Adam Carolla: No Air Conditioning
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But, you know, my kids have little to no interest in dad history, celebrity. Can we watch St. Elmo's fire again? They don't do that. They have no way. Right. They do not. Hey, everybody. It's me. Welcome to Literally. We've got the very, very smart, incredibly hilarious podcast pioneer. I remember listening to this podcast.

gentleman back in the day on Loveline, which I have a lot of thoughts about that I want to get to. The wonderful Adam Carolla.

Hey, brother. How are you? Good. How are you doing? I'm good. I'm good. I like hanging out with you. We're recording this on a Saturday. It feels extra special. Yeah. I enjoy it. It feels good. Hey, let's do our NPR voice. Oh, okay. Yeah. Salty balls. Sweaty balls. Sweaty balls. Sweaty balls. Sorry. By the way, can I just say, for the record, I'm not a fan of sweaty balls. It's my, maybe, of all the Alec Baldwin...

SNL bits? Not my favorite. Okay? Yeah, I know. Charles Nelson Reilly is the apex of Alec Baldwin on SNL. Oh, dude, Charles Nelson Reilly is the apex of fucking everything. I...

I'm obsessed with Charles Nelson Riley. I want to do, do you know who Thomas Lennon is? Yeah. Thomas Lennon and I are obsessed, and we've talked about it on the podcast, about doing a Lidsville faux documentary. Because the stuff that was going on on that set, you've got to know, was weird. Yeah, so Charles Nelson Riley was the hoodoo guru.

Hoot. Ho-ho-ho-ho-ho! Yeah. What are you, what are you, come into my top hat, little boy! Ho-ho-ho! There's also a band called the Hoodoo Gurus, too. Really? Yeah, there's a good 80s, 90s band called the Hoodoo Gurus. Oh, that's the sickest. All right, I'm, I know, I know what I'm doing for the rest of the day. I'm doing, welcome, how's, how's life? You're the, we're the OG podcasters, I am honored.

Thank you. And it's good and it's busy and it's different than I thought it would be because I thought I would be a fireman

or a lumberjack or a cop or a garbage man or something. And then about my age, I'd be thinking about retiring. And I didn't know I was going to have 28 jobs and it would never end. My favorite thing about that answer is you thought, basically what I hear when you say that is you thought you were going to be one of the members of the village people. I thought I was going to be a fireman or a cop.

a cop or an Indian. Yeah, it actually sounded like I would be several members of the village people. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Because you, where did you grow up though? I grew up in North Hollywood, California. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right. So we have to talk about that. So we're the same age, exactly the same age.

And I'm obsessed with Southern California in, and I'm going to pick the year because I have a lot of reasons for this particular year, 1976, 77. Yes. You must have great, you were a Valley guy. I was a Malibu kid. Like we, if, if the outsiders were real or if West side story was real, we would have been in a rumble.

Yeah, because I would have been a Val and you would have been a surfer and the surfs and they wanted the Vals to go home. That's what they were spray paint at the beach on the walls that said Vals go home. So I was a Valley kid. But your work had already been done for you because there's no way I was getting to the beach from North Hollywood. We didn't have a car that could make it over the pole of the pass without overheating.

So I stayed home in the Valley, but yeah, there was the Val that you were a biker or you were a surfer back then. And yeah,

Yeah, I don't know why we needed to divide the nation into bikers and surfers when I was in junior high, but we did. Well, how about I don't know why we needed to divide Southern California into like those on one side of Mulholland Mountains and the others. But it was real. I remember Malibu, man, people were super like, hey, Val, hey, hey. It was like, let me see your paperwork. It was nuts, man.

Well, I mean, I know and I don't even know. It is kind of weird how trends start, where they start, how they how they fall into favor and then how they just disappear. You know, it's a it's an interesting phenomenon in humans.

you know, there would be freeway shootings and then there'd be no freeway shootings and there'd be pit bull attacks and then there'd be no pit bull attacks and there's vows and surfs. And now there is no vowel or surf. I'm in Malibu now. I, I'm having trouble picking out the vows and it's gone now. I know all for a simpler time. Yeah.

Well, I remember in those, not quite those days, but as we got into the early 80s, we would listen to Loveline. Oh, wow. Before your time on Loveline. Yeah. I used to listen to it too. Okay. Now, I remember it. I mean, we would listen to it at that age. So I'm what? I don't know.

And we're listening for the titillation factor because it was, it always delivered. I mean, the theory was, we're giving help to people. We're giving help to people who don't have anywhere to go. Meanwhile, you would get

I put a hot dog somewhere I shouldn't have. You'd just be like, whoa. But like that, that show was nuts when it was on K rock back in the day. Yeah, it was. Um, and I used to listen to it just like you listen to it. I, I was a fan of the show. And when I got to the show, I wanted to bring more comedy to,

into the show and and it wasn't like less titillation but it's like I do comedy so I'm here to do comedy so it was deadly it was deadly serious yeah I mean well poor man was kind of nuts and did a lot of crazy stuff and then Ricky Rackman after him did some of the same stuff but

For me, I just thought about comedy. And it was a dream come true for a dude from the Valley who was on a construction site, you know, 10 minutes earlier to be on Loveline, a show I listened to nightly. It was, I had to like pinch myself. How did, how did you make the jump from construction site man to like amazing DJ? What was the process? Was there like some, there had to have been some kismet involved because there always is. I was, I,

Well, I was going to come up with a turn of phrase and it was going to sound very homoerotic because it was Jimmy Kimmel that was my kismet. And I was going to say jismet, but that would sound bizarre out of context. So let me unpack it for you. Yeah. And the jismet that was Kimmel.

I was working as a boxing coach in the morning teaching boxing at a place called Bodies in Motion in Pasadena. And then in the afternoons, I was swinging a hammer as a carpenter. I had done the groundlings, went all the way through the groundlings, went all the way through the Acme Theater.

I did a lot of comedy and I was trained to do a lot of comedy, but I had no traction. I made no money. I had no job.

in comedy, and I was a boxing coach, carpenter, basically, who did sketch improv at night for free, ostensibly. And I wasn't going anywhere, but I did hear Kevin and Bean on K-Rock radio in the morning talking about a morning show stunt

and a boxing match between Jimmy the sports guy and Michael the maintenance man. And I was just driving my truck thinking, I wanna get in on this as a boxing coach. I didn't have any delusions of grandeur. I just thought, wow, maybe I could go inside the radio studio. I could see it after all these years of listening to K-Rock.

Love line, Kevin and B. I was like, I just like to check it out, but maybe I could do something somehow on the radio because I always sort of had a fantasy about doing radio. I just didn't know anybody. I didn't have any ends. And I kept calling the radio station, telling them I was a trainer and I could train one of the guys. It didn't really matter. I didn't know either one of them.

And they never returned my calls. So eventually I went to the radio station, I found the building and I went up to the ninth floor where the K Rock suite was. But K Rock was closed because I was there at like seven in the morning before my boxing class. And I was just standing by the elevators and K Rock's business hours are 9:00 AM to 5:00. So they weren't gonna open for another couple hours.

Kevin and Bean in the morning show were in there somewhere, but no one was going to answer the door. And then I saw a guy with a key card going around the back way to the side door with the key card. And as he was heading in, I was just sort of walking with him. And I said, oh, hey, if you're going in, tell him there's a boxing coach outside. I'll wait by the elevators. And the guy was, I don't know, the guy kind of grunted and just went in.

And I just stood by the elevators and 20 minutes went by, half hour went by. I wasn't sure what to do. I wasn't sure if he delivered the message. I didn't know who was in there. And then at some point, 26-year-old young guy, not particularly good shape, just comes down the hall and he just starts walking toward me and he goes, you the boxing coach? And I said, yeah. And he said, all right.

when do you want to start? And I said, I don't know. How about today? And they said, okay, you know, I'm done here at noon. And, uh, my name's Jimmy Kimmel. And I was like, wow. Okay. I'll teach you to buy. Wow. That there's so many lessons in that story for anybody listening, like about any job or anything you want to do. I mean, the, like there's, um, dreaming, right. There's optimism, right.

There's a plan. There's a ginormous dose of what you don't know is your greatest ally and chutzpah and

like taking the bull by the horns, but also patience. Like you took the bull by the horns by going there, but you stood in the hallway forever. So it's like people can have one, but they don't have the other, or they can have one where they should be having the other. And so that's like every single element of what you need to break through and ending with meeting the right person at the right time. Yes. You know, the chutzpah for me is,

Didn't feel like chutzpah. No, it doesn't. No, it doesn't. Never does. It felt like desperation is what it felt like. Like I'm out of ideas. I'm broke. I got no air conditioning. I live, I have three roommates. I drive a Zuzu Trooper with no air conditioning and no insurance. And I'm going to turn 30 in two weeks and I don't have a plan.

That's what it felt like to me. The Azusa trooper with no air conditioning in North Hollywood. That's not good.

Yeah, no, it's not good. I never had air conditioning in the house I grew up in, apartment I rented, or truck or car I drove until I was in my early 30s. And I lived in the valley my entire life. So it was brutal. I was just thinking about that the other day, about how we take, oh, everyone has air conditioning now, everybody. But like, I was like, wait a minute.

We grew up with no... Only the rich people had air conditioning. And futuristic people. Right. It was like going over and seeing, ooh, you've got a computer. You have air conditioning. But do you remember... Do you have memories of it just sweltering? Because I don't. And I know we didn't have air conditioning. Well...

So I grew up in old, like 40s ranch houses right in the middle of the San Fernando Valley. And it was brutally oppressively hot in the dog days of summer. And we didn't have air conditioning. And so I have very vivid memories of rolling around in my own sweat. I used to do a few things. I lived for,

for a few years in the garage of my dad's North Hollywood house, which had no air conditioning or wall unit or window unit or anything, I would wake up about three in the morning

overheating and I would jump the fence into my neighbor's yard who had a swimming pool. And I would lower myself at three in the morning into their swimming pool and I would hold myself underwater for 30 seconds and I would get my core temperature down. And then I would go back over the fence and eat back into my bed.

And my memory of that is you have no idea how loud water is in the dead of night. When it's like three in the morning and there's no sound and you lower yourself into a swimming pool,

it's really hard to do it silently. It makes noise. It's weird that the water makes a noise and they had a dog. Oh, I had to just lower my shelf as quietly as I possibly could into the pool. And then I'd go back over the, over the fence. So I,

I didn't have air and I sweltered a lot and a lot of what I wanted to do in the business had to do with a discomfort level. Like I do want air. I want a car with air. I want to drive a car, not a truck with a lumber rack.

in a bed box, which I hated picking up a girl on a date in a work truck. So that was the plan is to get off the construction site to get out of the valley and get some air conditioning.

All set for your flight? Yep. I've got everything I need. Eye mask, neck pillow, T-Mobile, headphones. Wait, T-Mobile? You bet. Free in-flight Wi-Fi. 15% off all Hilton brands. I'll never go anywhere without T-Mobile. Same goes for my water bottle, chewing gum, nail clippers. Okay, I'm going to leave you to it. Find out how you can experience travel better at T-Mobile.com slash travel.

Qualifying plan required. Wi-Fi were available on select U.S. airlines. Deposit and Hilton honors membership required for 15% discount terms and conditions apply. When you met Jimmy, was it an instant connection or did you guys go, oh, there's some magic here? Or was it just another dude that eventually developed into something that made sense? Jimmy and I very immediately hit it off. We hit it off.

on a level that was sort of a comedic level, but just sort of a, we liked each other a lot. We shared a lot of the same sensibilities. I wanted to make him laugh, but I didn't want to kind of overdo it because I was there as a boxing coach and I didn't want to come across like some fan who was just trying to get into radio. I wanted him to make sure that he knew that

That I was an actual boxing coach and I worked at a gym and so on and so forth. So I took it a little bit slow at the beginning, but eventually it would be, you know, 45 minutes of boxing and then two hours of drinking Snapple up at the gym.

up at the sandwich shop on the first floor of the building I was in talking about how we thought Al was underrated. Amazing. Yeah, that's the stuff you want to get to. But it's so funny that you were smart enough to have that sensibility. You know, I have a bunch of funny friends and I always see people when they meet them

like trying to out funny them or not, not out funny them, but just like, like, Hey, I'm funny too. Right. I'm funny too. And I want to go, Hey man, you know, I don't like step into the ring with Conor McGregor and go, Hey man, I, I, I know I'm not a no pro, but I could grapple. Right. Like it's a weird thing. Like I don't, do you know what I'm saying? It's like, yeah, I think, I think it's a, it's a, it's a male in state.

I think it's a less of a female thing. I think when Will Ferrell meets a female, they don't hit him hard with the knock-knock jokes, you know? But it's the same with Conor McGregor. It's a dude thing, you know? Like, it would always be like,

Because back in the day, it'd be like, why does Mike Tyson need bodyguards? No one needs a bodyguard less than Mike Tyson. Au contraire. Guys want to roll with him, which is counterintuitive to us, but it's a very male thing. I never...

I didn't want to overstep or agitate or have people thinking I was there to get something off of them. I took it really slowly. And then at some point I had Jimmy saying to me, Hey, you're really funny. What, what do you do? Like, what, what is, what's your thing? You're just, you're, you're a carpenter, you're a boxing coach, but you must,

be doing some comedy must have some thoughts about comedy so he he kind of came to me and he said do you have any tape or anything i could look at and i had one vhs tape

from a public access eagle rock public access saturday show i did as a sort of wacky home improvement type of call-in show just dumb no budget you know public access eagle rock like when you look at it has my home phone number that's literally like if you have any interest in any of this

Call this number. It's my number, my apartment. And I said, well, I got this tape and it's like 15, 20 minutes long. And it's pretty low budget, but it is the only tape I have of me kind of doing what I do. And he said, yeah, well, let me look at it.

And I was a little hesitant because I'm like, this is really low grade stuff, Jimmy. It's not professional. It's Eagle Rock Public Access. He's like, yeah, let me check it out. So, you know, I gave him the VHS tape and he watched it and he was like, because Jimmy's Jimmy, you know, Jimmy's, but, you know, he wasn't Jimmy back then. He was Jimmy the sports guy, you know, third, fourth wheel over on the Kevin and Bean show. But,

Jimmy is a producer, you know, he's a talent and he's a writer, but he's really kind of a Rick Rubin of comedy, you know, and I didn't know it at the time, but he's really an assembler of comedy and a producer of comedy. And he watched the tape and he was like, there's something that I can see.

There's no budget and there's no set and there's no professionalism, but there is something going on that I can see. So he saw it and he was like, okay, I see you have something. And then now what? The boxing match came and went. The judges were John Wayne Bobbitt and Adam Sandler. Wow. John Wayne Bobbitt was more popular than Adam Sandler.

back in 94. Yeah. Um, and Pat O'Brien called it called the fight.

Wow. Yeah, it was a big to-do. It was at the Country Club in Reseda. Oh, sure. Saw many a show there. Yeah, you would see Oingo Boingo and the Specials and the Waitresses and all those. Yes, they were great. All those 80s bands there. The motels for their New Year's show. Yeah, maybe get out to Perkins Palace and see the plasmatics.

Oh, it's all coming back. I know. So, um, so the fight ended, Jimmy lost the fight. Uh, that was it for the fight. And there was no, there's going to be no more me and Jimmy. Um, and I said, Oh, Jimmy, I said, I, I want to get on the radio so bad and I want to stay with you and do comedy. And,

all that, what could we do? And, uh, you know, by then he was like, I get it. You're a budding comedian and you're, you know, you got a day job, but, but I think you're funny, but Jimmy didn't have any power at the radio station. Right. Um, and so he said, well, what do you do? What, what do you think you would do is part of this radio station? And I said,

I sit in between people and I roll and I make them funnier and I improvise and I just sort of off the cuff kind of bring it. And he said, well, Kevin and Bean do that. We don't need you for that. You're not going to go sit between Kevin and Bean. It's their show. He said, if you want to get onto this radio, you've got to come up with a character.

And I said, well, I don't really do characters, Jimmy. And he said, well, you better start. He goes, you better come up with something, you know? And I was like, oh, man, what could I do? And, you know, I started having the same thoughts everyone has. Oh, the gay movie reviewer or the...

florist who's angry or something like I had the weekend to come up with it. The fight was like on a Friday. He said, look, you can call in Monday. I'm not gonna tell him who you are. If I tell him the boxing coach is calling in, they're gonna be like, we're not gonna entertain the boxing coach being a comedian.

So I'm not going to tell him you're the boxing coach. I'm just going to tell him I got a guy. He's funny. He does a character. You know, he's going to call in at 730 in the morning on Monday. And then you have the weekend to figure it out. By the way, that's huge pressure. I'm having anxiety right now. I know. Hearing that. Really? Seriously. I'm like, shallow breathing. Well, what I knew and, you know, the lessons to be learned is

I knew if it didn't work, it would be one and done. There would be no second chances, right? So I knew it had to work out of the gate. And I knew that it had to be an eight, a nine, or a ten. If it was under that, there'd be no second chances.

And so, yeah, there was a lot of pressure. And I also, I didn't really know what character, I didn't have characters that I did and it wasn't my thing. I didn't do voices and impersonation. And I, so I sat in my house in La Crescenta, California with my two roommates and no air conditioning. And I sat there and I thought, well, what, what is it I could do? But

I had a lot of Groundlings training. I had tons and tons of Groundlings training, sketch, lots of sketch training, lots of improv training, just lots of that under my belt. So I sort of fell back on, all right, let's see if we can be a little methodical about this. What is the motivation, first off, for this guy to call K-Rock at 7.30 in the morning? What is he doing? Why does he need to talk to Kevin and Bean?

So what I did is I thought, okay, I always had to kind of go for what you know. Like, what do you know? What is your subject? And for me, it was woodworking and carpentry. I knew everything.

I was a carpenter. I'd done it for over a decade. I drove a truck. That was my job. By the way, I just want to point out to the audience, not funny in and of itself. You don't go, woodworking, oh man, that's going to be a fertile valley for comedy. No, it isn't in and of itself. Yes, exactly. But I realized then,

you know, nailing schedule on sheer wall and half inch CDX, good one side struck one plywood and ring shank nails and duplex nails and Tico clips and joist hangers. I knew that was kind of funny. Like I knew all the technical stuff was kind of interesting. And so I always thought, well, if I have a lot of technical stuff in there, it'll be, it'll be funny. All right. So what is funny? All right. Well, I know carpentry. That's not funny.

I always had a thought when I went to Walter Reed Junior High in San Fernando Valley, no air conditioning, that the coaches, the PE coaches, and more importantly, the shop teachers were like the meanest, angriest, 70s, burly, big, four-armed, mustache guys, hated kids. And it always stuck in my head that there was these guys who taught shop, who loved

woodworking. They love metal. They love automotive, but they hated the kid. Yeah. And throughout my life, I would laugh about remember Mr. Walters or Mr. Hensley or Mr. Sapansi. And then everyone would go, Oh, I had a shop teacher, Mr. Gage. That guy was the worst, the worst. He scared me through a screwdriver and a kid once. Like I was like, all right,

We got the mean shop teacher. That's funny. That's funny. Cause everyone will identify with the mean shop teacher. Right. Amazing. Absolutely. Okay. And no one else has ever done the mean shop teacher. Right. So,

There's no SNL sketch with the mean shop teacher, right? So I'm thinking, okay, mean shop teacher, woodworking. All right, so he's going to teach wood shop because I know wood and he's the mean shop teacher. And what is his motivation for calling in though? Why would this guy, this guy would hate K-Rock.

right he would never listen he would never listen to never listen to carry he look he never listened to classic rock you know and so he would never maybe country but he would never listen to k-rock that was like for 13 year olds in his mind so

I'm trying to craft this like kind of methodically go, who is this guy? What's he doing? Why is he calling in? Where does he work? He worked at Louis Pasteur Middle School in Monrovia and he taught remedial wood.

at a junior high. And so I made up a middle school. I mean, there is no Louis Pasteur middle school in Monrovia. There is no Vermilion Wood. And I named him Mr. Burcham because I played peewee football with a guy named Burcham. And Burch is a kind of wood. You know, I thought it'll make Mr. Burcham will make people think of wood, you know? And so I worked out an entire life for this guy. But

What is the motivation for him calling Kevin and Bean at 7.15 in the morning on a Monday? Why is it? And I really wanted him to be motivated to call. And I thought, why? Because he wouldn't listen to K-Rock. And then I came up with it. All of his kids, these 13 and 14-year-olds he teaches, they all listen to K-Rock.

And they have their clock alarms set to K rock for seven in the morning. And Virgium has been injured in the garage as he would get injured every weekend in the garage trying to make something. And he's not gonna be there Monday today.

But he's gonna use their clock radios like an intercom to yell at all his kids before they go in. So,

Mr. Sapansi, the Quimby with the sweater vest from home act. He's gonna be subbing for me. He doesn't know anything about wood. Don't listen to him. He's gonna show blood on the bandsaw. It's gonna be 20 minutes and then everyone puts their head down on the desk and you do it until the bell rings. And if any of you get into my drill index or get into my Miss Makita poster, I'm gonna kill you when I get back. I start yelling at everybody.

through the radio. So now I had my motivation. I had his life. I had who he was and I had why. And I remember he called in at the top and he said, listen, I don't listen to your crappy radio station. I don't know. I don't listen to Nervosa and Smashing Dumplings and all this crap you guys play. I don't like it. But my stupid kids listen. And I got a word for them. I got a message. So just stand back and I would start yelling at them.

through the radio. And then I knew that couldn't last for three minutes. So I had one good kid, Brad Higgins, and I was like, there's only one kid that's allowed to work with tools when I'm not in there, and that's Brad. And then I would talk Brad through the cigar box he was building his grandfather. Like Brad, I've been thinking about it over the weekend.

And I don't want to go with a butt joint or a dado joint or a rabbit joint. I'm thinking maybe a dovetail joint. And I would work him all through this stuff. So take the dado setup and put it on the contractor's socket, the 60-tooth carbide

tip 10 inch blades start with that you know and you know make a score cut with that I would just get all this weird technical crap that I knew from building cabinets and I would be talking to one student and it was all through the intercom of the radio and for somebody who didn't do characters to come up with that of course as soon as they were done I called Jimmy you know

Yes. And what was the reaction? That's what I wanted to know. Like, how'd it go? What'd they say? How'd it go? And he was like, and they thought it was pretty good. They thought it was pretty funny. And I said, you think I could call in next week? And he's like, yeah, I think you could do it next week. And I did Mr. Burcham next week, then the week after, and it became a hit.

And it became like a sensation. And this guy got really popular because nobody knew who Mr. Burcham was, but they knew he was a carpenter. Like they thought he was a shop teacher because he

Other people don't know what rabbit joints and dado joints are, butt joints and conformat screws, you know, and D handled whole hogs with the half inch chucks and keyless chucks and stuff. Like I was just shooting out, you know, high point saw with a seven and a quarter, you know, plywood rip, rip blade or a combination blade on it or, or, or,

or a sawzall with the tungsten blade on and stuff. I am just spitting all this stuff out. So they knew I knew it, but they knew I was a comedian. So they couldn't, no one could figure out who Bertram was, but they loved it. And it became super popular. And eventually they bring me into the studio and I was answering home improvement questions and

in the studio. Oh, that's great. And people would legitimately call with an issue, obviously. And you would just be like, yeah, well, people, people were sort of intrigued because like people would call in and go like, oh, it's father's day. And I want to get my husband a contractor saw. And, and the guy says the best fence for the contractor saws of

I'd go, Beeson Meyer. Yeah, that's what he said. It was a Beeson Meyer fence. And then everyone would look at me and go, how did you know the fence for the contractor saw is called a Beeson Meyer? And I'd go, because that's the best fence for a contractor saw. But then I would tell a bunch of jokes after that. And

So immediately became successful and popular. And then I got more popular than Jimmy on the radio station after like two months, which was funny, which he, to his credit, didn't bother him at all. He was always like, good, fine. Like, I think a lot of guys would have felt competitive. Yes, for sure. Especially comedians. They have the egos. Yes.

All set for your flight? Yep. I've got everything I need. Eye mask, neck pillow, T-Mobile, headphones. Wait, T-Mobile? You bet. Free in-flight Wi-Fi. 15% off all Hilton brands. I'll never go anywhere without T-Mobile. Same goes for my water bottle, chewing gum, nail clippers. Okay, I'm going to leave you to it. Find out how you can experience travel better at T-Mobile.com slash travel.

Qualifying plan required. Wi-Fi were available on select U.S. airlines. Deposit and Hilton Honors membership required for 15% discount terms and conditions apply. That's such a great origin story, as they would say. And then you fast forward to your you end up really being. I mean, I think as far as I can tell, like one of the first people to do podcast and podcast was kind of like, oh, bless their heart.

Isn't that sweet? They have a little podcast. They just go down their basement. And you started that era of podcasting. And now here we are in the era where every damn person in the world has a podcast. Yeah. So I was taking over for Howard Stern in the western part of the country in 06.

And I did it for about three and a half years. And then the radio station folded and they changed format. And my job had come to an end in terrestrial radio. And I knew that. So when I worked for KLSX radio, taking over for Stern radio,

I was in, I don't know, 10, 12 markets or something like that and did well, like number one in Vegas and number one in Seattle and stuff like that. And the guys who worked at the radio station would come in all the time and they'd go, you...

had 18 million minutes of streaming last month, second only to the fan in New York who carries the Mets games or something like that. I'd go, 18 million minutes of streaming, that seems good. And they'd go, who cares? It's worth nothing. We

We sell advertising. We need the ratings to go up. You're number five in Los Angeles. We need to get you into the top three. That's how we make our money. And then a couple months would go by and they'd go, hey, you're 20 million minutes of streaming, but who cares? And I kept going, I don't know, 20 million minutes of streaming. That sounds like it's got to be worth something. And they'd be like, it's not worth anything. They did terrestrial radio.

And this is 07 or 08. They weren't interested. But it stuck in my head that people were listening to my show on the computer, not in a market that this show was in, but they were finding me on the computer. And so ostensibly, I was podcasting back then, but I didn't know it. And then when they folded up the radio station,

I just thought, well, it makes sense just to go to the computer and do this radio show versus trying to get another job in radio. And I had young kids, twins that were two years old or something.

And I had a mortgage and I had a pretty big nut to take care of. So I definitely needed a job, but I had about eight or nine months left on my radio contract. So I was like, well, I'm going to get paid for the next eight or nine months.

So I got eight or nine months to figure this out, essentially. So I just went home and started podcasting for free starting day one. I got fired on a Friday and I started podcasting following Monday. And I just went five days a week ever since. I didn't get paid. And actually, it cost a lot of money back then because bandwidth was expensive.

And I used up a lot of bandwidth. And I was paying $10,000 or $12,000 a month in bandwidth. And I didn't have a job. So the podcasting was not only not paying me, but it was costing me $10,000 a month to do it for free. And the other ancillary expenses that went along with that. But I believed in it.

And I had a warehouse in the valley where I had a wood shop and my cars and stuff over there. And I thought, I'm going to go over there and build myself a studio because I used to build stuff. So it came pretty easily to me and built a studio over there and was doing it for free. And then at some point, little dribs and drabs of ways to make money would start coming.

Coming in and we still wasn't really paying the bills. And then I got to a kind of a crossroads, right? After about seven or eight months of doing it, a terrestrial radio conglomerate came around, that came calling. And had like a syndicated radio job every day.

you know, good money back to radio, you know, and, and a contract more importantly, like a three-year contract with guaranteed money, you know, and I had young kids and, um, I didn't have a job. I was doing something called podcasting, but nobody got paid to do podcasting. Right. So I, and I just remember it's right when the podcast was just starting to

get a little momentum and i was doing shows around the country and selling out theaters and all kinds of stuff and i was on the road and i'd signed the contract with the radio station and done all the meetings and done all the negotiating it was all done and i was just out on the road in like kentucky or something on a on a saturday and i just called my agent i just said i don't know i just

I just don't want to do it. I just, I don't want to do the radio. And everyone was kind of like, are you nuts? You have a contract for three years. There's no contract for podcasting. No guarantees. There's not even a way to really make money off of this. And I was just like, I just have a feeling about it. And I just don't want to stop and go into radio, back into radio. And so I just stuck with it. Wow.

I've been reminded listening to these stories about so many important things. And like I said at the beginning, not just our business, but every business. And like even now in my own life, like network television is on its way out.

You know, you go, well, what happens there? And what do I do? Should I stay with that? Should I go to that? Like movies are, you know, not what they used to be and haven't been in years. And what do you do? Where's my place? And all that stuff. And it all comes down to the same thing. It's like knowing what you do and then knowing that if you stick with what you do,

the world will come to you eventually. Like it did, you know, podcasting literally came to you. Now it's, you know, it's a bonanza. You've been, how many episodes do you think you've done of podcasting? Oh, I can't say for certain. Somebody knows, not me, but at least 3,500, maybe 3,700. Oh my God.

of just my show. And then I've done all sorts of car shows and home improvement shows. I mean, I'm 4,500. Oh, me and Dr. Drew do a show. Yeah, Dr. Drew. I've already done like 1,500 or 2,000. I mean, I'm 6,000.

something like 6,000, honestly. And tell me about your new latest and greatest thing you're working on. It's coming up imminently, right? Mr. Burcham, which is on Daily Wire Plus, and Mr. Burcham is Mr. Burcham. It's an animated Mr. Burcham. And I did Mr. Burcham early in my career to get into show business. And then once I got into show business,

I was like, all right, well, now I'm going to retire Mr. Burcham and I'm going to do Loveline and The Man Show and all these other endeavors. But I don't need Mr. Burcham anymore. I'll do me, right? And then some years ago, I was at Fontana doing a vintage car race and I was in the pits or the paddock with the other car racer guys and car racer, vintage car racer guys are their own breed. But this guy came up to me

And this a few years back and he goes, you know,

I like, you know, Loveline and The Man Show and all that stuff. But he goes, Mr. Burcham, that's the funniest you've ever been. You know, like he's like, Mr. Burcham's the best thing you ever did. And I was like, yeah, I know. I love Mr. Burcham. Funny, but I'm done with Mr. Burcham. I'm moving on. And he's like, man, that's some good shit, Mr. Burcham. I used to listen to K-Rock back in the day. And I walked, I left the track that day and I went like,

Yeah, Mr. Burcham. What about Mr. Burcham? And what about him? So now it is an animated series on Daily Wireless Plus. What does he look like?

He, which is, which was really satisfying to me because when I started Mr. Burcham, I was a skinny 29, 30 year old boxing coach with no mustache and thin forearms. And I, he looked nothing like Mr. Burcham, you know? So now I get to sit down and do the dude with the mustache and I'm

These guys are all the same guys, which is they didn't look like they lifted weights, but you wouldn't fuck with that. Yeah. No, he was Mr. Pool for me in junior high. 100%. I know exactly. We all know this guy. Big form and a gut too, but you still wouldn't screw with these guys. Yeah. Isn't that funny? It's true. It's like an archetype that everybody knows. By the way, do people still...

teach metal shop and wood shop in public. So I don't think they do. Oh, it is. I had a very sad, uh, awakening when I was driving my 17 and a half, you know, almost 18 year old daughter and her friend to the premier of Mr. Burcham. And we're just driving there. And my daughter said, what is Mr. Burcham? You know, who is Mr. Burcham? Cause you, you,

may or may not know what it's like, but you know, my kids have little to no interest in dad's history, celebrity, you know, you know, can we watch Shane Elmo's fire again? They don't do that. They have no way. Right. They do not. So, and by the way, I got the message. So I don't really bother them with, have you read my book yet or any of that? I don't documentaries and they know nothing of me. They know I pay for it. Right. Yeah, exactly. So, um,

I said, well, Mr. Burcham is a wood shop teacher. And they're like, huh? I'm like shop. He taught shop class. You know, you know, at school you have shop class and they're like, no. I'm like, yeah. I said, no, you know, auto shop, wood shop, metal shop. They're like, we don't have any of that.

I'm like, no, you know, we go to school and we learn things for jobs that we will never get or have. Right. That's what we do. Right. But our school. Right. Right. And I was always like, oh, we need shop class, man. It teaches you stuff. Well, here's the great the great irony is those are the very jobs and the only jobs.

that are going to be last the longest as AI comes in. The men and women who actually make and build and move and do, the thinkers, the mid-level thinkers, adios, MFs. Oh, I'm just talking about this on my podcast. Really, I said the middle. The middle is the ones who are going to go. The people that are out

working are going to stay and the guys in the corner office are going to stay. It's all the replaceable middle that's going to go. I mean, could you imagine, think about, just think about this concept. There's a truck, a diesel semi-truck with a blown head gasket.

How could you automate a repair for that truck with a blown head gasket? Could you think there's some robot or some AI? Do you know how many years that is away in the future? And if there was a robot, it would cost $10 billion. Do you remember, though, when we were kids, though, when we were kids, when we thought about the future, we thought that would be exactly what would be

the future would do. It would be like the Jetsons. Right. Where these arms would come out and put together a car. Uh-uh. That didn't happen and still isn't going to happen anytime soon. What happened is, you know, lawyers, doctors, accountants, travel agents, pick it, graphic artists buy cars.

I know. And the reality is, is the tactile sort of hands on wrench turners, HVAC guy, like who's going to come to your house and troubleshoot your HVAC? Who's going to repair your refrigerator? Who's going to who's going to sweat copper pipe? Who's going to pull Romex through? I mean, who's going to build a house? You know what I mean?

They'll never. And those jobs pay a lot too. I mean, dude, I'm building a house right now. You want to tell me? I was like, wait a second. Do I have lawyers putting in my air conditioning? I know it is. It is insane. The hourly rate. And of course the rate goes up as the shop class is closed. Cause there's less people that know how to put that stuff together. That's why you're doing a public service with this, um,

I mean, it's not just a funny comedy bit. It's a public service. Mr. Carolla, we are done here. Our time is up. It is, it is, I know I could have talked to you forever.

This was great. I appreciate you, brother. I cannot wait to see you. This cartoon sounds insane. I can't wait to see it. Yeah, I think you'll enjoy it. And come on my podcast. I think you're overdue. I will. We're overdue. We are overdue, actually. And I've got some stuff coming up. I'm going to put that in the hopper. Please. I'll come over and see you. This is great. Thanks, brother. Always a pleasure, Ron.

Well, I don't know about you, but I'm inspired to get a bandsaw or a ratchet or a double-headed filibuster. I want to make up phony names for stuff. Well, you get a two-second 5.7.5 Wixel and you put it up against a Framus that... I'm the least handy man ever.

who's ever lived. So that was, I felt good that there are people like Adam out there who are incredibly successful in this field that could fix stuff if it went wrong. Very comforting. I was very comforted is my takeaway by that. Anyway, thanks for being with me and we're going to see you next time. We're going to do this again. Just, you know, we've decided we're going to do more of these. So get ready next week on Literally with me, Rob Lowe.

You've been listening to Literally with Rob Lowe, produced by me, Sean Doherty, with help from associate producer Sarah Begar and research by Alyssa Growl. Engineering and mixing by Joanna Samuel. Our executive producers are Rob Lowe for Low Profile, Nick Liao, Adam Sachs, and Jeff Ross for Team Coco, and Colin Anderson for Stitcher. Booking by Deirdre Dodd. Music by Devin Bryant. Sound by Devin Bryant.

Special thanks to Hidden City Studios. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time on Literally.

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