Adam Carolla

Published Mar 10, 2022, 1:07 AM

On not taking down Tweets and riding motorcycles in the rain. 

Love him or hate him, Adam Carolla is a force. Bethenny questions Adam about his polarizing comments about Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and his controversial take on COVID. What's it like to have an unpopular opinion in the era of cancel culture? Adam knows and Bethenny wants the real story. 

Plus, Bethenny reveals the fatal mistake a potential business partner made, that forced her to immediately walk away. Don't make that mistake yourself— tune in.

Yeah, I think responsiveness is such an important part of business. I know, I know back in the day, we emailed people, we called them, we faxed them, and you didn't get such an immediate response. And some people don't like text because too immediate you expect something. Guess what if you're not responsive in two keep moving, like for projects, for business partnerships, for UH employees, for you know, overall staff members and partners. It's not great to not be responsive. I'll I'll send a message to someone or an email and won't put here back from them for a day and a half. I consider myself a pretty busy fucking person. Like if you don't get back to someone, there's somebody actually, someone very powerful that I emailed back when I was selling my podcast and they didn't respond to me. And later they tried me back but a while later, and they were bummed that I had done such a big podcast deal. And I was like, and I never said, well, I never heard back from you, just knowing it would never happen again, and recently it happened again. I don't know, you have to be responsive because you just don't know what you're missing, and you don't know what opportunities being presented to you that really could immediately be presented to someone else. It's a serious, serious thing. You must be responsive, and so many people are not, and it's like it can also be perceived as passive aggressive. How long is an acceptable window for a text response? And how long is an acceptable window for an email response? So I just want to talk about just be which started for me to have conversations with with game changers, business moguls, people who have started from the bottom and created some excess, and often in a particular industry, they've really mastered. Steve Madden mastered the shoe industry. Um, someone that you know, Cheryl Sandberg is number two at Facebook, like someone who's really just charted their own course. So Adam Corolla was someone I wanted to have on because I think of all these different lists of people who have succeeded. I don't know Adam. I think I might have done one of his shows years ago. But I remember, literally more than a decade ago, I talked to somebody about a radio show and then a podcast was brought up and they said that this guy ad Dam Corolla and he was I don't know if this is true. Because I didn't ask him, but was making like ten million dollars a year and was like the guy. So I found out that he's still doing podcasting, and to me, he's like I was one of the pioneers and is clearly very successful in the space. So I wanted to have him on. I don't I didn't know anything about his politics. I've had Dana White here, who's like a you know, it's serious Republican. I have had Hillary Clinton on. You know, I've gotten criticized for having Hillary Clinton on, and then critic size for having Dana White on, and then curls criticized for having Maria schreivron. So I want that I'm not interested in this being a Democrat show, a Republican show. There's no agenda here. I don't like when I watch the news and I hear people just like push their own thing. You don't learn anything like seeing people I roll on both Fox News and CNN. We know what you're gonna say because everything that the other side says, you're totally opposite. Aren't There some people that are like, uh, that are gray, like in the middle, like me. There's some things I agree with on both sides. I mean, you can be a human being with your own mind. You don't have to have gotten the pamphlet for being a Republican or being a Democrat and follow every box of it. So also with relief, Oh you did Fox News and people cursing me out, Oh you did CNN, and then they start blaming presidents and getting me involved. We do relief work. We take money from everybody, and guess what, during some disasters, Republicans are way more generous than Democrats and in other disasters. Then I then I go on CNN and the money flies in. So I want to talk to everybody. By living in our own heads and listening to the same opinions we've been moving around in our own brains for our whole life. We're not gonna learn anything. So whether I agree with someone or not, I like to hear what their opinion is. And I I'm not what I hear so much and I heard it's particularly around the Trump election. Fuck you you don't know anything, you I It was one of the girls on the show was like, I worked at ABC News for all these years. Okay, does that mean you get a bigger vote? Do you get two votes because you worked at ABC News, like you may, let's say you're smarter than everybody else, it doesn't mean you're not you're more of a person. So I always hate this, Like, you know, everyone's got to like regurgitate every single part of the news to prove how much smarter they are than somebody else. And then you know people are going into to um To voting booths and not even voting for who they're telling people they're voting for. People have like secret people are secretly voting. Because if you get into a conversation with someone who has different beliefs politically, as you fun ge arguments like people are not adults. So I believe in open conversation, and I've some some sometimes seen my feed be like um a debate. So Adam Carolla has very specific, pointed opinions and many of them and most of them are very pointed Republican opinions. You can agree, you cannot agree, But I don't tolerate me or anybody on here getting bullied for having a Democrat or a Republican on So I want to introduce the fact that I'm talking to Adam Carolla today. He's a comedian and radio host. His first costing. Gig was on Love Line, which eventually led to his own show, The Adam Corolla Show. He later created the Adam Carolla Podcast, the most downloaded podcast of its time. He broke the Guinness Book of World Records in two thousand eleven. His podcast company, Corolla Digital, still continues to garner listeners and has a massive following. He absolutely thrives in radio scene, and while you may not agree with everything he says, I found his takes on cancel, culture and politics fascinating. Let me know what you think from your own opinions. See what millions and millions of people are listening to him for and we could talk about it. So I hope you enjoy it. You really are. You are like the Elon Moska of this thing. You're the innovator of this medium. Did you really understand exactly what it was or what it would be? Was it a result of something else not working out? Like? How did this trajectory start? Yeah? Well thanks, I don't look at myself that way. I take a little bit of credit for certain things, which is, you know, I didn't invent podcasting. I just sort of thought about it as a business. I guess maybe earlier than a lot of people did. I just sort of was traditionally in radio, had had may you know, I had kind of two parts to my adult life. That the first part of my life I was a carpenter and eventually got out of that and I got into radio. And then I was in radio and I understood how the rhythms of radio worked, or how the how one could monetize radio. You get it, you know, you talk, you get an audience, and then you sell advertising. You know. So when I left radio, or when radio left me because they flipped the format on the station I was on for the morning show, I just sort of thought, well, why not take that same model to podcasting. And it took a while for the business to kind of catch up and figure it out, but I assumed they would. It was you know, for me, I was just gonna get up every day and I was going to talk and I was going to do a daily show. And if people listen, that would that was great. And if they advertisers at some point came on board, that that was great too. But I was just gonna get up and do it every day, just like some people get up and meditate every day, you know, some people get up and do yoga every day, or take their dog for a walk every morning. You know, that's kind of how I felt about podcasting. I was just going to get up and talk every day. So I left my you know, radio on a Friday, and the following Monday, I did it daily podcasts and I've never stopped. It's crazy. Did you feel canceled? Did you feel defeated that one genre had one door had closed? Or you just thought you're the kind of person who just lands on your feet. It always has worked out, you know. I I don't really examine who's done what to me or how it made me feel, or canceled, they're fired, or you know anything. I just sort of go, what would you like to do? And I think, well, I'd like to talk, And then I go, well, we cannot talk on radio anymore, so is there another place I can talk? And then I found another place and I spoke. It wasn't really, there wasn't no I I'm I'm pretty much when you know, I don't internalize too much and I don't externalize too much. You know. My radio, my terrestrial radio career ended because the station thought they could make more money playing top forty pop songs than they could with me talking. So it was a business decision, and I didn't have any where's the loyalty or I can't believe what you're doing to me? It's all business. I wouldn't I wouldn't think of it as anything else. So they made a business decision, and so then I made a decision too. I love that, and I get that because many people are not like that, and they hold onto something and wallow and I'm exactly the same way as you. I didn't love doing a talk show. For example. It felt like I was directing traffic. This one comes in and when we come back, and it wasn't deep at all, and um, when that ended, I was like, Okay, cool, what are we doing next? And you got to kind of keep going until you figure out what you love to do. I love doing this. I really get why you say that you wanted to talk. I don't think it's because you like to hear yourself talk. I think it's an outlet. Is that not because this to me feels like it's a It's an outlet for humor expression, Just these thoughts that you have in your mind. Is that what it gives you after all these years. Yeah. Look, I like to talk. When I was swinging a hammer for a living. I like to talk when I was in high school. You know. I like to talk. I like conversations. I you know, the amount of times I've gone to dinner alone, I could probably count on one hand. And it was because I is like on the road and whatever. Like, I would never go to dinner alone. I want someone to talk to. I wouldn't go to a movie alone. Like I. I really I enjoy people. I enjoy conversation. I love the exchange of ideas. And you know, I used to do Love Line for million years with Dr Drew and the show would end at midnight and we get in our cars and Culver City and we both had about a half hour commute, And as soon as I got in my car twelve oh five, I would call Dr Drew and we would talk. That's amazing he was on here. I like, he's great. I mean, I see why you guys had to go down amic. Are you still friends? I was on the phone with him fifteen minutes ago. We'll tell him. I said, hi, when you text him, and we talked about his relationship, to which if you don't mind. We'll get into a little bit later. But um, is this space too crowded? Um? In podcasting? Yeah? Um, yeah, I you know, I don't know. I mean it's like saying, are there too many shampoos? Are there too many Mexican food restaurants in Los Angeles? Like? Um, well, TV is too crowded for me. I don't even know where the hell I'm going and when I'm watching and I'm in a rabbit hole. So is this like that? And is it? Is it like you can't really process information or have quality because it's so much quantity? I just mean, what does it mean? What will happen with just so much every single person having a podcast? Yeah? I I don't know. I I don't really spend a lot of time thinking about it. My feeling is is whether you want to open a restaurant or open a podcast to go, do it. Try to make your food the best, then let the chips fall where they may. Yeah. Okay, Um, how you grew up in Wisconsin but you were born in l A. No, I think that's kind of a wicked thing or something. I was basically born in Lost s angel So some something sad I was born in Philadelphia. I lived in Wisconsin when I was very young for maybe a year or something like that. But basically I'm a California person, okay, and you're you close with your parents? Did they care about success? Was money and work ethic a thing in your house? What was the sort of road were you going on? What did they think you would be doing or what were what were your conversations with them about what you're supposed to do with your life. I didn't have any of those conversations about what I might become or how it's going to get paid or any of that. I it wasn't something that was discussed, and there wasn't the entrepreneurial spirit or there really wasn't discussions of college or you know, um, there weren't discussions of college. No interesting and why what what? You just everybody just gets a job and just you go paycheck to paycheck and that's just life. Yeah. You you you finished high school and then you go to work and you hope someone gives you, you know, an hourly waged that's decent and hopefully maybe there's some benefits involved medical or dental or something, and then that's that's that or or it's not, but it was none of their concern. I mean, I was just talking. I was talking to Drew twenty minutes ago and the subject came up. I said, you know, did you ever think you'd have twenty jobs when you're older? You know what I mean, like literally, oh that's I have twenty jobs, you know, And and he said no, no, no, And I said, you know, my family was kind of a little bit interesting. But my mom didn't really work, kind of kind of welfare, food stamp sort of thing with her. My dad was kind of a school teacher his whole life. Um, my grandmother worked at the v A Hospital in Westwood about forty years and my grandfather didn't work. And that's about all I saw. I had. No one worked a weekend, nobody bought commercial real estate, No one had an idea for a line of hot sauce. You know. It was just that was it. And and when it came to their kids, there was that was it. There was no discussion. We lived in you know, the two houses both had one bathroom and you know, we're square feet and that was it. But many people would have been successful no matter what they do because of their drive. And do you think that you just happened to find your calling and that's why you're successful. Would you have made money at anything you've done. Do you have an amazing work ethic and are you driven and you have that passion or you're just doing what you love and making money at it just playing it simple. I I don't really I didn't have the entrepreneurial spirit as a younger person because I didn't even know what it was. I mean, I never saw anyone you never heard that word entrepreneur or branch money was kind of pooh pooed, sort of bad. As you know, I understood that if you mowed lawns and washed cars, you could you could get twenty bucks and maybe you could buy a mini bike or something like that. That was about is you know, that's that's kind of what I understood. So I never thought much about it. And then, you know, when I went to work after high school, I just you know, walked onto a construction site and just worked as a labor just dug ditches. Right, But that is hard work. So you're not afraid of hard labor. You don't, I mean, you don't complain. You you'll work long hours. You don't care about that. Yeah, well, you know, I wasn't in the position where I could complain or not, uh embrace it, for lack of a better phrase. I I had no money. My family had no money. They were very clear since I was you know, ten, that they weren't going to do anything there. It's not there. There's no parachute or or net underneath me. They didn't have money, and if they did have it, they wouldn't give it to me. And and they didn't have money. So I just wandered out into the society sort of went I'll be anyone's donkey for you know, seven bucks an hour, and I'll work as many hours as as I can work. Because now I got an apartment and roommates and a truck, you know, and I got to support myself. And that's that's how I approached it, right. And then didn't you meet someone work in construction and that was your transition into radio? No? I met Uh, I met Jimmy Kimmel, who was doing radio at a sort of lower level. He was like part of a morning show, you know, he was and the guys whose names are on the billboard. He was Jimmy the sports guy. He did the sports and um I was also working part time as a boxing instructor. At that point in my career. Um I was doing the white collar boxing you know, I got twenty bucks a class to teach lawyers and airplane pilots how to how to box, you know. And Uh, I heard there's a boxing match going on on the radio show with Jimmy the sports guy and Michael the maintenance man. And I just heard him talking about on the radio, and I thought, well, I'd like to check this out. And they needed trainers, and it was a big, long story, but eventually I showed up at the radio station and there was Jimmy and uh, and I trained him and then we became friends. And how did you have that interest for radio though? What made you so? Then? And then so then what got you on the radio and why when he puts you on as a box usually people pigeonhole you as what they meet you as. It's a random transition. Well, he told me, uh, he thought I was funny, but he said, I'm not gonna pitch you as my boxing instructor because they're gonna go, what the hell? You know, that's not funny. You know, you're gonna have to come up with some character or something. I'm not going to tell them who it is. That's kind of how it started. But I was always working on comedy, going to the Groundlings, acme improv. You know, I was working. I was work during the day full time as a as a carpenter, but at night I would I would take my improv classes and try to do open mics and try to do anything I could do comedically. And I always loved the Radio. It just wasn't it wasn't working out interesting. I loved the Groundings. I took classes there. I thought that was so so great. I took classes at different ones in different states, like the Second City Well One and in Prov Olympics, but I thought the Groundlings was the best one. Did you were you actually a groundling? You perform or you just took the classes. I got all the way up to Advanced, where they they voted the next day to see if I would become a groundling, and I did not become a groundling. So I basically made it through beginner intermediate writing lab and then Advanced and then got cut. That's defeating. I didn't get that far. It was very depressing. And then I sort of one over answer and an ad in a newspaper for another troop called that turned into out to be the ACME Comedy Troop. And I just went over there and I started basically my own troop. So you can't really cut you know, I gotta play it's my balls the way like you can't cut me. Obviously, her first, did you once you hit, once you were on the radio, did you feel like you could feel traction? Was it an upward trajectory you're decent at this people are responding, or did you keep getting pulled back and have false starts? Now, it was almost it was pretty much immediate success with the the understanding that I was funnier than everybody else, Like it just boom. It just went fast. That's so good, that's so great. And it went fast when you went into podcasting. To you, you you lit up. You have a gu there's a Guinness Book of World Records. Something about your podcast or downloads or something isn't there. I don't know if I would say that went fast because there wasn't any money, or there wasn't a there wasn't any infrastructure or anything around it, you know, so it's like, I mean, you didn't know how many people were listening, did you even or did you know? But you don't know what that means. Well, there was metrics, you could you could figure it out, but it was weird and and it didn't but it didn't matter how many people you had listening. There was no business model. So what was totally true? I love that answer because I did podcast for a year. It was very successful and I had major guests like Hillary Clinton and Matthew McConaughey and realized a year later that I basically was paying for the podcast because of the production, and that the model wasn't correct. They were bulk advertising instead of oh, you have Hillary Clinton on, so let's not put women's hair lost product because it was in the bulk been on when she's on, Like, why don't we curate something to her? So I realized that and I said, hold on, but you have to even and you've been doing it for fifteen years longer or twy, So to think about the fact that all this time later, the model still isn't you have your own model that you probably have now designed and it works for you, but it's like a wild, wild West still. I think is interesting about that the way. I didn't know there was a list of podcasts. I didn't know the way that things get defined. So I think that's interesting that you must have really been in the cave era, like there's nothing. It's been thirteen years and uh no, there was no model and uh and width was expensive and I had to pay for it, and I just moved forward. I didn't really base it, you know, I didn't base it on the promise of success or financial reward. I I based it on what I wanted to do well. I think you definitely aren't motivated by money. I could tell that, and you're seeing like a kind of if you build it, they will come person Well. I like money, and I try to make money, but it's not the purpose that doesn't get me out of bed in the morning. It's not why I started, and it's not what propels me. It's a byproduct of what I do. And if you can do it well, then you can make more money. And I like money like anybody else. But you know, I don't want to come across as some you know, purest artists or something like that. I like getting paid. I like figuring out ways to get paid. I'm I'm all about it. But I'm also first and foremost about saying what I want to say and telling the jokes I want to tell are given the opinions I want to tell, which sometimes are not as financially rewarding in this town, especially as keeping those opinions closer to your vest. Well, that's a great question. You came up at a time where you could be way looser with what you wanted to say, and now you know there's such a land of bullshit of people's self editing and being filtered, um, you know, than just saying what they really feel secretly. So how much do you actually have to self edit for fear of cancelation and just that the world is more sensitive than ever? And how much do you just say fuck it, I'm saying what i want to say, and if the tables go cold, I'll walk out of the casino. I say what I want to say. It's um, it's not something that I wrestle with. I just say what I want to say. I tell people, and you know, people have told me stop saying things, and I just go, it's what I think, you know, and they go, yeah, but things would be better if you stopped some of that and I just go listen. I didn't get into comedy to edit myself. This is I'll go back to swinging a hammer if that's what we're gonna do here. So I actually go further the other direction. If if I think maybe I shouldn't say something, I say it because you're feeling it inside. So you're saying what you want to say. Are you saying it differently because of things that you've learned? Do you say, is there a different way to say the same thing, or if you sometimes you gotta just say it the way you gotta say it, Well, you say it the way you got to say it with an eye toward language. You know, if you've been around long enough, you know there's you wouldn't you know twenty years ago you would say that guy's a homo, and now you say that guy's gay. You know what I mean? Like you, you do kind of tweak along with the times. But because it doesn't catch a ether to say that, it's not quote unquote if you were in the middle of a joke or a story, it doesn't matter how you say that. For example, it matters to people that it will hurt, but it's not you know, But but as humor, its don't excuse meaning if it's going to be funny, it will land and then people will Like Dave Chappelle for example, I mean, the things he says are so unpopular and yet so funny, so he really he doesn't even ride the line. He fully crosses it. But it's because people think he's so funny that he gets away with it. I mean, if he were somebody else, would he fully be canceled, Like where's that line? And what's how do you know how to not cross and how to succeed at the humor in that? Does that make any sense what I'm saying. Yeah, except for the one part where you said, you know, you know a lot of people are he says things that upset a lot of people. It's not really a lot. It's just a very small vocal group. Most people don't give a ship. Otherwise he wouldn't be popular. If you're really we're saying something that really the majority of Americans disagreed with, he wouldn't be as popular as he is. But the thing is that you're in so you're in the right vehicle for yourself that to do that, because you don't have bosses that are worried about what you're saying and if you're gonna piss off a certain group. I've said things that I don't even think of that crazy, and um, you know, had brand deals immediately canceled because People magazine and US Weekly picked up something that I said, and it's everywhere, and it's like, well, I don't even freaet say anything like I just said when my opinion was and I didn't say anything inappropriate or racist like I just said in my opinion was. It's not a popular opinion. So then you end up losing money. But your base is in just you and the people. It is very pure in that way. They're listening to you, whether whether you've said something inappropriate or not. That's the relationship you're in businesses. You don't get You don't lose brand deals, right, No, I don't. I don't really have brand deals. Maybe that's why, sure I would lose brand deal. Okay, Okay, that's interesting because that's a choice. Well, I look, I kind of realized a long time ago in this town that I wasn't going to fit in with the sort of doctrines that would be passed down from on high upon mountain pious and I was not. It was not going to work out for me in that in that regard, so I needed to just go my own direction, build my own audience and say what I wanted to. Yeah, because what is important in business. If you try to please everybody, you please nobody, and if you try to be a watered down halfway version trying to please like quote unquote brand deal world, and then you'd be like this, you'd be in the middle, you'd be in the purgatory, and you wouldn't be successful, like in the same way, which I love that because you have to be fearless. And I love what you said about it being a small group. It's so true. If you read comments about yourself, you'll think this is what's going on, and then the press will pick that up and you think it's going on. But it's it's interesting that you say, it's really not a big people that you're pissing off. It's just vocal people. I like that. I've just never thought of it that way. Their minority, but they're super vocal. That's enough with social media to get most people to back off. But it's not. They don't represent most Americans. They'll put it to you that way, and look, even if they did represent most Americans. Back to Dave Chappelle, there's three hundred and thirty million Americans. All he has to do is capture about two and he's going to sell out every arena he plays. You know, Yeah, you are a business person, that's for sure. I like the way you think. I really do. You've thought about all of this. You've done. You've done the numbers, whether literally or just conceptually, which I think is helpful. It's helpful to me for sure, because I say things that aren't popular, and I really I think I think that you don't care. But do you not care? Like adul do you read nothing? Do not care if your wife's like holy sh it? Like back to you know Howard Stern when he was married to his first wife and all the ship, he used to say, do you care at all? I care, like any human being cares if somebody is upset or saying things about them or you know, saying mean spirited things. Are you know there or an attempt at hurtful things. I don't. I don't really get my feelings hurt. But uh, I care on a level that most people care about, like your dog gets upset. When you get upset, usually I I care on that kind of level, like, oh, I don't want this person upset. But but then beyond that, I don't give a shit. I I I try to. You know. My thing is is I get into trouble for saying things. And you know I said the real the more recent thing I got into trouble where or about was I was talking about ao C And I said if she was in her sixties and fat, would anyone listen to anything she said? And then people got outraged? But what are they outrage about? I want to hear because I'm gonna tell you mine, and I don't even they heard the word fat, and I don't know what I don't First off, what are you outraged about? It's the truest thing that's ever came out of my mouth. Number one and number two, I don't give a shit If you're upset? Is it true or isn't it true? If it's true, then it's true. Interesting, right, you did right? It's like getting mad at your dentists for telling you you have three cavities. It's either true or it's not true. And it's true. I mean what I said about AOC. So there we here we are. I'm not I'm not in the business of trying to make people feel good about what I say. I want them. I wanted to either be accurate or have some truth in it or not. No one even asked me to popologize anymore. It's your advice is just don't give a ship at all. Well, we got into this mess we're in right now by people apologizing and walking things back and and blah blah blah. Wait wait way too fast. And then the people who were pretending to be upset who weren't really upset. They just want dominion over you, got empowered and so the so, for instance, um I sent out a tweet that got everyone very upset like a year and a half ago, as it pertained to a COVID. I said, this thing's killing old people and it's killing sick people, and the rescue pussy's got played, and who's getting played next time? And chud Apatow called me and he said, you really need to take that tweet down, and I said, no, it's still up today. It's I'm not taking it down. It's true. So I'm gonna stand by it. And by the way, history we'll bore that out. My next question is what percentage are you lucky and what percentage you smart? Well, I'm lucky in the sense that I have escaped you know, uh, tragedy in the sense that, you know, I used to do a lot of kind of reckless stupid ship. You know, I'd ride my motorcycle when it was raining outside and I had like a bald back tire on it. You know, I'd do construction where I'd hang off the side of a five story building and put plates on. But in business, in business, I think, I mean, so I haven't. Yeah, I just I'm in one piece after doing a lot of really stupid shiit so that that certainly could be considered lucky. Uh. In business, I you know, I've had had some good things happen, had some disappointments. You know, I'm not I'm not at the top. I'm not at the bottom. You know, I'm somewhere in the middle. I've always kind of looked at myself. I've been able to make a living doing what I want to do, which is to me always a blessing, just the fact that I get to work. You know, I was literally talking to my son last night at dinner, and I was like, you know, people say, well, why do you work so much, Adam? And I said, well, I said, let's let's examine it this way. When I when I did construction, I'd get up at six in the morning, I'd eat some cereal and i'd leave about six fifteen sitting traffic. I worked. You know, when you work construction, you might work in Silver Lake and then two weeks later you're working in Alabu, and then two weeks later you're working at seem Valley or Chatsworth or something. You're all over the place. So the commute is always like could be twenty minutes, could be an hour, you know, uh, and it's I'd be on the road for half an hour and I'd work for eight hours, sometimes ten hours, and then i'd come home at like four or five in the afternoon, and no one ever wanted to know why I was working so much. Those were the hours, you know, and I do. Then you get in the show business, you're getting a podcasting. You know, I leave my house at ten, ten thirty, maybe eleven in the morning. I am work for three or four hours, depending, maybe five hours, just so depending come home at four o'clock. Why is that working too much? Right? Well, it depends on how much you're doing besides that, which may be a lot at your level of success. But I think it's interesting that you said you're not the top or the bottom. You probably do. You have a level of anonymity when you're out in a level of normalcy as it pertains to fame and recognition. Yeah, it's some, you know, sometimes I get recognized, sometimes I don't. I used to be on TV a lot, and I'm not on TV and host a TV show, or I'm not in a TV show currently, So when you're off TV you get less physical recognition, but it's still out there. Yeah. People. You know, if I go to a restaurant, usually someone will say hi or some version of that, which is completely fine with me. Do you like the level though? Would you like to be hosting the Oscars and be, like you said, at the top or because you consider yourself to not be at the top, or you like because you have a balanced life in your relationship and as a father and your business and you know it's chill. I don't. I don't have the desire to be recognized um that way. I have the desire to have thoughts and ideas and share them with people. But I don't have the desire to be stopped or recognized or praise that way. And as a matter of fact, you know, when I do say something in the form of a tweet that may go viral, or I do say something about AOC that may garner some controversy or some ire or something, you know, people will say, oh, you know, he's just stirring it up to try to get attention. It's it's it's the opposite. I don't I don't want the attention. I really don't. I'm just saying what I think. So you don't find you don't want to care about relevance. It's obvious, but you'll you're not firing random shots on Twitter. You just feel like communicating and talking, just like you are right now. So you're just saying something you think and you don't even you don't even know if it's going to be unpopular. Half the time, right You're just saying something you think. Yeah, I was, I was doing Sean Hannity Show. I was sitting in a mobile van where they cut to you. I had my notepad in front of me because they were talking about what whatever subject. I can't remember what it was, and I A. O. C. Was on it and it just it just popped into my head thirty seconds from one on the air, that would anyone listen to this nut job if she didn't look how she looks and wasn't the age she was? And I thought now, and then I thought, all right, well I thought it. Now I'm gonna say it. And do you are you overly? Are you political? Would you say that about a Republican or a Democrat? Do you or your Are you like Fox News or CNN where you're saying it about one group but not another, or you're an equal opportunity offender? Well, I am more political these days. I'm definitely more Republican into the right, but it's not really because I mean the guns or god or what? Would you say that about Laura Ingram if you felt it? Would you say something about her too, even though she's on your side on your news channel? Per se? No? Probably, I had to be honest, I probably wouldn't unless she started saying about are really dumb shit? Interesting? Okay, So it's a it's opinion based and it is a little political base. So that's interesting. Yeah, that makes sense. Um, because Michael Rappaport this is both he's a Democrat, but he's this is AOC also. So that's why I asked a question. Well, uh, Bill Maher is a Democrat, but he says smart stuff. AOC is a Democrat, she says dumb shit, and like you thought, John Stewart said smart stuff. Yeah, yeah, I mean yeah, and you have a mutual respect for these comedians and vice versa, or is the politics overflow and they're pissed at you for saying certain ship like that? Um, I mean comedians are pretty hard left for the most part and pretty much into punishing people who don't agree with them politically for the most part. But there are a few that are intellectually honest, and you know, the aforementioned Bill Maher's intellectually honest. You know, I would think that comedy super I'm off. I thought you were gonna say comedians all there's a code and it's supersedes politics, Like I really did. I'm disappointed in comedy because of that one thing that you just said. I'm well, most of them, most of them are cowards. Most comedians okay, we call them heroes, but there's some of the frailest people have ever. Yeah, that I don't because comedy suppose you know what Dave Chappelle does, His comedy supersed politics. You think I think Dave. Look, Dave Chappelle is gonna say what Dave Chappelle wants to say. The problem is is here's kind of the problem with politics and comedy or whatever it is. Um, I would say, I don't want schools to close in California. I think that's bad for kids. And that's a bad idea, and it's your opinion. Yeah, and it's also statistically bore out as well. You know it's not I'm not just basing it on nothing or pine in the sky. It doesn't hurt kids. Schools should never be shut down. So I say, I have kids who are in a public school, so I go, don't shut it down. And then the teachers unions essentially call me a racist? You know what I mean? Now, who's politicizing this? I just I just said schools shouldn't be close down. That is Adam Carolla as a parent of a child at school, or is Adam Carolla or whatever. But I don't believe schools should be shut down. No, but I mean, you're not saying it because you have a show, and that's gonna be the voice that's gonna make it happen. You as a parent with kids at that school, that's what you would think if you were still doing construction. Yeah, and it's that's and so then it's like, oh, Republican talking point, and it's like now it's it's first off, statistically true, scientifically true, and you're hurting kids, and I'm not down with it. And if I love opinions just being aligned to politics, and I don't mean political opinions, you could be like, you know, if if, for example, if I said that because I made a comment about Megan Markle, I voted for Trump. That's if you make a comment that isn't positive about Mega Markell, you voted for Trump. I don't know what then those two things have to do with each other. But there are so many comments like I war our guy, oh you voted for Hillary. Like it's the just arbitrary things that are assigned to politics are bizarre these days, and they also have it way wrong, like they are always like those are you know, right wing talking points? Like all right, I don't think homeless homeless people should be camping all over the place in venice speech. If that's a right wing talking point, then so be it. But I would have had that opinion thirty years ago or a hundred and thirty years ago. And I I don't think kids should wear masks because they're not vulnerable, and masks that don't really work. And I don't think that you should force kids to get vaccinated because they're not in a group that's going to be harmed by this. I have a lot of thoughts, but they're all sort of right wing talking points, except for they're just my thoughts. Oh they write they happen to be right, but they're your thoughts. But do you battle it out with people because you're not gonna get anywhere just if someone you know. This is what happened a lot with the election, where everyone was you're a fucking idiot, you don't know anything, and then people were hiding who they were voting for. Because there are many elements to voting that way, transcend political party. You could like half of a person, you could hate both options and just play pin the tail and donkey to decide who to vote for. I'm saying, so the battling. Did the battling work because you're talking to the people who agree with you again, Like I feel like so rarely did these debates get anywhere. Most people don't change their opinion. So it feels like this battle between Fox and CNN or news all the time, eye rolling reporters, eye rolling back and forth. Like it just never was like that. When we were growing up, news was much more neutral. Do you not agree with that? It's like you're allowed to eye roll about another. Huh, And that's what Trump did bred Hillary. Like it's just more animated and it's weird. It's like entertainment and it's supposed to be news. Yeah, it's definitely, you know, definitely the time we're living in and uh, you know, for me, it's like you take something like COVID. I live in California. I have Gavin Newsom. Gavin Newsom there, there's a business that's one mile from here. It's a family business. It's a restaurant that was run by friends of mine that I knew from high school and now they ran the business and Gavin Newsom at some point said no more outdoor dining, and they defied that order and the government shut the business, put a fence around it, and now they're out of business. Now. Um, do I agree with that? No? I do not do. I agree with Rhonda Santis and Florida who said, hey, there's no mask mandate. If you want to wear masks, wear a mask. If you don't want to wear masks, don't wear a mask, and there is outdoor dining. We shut the beaches down in California. I don't agree with that. So then people go, oh, so you're just doing right wing talking points. Maybe it is a right wing talking point, but my opinion is this, don't shut the beach and don't close down a restaurant that's been in business for fifty years over zero science. It's so funny that you say that, though, because I think it's interesting that people call it right when talking about do you ever just give an opinion that happens to be a democratic talking point or all of your bullet points it happened to be right wing? Do Is there any hybrid of it all? No? But here's how the game book. I'm on record, I've been speaking in a microphone for thirty years. I'm four game marriage. I'm for legalization or decriminalization. Of drugs um for the morning after pill. I'm for I'm an atheist. I'm not a gun guy. I've been I've been saying this the whole time. So then you're saying it's hybrid, you're not. It's not right when talking point because you don't have the pamphlet. You have other things that would be on the other pamphlet that you also believe in. That's what you're saying. Well, I definitely agree with more things that conservatives say, because when you say defund the police, that comes from the left, and I would say, no, do not defund the police. Well, that's a right wing but I would agree with them on that. And when they yeah, I got I understand what you're saying. I understand what you're saying about the that it's not a right wing talking point is what you actually happen to believe. But you happen to actually happen to believe in many things that Democrats believe in as well. That's what I just wanted to Yeah, but except for they don't give a yet. So you can agree with Democrats on everything, but if you criticize Megan Markle, then you're on the Republican side. Right to use irrelevant. You can't be half pregnant, but you are into the morning after pills. There are hypocrites, that's the way they roll. So you can be eight out of ten things can be you agree with Democrats, you disagree on two, than you're a Republican. And that's the rules they've decided, which I don't subscribe to. I was going to ask you about your rose and your thorn of your career. I'm actually very more interested to hear this from you than most the high and the low of your career. Um, I don't really I don't keep track of the highs. The highs are just making a living doing what I want to do. Like, you don't remember something phenomenal that happened that you're like, funk, this is amazing. I remember when I very first started and I got out of construction and into radio. I was in radio for like ten minutes and I was that some concert or something, and I ran into some guy, one of the guys from Guns and Roses, who was the biggest band in the world when I was swinging in a hammer and and he he likes said, I introduced myself and he's like, oh, you're that guy. Oh you know, Axel was saying he thought you would be older or whatever hearing me on the right, and I was like, Axel Rose is talking about me. I'm I'm off a construction side for like ten minutes. Oh my god, that's that's amazing. How funny that was your Rose guns and roses? Oh there, maybe you put it in my head. That's funny. Um, And what about your thorn? Thorn is just playing some podunk college in the middle of nowhere in front of you know, ten people when it's snowing outside, and you know, it's just the usual road horror stories. You know, what are your what's what are your ingredients for a successful relationship? How long have you married? Well, I'm getting divorced, so I don't have Yes, I don't have the relationship. I do not have the ingredients for a successful relationship. How long were you married? Uh, like seventeen years? Wow? Okay, I apologize for that question. Then unless unless there's some pearls of wisdom about what not to do, because I have a lot of those. I think anyone who's been in a relationship proudly has those. I still think you're successful if you've been married seventeen years. I still think that's a big success. That's a good run. Well, and by Hollywood standards, it's not a bad run. I think that's a good run. I'm so grateful that you talk to me because, uh, you don't need to you talk all day. Uh, And I I want to ask you one question. What is my if we're doing parent teacher conferences? What as the expert as what I consider to be an expert in this? What is my grade? And what do I need to work on? What? What? What? What? What notes do you have for me as a podcast newbie? Wow, I've never been asked that before, but that's a good sign. I think you're you have natural ability. Uh. I would give you a bee. I would day that my only tuning up of you would be you have so many ideas and then everything reminds you of something. And I'm the same way, So I would say if I was your podcast coach, I would say, put a put a steno pad on your lap, and when the person is answering the question and it reminds you of something, just write it down on that. Then the personal finish answering the question, then you can go, oh and that reminds me of that's about the only you know, you're you're. You have so many ideas, so much energy, and it's all rushing in it at once. That there is a part, it's a it's a it's hard to do, but it's really as simple as just sort of listening and going that reminds me of something. But I'm just gonna note that until we turn the pain age on this question, and then we'll segue into that question. You're good at this. Well, I appreciate that. I appreciate I was not fishing for compas I literally wanted to know because I really enjoy it, and you've been doing it for a long time at Second Nature, So I really appreciate the conversation. Well, thanks for having me. Awesome. I'll have a great day. I hope we run into each other at some point. I hope so as well. That was Adam Carolla. He is a legend in this format and vehicle. Uh. He is very honest. He has controversial opinions. I appreciate him coming on because it doesn't need to do my podcast, and he basically really started the space in my opinion, uh, and he has unpopular opinions that he's not afraid to share. And this show is about all different opinions and just talking and listening and an open conversation versus just arguing because you don't agree with someone. I like that aspect of it. I like that aspect of lanthropy, and that we take money from Democrats and Republicans. I like that aspect of this genre because even if I don't agree with everything somebody said, I always learned something and I like that. And even if you don't agree with something somebody said, you know, you don't want to be shut down. You want to sort of just here, even if it's something you don't want to do or you don't believe in. I just think it's good to hear everybody's side. That's how I've always been, So I appreciate you. Remember to rate, review and subscribe. Also, Adam corola is he's he's so successful because he does not filter himself, and that's courageous and fearless and honestly. To be successful in the podcast business, I think you have to be like that. Just Be is hosted by me Bethany Frankel. Just Be as a production of Be Real Productions, I Heart Radio and Blue Duck media are EPs are Morgan Levois, Antonio Enriquez, and Kara hit To catch more moments from the show, follow us on Instagram and just be with Bethany b

Just B with Bethenny Frankel

If you can’t handle the truth you can’t handle this podcast. Just B with Bethenny Frankel is the bes 
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