8408kb - Carl Schreck, Journalist

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GAROLTA'
THE HIGH TIMES INTERUIEW WITH ADAM
BY cARL
scHREcK I rHoros BY KATY wINN
The
show in February ?009, the former co-host of Lovelineand
carolla. After cBS Radio dropped his LA morning
phenome'
The past two years have been good to Adam
Internet
immediate
an
became
grrrg, rn Grendarl, cA, and launchedl free podcast that
Man showpromptry moved his hase of operations to .
venue for his Iengthy' extemporaget to the weather, the podcast gave carolla an unfettered
producers
radio
non. Liberated from FCC censors and
implications of drinking sanka coffee'
..griio
from the war"on orugs to peanut allergies to the sociological
neous and often obscene rants about everything
the comedian build a nationwide grassroots netRewind Aw ards,ihe Adam caroltaihowhashelped
Named the top audio podcast at the 20-0g iTunes
network was set to notch $1 million in advertispodcasting
some ?00,000 times daily, and his
work of fans. The show, carolla,s people say, is downloadeJ
managed to debut at number I on rhe
claims to have read only two books in his entire life-also
using his podcast as a marketing platform, carolla-who
comicriffsandmusingsonhissoutherncaliforyearswe'ltAlt BeChicks,acollectionof
ingfor20l0-animpressiveachievementintheembryonicbusinessofpodcasting.
NewyorkTimesBest-sellerListlastNovemberwittrtrisooot<lngo
jobs'
manual Iaborer drifting through a series of minimum-wage
nia childhood and early years as a carpenter and
a nation plagued by low-grade depression and
depicts
America
portrait
of
His
malaise.
the national
carolla is one of comedy,s most unique observers of
politics
are hard to pigeonhole' He reserves equal diswith some hawkish views on national security, his
joint
insidious bureaucracy. An atheistic free-marketeer
and prevent a guy from smoking a
getting
married
gays
from
the moral crusaders who would ban
dain for the welfare state, political correctness, and
can be simply summed up as: "Do what makes sense"'
after a long day at work. It'sa guiding philosophy that
The America you describe in your podcast is one
graduatty descending into insanity and inanity'
Where did we go wrong?
We didn't tett certain fotks to shut the fuck up and
get out of the way. lt's essentialty hatted
progress-you can't buitd that bu[[et train to Vegas
because there's some indigenous grasshopper
that you're going to disptace. Back in the otd days'
"Fuck that grasshopper,
some baron would say:
we're buitding this raitroad." And it got buitt' And
some grasshoppers got smashed, but we kind of
forgot about it, and the good of the majority-being
of
abte to get from one ptace to another-lust sort
outweighed the grasshopper. Now the grasshopper has a publicist, and they're going to get some
Grasshopper Roots Foundation behind them, and
some lndian's going to cry, and the thing's gonna
get hetd up in court and it's never gonna happen' lf
one kid is attergic to peanuts, just buitd a school
for kids who are attergic to peanuts-and their
hypochondriac parents. The solution is not to remove peanuts from school, it's to remove the one
El6
lllflllllB
oppothe
on
elryone
ptatoon.
Now
whote
the
it and saves
kid who's attergic to peanuts. lt's the exact
site of every good wortd war ll movie, where
grenaae arofs into a foxhote and one guy dives
tude. But the chick over at Ataska.Airtines who's
tetting me that I gotta go back to the gate to get
my bag because no one totd me there was a gate
check-she shoutd drop her fucking attitude'
wouldargueoverwhoseturnitistodiveonit,andShe'sapeon.AndsoistheUnitedcunt.Andsois
thenthey,dattgoup.themetermaid.Youguysdropyourattitude!
you can get an army behind you-and
When
an
Yourvitriotistargetyreservedfortow-l.evetpub-arsenalbehindyou,andsomemustardgas,anda
beret-by atl means'
tic- and private-sector functionaries-airtine wacky
representatives,trafficcops,metermaids,buitd-Youknow'KimJong-ltcangooutandshoot
"Uh' I got a
just
menac- 18 hotes of gol'f and tett his caddy:
ingfiendsoutthere?lgfortheday',,Andthecaddyhasnofucking
choice but to write it down' But you people are
There are always going to be your dictators of baing-code inspectors. Aren't there more
making $28,000 a year and have a fucking GED.
nana republics and your seriat ki[[ers, but they,re
you shoutd drop your fucking attitude.
And
inspectors
,rpporidtobe dicks. Buitding
supposed to have an attitude. Guys who work bels the war on Drugs part of our national madness?
hind the counter at that piece of shit catted United
aren't
Airtines,they,renotsupposedtohaveattitude,Yeah,lmean,it'sridicutous.ABCNewsdoessome
Copsaren,tsupposedtohaveattitude_notwhenfuckingexperimenteverytwoyearswherethey
they,redeatingwithnoncriminals.0fcourseMus-takesomespenturaniumandputitinaUPSbox
Los
and then send it from Tikrit through the port of
dictator!
atti-
sotini had an attitude-the guy was a
And saddam Hussein is supposed to have an
going
Angetes. And it ends up on an 1 8-wheeler
itl found out about fiue years ago that we spend rnore money on
fiipot eradication than uue do on methamphetamine eradication, iiii:
'iri:
{i,'
and I fucking alrnost threuu up in my mouth"
,.,:
through downtown LA, because we don't have the
bitmoney for detection equipment-yet we spend bi[[ions of dottars eradicating pot
everyyear.
issue. Maybe my liver has an issue, maybe my
issuewife nas
has an lssueissue, maybe my wlle
doctor has an rssue,
but me and society, we don't have an
issue.
obviousty,potisnotanissue.Methampheta-
mine is an issue, but potiticians never want to
make a disiinction between ihe two drugs-or
any drugs.Just: "Att drugs are drugs, they're att
;;,i*i;;;ii',,"n.i
""1*r,Ji"...ii.",u0,
of
and our kids shoutdn't be exposed to any
that there are many more drugs-inctuding atcohol.-that cause much more damage than pot. I
found out about five years ago that we spend
more money on pot eradication than we do
on
most threw up in my mouth.
I just heard of this news anchor in Washington, DC, who got fucked with because he had a
pot ptant in his backyard. lt's totat insanity-what
kind of country are we tiving in? You wanna grow
a pot ptant, grow a fucking pot ptant. The government has much bigger fish to fry than some
news
who
',.,:!r::;:;ili::,;angn1r
andnlSIUCKlngpotptanI.Everyoooywno
his f ucking pot ptant. Everybody
|?* anchor and
shoutd have a pot ptant, and
*.",. ,"to smoke
t."t" pot rnorta
;illj)i# wants
i;i:ffi
i rhc
#i:r.t'|fi
6ovprnment
not be invotved with it in
government
shou[d
t"
iitli,:
'
-*"y,
shape or form unless the person
something when they're intoxicated.
Pot shou[dn't be treated differeni
.ny
iL!:I$
,i#W,
does
Atcohol. seems to be your drug of choice. Do
unwind with marijuana, too?
I tike pot, [butl pot got too good; it got too
you
sion-l started reatizing that to drink the red.
"l#i
tiiiiii
(r r>
ru Imb
I ru
I ru ur
of Inu
is weird
wcr I u kind
rt ur
offI rrr
into
Le th
nd od Irift
wine
wlne a no
'iiit:.:n,
^r
stumber and not think about the next show,
::':
wrru> t:!ii'.i:i
appearance, the next obtigation, or who's
nextappearance,rnenexroDtlgdtrurr,ur
next
gonna pay for the goddamn private school for my i#
twins, and just drift off and watch some 5t'
Etmo's Fire on cabte-l started enjoying_that
.. ,'
buzzmore. ltwassortof a"who cares?"bu.zz
I
I
the ii#
.
power-
fut.ait*resturi*raim"t
"iitto*'"centerfoldof versus an "l'm gonna get high and realty
your pubtication, the stuff with the purpte hair;
too goddamn good now.
And something happened to me where I
needed a different kind of buzz. Because when I
had nothing and I just drove a beat-up pickup
atty didn't have a penny to my name, lwanted
and
Christ,
you? What areyou
When did you first reatize you had a talent for
-^..temporaneous
monotogues?
----r^-..^-r
l'd been doing it for a long time, but
+L^..^L+ ^+ i+ -- - r-r^^+
doing?"
Did you do tong
schoot?
ex-
t::#
..
1ll
:n|:i!i
I
.--
never
.:'
tilir-l|
to
get stoned just to, tike, escape ... you know, jusi
get baked and crank up a Boston album. And at a
certain point, I had kids and a wife and a house
and multipte mortgages-you know, a pretty
goddamn big nut to cover every month. I knew l'd
be on Jimmy Kimmel Live in a week, and the
(rrdL,dttuudtttttt9ruL'tLttc
and Dancing With the
after that,
show drLcr
Ionlght
tuIttgltL>ttew
I wou[d get stoned ar
Siars, and I realized that Iwoutd
"Jesus Christ,
just
iust kind of think about it. Like,
you're going on Dancing With the Stars? Who are
think
riffs in front of friends in
high
.,.
..,.
iiii;
.-.:
counse[ors,
[ong,
riffs. Someone woutd tetl
*
"Who
My friends, or famity, or teachers,
whoever-they woutdn't permit me to go on
rambting, even funny
me to shut up or get back to work, or
cares?" or "0uiet down!" or "So what?"
lt's weird now, because ljust got
the House of B[ues in Vegas, and there's 900
pte sitting there who want to hear 90 minutes
i
i^..,^
sit down
anyone who'd -:r
my shit. I coutdn't find --..^-^.,,L^
,ii;'i..:ii]:
oi.llt:.
peoof
for
I^-
,,
jil?]
,]::i
i:
!:iil:i
.1a::1):1:ia:11:l
on
an
den
iiiliilfl
iii!;;:fi
't!l#
night. And I like an Ambien and a cocktail, too,
ra." o.."sion. But if I get in my car, now we got
issue. As tong as l'm sitting at home in my
:.itl:#lLr::r.,.,^+-hi^^.^]u-"^^r^.
+h6h,^d.r^^'+hr\,65n
li:''|,:lllf watching 5p orts Center, then we don't have an
,lltji*i!::iiiJ
eEl ffilrul
and
point,
when I got some notoriety-and don't get me
rrrrnnn lt's
it'qqtittfuntopaianothrownieonoccastiLt fun to eat a pot brownie on occawrong,
make $100,000 a month to cover your nut
you'Lt not have a good high. 5o at a certain
one-l wouldn't
without *
Let's lllli
:fi
there
buddy iii
get 45 seconds into it
someone saying, "l don't know! Who cares?
orderl" 0r my parents just sorta sitting
kindanumb.cleartvnottisteninq.0rmybuddy
kinda
numb, clearty not listening. 0r my
]
Donnyjust going "Huh?" or "You're blocking the
set."
Nobody ever said "Write that down" or
TV
"That's a good onel" or "You should do this for a
tiving." It never came up. So this weird gift, in a
wortd that looks at it as a tiabitity, is no fucking
gift at at[.
ls a podcast the ideal venue for your creativity,
more so than radio or television?
fast-there's no room for anfihing
long-form. Radio is fine, but you have a program
director who's probabty dumb. The onty thing
dumb peopte know is "Hurry up, hurry up!" So
my Life kind of went f rom "Shut up!" to "Hurry
upl" And now, when you do this, you can do it
Yeah. TV is too
super [ong-form.
How did your manua[-[abor days prepare you for
your current career?
A tot of time left atone with my thoughts .... You
wanna free up your mind? Turn off the TV, turn
off the Wii, turn off the computer and do repetitive manua[ labor. Literatty pick up a shovel, go
out in your backyard and dig for nine hours without so much as a fucking radio or someone
standing next to you. Just dig. Betieve me, you'[[
get to thinking-no ear buds, no podcasts, no
iTunes, no Best of REO Speedwagon. I would have
jobs where they would drop me off in a parking
[ot, and there was a huge mound of dirt the size
of a Winnebago on one side, and on the other side
of the parking lot was a big rott-off dumpster with
the doors swung open. There was a two-by-1 2foot ramp that went up it, a ftathead shovet and a
wheelbarrow. I got dropped off, and they said,
"Hey man, don't leave unti[ you get this mountain
of dirt into that rolt-off dumpster." I started at 7
a.m., and by 5:30 p.m., I made my last scoop and
went home-a[[ for $7 an hour. There are no f [atpaneI monitors, no checking your B[ackBerry.
You're just alone and got nothing to do but think.
It's sort of tike being imprisoned with your
mind-and a fucking shove[. What we're doing
now is just sitting around staring at YouTube,
staring at Funny or Die, staring at ESPN, staring
at Wii. And we're basically just taking a tour
through someone etse's museum. And I don't
know how much art you create when you're just
constantty watking through someone else's mu5eum.
I never wrote down a joke. But I was left alone
with my thoughts-that's for goddamn sure.
were a lousy student with, you say, indifferent parents. When did you become so industrious?
At a certain point, after being a nonachiever for
so [ong in my tife, I finatly started to accomptish
some goals, and it became sort of intoxicating.
And then I started kinda wanting more.
I spent the first 30 years just wasting my Life. I
was put on this earth to share stories, and te[[
jokes, and entertain peop[e, and try to make
them think, and come up with ideas, and design
architecture, and work on cars. I was reallyjust
put here to do these things-l don't mean by God
You
9t]
lll(llTll'lll
You usanna free
up yeur mind? Turn
off the TUn turn off
the lffii, turn dF
the colrtputer and
$o do repetitiue
manuatr lahor-.
Eelieue rrre, you'll
g*
to thinking.'
or anything, but those are my cal[ings. And I
spent the first 30 years [istenlng to teachers who
told me lwas dumb-and, you know, digging a
ditch. l'm not Ernest Hemingway or fucking Mark
Twain, but if you asked someone who knew Wi[[
Rogers what Wi[t Rogers did for 15 years, and he
said, "0h, they gave him a shovet and he sat in
the dirt and dug a ho[e," you'd say: "Wett, that
seems [ike a waste. Shoutdn't he have just been
sitting around and writing down sorta funny isms about society?"
"Nah. He just sat atone, with ranchera music
btaring in the background, digging a hote for $8
an hour." That'd be kind of a waste, wouldn't it?
Now, l'm not saying I'm Witt Rogers, but that's
mything. I tike ideas-l don't tike digging hotes.
And so, eventuatty, it was [ike lwas making up for
tost time. lt was [ike, "Hoty shit! I've sat around
rotting in ctassrooms, rotting in shitty houses,
rotting on job sites-just sitting and fucking rot-
ting." And then I reatized, a[[ of a sudden:
"Whoa-l got stuff to tatk aboutl" And so I started
doubting down.
Why do you pee in the sink?
Muttitask white shaving. l'm six-foot-two-and
Dr. Drew tol.d me that urine is sterite. V