can live with. We can live with it.

[Adam Carolla]

Right.

[Mike Rowe]

We're not running the same. There is no corollary for this.

[Adam Carolla]

No, because this is zero fatalities. Because in this equation, the old car with no airbags and no crumple zones would have been this thing built on the telephone poles that were pile driven into the ground. But the pier, which is a half block down the street, is over 100 years old and it sits on those telephone poles. The same one. So this is your grandpa's old Ozmobile with no fatalities ever and still were requiring the roll cage and the fire suppression system.

[Mike Rowe]

I'm just saying, like all these additional things, like through the lens of a safety protocol. Yeah, but this is through the environment. This is like saying we, we will spare no expense to keep any amount of septic sewage from potentially leaching. You know, can we live with a 1% chance? No, we can't. It has to be zero and it doesn't matter what it costs.

[Adam Carolla]

Right. Well, another thing is the modern systems are so good that there is none of that leaching that goes on every time. Every time I talk to someone, they go, they say, you can drink whatever's in the leach field. And then they pause. I go, but I don't. But I don't. Oh, good. I was just about to offer you a cup of piss water, but. Okay, I get it. You don't do it. No, it's. Listen, nothing that was built there before had a seawall previously. There's zero seawall.

[Mike Rowe]

Right.

[Adam Carolla]

And everyone is on a septic system. And by the way, the thing that, I'll tell you what hurts the flora and the fauna and the ocean, it's a fire that burns everything in the ground and then mudslides, where everything that was up on the hill, including burnt out Priuses and foam mattresses and sofas and carpeting, all slides down the hill into the bay. That's bad. Much worse than a leach field.

[Mike Rowe]

But isn't it interesting that the degree to which we're willing to mitigate automotive fatalities allows for 35,000 deaths? Yes, but the degree to which we're determined to mitigate an environmental problem is zero. And that's, that's where we're out of whack. We have elevated the environment.

[Adam Carolla]

Yes.

[Mike Rowe]

To so far above the value of human life.

[Adam Carolla]

Yes.

[Mike Rowe]

But we're still having the conversation as if. Well, let's not really talk about how that happened, but it's not much different than saving a dog from drowning. Instead of the 10 year old kid, now it's your dog and you love the dog and you don't know the 10 year old kid. And so now there's a value judgment. Do you save your dog that you love or do you save that kid?

[Adam Carolla]

Well, there's another element here which is, you know, in the car metaphor, you go, well, a roll cage and fuel cell with a bladder and a fire suppression system and fire suit and everything. You know how much a Toyota Camry would cost? That? And then they go, you don't think the rich guy from Malibu can afford a Camry even if it's $500,000? And it's like, yes, he can afford it. It doesn't mean you should do this. And by the way, once you take this mindset and bring it, we do, right? We go, we're suggesting homeless for the housing. These are 400 square foot bachelor apartments, 950,000 per unit. It's like, how did we get to that price? We got to that price. How'd that place get to that price? Cause you guys required so much more than what was practical or feasible. It can't be built and there's no economic system that'll support it. And the people who build it, they move to Texas and they just go, I don't want to deal with this.

[Mike Rowe]

Right.

[Adam Carolla]

So that's what you get, and that's why we get it. So all this stuff under the name of safety is really grinding everything to a halt. And there is literally that one foundation you saw is the only construction going on in the entire pch. That's it. There is no other, just one. And it's for that reason. And you say, we want to fast track this Again, even if you fast track it, if it takes 3,000 cubic yards and basically you're building A launch pad for, you know, for NASA, which is essentially what they're going to end up building because they have to do a one foot slab on top of all those caissons with grade beams, by the way, in between. I mean, there's a lot more to go. It's not practical, it's not feasible, and people aren't going to do it and know they're not going to rebuild. So. And they do this little kind of word play thing, which is, yeah, we'll give you a permit to do something you can never do.

[Mike Rowe]

Don't you think about, like, that's what I meant earlier, about why California feels so consequential to me, for the country, because if that attitude that exists in, you know, the community, supervisory. What do you call me? Like, like, like the tyranny of the small government. Like, we. All the headlines are about, you know, D.C. but the real, like, the real action is, is here. And like, how would we ever be able to convert our domestic manufacturing capability into a wartime footing with this kind of thought? How would we rise to any occasion that we've historically risen to if the most important thing is to keep the septic thing from leeching and if we're okay forcing people to just squeeze through hoop after hoop after hoop after hoop after hoop?

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah, well, I think we proven that we can't because we had all of these mechanisms in place. And I was friends with Suzanne Summers and Alan Hamill, and they lived in Malibu on the ocean and they loved it, and they had a home there for many, many years. And I don't know, maybe in 96 or somewhere, it burnt down. And then they went to rebuild and they loved living in Malibu. But when they tried to rebuild, and by the way, you know, it's another thing too. It's kind of cruel to have someone's home burned down and then really not let them rebuild. You know what I mean? It's not like I go, I'm gonna open a brothel with a speakeasy on the roof. And they could go, okay, no, no, we're gonna slow roll. But this is your family's home burnt to the ground because of their negligence, by the way. It burnt to the ground because of the government not managing the forestry and so on and so forth. They burn. And then they want to rebuild it at their own expense, and they won't let them do it, which is cruel at the end of the day. So Alan Hamill and Suzanne Somers, who adore Malibu and who would come back from Palm Springs to stay At a hotel in Malibu, every chance they got went through about six years of trying to pull a permit. Coastal Commission just kept telling them to pound sand. And eventually they went, we're too old for this shit. We can't spend our golden years arguing with the Coastal Commission, who won't let us rebuild and has a million hoops to jump through that no one could ever satisfy. So they move out and there is no rebuild. And I was always kind of aware of that. But you're talking about a wartime situation. How would we react? Would we. Well, this is a nice simulation. Everything burned to the ground. Trump came into town a week later and he said, we need to hurry. This is unfair to these people. We need to fast track this thing. This was supposed to be a war simulation. This is our extraordinary circumstances. Many homes lost, many families displaced. And now, like in wartime, we're gonna fast track this stuff. And we'll be building liberty ships at the count of one every 40 hours. If we can fast track this stuff, tell the unions to back off a little. And wartime, well, this is it. This is wartime. And I think we got our answer.

[Mike Rowe]

Well, that's why people said, you know, what you said earlier, and I'm guilty of it too. Sometimes things have to go splat. But to your point, if that's not splat, what are you waiting for? Like, what other calamity could possibly. I mean, there's nothing left but war, truly.

[Adam Carolla]

Right.

[Mike Rowe]

Anyway, maybe some of what's going on too, on a national level is we're just not a terribly sympathetic part of the country, you know? Oh, the millionaires lost their houses.

[Adam Carolla]

There's definitely element of that.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah. But Altadeena is a different story. Great. And then if you go the other extreme, what was the. That train derailment? Palestine.

[Adam Carolla]

Oh, right.

[Mike Rowe]

East Palestine, right, right. That's not on anybody's vacation brochure, but we managed to ignore the hell out of them, too. Yes. You know, how squeaky does the wheel have to be?

[Adam Carolla]

Will we assign a lot of value? I mean, good looking person dies, it's a tragedy. Ugly person dies, it's just not as

[Mike Rowe]

bad, you know, Famous person mom goes missing.

[Adam Carolla]

Geez, I. Somebody's got to find her because I can't take any more news about that.

[Mike Rowe]

I don't even. I mean, are we even allowed to kind of not joke about it, but acknowledge the. I mean, what is it, like 3200 kids have been found by ice. Found that had previously been just lost in the country during this same period? Yeah, I don't know anybody's name. Where's that kid? Where's the story? Where's the triumphant. We found another one.

[Adam Carolla]

Weird. In the priority department, yes. No disrespect to Nancy Guthrie, but none. She was kidnapped, and I don't need an hourly update on it. I hope they find her, and I hope she's alive. And I hope. I hope for all the best. But it's not something I need to hear every day.

[Mike Rowe]

Don't you? I mean, maybe it's even worse than that. Maybe there's something that really deletorious for the human mind to constantly be told about a circumstance or a situation that you can't do anything to remedy. And if that's just a steady drip, drip, drip. And that's just one story.

[Adam Carolla]

Yes.

[Mike Rowe]

You think of all. You know, people say, ah, you gotta take a break from the news because it's all bad. I don't think it's that. It's not that it's bad. It's that you can't do anything about it.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah, it was funny. I was talking to Dr. Drew about this today, and I mentioned that I didn't have a take on Nancy Guthrie, and I didn't have an Epstein take. And I don't have takes on everything because there's stuff I just don't know about. And I'm not gonna talk. I have takes on caissons and foundations and Chuck not being able to retrieve them from the Internet.

[Mike Rowe]

We all have a take on that.

[Adam Carolla]

But I do not have a take on Guthrie's mom being abducted because I have no insights. And I worry about people that feel compelled to have a take on everything all the time. Because you can't be a Swiss army knife all the time. You can't be everything all the time. And I'm perfectly happy to just go. I have no thoughts. I feel like it's sad. I hope they find her. Now I gotta get back to talking about foundations.

[Mike Rowe]

Right. But see, that is a sane and rational approach for a true civilian. But you're not a true civilian. You've got the, you know, you got the microphone, you got the cameras. You have an audience. Do you feel any kind of obligation?

[Adam Carolla]

I feel very obligated to talk about things I'm aware of. I know about hearkening back to doing our makeshift studio, hotel room fireside chat. I felt compelled and obligated living in Malibu probably at the time, thinking my place was burnt down, construction background, so on and so forth. Very compelled. Then there are other subjects, like Epstein's list. I just don't know anything about it. I don't know anyone. I've listened to 30 different versions of it. I can't get a straight answer.

[Mike Rowe]

You're not on it.

[Adam Carolla]

I'm not on it. And it's a part of me that's like. It would have taken the flight at least, but the prom. I used to do this joke. I did it, like, five times. And I felt bad, but I said, the problem with the pedophile accusation is like, you go. You see Tom Hanks names on the thing. And the problem with pedophilia is you go, oh, come on. Tom Hanks. He would net. Wait a minute. There's that thing. And I used to do this joke where I'd go. Because if you said to me, your stepdad, John. What about it? Could he murder someone? I'd go, absolutely not. John's a good guy. He's a gentle soul. And what about. Could he be an arsonist? No, no, no. What about going to an island with a bunch of models? Like, which island? Kind of the chunk. Because it's sort of true. Like, you don't know what anybody is capable. And every time it's someone who seems unlikely, you go, oh, come on. And then you go, wait a minute.

[Mike Rowe]

What island?

[Adam Carolla]

Right.

[Mike Rowe]

Be specific.

[Adam Carolla]

Right.

[Mike Rowe]

My favorite metaphor so far. You kind of glossed over it, but we're talking about Reese's. Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Yesterday, there was a big article, kind of a scandal. The grandson of Reese bought a bag and ate one and just threw the whole thing in the trash.

[Adam Carolla]

Really?

[Mike Rowe]

And said, this cannot stand.

[Adam Carolla]

Right.

[Mike Rowe]

So never mind all the ingredients in the cup, the two that are conspicuously absent are peanut butter and chocolate. There's not a trace of any of it, really. And so some lawyer at Reese's, a very artful rejoinder, just said, look, our iconic cups haven't changed at all. Well, no, your iconic ones haven't, but the ones you sell now in the store have. And so this is gonna be like. You'll read about it soon. It's like a. It's a thing. But you were comparing the fundamentals, the foundational fundamentals. Chocolate, peanut butter. It's not that complicated. Unless you keep calling the same thing. Or if this new thing you call it the same thing. It kind of looks like a foundation, but it's not made. There's no wood. There's no concrete. There's no rebar. It's all something else, and it's unpronounceable. And I think something it's part of the general fraud that's been perpetrated upon us. The ingredients aren't what we thought they were, and we can't even pronounce the stuff that is in it. And it all just feels like it's just going off the rails, you know? And that, you know, your vlog

[Adam Carolla]

is,

[Mike Rowe]

to me, just feels like an attempt to put the truth on the label, for God's sakes.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah. I'll tell you, the number one abused word in all ingredients is honey. If you look at honey cough syrup or, like, honey Vicks or honey shampoo or whatever, go see if you can find honey anywhere. No, the label's got a giant B on it that's dipped in honey. You turn that thing around, I don't care what it is. If it says honey something on it, there is no honey. Bunches of oats, there's no honey. There's no honey in anything that advertises is the first word of honey. Which it's the weirdest is like, for cough medicine. It's like honey Vicks, whatever. And you look at you. There's zero honey in here.

[Mike Rowe]

Here's what we're desperate for. I think we just want to hear the truth. The best cough drop I ever saw. I forget the name of it, but I bet. God, I hesitate to say Chuck, but if you Google it, I got the

[Chuck]

peanut butter thing up.

[Mike Rowe]

Their slogan was tastes terrible, works great.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah, Smuckers.

[Mike Rowe]

With a name like that, it has to be good, right? It was Mason Adams.

[Adam Carolla]

You should do VLM one of these days.

[Mike Rowe]

But that, to me, that's the key, right? You can't just. It can't all be great. Part of it has to be crap. And then if you give them the truth about the crap, then you can tell them the good news. You just need permission.

[Adam Carolla]

I have found. I mean, the thing that I think attracts me to going onto the job sites. And now I am touring some of the rebuild sites up in the hills of the Palisades, inland, another word not touched by the Coastal Commission. And there's houses that are sort of half framed and getting close to. Getting close to finish. And I'm touring the houses and, you know, none of it lies. It's just what it is. There's no theory about it. There's no. I have a dream about a house that gets framed. Buckley's award winning campaign, right?

[Mike Rowe]

It tastes awful and it works, right? I'll buy that. I'll believe it. Dumb. Never before, not in my life anyway. Have so many businesses Big and small struggled to answer the same question at the same time. With so much at stake, the question, of course, is how do we make AI work for us? One answer is to become an expert overnight. Good luck with that. The other is to put AI to work today with NetSuite by Oracle. NetSuite's the number one AI cloud ERP out there. They're trusted by over 43,000 businesses because they offer a unified suite that brings your financials, inventory, commerce, hr, CRM, everything into a single source of connected data that automates routine tasks and delivers actionable insights and actually helps you cut costs, which gives you total flexibility. With NetSuite's AI connector, you can use the AI of your choice. You got your Grok, you got your Claude, your Chat, GPT, whatever else they're coming out with next. It's all compatible. It connects to your actual business data and automates all of the time sucking soul deadening manual processes you've grown to hate. This is AI built into the system that's currently running your business. It's seamless. Learn [e-mail] Mike and while you're there, get their free business guide demystifying AI. The guide is free to you or [e-mail] Mike it's worth your time. Netsuite.com Mike that's netsuite.com. You said netsuite.com.

[Adam Carolla]

I think everyone feels that way for some reason. It scares Madison Avenue. It sort of scares society. Like it scares, you know, the people that are selling you stuff. But I happen to like that. And they used to do like VW Bug used to have campaigns talking about they looked ugly but they got, you know, got gas mileage or whatever. Like self deprecation was always good. I first off, self deprecation is a great quality. It's kind of, it's bygone, you know, like I kind of miss.

[Mike Rowe]

I was never really good at it.

[Adam Carolla]

It's just a great thing that we should get back to. I think it's always, I always like that guy or that woman who makes a joke at their own expense.

[Mike Rowe]

Can't go too far, then it's as artificial as, you know, being void of it. Totally. But yeah, we had a little bit of it.

[Adam Carolla]

I did a few of those types of jokes. I would do jokes in the vlog, which, you know, people are sort of, I don't know, I had mixed feelings about it because there's people's houses were burnt to the ground and I was kind of joking around, but it was always fun. So I found a guy early, and you won't have to look for Chuck, but it was everything on pch. And this guy got jobs, his company, cleaning the lots. And he'd go in there and clean these lots out. He's doing the stuff Trump was saying we need to do now. And one of them, the lots would be cleared out, but his company would plant an American flag in front of the lot. And I said to the guy, I said, just go along with me on this. And I got my cameraman, and I said, the American flag. Old Glory, this is amazing. Everything burnt. Everything burnt, but yet this remains the true testament of a country. These colors won't run amazing statistically. How could you even think about it? Everything is gone, but yet Old Glory still waves. And then he comes up and he goes, we put it there this morning. And he nailed the line, by the way, which was. Which was funny.

[Mike Rowe]

Do you feel like an obligation to be funny when you're. I mean, just in general?

[Adam Carolla]

No. I like to have a meaningful conversation. At some point when I'm discussing something, I'll use some sort of metaphor or something, and someone will laugh. But I'm not really trying for that. I'm just trying to paint a sort of peanut butter cup picture.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah.

[Adam Carolla]

You know, and no, I feel like there are times when you're in certain situations where you need to be funny, because that's sort of what I'm thinking, right? Oh, yeah, totally. 100%. You come watch me do stand up. I do not get preachy. I don't talk about the government lectures. I don't do any of that. I just want to be funny because that's why you bought a ticket. And so I'm going to oblige. And then there's other situations that are, like, more conversational, more interesting. And I think you should be able to toggle back and forth, you know, between those Personas. And I also feel like if you are a little more serious, a little more interesting, a little more thought provoking, it'll set up the humor for when it's time. And it's also more about a batting average than it is about times to the trips to the plate, you know, And I. I used to tell people all the time, they used to hear me on Howard Stern, they go, oh, I love you on Stern. So funny. How do you do that? And I'd go, I don't say anything if I don't have anything funny to say, I'll just hang back and let the conversation go. And if I have something funny, I'll punch it in and then hang back again. But it's the people that feel like they have to get to the plate and swing all the time. They're just, they're going to get some hits, but they're going to have a bad batting average. And I'm like, just sit back and wait for your pitch.

[Mike Rowe]

Who do you admire? Like, who's doing that right now in the, in the Zeitgeist?

[Adam Carolla]

I think there's some crazy guys out there. Like Shane Gillis. Strong. Like, he's funny. Not, you know, not everybody's funny. He's funny. Tim Dillon's funny. You know, there's. I'm not a real connoisseur of comedy because I'm sort of a mechanically minded person. And if you'd say, well, what do you look at online? It's like car auctions, you know, or some guys rebuilt a Datsun Z car and I want to check it out, you know, something like, I'm sort of blue collarly minded and a little less. Let's check out this guy's standup special on YouTube, you know, and I'm fine with it. It's just, I do it for a living. And when I'm done, I'll put it to you this way. Times I've been to a comedy club where I'm not performing. Yeah. Almost zero times I've walked to that job site in Malibu for free. Yeah, 2000.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah.

[Adam Carolla]

So that's where my interests are. That's literally what I'm doing. And I find myself much more interested in monkeying around with building and cars and mechanical stuff than I do in the sort of arts world.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah, but there's a metaphor there too. I mean, you know, the mechanics of a joke, the construction of a. A tight five minutes.

[Adam Carolla]

I believe it has to live somewhere in some reality and depending on the style of your humor. But my humor is sort of a. People have to kind of go, yeah, okay, yeah, I know what that is. Or I've heard of that. Or I, I believe that, like, for me it's very important that we live in a. Oh, yeah, I know what he's talking about. Or how come. Blah, blah, blah. And, and that's to me what sort of building is. It's kind of a reality and a practicality and a kind of a. Yeah, kind of a gravity. And when I used to build, I would talk to the. It would always be the women who were remodeling the houses. The guys. Never. I never talked to the guys, it'd always be the women. And the guy was at work most of the time and the women were there and they would say, like, I want to get rid of this whole wall and just make one big open expanse, one big great room, you know? And I'd go, well, if it's a load bearing wall, then we're gonna have to pick up the load, you know. And they. I'd go, put my head and go, that joists are running the wrong direction. Yeah, it's a load bearing wall. So then I'd go, all right, so we can get rid of the wall, but we got to put a big header to pick up the joist, the load. And then the woman would go, I don't want a header. I don't want to look at a header. I want it to be smooth and, you know, flat and all the way down. Then I'd go, well, we could put a header up in the ceiling. We got to put a post down at some point because it's got to be a smaller header. No, I don't want the post. I don't want the post. Well, we could put a piece of steel up there and that'll span it. But that's really expensive. I don't want to pay for that. I go, all right, what you want is a magic wand so you can affect gravity. I'm giving you these options and you got to pick one and that's that. And you could bring in 10,000 other guys and they'll tell you exactly the same thing. So this is where we're at. So we got to figure this out. And that's just kind of my approach to life. Now, I know you don't want to look at a header and I don't want to look at a header, and you don't want to post and I don't want to post, but that's it. That we don't have a choice.

[Mike Rowe]

But if you are a general contractor, metaphorically, and you are, and if you're, you know, not a subject matter expert, but, you know, you're in the decathlon and you want to be competent at all of these things, I mean, all of that really tracks. You know, you've done a lot of stand up, you've written your books, podcast thing and all of it, and I. When I think of you interviewing Gavin Newsom, now that's gonna hold up. And that. That wasn't comedy. That wasn't. Whatever that was. It suddenly revealed something and, you know, I wonder what it's like. Now, for people who don't know what I'm talking about, just give me a real quick synopsis of what happened and when, and then talk about maybe what you think now when you see him, you know, in Europe and elsewhere doing his thing.

[Adam Carolla]

It was several years ago. I interviewed him maybe 13 years ago now, and I didn't have any strong opinions about him one way or the other before he came in. I wasn't planning on being an adversarial, but I had some thoughts and corrections that I was looking to impress upon him. And I thought he'd be sort of amenable to some of those thoughts, you know, and there were kind of basic thoughts which was, I started seeing. I'll give you an example of a sort of basic thought. I would see people in Los Angeles who got into minor fender benders consistently standing in the third lane of the freeway, in the middle of the freeway, in the middle of the traffic, exchanging information, taking pictures, talking outside the car and creating a giant traffic jam, right? And I would say, they're going to get killed, number one. Number two, the car's fine. It's amazing what a car can do. I've driven the Toyota Celebrity Grand Prix five times. I've seen cars completed on three wheels. With every time there's a high speed chase, at some point the guy's running and there's just sparks coming out like you could drag a car off that. I'm going to pull over to the, to the shoulder. You're going to get killed and you're stopping the freeway. And I started saying, why don't they just put that up on the freeway sign? You know, like, if you have a little fender bender, it's the law, pull it over. And people started sending me pictures from like Montana signs by the side of the freeway. Said, if it steers, it clears. Pull it over. They had a campaign, well, here we are in Los Angeles, the worst traffic in the world, and nobody knows. They think it's a crime scene or whatever. So put it up on the sign. And I think he's gonna say to me, oh, that's a good idea. You know what, you're right. Or better yet, like, yeah, I know. I've been talking about this and I want to get it done and I want to put it whatever. He just looked at me and sort of went, what? I said, in Montana they have signs to say, oh, get out of here. He thought I was kidding. And then so I said to him, no, it's a big problem and it's just you could put it on the freeway sign and start a campaign. He goes, I saw a sign I liked. I saw a sign that said, you're not in traffic. You are traffic. And I was like, what's that have to do. What's that mean? I don't know what it means, but I want to alleviate traffic. He was laughing the whole time. And then later on, he brought up blacks and Hispanics. 50% of them in California don't have access to a checking account. Now, first things first. When people start butchering the language with the access everyone. What do you mean? What's that mean, no access? You know what I mean? Like, they would go, hobby Lobby denies access to birth control or reproductive health. They don't provide the pill. That's not denied access. I would tell people all the time, I have 20 people work for me. I don't deny them access to lunch. I just don't buy them a sandwich. They get their own sandwich. I don't slap it out of their hands. It's denied access. So he started telling me that 50%, which is an insane number of blacks and Hispanics, don't have access to a checking account. So I said, what's wrong with them? And he was like, what? And I was like, well, why aren't they doing it? Why wouldn't they get a checking account? It's like, oh, I don't know. And he just kept bringing up the problem but never bringing up a fix for the problem. And he went in circles and circles and circles for a lot of subjects, a lot of time, homelessness and everything. And I realized he had no answers. But he also didn't intend on any answers. And he didn't. I guess what it is, is he didn't find it to be problematic that he had no answers to the problems that he brought up. You know what I'm saying? And it didn't bother him at all. He didn't even seem to really recognize it or hear what he was saying. And I kept saying to him, what is wrong? And by the way, he didn't go. 50% of blacks in Hispanics California don't have access to checking accounts. So I have an amendment to a bill that will give us mobile checking account vans where we can pull into these cities like the Bloodmobile and get these people, these underprivileged people sign up. He had nothing. He just kept stating the problem. And then I realized he doesn't know what he sounds like. And he's a sociopath. Like, he doesn't really understand anything. He doesn't. It's all a kind of a fake laugh and hair gel and a deep leg cross, which is a thing. They just cross their legs super violently hard. Extraordinary for a man to do and unfazed and unbothered by zero answers and zero remedies with everything is kind of a laugh it off. Oh, you're making a joke. And I'm like, I'm serious. People get killed standing in the middle of the freeway. They should move their cars. That's all he does. He doesn't say, huh, I didn't thought about that. But you're right, that's a good idea. We should just put it up on the sign and make people aware they can pull over. It doesn't say anything. He told me that the homeless, I said to him 13 years ago, I said, the homeless are junkies who are schizophrenic, they're mental issues and they're addicted to drugs. And that's who's on the sidewalk. And he said, he said, how about the true face of homelessness? And I said, who's that? And he said, he said, the true picture of homelessness. I said, who's that? It's a mother of two, full time job, minimum wage, just got divorced, got put out with her kids. I said, that's nobody. That's nobody. By the way. You want to not solve a problem, then don't mislabel a problem or don't diagnose a problem.

[Mike Rowe]

Reese's peanut butter cups. There's no chocolate or peanut butter in his point.

[Adam Carolla]

Right. And that's what it is. He labels something something else and then moves on. And the homeless problem's gotten a lot worse last 13 years. The homeless problem's gotten a lot worse because he diagnosed it as a mom with a full time job who just got divorced.

[Mike Rowe]

Right.

[Adam Carolla]

That's how he diagnosed it.

[Mike Rowe]

So I mean, just staying on that issue for a minute. It was 13 years ago. How many billions have been spent in California?

[Adam Carolla]

24.

[Mike Rowe]

$24 billion. Has it gotten better or worse?

[Adam Carolla]

It's gotten worse. But why wouldn't it? Because you've not identified the true face of homelessness. Well, if you walked in a house and someone decided it was termite infested and then the guy said, I think it's because it's haunted, and then left. Well, that's not really going to solve the termite problem, is it? You've misdiagnosed what's going on. You got the termite part right.

[Mike Rowe]

But you might get a show on The Travel Channel

[Adam Carolla]

Tent that house. Yeah, tent it.

[Mike Rowe]

Well, you look. I think of the high speed rail, I think of the fires, I think of homelessness. And then I read the profile and what was it? Vogue the other day, which is just amazing. And I just watched yesterday in real time. I think he. I forget who he was in front of, but it was a large assemblage of. Of black people. And he said, I have a. What is it, like a 980 on my SAT, but I can't read either.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah.

[Mike Rowe]

You know, some form of dyslexia. And he's. He's getting lit up for it because I think he said, I'm just like you.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah, 960, I think.

[Mike Rowe]

960. Right.

[Adam Carolla]

But I was rounding out.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah, but I mean, so look, he survived the exchange with you 13 years ago. He survived all of these things.

[Adam Carolla]

He doesn't. He doesn't really fully understand it. And I can tell you that, you know, sometimes you have to sort of get in the ring with somebody to really feel their power or lack thereof. You know what I mean? You can't just watch them on TV in their boxing bouts. You know, you have to really kind of experience it. And I've sat in a room for an hour and a half with him, listening to him try to answer questions, and he doesn't track. So there's something missing. Like I would say, you know, with a lot of people, when they go, oh, what do you think of Adam Schiff? I go, oh, that liar. That guy's lawyer. Bullshit artist. But. And you can say, well, what do you think about AOC? And I go, she's a narcissist with a 10 cent head. But you go, what do you think about Gavin Newsome? I go, something's wrong with him. That's plain and simple for me. And not for me. I'm telling you reliably, something is wrong with him. And when you see him sort of do what he does, that's what you're seeing. But you're only seeing it on tv. You're not smelling as musk. Yeah, his nutty musk. When you're in studio with him.

[Mike Rowe]

Chuck Google. Nutty musk. I'm curious to see what's up.

[Adam Carolla]

Just make it nut musk.

[Mike Rowe]

I just want to see what comes up. I know we got to land the plane here soon, but, I mean, is there like a scenario where you'd even consider running for some kind of elected office?

[Adam Carolla]

No, but I'm flattered that people tell me that you're on List.

[Mike Rowe]

You're on lists.

[Adam Carolla]

I guess. Again, it sounds so far away from my version of myself that lives in my head. Like Adam Carolla for governor sounds insane to me. But on the other hand, writing a book is pretty far away.

[Mike Rowe]

Not Taco Bell material.

[Adam Carolla]

The version of my.

[Mike Rowe]

From your. I mean, look, it's all insane.

[Adam Carolla]

I totally get that it's all insane, but this one seems totally insane. But I would be very good at it because I would approach it like we're on the job site, which just there's what we're going to do and here's what we're not going to do, and here's what works. And there's a kind of pragmatism that is missing from what we're talking about. And it can be found on the farms and in the barns and on the job sites. A kind of a brass tax pragmatism that is missing. The bluer the state gets, the more that enzyme is missing. You know, it needs some ranchers and some hunters and some folks that put things together.

[Mike Rowe]

Did you see Fareed Zakaria's thing?

[Adam Carolla]

Yes, I did.

[Mike Rowe]

On Mondame.

[Adam Carolla]

Yes.

[Mike Rowe]

And New York in general. What'd you think?

[Adam Carolla]

And blue states in general?

[Mike Rowe]

Well, blue cities.

[Adam Carolla]

Oh, blue cities. Yes.

[Mike Rowe]

But what he did, he kind of left the door open for a comparison between blue and red cities. But I like, can you think of a red city?

[Adam Carolla]

That's a good point. Yeah, there's red states, but not so much red cities.

[Mike Rowe]

Right. And I think, you know, the point of managing a population, it's kind of the line to me is interesting between, well, are you managing a city or are you managing.

[Adam Carolla]

Well, I can say to some degree there surprisingly, couple of Orange county cities that in California that could be considered red in the way they sort of conduct themselves, you know, and Long beach, you know, didn't want to give in to all the COVID mandates and shut the beach and stuff like that. They have. There's some little bastions and you can tell because if I go to the Irvine Improv, which I've performed at quite a few times over the years, when I'm driving out of LA and I'm on the 5 freeway and I'm looking at Damnation Alley with hobos wandering in circles and graffiti everywhere and garbage everywhere. And at some point the road opens up and the pavement smooths out and the garbage and the homeless go away and the graffiti goes away, and I look around, I go, I guess we're in Orange county now. We've literally there's a palpable difference. When you're driving, it hits you pretty hard because it just. All of a sudden everything has changed. And so there are certain cities that are at least run reddish, even if they're not completely red. But I.

[Mike Rowe]

$127 billion for a budget?

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah. More than Florida. State of Florida.

[Mike Rowe]

More than Florida. More than Thailand.

[Adam Carolla]

Right.

[Mike Rowe]

More than Greece.

[Adam Carolla]

Right. Yeah, it's insane. But the thing that's insane about it is there's a bravado to it which is kind of, if you. It's really nervy. It's a bravado because what it's saying is, is you go look, you guys spend more money than the country of Greece and the state of Florida. Okay. And you're going to go up to the podium and say you want more money and people need to pay their fair share. And we're going to tax this group and that group. Is there any part of you that thinks about reeling it in a little bit in the spending department? And then why is that off the table? Like, why is that a non starter? Because you can either tax people more or you can spend less and you'll end up in the same place. It's the same difference.

[Mike Rowe]

But throw in 5% of that population left.

[Adam Carolla]

Right, Right.

[Mike Rowe]

I mean, that's a lot of people. And you can kind of hide that kind of big crazy number with big crazy numbers of people. But the number of people who are leaving is on the rise. So that just means your budget's higher and now fewer people have to pay more. And it's just, I mean, watching Fareed talk about this was. I thought it was really instructive. Cause he didn't enjoy talking about it. But at least he, like he told us the truth in the ingredients. Like he was talking about real chocolate and real peanut butter. I thought, you know.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah, it was refreshing, his candor.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah.

[Adam Carolla]

And I think that's his brother's name, by the way, Kander Zakaria. So I liked it. And yeah, when people on that side of the aisle are speaking that way, that should be a sobering moment to those guys. And also there should be some element of sort of humility that they don't seem to have, which is you are spending a grotesque amount of money. This is an impossible scenario and you're going to have to try to re engineer what you're doing here. And there never seems to be that sort of come to Jesus moment. It's just lots of posturing about needing more money.

[Mike Rowe]

I just think, you know, the photo that Chuck finally found. And good work, Chuck. That's the ultimate. I mean, your point was you can't go backwards, you know, if they won't go backwards. If you're going to put in the barbicans or you're going to put in the caissons and you put in five, you're never going to put in four. It's only going to be six. Everything's got to go big, big, big, bigger.

[Adam Carolla]

You really, in order to really, like, fully appreciate this. For me, I did it for a living for several years, a decade or more. But then I got in a show business and I didn't do it for a long time. And then at some point, some years later, I, like, came back to it because I was doing some projects on my own and I was pulling permits and I was talking to the engineer and I was like, oh, we gotta build a shear wall here. And I'd go, all right, yeah, okay, two by fours, four by fours. And number four. And they go, no, no, six by six. Two by six. And I'd go, what? No, no, that's not how you build a shear. Well, I know what the specs are. I've done it. You know, half inch plat. No, no, three quarter inch platform. I know the nailing schedule is six on center. No, no, three on center. I'd go, what happened? What happens? I laid off for seven years and the codes kept moving. You step away and then you reintroduce yourself and it's completely insanely over. And I'm walking around going, are you gotta be kidding me? There's no way they need this. You know, they need that. Oh, they have the pads on each side, but they need a bond beam to tie them together. They don't really need a bond beam. We got the pads on this. Like, no, no, that's. You know, engineers are like, that's the new coat. That's a new coat. And so, no, they never repeal anything. They just keep adding things on. And there is a cottage industry that springs forward from all that gets added on. And then those people have lobbyists. So, you know, we now have more bureaucracy in the teachers unions than we have teachers, right? I mean, there's more office workers than there are coaches and teachers and, you know, boots on the ground. That number just keeps growing and growing and growing because it becomes a leviathan. It becomes its own sort of machine. And then they get political clout and then you try to strip them and make them lean and mean and whatever. And then they go, remember who got you into office. And then the political will goes away.

[Mike Rowe]

This is why people say it's gotta go splat.

[Adam Carolla]

Yep.

[Mike Rowe]

And I don't know what it means, but the country ought to be paying attention to California.

[Adam Carolla]

I agree.

[Mike Rowe]

I'm glad you are, man. I really. It's just, it's. I'm glad I know you too. You were very kind years ago. Invited me on back in the Dirty jobs days. Said some nice things about me, you know, in fact, you were like, you know, I really admire your career. Like, I love the fact that you're out there, like, doing a show that felt. I'm always amazed in this industry, you know, I got a call one time from Patrick Goh. Warburton.

[Adam Carolla]

Warburton.

[Mike Rowe]

Hard to say, but he was like, you know, I've been watching Dirty Jobs

[Adam Carolla]

and he's a good dude, by the way.

[Mike Rowe]

He sure seems like. Oh, he is. And he had an idea. He was like, what if you and I were just to go through, like, Napa Valley like they did on Sideways, Only just as us, just, you know, drinking wine and hanging out. It's like, is that a show? I'm like, yeah, I guess it could be. But I'm thinking, you know, you're. Buddy, you're killing it on Seinfeld. You're the tick. You're like all these things. And he's looking at dirty jobs and finding something that he. That he envied, you know, something that's different. And, you know, I guess we all do that, you know, like, I envy your career a lot. I'm happy with mine. But it's always interesting to see how people turn out after 30 years.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah.

[Mike Rowe]

Of doing what they do.

[Adam Carolla]

Well, thanks. But listen, I see you and I go, oh, man, that's what I should be doing. Yeah. Because I love the work. Oh, and one thing I do want to say to you specifically on that subject and all, you know, I know that all the vocational training and all that sort of bring back shop class near and dear to your heart. I say all the time, you go up and down PCH as I do, it is littered with people working. Now. It's all. It's all road work. They're all doing road work. They're not building any houses. But it's all road crews. And then I go up the hill and I walk on the job sites and it's all these crews. I see crews everywhere. I do not see one black face. I only see Hispanics. And I've said for a million years, can somebody go down to the inner city and find these kids that are on a bad path, that are heading for gangs or heading for worse, and get a hold of them and go, there's good money to be made, there's dignity, there's pride. You're two years away from it. You're 17, you've been suspended five times. You're not going to be a rapper. We don't need to expose you to music. We don't need to take you to a museum. You need a trade, man. And there's plenty of work to be done. You know the pitch better than anybody. But could somebody go down there and get to these people and tell them? Because I don't see one of them working in this entire vista. And I passed hundreds of guys every single day and not one person from the interstate.

[Mike Rowe]

Well, the answer is yeah, but nobody who ever won an election in Baltimore. There's an organization you would love called Project Jumpstart. And these guys, this is the construction industry who basically threw up their hands and said, we can't find apprentices. We're really in a world of hurt. So they set up this pre apprenticeship program through the inner city. So some guys coming out of jail, some guys about to go in, you know, all at risk and, you know, and they, they went in there, they took two retired shop teachers and put willing participants through this pre apprenticeship program. And it had consequences. Like you could screw it up, you're late. Like they would give you a stipend, but if you're late, they'll take money. Shirts untucked, cell phone goes off, all that, you know, there are consequences. Bottom line, it was not involved at the time anyway with any kind of local taxes. And it was vibrant. And I mean, dude, these stories, I mean, guys who, you know, electricians, make 140 grand a year, who were out of, out of cards, right? I mean, the exact kid you're talking about. So yeah, LA could do that. They could absolutely do it. But I wouldn't know what elected official to turn to. It's going to take private industry.

[Adam Carolla]

I've never heard it come out of anyone's mouth, but someone should have said, altadena is burned to the ground, pals. Burned to the ground. Malibu's burned to the ground. I don't need a bunch of people coming in from Oklahoma to pick up the pieces. We have tons of strong young people. It doesn't take that long to figure out how to pull some Romex through some studs or whatever. It's not rocket science, it's experience. And it's hands on, but it's just, you can do it in a year and you can get on a job site. By the way, when you're on a job site eight, 10 hours a day, every day, you learn real fast, real fast, right? And three years from now, these guys will be 20, 21, and they'll be making good money and they'll have dignity and pride and sense of purpose and all that. Somebody just go, let's do this. And I've never heard. I've never heard a word from anybody ever.

[Mike Rowe]

Hey, look, man, I mean, maybe we

[Adam Carolla]

ought to do it, all right? I've been bitching about it for a long time.

[Mike Rowe]

Hey, I'm glad you stopped by. Sorry it led into this giant life changing promise made in front of three cameras, but. Yeah, let's do it. I'm rolling around.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah. Oh, good.

[Mike Rowe]

Really appreciate you coming by, man.

[Adam Carolla]

Thanks, Mike. Always appreciate talking.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah, man, I owe you one. Actually, I think this makes it even. But it doesn't matter. I'm at your disposal. If you're done, please subscribe. Leave some stars.

[Adam Carolla]

Ideally five. Five.

[Mike Rowe]

Lousy little star.