Transcript: Comedian Adam Carolla on TRIGGERnometry

I don’t know where… But during COVID all the Karens, “Pull up your mask,” when you’re walking your dog outside. I don’t know where the energy comes from.

Do you guys… Are you surprised that there’s this much energy over nothing? Or the Trump’s ballroom? I don’t know. Who cares? Building the ballroom. They need a ballroom. Someone else will pay for it. I don’t know. Who cares? Do we need to pour all of our intensity and energy into everything all the time? It’ll all quickly be forgotten. No one will care and we’ll just turn the page. But where does that energy come from?

The Search for Meaning

KONSTANTIN KISIN: Well, I think this might be an uncharitable interpretation, but I think for someone like you, who has a job that they enjoy, family, kids, nice house, all of that… doing that kind of stupid sh*t doesn’t make any sense. But if you have no meaning in your life, your life kind of sucks.

ADAM CAROLLA: Yes.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: Then you can give it some meaning by going out and fighting for a cause or tweeting for a cause. Right?

ADAM CAROLLA: Yes.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: Now I say this is an uncharitable interpretation. They might say, “We’re trying to save the country” or whatever.

ADAM CAROLLA: Right.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: But I do think underneath that there’s probably quite a lot of personal dissatisfaction.

ADAM CAROLLA: I would hope so. I pray you’re right. Because if they’re really satisfied and happy at the end of the day, I’m really going to be miserable.

FRANCIS FOSTER: Yeah. I just think people latch onto these causes because it gives them… It doesn’t only give all of that. It also gives you a sense of purpose.

ADAM CAROLLA: Yes.

FRANCIS FOSTER: It’s not… You’re no longer working in recruitment and you hate your job and you don’t really get on with your girlfriend or your spouse that much. All of a sudden, when Saturday comes, you’re an activist, you’re doing something.

From Rural Life to Cubicles

ADAM CAROLLA: No, I get the purpose part. And I think that everyone needs it and they will find it in ways that are not really healthy if they don’t find a healthy purpose. And I’ve always sort of thought that it’s about projects and being engaged and working with your hands and having lots of stuff sort of on your plate to deal with.

And I mean, you get back to these adages, “The devil makes work for idle hands” and that kind of stuff. But I think these guys knew what they were talking about when they were crafting these adages so many years ago.

Which is, I’ve really been thinking about the move from the rural society and farming and logging and milking and plucking chickens and churning butter to sort of cubicles and air conditioning and sort of what that’s done to the psyche of human beings.

FRANCIS FOSTER: Absolutely. And also as well, there is a large part of this, I think, that is down to people not having kids.

ADAM CAROLLA: Yes.

FRANCIS FOSTER: If you don’t… Because if you’ve got kids, you don’t have a moment. You do not have a moment. You’re not going to want to go to a Palestine protest because you’ve got a three-year-old running around.

ADAM CAROLLA: It also prevents you from footage of you in an inflatable Snoopy outfit punching an ICE agent because that’s unbecoming of dad or mom. It prevents you. It probably prevents you from doing porn and other things as well, because now you have a witness to your life. Right?

So A, it engages you. B, you sort of pass it through a filter. Well, would you want your kid doing this when they’re in their 40s? You wouldn’t wish that. You would hope they would be doing something more constructive. But also you now have these little witnesses who are going to see you forever on the Internet making an a of yourself.

Leaving LA?

FRANCIS FOSTER: Oh, absolutely. But we’re sitting here, Adam, it’s a beautiful view, Louisiana, the sun is shining. And you keep saying you’re going to leave, Adam. I don’t see any sign of it.

ADAM CAROLLA: Trying to build a house in Nevada. And you’re right, it’s hard. It’s hard to leave this view and this weather. But I am… I do. I bought land, I got plans and I haven’t broken ground yet, but I have the land and I have the plans. So I’m moving toward building and moving to Nevada.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: You’re never going to leave. You love it too much.

FRANCIS FOSTER: Come on.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: It’s hard to blame you. It’s amazing.

California: The Hot Blonde Who Never Had to Study

ADAM CAROLLA: It is. It is amazing. Yeah, but that’s the whole thing. I mean, when you are a place that isn’t this, you have to sort of work for it. And I think it’s probably something we’ve discussed, but it’s kind of baked in. I mean, it sounds dumb, or I’m just making a metaphor, but I’m really not.

Which is California is a hot blonde that never had to study because her phone was always ringing and there was always someone buying her drinks and dinner and there was always something to do. And so you take these other states and these other states who don’t have this to offer, they’re like, “Look, we’ve got to study, we’ve got to out-compete, we’ve got to work harder, we’ve got to lower our taxes. We have to make it attractive, we have to attract people to come here.”

Which is, we don’t. We don’t need to do that. And LA and California sort of got by on topography for a long time. You could be skiing up in the hills and two hours later be surfing in Malibu. Who else? And so we sort of… what we did, like the hot blonde, we went, “We don’t have to study, we don’t have to spend all day at the gym. We just show up in a sundress and everyone comes to us.”

But at a certain point, the blonde turns 45 and people aren’t as attracted and the suitors aren’t calling and there’s not a date every Saturday night. And that’s kind of what California is like. It was a really attractive blonde who’s now got some crow’s feet and a little gray and it’s starting to age out and now has to go get a law degree or something.

You’ve got to hit the books, you’ve got to do something, you’ve got to be a board certified something or a CPA or something. You need to get a job. At this point, you just being hot and blonde was good for 40 years, but the ride’s over.

The Human Zoo: Modern Life and Our Disconnect from Nature

KONSTANTIN KISIN: Yeah. You made an interesting point coming back a little bit about people doing things with their hands. And also Francis brought up people not having kids. I remember reading a long time ago a book by, I think he was a primatologist. So he studied apes called Desmond Morris. And he wrote a book called “The Human Zoo.”

And his basically central argument was when you put people into cities, they start behaving like animals in captivity. They have fewer kids, they get mentally distressed, they become lethargic, basically every sort. There’s more interpersonal violence. If you put people in these conditions, you end up in a kind of very unhealthy place for human beings. Do you think we’re seeing that play out now?

ADAM CAROLLA: Yeah, I mean, what we’re doing is kind of an experiment on humans as a species. So, you know, we understand chimps and we understand seals and whales and whatever, and you take the killer whale who’s supposed to be combing the oceans, hunting, and you put him at SeaWorld and he swims in a circle and his dorsal fin falls over because he’s depressed, you know what I mean?

And then we kind of get it. We go, well, he has a majestic creature, supposed to be swimming the world’s oceans, hunting seal. There he is going in a circle. There’s a lesbian feeding trout every day at noon and he’s depressed. I’m assuming she’s a lesbian. I didn’t see a ring on her finger. All right, the point is, well, she was wearing a glove. So, you know, maybe I’m being unkind.

But the whole point is that’s not what they’re meant to do. They’re meant to be in the open sea, you know, and we get it with elephants at the zoo. You know, these people, the people that are protesting who want the elephants removed from the zoo because that’s not their habitat, they need to roam. They’re getting depressed, they’re walking in a circle, they’re getting psoriasis on their skin. They’re depressed.

These are the same people that want us to have 15-minute cities and live on top of each other and all eating some communal slophouse. They’re not the ones who want acreage and land and space and all the stuff we as a species need. You know, so they see it with the elephants and they see it with the whales and they would all protest to set them free and then they’d want us to get back on our public transportation and go back to our single flats in the middle of a crime-ridden city.

So that’s what they think for us, the species. And what I’m saying is, is this is an experiment and people, I think, got the social media part of it, you know, they go, we don’t know how this is going to affect kids long term on their phone. We’re not meant to read stories about ourselves or doom scroll all day.

Our Lost Relationship with Danger

I would argue we’re not meant to be indoors, sitting in air conditioning, looking at our phone. Forget about the phone. We’re not supposed to be in, we’re supposed to be out, you know, swinging an ax, tilting up a barn, you know, on our feet, you know, moving, sweating, communing with nature, like building something. We’re not supposed to be in here crunching data all day. And I do think there’s an inability to think because of that and bigger picture.

We don’t have a relationship with danger that we used to have, which is a super important quality to have and needs to be sort of bestowed on every future generation, which is you know, when the dad takes the son out to, you know, shoe the horse or deal with the livestock or you don’t want to get kicked in the head by a donkey, you know, you don’t come up behind the donkey and slap it on the a, you know.

And when you go, you know, I’m a carpenter, so I work with tools all the time. Every tool does something different and sort of poses its own threat or sense of danger. You have to kind of respect it and you have to kind of know what it does, because if you don’t, it’ll bite you. Like, it’ll screw with you. You’ll lose a finger, you’ll get injured, you know.

So we used to sort of go through every day going, I need to use this tool. I got to fire it up. It could bite me. But I’m going to stand where I need to stand. I’m going to do what I need to do. And you just sort of learn these things. And then when something like COVID comes around, you’re calibrated.

So you go, all right, what are the dangers? Because what we’re not going to do is shut everything down and stay at home. We are going to deal with this danger, but we’re going to do it in a way like you’re going to do in the shop. It’s not like we’re not going to use the band saw. We’re going to use the band saw, but we’re going to use it in a way that is safe or as safe as we can make it. But the answer isn’t, don’t use the band saw, because we got to chop up this log, you know.

So we lost our relationship with danger, and I see it all the time. And then you hear these dumbo mayors of cities going, “If we lose one person to COVID,” you know, it’s like, we’re going to lose a lot of people to COVID. Idiot. You can’t shut all the schools, you can’t shut all the businesses, you can’t shut all the churches. Yeah, we’re going to lose one, we’re going to lose one more.

We’re making these weird safety, kind of feminine-driven mom proclamations about “if one child is,” it’s retarded and it’s because they’ve been indoors breathing air conditioning too long. All the guys I work blue-collar jobs with and my sort of blue-collar crew, they had no thoughts about COVID. They just got up and went to work. All the white-collar guys were all the pussies when it came to the COVID and they got it all wrong because they were scared because they don’t have a relationship with danger.

The Return of Forbidden Words

KONSTANTIN KISIN: I love the way the word “retarded” has come back. It’s one of my favorite words.

ADAM CAROLLA: Me too.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: And it’s back.

ADAM CAROLLA: I agree. I agree. Bell bottoms, retarded. It’s all come full circle. And it’s back. I agree. I was told not to use it some years ago, and I rejected that.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: Well, it depends, right? Like, if you’re talking to someone who’s mentally handicapped and using that word, you’re an ahole, totally. But if you’re using it in the way that we’re using it to say this is dumb.

ADAM CAROLLA: Well, also, you know, in the gearhead, as long as we’re talking about cars and gears and stuff, you know, when you take a car, you either advance the timing or you retard the timing. So in automotive parlance, you would retard the timing. That doesn’t mean that timing has to go to a special school. It just means you take the distributor and you turn it counterclockwise a little or you advance the timing a little.

So these words live somewhere. You know, like there is retarding this and advancing this. It’s an actual thing. We decided we don’t want to use the word, but it’s this. It’s the opposite of advance. It’s retard.

Also, with cars, there is a master cylinder and a slave cylinder. And the master cylinder tells the slave cylinder what to do, which is interesting, but it’ll never be pulled out of the American lexicon because nerds don’t work on cars. And they don’t. And by the way, the slave cylinders for the clutch, and they don’t drive a stick. So we’re safe with master cylinder and slave cylinder. But in 2025, you can go to auto parts store and you order a slave cylinder.

FRANCIS FOSTER: Wow.

ADAM CAROLLA: And a master cylinder.

FRANCIS FOSTER: Are they both the same color?

ADAM CAROLLA: That’s a good point. Yeah, it’s sort of a gunmetal gray. You’re right.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: When you say nerds don’t work in cars, it’s funny because in computers, they used to be a master-slave thing. Right. And that got canceled at some point.

ADAM CAROLLA: Right? Because that’s where those guys live. But they don’t live in the mechanics bay. And those guys don’t care about political correctness. And none of the guys who work in it know what a slave cylinder is as it pertains to an automotive clutch. Right.

The Internet and the Illusion of Expertise

FRANCIS FOSTER: Basically, the more I go through life, the more I think, you know, the Internet has done some wonderful things, but it’s kind of made us all believe that we’re far smarter and we know more than we do. You know, it’s like you saw this during COVID where people would sit down and go, “Well, you know, you look at this vaccine or whatever else,” and they start reeling off stats to you.

You go, Dave, you work in a factory. You’re not an immunologist. Now, it’s not to say you can’t have an opinion, but they present themselves as experts. And I think that’s kind of a weird place to be, isn’t it?

ADAM CAROLLA: Yeah, I agree. I mean, the info’s there and it’s good and it’s a tool. And it’s a tool. You know, a gun is good if it’s in the hands of law enforcement. It’s bad if it’s in the hands of a gang banger. But is a gun good or bad? I don’t know. It’s just kind of a gun. It kind of depends who’s wielding it and what they’re doing with it, you know, and information is that way.

It’s a good thing, or someone can get hold of it and sort of twist it and use it to make a point that’s incorrect or untrue. And so, but the information is just the information, you know. And I think it’s probably, we’re going to have to figure out some ways to not only, I think obtaining the information is great, but we’re going to have to figure out a better way to digest that information, because a lot of people have common sense.

A lot of this is sort of common sense stuff. There was a story, I don’t know, it was three or four years ago. And a lot of women got upset about it because some high school, some Catholic high school boys went to Maui and were harassing and annoying bottlenose dolphins or spinner dolphins. The story was they were swimming after them and annoying the dolphins and women really grabbed this. And they’re like, “Those kids with nature and everything.”

And I was like, that story’s not true. And then someone said, “How do you know? It’s all over the place. These kids, these Catholic kids are harassing these dolphins, upsetting them.” I said, a dolphin can swim 30 knots. I mean, the dolphin can swim 30 miles, 35 miles an hour is what one of those things. A Catholic high school kid’s good for about three miles an hour in the ocean.

I do not think there’s any scenario where the kid is swimming up on the dolphin and the dolphin can’t get away in the open sea or go do whatever a dolphin wants to do. So this is bullsh*t. And they’re like, “What?” I was like, common sense, logic. Right, logic.

I went and looked it up, the fastest a human can swim. Michael Phelps swims at three and a half miles an hour or something. It’s not fast at all. It’s about, I mean, God bless him, but it’s about as fast. I think you could walk, you know, next to the side of the pool and stay up with Michael Phelps while he’s swimming, you know.

So a spinner dolphin swims at 30 miles an hour. Not going to be caught by Michael Phelps or the high school kid. But unless you have a little logic, you’re going to have trouble digesting this story.

FRANCIS FOSTER: And, Adam, this is a question I’ve always wanted to ask you because you were one of the first people who really made their name for themselves with podcasting, and you’ve got to have a huge podcast. What responsibility do you feel when you’re having conversations? Has that changed over the years? Or is it really you are who you are and you do what you do?

ADAM CAROLLA: I strive for accuracy, although I’m not writing textbooks, so I don’t drill down on it that far. But my thing is, I would like to be accurate over being popular. So a lot of people, I think we get into trouble certainly during COVID when people are like, I’d rather have a popular opinion than an accurate opinion, because accurate opinions could get you ostracized or sort of pushed out from your group or your work or worse. You know, there could be a livelihood issue.

For me, it’s always accuracy over whatever. Whatever’s popular, number one. And then my opinions are my opinions. And I make peace with them in that I’m thoughtful about my own opinions, even if people think they’re sort of snap judgment or they’re just flying off the cuff or whatever.

I sit back and I observe and I get a picture for where things are going, and then I say something about it. The other day, Dr. Drew said to me, years ago, in 1997, we interviewed then Bruce Jenner, and then Bruce Jenner left. And then I said, “That dude’s turning into a chick.” And everyone looked at me and went, “What are you talking about? It’s the world’s greatest athlete.” And I said, “That guy’s turning into a chick.”

He wasn’t. This is 28 years ago. He wasn’t really doing it yet, but there was something about him that was different. And I could tell something was going on. And I didn’t have. I don’t know why I said it. I just went, “He’s turning into a chick.” And everyone looked at me and went, “I don’t.” It’d be like if I said, Mel Gibson’s turning into a. Everyone would look at me and go, “What? No.” That’s what it was like. He was on the Wheaties box, you know, 15 years earlier.

But I saw something and I just said something, you know? And everyone looked at me and went, “What? I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I was like, “I’m just saying what I saw or what I feel or what I inferred or picked up or whatever it is.” And that’s all. That’s all I do.

Finding the Line in Comedy

FRANCIS FOSTER: But it’s also as well, you have to make it funny. And that’s a real difficult balance, because in order to be irreverent, sometimes you need to go too far. Sometimes you need to push it. You have to find where the line is. In order to find where the line is, you sometimes go over the line.

ADAM CAROLLA: Yeah, I mean, my feeling is, as a comedian, there shouldn’t really be a line. You know, I think maybe as a politician or school teacher, there should be a line, but comedians should be sort of grandfathered in or something in terms of the line.

I mean, it’s like the extreme example, I guess, would be like a roast, you know, and say, “Well, you’re signing up to roast Tom Brady or Donald Trump or whomever.” And I’ve done a few of them. I did Hugh Hefner back in the day. I did Alec Baldwin, and I did Pam Anderson. Not in that order.

But I like Alec Baldwin. I would consider him a friend. But now it’s time to do the roast, and so I’m going to go up there and say horrible things about Alec Baldwin. But no one goes, “Oh, my God, can you believe what he said about Alec Baldwin?” Well, if Alec Baldwin and I were out for dinner and I said that stuff, then that would be horrible, and I don’t think we’d be friends. But this is a roast, so there’s like a context, right?

And it’s kind of an extreme context, but this is a roast setting. So, okay, now it’s okay because there’s context. And I would argue that that context should sort of be built into comedians when they’re holding a microphone. Like, okay, it’s not a roast, but you’re on stage and you have a microphone, or you’re doing a podcast or you’re broadcasting, or you’re in this format, you have an audience.

The audience is either in the room with you or the audience is at home with their earbuds or jogging or taking their dog for a walk. But that is your audience. And as a comedian, you should be able to say what you want, hyperbole or not, with no lines drawn, as long as you have an audience.

Now, if you’re talking in your living room and you’re making, you know, you’re complaining about Polish people or something in the context of just you and your living room and your friend or something, then maybe that. Maybe that is something else. Maybe that’s in a different context.

My rule is, if I’m talking and people are listening, then that’s the audience, and I get to say whatever I want.

Comedians as News Sources

KONSTANTIN KISIN: Well, one of the interesting things that has happened with podcasts, and I think maybe this is why Francis is asking the question, is like, a lot of the places where people now get their news or their information about certain things is now podcasts hosted by comedians. You know, Joe, Theo Vaughn has become massive as well. Tim Dillon. Right. And that’s an interesting dynamic as well that maybe blurs some of these lines, don’t you think?

ADAM CAROLLA: Yeah, it does. But I mean, if you sort of go back and you think about, like, what Jon Stewart was doing with the Daily Show going back 25 years, he’s doing politics and opinion and then sort of using comedy to propel and make the point of opinion attached to comedy attached to politics, you know.

So, you know, we look at it as a newer phenomenon because it’s in a podcast form, but, you know, go back and watch a Daily Show 20 years ago, right? I mean, I was on The Daily Show 20 years ago, more. I mean, that’s what Jon Stewart does. That’s what Mort Saul would do.

You know, I mean, there’s sort of context for comedians, opinions and politics. And I don’t think a lot of people would watch the Daily Show and go, “This is just a pure comedy show.” You know, I think they went, “No, I like this guy’s opinion.” You know, like, it’s funny. But I get his point, and I agree with his point.

And so whether that’s, you know, Joe Rogan or whomever, I think it’s basically an extension of the same thing in a slightly different format, but even that’s not that different. Sit down, roll cameras, talk to a guest, express opinion.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: That’s a really good point. I hadn’t quite thought of it like that, but that’s absolutely right. I know people who are kind of like default liberals who would say to me, “Oh, I get all my news from the Daily Show. I get all my news from Stephen Colbert.” Which reminds me, Jimmy Kimmel, obviously, he had this situation recently where he talked about the Charlie Kirk assassination. He got some facts wrong. He was sort of canceled and then came back almost instantly. Did you have any thoughts on that?

ADAM CAROLLA: Yeah, I talked to him during that interim period, and he kind of. His statement was not well crafted, but his point was different than the way it was interpreted, at least when it was explained to me. And there’s a way to sort of read it and understand that that’s not exactly what he was pointing at or getting at.

But all that being said, I’m not, you know, like, I’m for free speech and then I’m for employers being able to fire whoever they want as well. So I’m sort of like both sides of it. Like, I think you should be able to say whatever you want to say. On the other hand, your employer or whoever’s paying you should also be able to say, “I don’t want you to say that. And so I’m going to fire you.” So I’m kind of straddling it.

I like Jimmy. Jimmy and I. Jimmy’s a very decent guy and a very good guy and a very generous guy. And I’ve always tried to explain to people that he’s not what you think he is because you disagree with his opinions, which is. But also, I know Jon Stewart pretty well and Alec Baldwin pretty well. I disagree with them, but I don’t think they’re bad people or evil people. They’re like family oriented taxpayers. I won’t include them as part of the problem, is what I’m saying.

And so Jimmy and I have gone different directions politically over the years. I don’t really look at where I’ve gone as diverging very far from where I was 25 years ago. I was just like, pay your taxes, raise your kids, limited government, take care of yourself, don’t rely on the government. That’s kind of, I’d like a little lower taxes and a stout border and like fill the potholes. That’s kind of where I’ve been at.

Somehow it turns into other stuff, as you guys probably know as well. But by and large, we’re sort of live and let live. You know, like somebody said to me, “Well, you know, you’re conservative.” I said, “Well, all right, let’s see if we’re going to unpack that for a second.”

What Makes a Conservative?

I don’t own a gun, I’m an atheist, and I don’t really care about abortion. Like the three major planks of a conservative person: guns, abortion and religion. I’m 0 for 3 in those three main topics, so you can call me a conservative. But that seemed pretty weird.

Like, what if I said, “Oh, you’re liberal, you’re progressive,” but I know you think climate change is bullsh*t and I know you voted for Trump and I know you don’t want electric cars and you’re not down with Black Lives Matter. Like, you’d go, “Well, is that really. Would you call that person a Democrat or would you call that person progressive?”

Like, we’re living in a time where I can be called Conservative and not be 0 for 3 on the first three major planks. I’m not pro abortion. It’s just not, you know, I’m not going to go out and rally. It’s not. It’s never been a thing. I’m not religious and I don’t own a gun. Not against guns and not against religion. I just grew up in the San Fernando Valley. We didn’t have guns or religion.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: Yeah, well, I think you represent. And one of the reasons you’ve had the success you’ve had is you represent a kind of blue collar, common sense man. Right.

ADAM CAROLLA: And.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: That’s what people might call, like small c conservative in that you’re not. You don’t necessarily vote for a particular party, but you think family is important. You think practical reality matters and not floating away with crazy ideas. And it’s actually something that’s happened in Britain as well.

Like people with a similar disposition in Britain are all called right wing or even far right now, because the entire thinking class, if I can say that, the people who make up ideas for a living, they’ve all gone so far to the progressive direction.

ADAM CAROLLA: Right.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: And so if you believe in family and you believe in reality, you are now a Conservative, you know.

Immigration and Cultural Change

ADAM CAROLLA: Yeah. And also there’s a kind of like, you speak about Britain and I’ve always said it here. You guys are having your issues with migration and Muslim and culture and that kind of stuff. And I’m not really using it as a pejorative, but it’s like, I’ve said it here for years and years and years growing up here. If enough Mexicans come in from Mexico and set up, then we will have the culture of Mexico here.

Now you can go, is that good or is that bad? And the answer is, I don’t know. Some of it’s good and some of it’s bad, but that’s what you shall have. And we’ll have. It’ll be the music, it’ll be the food, it’ll be the culture.

I grew up here. There were zero street vendors. It didn’t exist. That was something you’d find in Tijuana. There’s no such thing as—when I grew up walking around L.A. and seeing people sell stuff on the street, food, flowers, whatever. It didn’t. It literally didn’t exist. You go into a restaurant, you go into a store, you don’t go out on the sidewalk and buy food. That’s Third World.

Well, now it’s a thing, right? Why is it a thing? Because we imported too many Swedes or too many Hungarians? No, Mexicans have come in. That’s what they do. So you can go, “Why are you being such a xenophobe?” And I’m like, I’m not being xenophobic. I’m just saying you shall have what—

KONSTANTIN KISIN: You import have consequences.

ADAM CAROLLA: If you—carpenter ants are going to do what carpenter ants are going to do. If you get a whole bunch of them to land where there weren’t any, they’re going to start doing what carpenter ants do. That’s what they do.

If you have a bunch of folks who follow Islam come to Dearborn, Michigan, they’re going to start setting up mosques and they’re going to do what they do. And then you can go, “I like it.” Okay. Or you can go, “I don’t like it.” But either way, don’t expect the outcome not to be them doing what they’re doing.

And then eventually they’re going to elect people that are like-minded. And then those people are going to say, “Here’s what I’m thinking about in terms of my constituency.” And then you’re going to have a bunch of Somalians running Minneapolis. But that’s what’s going to happen.

So you have to kind of weigh that in before you open the doors of whatever group is coming in. I wouldn’t want it to be all Germans or all—I wouldn’t want it to be schnitzel and pizza everywhere either. Like, I like the balance. But this is something that’s happening. Europe is running into it. We’re kind of—I mean, New York is kind of just getting there and people are so scared of being called racist or xenophobic that they don’t want to say anything about it.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: It’s such an obvious and simple truthful point though, isn’t it? It’s like—but I think maybe it’s because a lot of these people either have an open door worldview or maybe they just are uncomfortable. I mean, look, Trump is trying to deal with the issue of illegal immigration now and it looks kind of ugly to a lot of people, right? And so I think because of those realities, people then maybe just pretend or just try to ignore those things that you’re talking about.

The Front Door Metaphor

ADAM CAROLLA: Yeah, well, the Trump stuff is kind of interesting because that’ll be my metaphor or analogy for that is sort of like, you go—and because what they do is they create chaos, and then at some point they go, “Look at all the chaos.” And it’s like, yeah, I know. That’s because you’re doing that. And then they go, “Don’t you want the chaos to end?”

So what—the phenomenon that’s kind of interesting with Trump is like, what if I just said, as an example, you and your wife—and your wife said, “I’d like to go to bed at night and leave the front door open.” And you go, “I don’t want to do that. Because raccoons would come into the house, a stray dog.” And they go, “No, that’s what I want to do.” And you go, “No, no.”

And then you come downstairs in the morning, the trash is all torn through because a family of raccoons walked through your living room, and so on and so forth. And then you say to your wife, “Can we just shut the front door? Can we just shut the front door?” And she goes, “No, no.” And you go, “I’m shutting the front door.” And you shut the front door. She’s throwing a fit. Every single night. Every single night.

And then at some point, your kids just go, “Just open the front door. I’m so tired of hearing her. I’m so tired of the arguing.” And you go, “But we shut the front door and we didn’t get any raccoons.” “I know, but I don’t want to hear this anymore. Just do it.” And you go, “Fine, we’ll do it.”

And so you go, oh, you open the front door, and now there’s raccoons back in the house, but there’s no more arguing, and at least your kids can go in the room and shut the door and go to bed. And so you’re kind—it’s, in a way, it’s like being blackmailed, right?

So you go, “I don’t want the front door—” “I go, yeah, but don’t you just want peace? Don’t you just want some peace in your home?” And you—”Okay.” And that’s sort of what they do. They go out and they fight everything. It could be ICE, it could be a ballroom. It could be anything to do with the border. It could be any transgender, any—they just fight everything.

And then at some point they go, “Aren’t you tired of the chaos? Don’t you just want some peace? Don’t you want to just get back to normal? Don’t you just want to get some middle of the road—somebody just put our guy in there, open the front door, no more arguments, and we can get on with our life. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

And I’m like, it would be nice, but there’s an alternative one, which is you shut the f up. Like, just let ICE do their job. Let the Border Patrol do their job. How about you just sit back and let everyone do their job for 10 minutes? Let them add a ballroom onto the east wing. How about that? Because that’s the other alternative. I’m going to shut the front door, you shut the f up, and we’ll get on with our lives with no raccoons. We could do that, but you won’t let that happen.

FRANCIS FOSTER: But there is also, I think, an element of this conversation that we’re missing, which is when people are being unreasonable, which they are in this situation, when they’re being histrionic, when they’re creating a fuss, when they want a solution to a problem that we all know is only going to make the problem worse. It’s a responsibility of the adults to go, “They’re going to do what they’re going to do. They’re going to moan, they’re going to kick off whatever. You just got to just hold the line.” And then eventually they’re going to realize that all the tantrums, all the screaming, all the shouting doesn’t work.

The COVID Example

ADAM CAROLLA: Yeah, well, there’s another alternative, which is they’ll just take it all and move it to the next crisis, which is what they do. No, I agree. The job as the adult is to go, “I’m shutting the front door, kids, your mom’s a crazy bitch. And I’m sorry, that’s where we’re at. Because I’m not doing this.” And that’s where we’re at.

But so many people just go, “I just—I don’t want to argue anymore.” I mean, we just saw it with COVID. We just—I lived in a house with a woman, my ex-wife and my daughter, who were weaponized with COVID. And I would come walking in and my daughter would start screaming, “Take off your shoes.”

And I’d go, “There’s no correlation between shoes and COVID. So no.” And also, I pay for everything. So I pay for the shoes, I pay for the floor, I pay for all the stuff. So no. And, but at a certain point around day five when they’re having the meltdown and the wife is going, “Just take the shoes off, she’s crying,” you go, “F* it, I’ll just kick my shoes off.” Because you don’t want this, right? You just don’t want to deal with this.

And that was 80% of COVID was just people going, “I don’t want to—I just don’t want to deal with this thing. It’s not true, it’s not factual, it’s not scientific. And yes, I am the adult, but also I’d like just to make it through a day where there wasn’t all this friction.”

FRANCIS FOSTER: But you can take that, Adam, and you can use that metaphor, which is very beautifully done and well-constructed and let’s go transgenderism, right? “I’m a boy, I’m a boy, I’m a girl.” Someone’s a man, they’re saying they’re a girl, they’re having a tantrum. And you—and then “I want to use a women’s toilets.” And you go, “Just go and use the women’s toilets.”

ADAM CAROLLA: Right?

FRANCIS FOSTER: And all of a sudden, you’ve opened that particular door.

The 80/20 Rule

ADAM CAROLLA: No, I agree. I think there’s a sort of critical mass. Whereas the transgender does not comprise a large enough percentage-wise group of the populace, and the supporters do comprise a larger group, but still it’s an 80/20 type thing. Whereas COVID was 80/20, the other direction.

And it’s the kind of thing where if I had my ex-wife saying to my daughter, “Shut up, that’s your dad, he’ll keep his shoes on,” then I could have probably pulled it off, but she took her side, which meant it was much more difficult.

And so, yeah, I get what your point is. But there are certain things that are overwhelmingly, statistically popular, or at least—I don’t know if the word is popular, but at least populated. And then there are ones that are more 80/20.

And I think the transgender thing, there was a lot of people that were sort of in the shadows. Like, they’re like, “Well, I don’t agree with this, but I don’t want to say anything because I’m scared I’m going to get into trouble or whatever.” And then Riley Gaines and a few other people started saying it out loud, or some of the folks, Matt Walsh or whoever, and the quiet Marranos who are hiding in the shadows sort of stepped up and went, “Yeah, I guess it’s safe to come out and give my opinion on that.”

FRANCIS FOSTER: It’s absolutely true, because when people talk about what’s gone wrong, particularly with the UK and they ask me—and look, it’s multifactorial, it’s very complicated. But I say that we’ve got a courage deficit. I really do. I think right across the West, we’ve got a courage deficit.

The Intersection of Privilege, Guilt, and Courage

ADAM CAROLLA: Yes, yes. A courage meets a kind of a guilt thing and a privileged thing, which I’ve never really thought about, but maybe we can kind of explore it, which is like a feeling of “we’ve had it pretty good for a long time.” We’ve been in charge for a long time. The heterosexual white male, you know, cry me a river. These guys have been captains of industry and, you know, heads of state and presidents and so on and so forth.

So, like, there’s a little guilt. Like, there’s kind of a—there is a crisis of courage, but I think there’s a dusting of sort of guilt on top of it, where it’s like, okay, we’ve been in charge for so long, and we have it pretty good, you know, and so I think it’s kind of both.

And I agree. And it does take courage to take a stand even when you’re coming from a place of privilege. And there’s a sort of a thing in the Bible, I think, that says—and it’s sort of true—it’s like when you’re judging somebody, the poor person and the rich person, you got to throw that out the window. It’s like, who’s right, who’s wrong?

Because we do a lot of, “Well, he can afford to pay.” And then you go, “But the guy didn’t do anything to him.” It’s like, “I know, but he can. That’s two days work for him,” you know what I mean? So it starts getting skewed a little bit, like, morally. We go, like, “Yeah, but he’s got his big house up in the hill. I think he’s fine, he’ll recover,” you know what I mean?

So there’s like a little white guilt mixed in with a lack of courage. And I totally agree. And part of the courage is someone going, “Hey, you’re rich, you’re white. What do you complain?” And they go, “Yeah, I’m rich, I’m white. Anyway, now I’m going to complain.”

When the LA Unified School District was attacking me—and this will speak to that—the LA school district was attacking me because I was saying, “Open the school, you cowards. Open the schools. It’s safe. My kids are home all day. They’re in high school at the time.” I go, “You guys are being cowards. The school unions being cowards. Open the schools.”

And then they wrote back to me, “Oh, you know, rich, white, Adam Carolla, sitting home in a $7 million home, counting his money, sitting in a $7 million home. Wants us, the poor kids, you know, brown and black, you know, go back.”

And then I wrote back—they said, “He’s sitting in a $7 million home.” And I just wrote back, “7.3.” Because you and, yeah, I’m rich. Yeah, I’m sitting in, well, 7.3, but I’m sitting in my home. I still have an opinion. And you still close the schools needlessly.

And what they were doing when they went, “sitting in a seven million dollar home” is going, “Shut up, rich guy. I dare you to say something else because we just played poor brown and black kids, school, you sit home in your $7 million house, so shut up.” And it would work on most people. Most people go, like, “Okay, all right. I don’t want to be called out for whatever.”

I don’t care. Because I started off poor in life, so I don’t. And I work, so I don’t. I don’t really—you can’t shame me with money because of my past and how I live. But it works on most people.

But it’s sort of courage and the rich white privilege part, which is sort of in unison, like, I think that’s what’s going on a lot in the UK, like, it’s like, definitely, you guys have it real good. You’ve had it real good. You can’t accept a few people that don’t have it as good as you. And then you sort of go, “Okay, I don’t want to say anything and be called Vince.”

The Inoculation of Hard Work

KONSTANTIN KISIN: Yeah, it’s an interesting point, Adam. And one of the reasons I love talking to you is that kind of common sense. You mentioned, like, you worked and you were poor. And I think that’s a kind of big inoculation against all this stuff, because I think the people who do feel really guilty are the people who feel that they haven’t earned the things that they have.

ADAM CAROLLA: Oh, yeah. Well, not only do they not do that, but they overcompensate the other direction. So it’s like two guys, same age and about the same height, who grew up in California are Gavin Newsom and Adam Carolla. I grew up on food stamps and welfare and poor. He grew up in a vineyard with the Getty family.

He has to create some alternative life where he was—had a single mom and he was making Mac and cheese and down on his luck, you know, this weird sort of fantasy life that never existed. And then he has to overcompensate, talking about the poor black and the brown and the moms that go without and the living wage and SNAP and he has to do all that.

I’m over here going, “I got welfare and my mom was on welfare and was on food stamps.” And I’m like, “Hey, poor people, get your s* together, because we shouldn’t be paying for this. And you don’t want us to pay for it because it’ll ruin you generationally, which it has and it does.” I saw it, I lived it, I understood it.

He is overcompensating and going the other direction. He can’t say the things I say because he didn’t come from there. It’s like stolen valor or something, you know, he wasn’t in country in Vietnam. I was in a swamp in Vietnam. I can say what I want. He was in the rear with the gear. He has to overcompensate and go the other direction.

And you see that with tons of politicians, you know, if they were poor and they understood it. I tell people all the time, I grew up with poor people. They’re not noble, they’re not hardworking, they’re not smarter. They’re a lot of time idiots there. They don’t know delayed gratification is not part of the world. There’s lots of smoking, lots of drinking, lots of money going toward gambling or rims for their cars or lottery tickets or cigarettes or alcohol.

They’re not hardworking, they’re not noble, they’re not poor. And they’re not—they’re poor. They’re not smarter than anybody. They’re not more virtuous. They’re not any of the—they say, “I grew up with these people. They’re mostly idiots who don’t work hard enough.”

FRANCIS FOSTER: Maybe you are conservative.

AI and the Future of Work

KONSTANTIN KISIN: No. But it’s so funny that you mentioned that. But Adam, as we wrap up, before we go to questions from our supporters, there’s one other thing I wanted to ask you with that kind of working with your hands, common sense perspective. It’s an issue that everyone’s talking about, but I suspect you might have an interesting perspective on it, which is AI and what’s coming from that. Do you have any thoughts on this? Because a lot of people are freaking out. There’s loads of people think it’s the solution to all of humanity’s problems. How do you come down on it?

ADAM CAROLLA: I don’t think it’s ever hurt when a technology is sort of replaced something that’s sort of a legacy that has been there. So, you know, when the automobile replaced the horse, then that’s fine. Now I didn’t ride a horse here today. I drove an electric car. So, you know, fine.

Now there is a thing where it took several decades, you know, maybe 50 years from the horse to the car, you know, it didn’t take 18 months, you know, which could definitely cause a problem if you’re in the saddle making industry or the riding crop industry or whatever. Yeah. That if it takes 50 years, then you transition, and it’s nice and gradual and smooth. If it happens overnight, there’s going to be issues. So I kind of get that part of it.

The other part where you’re, you know, taking these numbers and things and data and entry and sort of streamlining it and what have you, that’s fine. Like efficiency. You know, get going from the prop airplane to the jet airplane or whatever that thing. Whatever your example of efficiency is, it’s good. It’s always good. It’s progress. It’s human progress.

And by the way, it can’t be stopped, because that’s who we are. It’s always, “How could this be faster?” You know what I mean? Like, I was going to drive to my office, but I’m now going to take a zip line because it’s actually faster on the zip line. So this can’t be avoided.

I would use it as an opportunity to have a conversation about trades and skills and things that can’t be replaced with AI. Like, I was doing a vlog. I’ve been doing a vlog on the Malibu fires and the Palisades fires and stuff like that. And less than a week ago, I was on the job site of a house that was being framed, one of the few in the Palisades.

And I was walking through it, and I’ve been on a million job sites when I used to work for them. So I recognized all the, you know, straps and the clips and the plates and the sheer walls and all. I was talking with the contractor and stuff. There was 20 guys buzzing around that with their bags on circular saws, you know, hammering away nail guns, compressors going off.

There is no world where AI and a robot is going to be able to do that in the foreseeable future. There just isn’t. Then the trades come in. The electricians, the plumbers, the pipe fitters foundation, whatever, HVAC helicopter pilots, they’re all coming in.

I’ve been sort of talking a lot about the trades and getting young people and poor people and inner city people. Like, get them a trade. I walked around, I asked the general contract. I said, “What are these guys?” Every guy on the job’s getting paid $350, $400 bucks a day. They’re making good money. They’re on their feet. They have dignity, they have pride, they have a skill.

And, you know, as AI as you want, who’s coming to your house to snake out your toilet or unclog your sink? I mean, that’s a long ways away. So look, if you have a job—but we’re going through it with Hollywood, you know what I mean? Like there, when I used to do TV shows, you’d look at the call sheet, there’d be seven producers on there. I never seen one of them on set once. You know, there’d be just people getting paid, getting paid, getting paid. Names, names, names. I don’t even know who these people are. They weren’t even—they weren’t necessary to the production. We wrote it, we acted, you know, we—so there’s a lot of people. They’re sort of fingers in the—in the hands, in the cookie jar, so to speak.

They thin that out. I mean, they don’t have that. Those big deals anymore. And all the production and all the producers and all that, they’re a little leaner, a little meaner. You got to earn your keep. And if you’re doing a job and that job’s not that important and you can be replaced by AI, then you’re going to be replaced by AI. You’re going to have to start thinking about jobs that are more substantial, more meaningful, and have that that cannot be replaced by AI.

And like I said, trades. And that doesn’t mean rolling around in the dirt all day. It means you can make good money, get a crew together, have—make a great living for your family. And I think that’s that. Hopefully I will drive the useless people that are filling the cubicles out of their useless cubicles and on to the job site.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: That’s very interesting, and I assumed you would say something along those lines because I agree with you that those jobs are far less likely to be affected. I guess the thing that I probably worry about is what will happen is when you drive those people out of the cubicle is they’re not going to go on the job site.

ADAM CAROLLA: No.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: They’re going to say, “I’m a victim, I deserve help.” And then we’re all going to go, “Well, I guess you do.” And then you’ve got even fewer people working and AI takes over and you kind of—I guess the logical destination for me is as the jobs disappear, you almost inevitably head towards a kind of—the robots and the AI does everything. And then we have communism, which is everybody gets—you know, you get your set amount of money right from the government.

ADAM CAROLLA: Universal income. Yeah, yeah.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: I don’t—

ADAM CAROLLA: I’m not a fan of that.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: No, I don’t imagine you are, but that’s kind of what I think about. But I think your point is interesting about maybe people are underestimating the amount of time it will take for this transition to happen and will adjust over time as we have in the past.

The Pace of Technological Change

ADAM CAROLLA: I think historically, it’s hard to argue with that. And I also think that the time between the horse and the automobile is lessened each generation. The technology gets—it brings it faster, and we’re more equipped to handle it in a more efficient, faster way. So I have faith in humanity that way.

What We’re Not Talking About: Gyno Fascism

KONSTANTIN KISIN: Well, Adam, it’s always great to have you on. We can ask you some questions from our supporters in a second. But as you know, the last question we always ask is, what’s the one thing we’re not talking about that we should be?

ADAM CAROLLA: Gyno fascism. I figured you’d make that. Look, it’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot over the last 20 years. “We need more women in positions of power. We need more women making the calls and calling the shots. We need a woman president, we need a woman prime minister. We need more feminine presence everywhere.”

And LA is mostly women. City council, we have a female mayor, and we don’t get anything done. And I started to really think about what—there’s a difference between the male brain and the female brain. And the male brain wants to do stuff. Go, go, go.

If you want to know the difference between the male brain and the female brain: Karen Bass and Donald Trump got together three days after the fires. And Donald Trump was like, “Let’s get going. Move. Clean up those lots. Let’s get building.” And she was like, “Slow it down, slow it down.”

She is a process person, and women are more likely to be process people. They talk, they want to talk it out, they want to work, they want to have a meeting, and they want to break off and have another meeting. And then we put together a blue ribbon panel.

And so in LA, we have a homeless problem, and the homeless problem keeps getting worse every year, but we keep having more conversations and more panels and more groups, but it’s mostly women and nothing ever gets enacted.

And we are heading toward a society that used to be men, men, men. Testosterone, testosterone. And by the way, I’m not making this up. You’re going to see more articles and stuff coming out that the feminine mind is different.

And the feminine mind is also satiated by actually discussing the thing. So if we’re sitting here and you’re going, “We should take this and move this wall and do a thing,” the feminine mind actually feels like we did something, whereas the male mind is like, “We haven’t done anything. We just keep talking about this thing that we’re not doing,” and it’s frustrating versus satiating.

So the feminization is causing a huge shift in our culture. We just got crushed by COVID, especially in Los Angeles, because we had a female health director. And by the way, men can be stricken with this. Gavin Newsom’s a pussy. And Eric Garcetti, our former mayor. Justin Trudeau thinks like a chicken.

You can tell. Watch them cross their legs. Watch Obama and Trudeau and Newsom. When they cross their legs, it’s a full chick. And they’re signaling, they’re presenting. They’re going, “I have chick d*.”

So it’s a thing. It’s happening. It’s going to happen, and it will f* up our society. Because if something like COVID comes around, their plan is, “Nobody leaves their house. Shut all the schools. I’m done here.” That’s not—how do we work? How do we deal with the danger? Dealing with the danger is shut—is shut down.

Barbara Ferrer, the health, whatever crazy witch who ran this town, her plan was just shut it down. Rochelle Walensky, CDC. Just—no, no, nothing. Just shut it all down. And by the way, lie if you have to to keep it shut down.

So there is a gyno fascism that’s sort of coming. And it was a lot of years of, “Well, if we just had women in charge, we wouldn’t have wars and we wouldn’t have crime. We’d have a better society.”

People would notice that Los Angeles is basically run by women and run into the ground. And there’s a problem. There’s going to continue to be a problem, and we’ll see it growing. You’ll see more articles on it. There’ll be more tests on it, and it’ll be less, “Oh, Adam is just spouting off because he’s a misogynist.”

No, it’s a mindset. It’s a female mindset and a male mindset, and it’s skewing toward the female, and our society is going to suffer.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: So there was a lady who wrote a viral article about this called Helen Andrews.

ADAM CAROLLA: Yeah.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: I take it you read it.

ADAM CAROLLA: I did, because everyone sent it to me because I went, “This is what you’ve been saying for 20 years.” And we’re here, we’re going here. And you go, “Oh, Adam, you’re such a douche. You know, knuckle-dragging misogynist.”

No, women are writing articles on this. There is a difference between men and women. And there’s a balance and it’s a good balance. It’s a husband and a wife and a child in a home. When you skew it too far the other direction, the feminine direction, there’s going to be consequences. That’s going to be our future.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: Well, she’s coming on the show soon, so we’ll explore that with her as well. Adam, awesome to have you on.

ADAM CAROLLA: Is she hot?

KONSTANTIN KISIN: I don’t know. I haven’t—you’ve put me really on. That’s the question.

ADAM CAROLLA: Well, tell her I’m a fan because I’ve never—I’m pretty—I’m not a scholar and I read every page of that, of her article and I was like, she’s dead nuts on.

KONSTANTIN KISIN: There you go. Adam is a big fan and we are big fans of yours. Adam, thanks for giving us your time again. Always so great hanging out with you. Head on over to triggerpod.co.uk, where Adam’s going to answer your questions.

FRANCIS FOSTER: When you think about giving your take on the ability of the LA wildfire victims to rebuild from that hotel room, how angry are you that your prediction was 100% correct?

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