Return of the designated shouter

Adam Carolla has Selena Gomez on the brain. But not in the way you think … pervert. No, the busy multimedia star—his incredibly popular daily podcast, The Adam Carolla Show, is just one of six podcasts broadcast through the Ace Broadcasting Network on his website, www.AdamCarolla.com—was recently accosted with one of her movies during a first-class flight to Los Angeles. Carolla, a stickler for details, spends a good five minutes of his interview with SN&R trying to conjure up the geographically themed name of the starlet’s celluloid stinker. He also finds time to discuss the podcasting world, comedy as a cathartic tool and his return trip to Sacramento’s Crest Theatre to bash the holidays. Mmm, smells like Christmas.

So this is going to be the second straight year you’re bringing your annual Adam Carolla Hates the Holidays show to Sacramento’s Crest Theatre. Um, why?

(Laughs.) That’s what I keep asking myself. Uh, well, for the money, mainly. Let’s be honest. I wouldn’t do it for free.

No one goes to Sacramento for free. Now there are places you go—you might go to Maui for free, you might go to Monaco for free. But Sacramento, there’s got to be a payday for Sacramento.

Your website is starting to feel like a broadcast multimedia network. You’ve got your own shows and you have shows from your wife, your father, comedian Larry Miller.

Yeah. … What we’ve done is we figured out how to monetize podcasts. … Let us handle selling the advertising and setting it up for you and getting the bandwidth and doing all that stuff. And then we’ll advertise it, and then we’ll just share in the profits of the advertising.

It’s an interesting model. You kind of started out at the beginning of this podcasting boom, and now you’re starting to see more podcasts, more comedians doing podcasts. Are you flattered by this, threatened, indifferent?

The thing about a lot of people doing a podcast is it does two things: It brings attention to podcasting, which is a good thing, but it also creates a lot of competition. … It does mean that you have to provide a product where people go, “Now I got a choice between you and seven other comedians,” and you really have to be that much more consistent now. I mean, the bottom line is if you stink or you’re just mailing it in, I don’t think you’re going to last very long.

You’re kind of known as someone audiences like to see get worked up. Why do you think that is?

It’s funny, because I don’t even think of myself that way. I think a lot of people have the same feelings I have, but they don’t know how to put them into words. It’s a combination: Sometimes they’re scared of putting them into words, like, “I’m going to get into trouble,” or “I’m going to get labeled something negative.” … So when I do what I do, I think it becomes cathartic for the people that are listening and … I’m venting for them. They’re going, “Yeah, what is it with those guys? What the fuck?”

Does that ever get exhausting? Do you feel like people want you to be their megaphone, their release?

It’s not a calorie burner for me. I’d do it on stage in front of 1,200 people and I’ll do it alone in the car, like it doesn’t really matter.

So it’s not like you feel you’re on. It’s just what naturally comes out.

It’s what comes out. People will say to me all the time, it’s two things: They’ll go like, “I love that thing you do on left-hand turn arrows.” And I’ll go, “It’s not a bit. I’m pissed. It’s not even intentionally funny. I’m not trying to be funny. I’m pissed.”

I was sitting on a first-class flight flying home from New York yesterday evening, and I’m looking at the in-flight movie and they’re showing the film [Monte Carlo]. And I’m like, “[Monte Carlo]? What is that, that Formula 1 Race? Is it about cars? Is it a James Bond movie?” And it’s about three young teen chicks who go to (Monte Carlo) and a starlet who has a doppelganger and is playing both roles with a bad British accent. I’m looking around at the other 40-something rich white dudes that are sitting there in first class. Nobody’s watching this film, by the way, because it’s for Taylor Swift fans. It’s a film that’s made for 13-year-old girls, except American Airlines has chosen this film to show to their 50-year-old, white-male, captain-of-industry dudes who are sitting in first class. There’s not a bunch of fucking tweeners up here, fucking idiot. There’s just a bunch of dudes who don’t want to see chick films for teenage girls on their first-class flight from New York to L.A.