James Woods Tells Wild Hollywood Stories + the Dark Side of Politics

Well, in this episode, the great James Woods finally comes in studio for a very spirited conversation. We'll do the news with Andrew Hobson, and we'll do all that right after this. What is the mystique about beating the other guy, about winning? Whatever it is, it's a mystique that's held in high reverence by people in racing. March 22nd, join the Adam Carolla Show for a live podcast celebrating the legendary racing legacy of Paul Newman. You can drive hard and you're not going to win any races. The only way that you're ever going to win a race is just to be right on the edge of it all the time. Come see Adam Carolla's collection of Paul Newman's championship winning race cars, authentic race memorabilia, special guest interviews and an audience Q&A. If you see anything, kid, you let us know. Sunday, March 22nd at 1 p.m. at the Jordan Family Events Center in Orange County. If they put you on the spot, we've got to fold a car. 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And TV shows like Survivor, SpongeBob SquarePants, The Fairly Odd Parents, and Ghosts. Pluto TV is always free. Huzzah! Pluto TV. Stream now. Pay never. You're welcome. From Corolla One Studios in Glendale, California, this is the Adam Corolla Show. Adam's guest today, James Woods. And now, Adam Corolla. Yeah, get it on. Got to get it on. No choice but to get it on. Mandate, get it on. It's an exciting day for me. James Woods, finally in the studio. Good to see you, my friend. Finally. It feels like Manifest Destiny. I'd be kidding. When am I going to do your show with you? I'm a big fan. Oh, thank you. Same here. Same here. Oh, thank you so much. It's, God, I remember one of the first movies I ever rented was Salvador with you and Jim Belushi. And it, one of Oliver Stone's earlier efforts, right? It was literally the first Oliver Stone movie. He had done a movie called The Hand with Michael Caine. It was a little horror movie. But he was doing this movie called South of the Border, which ended up being Salvador. celebrating this wily, kind of sleazy journalist guy. And he was, you know, a real fish-out-of-water guy, Richard Boyle. But he was a patriotic American who wanted to get to the bottom of some things that he felt were wrong in American politics and so on, and actually quite a good journalist. So it was great to be a guy whose everything about him is wrong except he's got a good heart. Yeah, yeah, very flawed, very lovable. and he had a lot of empathy for a guy who lived a life that you probably didn't think you'd have a lot of empathy for. But I just remember, it must have been early 80s. It was 80, we made it in 86. I just remember really being moved by it. And it was pre-Platoon, I think. The year before. The year before, Platoon. And then, of course, The Doors. And that's why I was an Oliver Stone fan. But I've always been a huge fan of your acting. And even in the corny stuff like The Specialist, as you know, that scene where you go into the Miami Bomb Squad department and read every, you know, settle everyone's hash. I just I. You know, that was a totally improvised scene. Yeah, I am. I was stupefied to hear that because it was so technical and it was so precise. And I kind of wonder, but you tell me if you vibe with this at all. Seeing a really good actor in a really good film, you're kind of used to it and the materials there. But when you have a film that's more of a blockbuster and a little cornier and a little more Hollywood, but you see that same actor bring that same skill to a different script, in a weird way, more satisfying. It is because I think the really good actors – Brad Pitt just won the Oscar a few years ago. Brad Pitt, a glamorous movie star. Brad Pitt is actually a great character actor. He's really wonderful doing odd, quirky characters. So when he gets a chance to do kind of a quirky character, which Cliff Booth was in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Or in Glorious Bastards. Yeah, and Glorious Bastard, wonderful. You realize, oh, man, this is when this guy really shines. For me, it's the opposite. I'm a character actor, obviously, through and through. So when people say, well, you know, you were a movie star, and I go, no. I never felt like I was a movie star because I'm not a leading man. But I got to do some leading man roles, and if I got to add some quirky character quality to those actors, like in Salvador or whatever, so those characters, it gave me a special kind of patina so for example I could say look I never had an Oscar, I've had a few nominations I never had huge blockbuster movies that I starred in but I really loved my career because I love playing those wonderful characters who are very unique and I could always say I may not be the best actor in the world certainly not the best looking actor in the world but if I've done a part I feel like I've put a stamp on it that is unique, at least. Yeah, you know, I don't know why it's making me think of this, but I played a lot of football, and on offense, I was blocked. And I never scored the touchdowns. I never got the cheerleaders and got the glory. But I got a certain satisfaction of opening that hole and being a part of that thing. Being part of the team. And sort of doing your job, you know. Yeah. And it sounds counterintuitive because you want to be the guy in the end zone holding the ball up, but you're the guy in the nine-yard line on the ground. But there's something about doing your part in this bigger collective movement, whether it be football or a movie, that was wildly satisfying, even if no one knew your name. I love what you're saying. Because when I did the specialist, I thought, OK, this is a cornball kind of story. But my job is to be the very best I can. and to really give it everything you've got. Because who knows, maybe there are only seven plot lines in every movie ever made in history. So if this is kind of a little corny, if we work hard enough, we can polish it up and make it something. Well, that scene, which I played on this show, which is you going in there and settling everyone's hash of the Dade County bomb squad, But I was dumbfounded when I found out that that was done sort of on a lunch break in between takes and done sort of in an unscripted way. So maybe you could walk us through that. Well, what happened was – and I like to give credit where credit is due. You want to talk about a team effort. We had a wonderful prop man, and he came up to me and he said, you know, there's – I think we had one other scene in the bomb squad thing. By the way, we should find that scene just because it bears. A second luck. So we were – he came up to me. He said, you know, we've got this fake Semtex, this plastic explosive. He said if I could rig up a trigger with a ballpoint pen so that – stick it in the – could you kind of do something with that in a scene? And we had a wonderful local actor, Cuban actor actually. He was great. he played the guy that I bully around. Right. And, you know, they all think I'm the interloper coming in. And I thought, I'm going to teach this guy a lesson. And I said, let's just, I said, here's kind of what the idea of the scene is. Let's just go for it. And he was wonderful. He was great. Yeah, wonderful. And you'll see in the scene, if you get a chance to show it, you know, that thing where, you know, I know that a ticking time bomb is going to be the idea. And so I do the countdown and then hit, you know, I disarm it by literally clicking the button. And it's a little bit grand guignol, sort of corny the way the rest of the movie was. But we did it with complete compassionate commitment. And it sells it. I think we should revisit it. Yeah, it's really fun. Just because that makes me laugh. Oh, here it is. Yeah. as you walk into the building and you're Stallone's ex-partner from way back in the day. We were explosive experts and now I'm a bad guy. All right. Come on, boys and girls. Come on. What are we doing here? Let's look alive, huh? What do you got? We're looking into everyone at the party doing a complete background check, okay? Give me the next one, all right? Back when computers made noises. Yeah You knew they worked Oops That might be somebody we know Tell you what, I'll handle the biographies You go back to Trace and see four Okay, Ace Chief says you're on this Fine But I don't take orders from any ex-anything All right, Ace? Oh, uh-uh I gotta tell you something I mean, I'm sorry, but I thought Your chief said that the fullest cooperation Would be forthcoming And I gotta tell you something, sport. This doesn't feel like full cooperation to me. I mean, look at this shit here. What is this? This is, uh... Shouldn't this be in the lockup? I mean, I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong. You guys are the experts. Maybe you don't need me. I mean, like, what is this? This is, um... This is Semtex. Am I right? Plastique. Oops. Plastic explosive. Am I right? I don't know. You're the expert. I mean, this little bit could blow up this whole area, and if this area goes, you know, a whole building could go up. could go up am i right gosh i don't know i mean maybe if i put this in here that's what else do we can oh yeah this is a a plunger detonator am i right and that's a little mini receiver you know this looks like american circuitry to me and i gotta tell you call me a patriot but american craftsmanship it's the greatest in the world improvised yeah here we There we go. Let's just see. Yep. Perfect fit. First time, every time. Screw it on, and one little twist, and voila. A perfect receiver bomb. Which, of course, is absolutely worthless without a... transmitter. But, hey. 20 seconds and we're hot. Okay. Okay. Now you deactivate it, you sanctimonious prick. Okay, you cut that shit, Trent. Oh, yeah. Huh? Come on, come on. Okay, you made your point, all right? Have I? Huh? Okay, that's enough. What do you mean it's enough? You think I give a shit if this whole fucking block goes up? I don't. You mean you've had enough. Isn't that what you're saying? Yes, that's what I'm saying. Enough is enough. Huh? I can't do it. 12. What the hell are you? You crazy or something? I'm the craziest person you'll ever meet in your life. Six. Five. Four. Three. Please! I just, I remember going, look, this whole movie's a schlock fest, but I love it. But this is real acting in the middle of a surreal, unreal movie. And they were great. You know, there's an old adage in acting. If you play the king, it doesn't work unless everybody acknowledges that you're the king. When you walk in the room, they've got to bow. But if they don't, then it doesn't work. And they were wonderful at being all terrified. Yeah, everyone looked terrified. I don't know. Some of them may have actually been terrified extras. And then your character in Casino. So good. Perfect. You know, I don't know why, because your guy was a little, a lot conniving, but kind of sniveling as well. Yeah, he was a real guy. Oh, he was? Yeah, he was. Lester Dime was based on, what was his name? Ginger. And I can't remember the real guy's name now. But they both – I think they both went to high school in the valley with Robert Redford, actually. The San Fernando Valley. Yeah, the San Fernando Valley when they were in high school. Lenny Marmer, that was his real name. And he was a golf hustler, which Bob added in the scene. He added it in. It wasn't in the script. He added it in. And I got that – I always wanted to work with Marty – who doesn't want to work with Marty Scorsese? And I had an agent who would always say to me, you know, you can't – don't be calling anybody up. That's what we do. I said, I'd like to – he's doing a movie. Maybe I could be in it. There's nothing in it for you. I said, OK. So I said, OK. I called up his office. I got the number. Scorsese's office. Scorsese's office. And he was doing – I think it was the casting director's office where he was casting people. And I said, is there any chance I could speak with Mr. Scorsese? I said, well, he's busy, of course. They're not going to let me. I said, okay, this is James Woods. I said, could you please leave a message for me? She said, well, I said, it's eight words. Eight words. James Woods is called. Any part, any time, anywhere. And here's the kicker, any price. He calls me an hour later. He goes, you know, I was at Ileana last night. He was dating Ileana Douglas at the time. Lovely person, good friend of mine. Yeah. And he said, boy, you know who I'd love to get for Lester Diamond is James Woods, but he's not going to do five lines. I had five lines. And – At the time, the part seemed to expand. It grew a little. Yes. Well, you'll notice that most people don't write lines like you sanctimonious prick. Right. So, in fact, Nick Pelleggi is a friend of mine. And Nick said, I have to say I never was so happy to take credit for unscripted lines in my entire life. I said, thanks, Nick. I mean, it was very gracious about that. That's in Casino. Yeah. Yeah, because Nick writes the mob stuff. He's the greatest. Right. He had Marty Rothschild. He's been in here. But we had that beautiful young actress. The young girl was so great. And Sharon was, it was the star role that she was meant to play. The daughter. The daughter was unbelievable. Yeah, there was comedy in it as well, which was funny because you were such a horrible guy. But you had to kind of pretend like you liked the daughter. But then as soon as you were alone with the daughter, you turned into the prick you were. When I'm sitting in the car and Sharon's on the phone, I said to her, and she was wonderful. She could take directions. She had a great idea. I said, play with the button of the car because it would just be annoying. Right. I said, okay. And I said, Marty said, that is funny. I said, okay. Can we do one more take? I said, flick my ear. Flick my ear. Right. And finally he said, I can't watch the foregone action because I'm laughing so hard with you guys in the back. I said to her once, I said, she was in this little Dale Evans, you know, Ray Rogers, Dale Evans, little Dale Evans cowgirl outfit. She had a little purse. And I said, could you at some point kind of swing the purse sort of in front of you and kind of like, she said, and hit you in the nuts? I said, Marty, could you come here? I said, you know, of course that's what I meant, but I didn't expect her to say it. You know, and Marty, we did takes where I ad-libbed stuff. I actually have a picture of Marty lying on the ground laughing so hard. It got ridiculous. He said, we can't do it. It's an old movie stops. Well, I mean. I give her all the credit. She was so good, that kid. You take something like Raging Bull and you realize there were so many laughs in Raging Bull. Yes. That it was incredible. Joe Pesci. That scene where he's with De Niro and he's saying, punch me. And he's like, no, I'm not going to punch you. You're my brother. You know what I mean? That was real vaudevillian, Laurel and Hardy. That whole scene was a funnier comedy scene than a lot of comedy movies. Yeah. And, you know, actually, there's one little thing in Casino. In the scene in the diner where Bob comes in and, you know, he goes, you pimp. and the money I'm trying to get from Sharon because she's in love with me and not him and all that stuff. We did a setup that wasn't planned that day for me to walk out the door, brought the camera over, followed me out of the door because I was playing golf with Joe. Joe Pesci and I are friends and Bob and I. We were all friends. I was playing golf one day with Joe and he said, Joe, I hear you're going to do another movie. I said, yeah. I'm so excited. He goes, you have a walk for your character? I said, what? A walk. He said, you have a walk? I said, what are you, a fucking actor? He goes, yeah. I actually think about shit before I play these characters. People think I'm just this guy. But I actually think about this stuff. I said, no, Joe, seriously. What do you mean? He said, well, how funny would it be if you did, you know, like a pimp role? Right. Walk out. He said, you know, like literally a classic 70s pimp out of an exploitation movie. And I said, that is funny. So I did it. Marty loved that walk. And I've had people say it to me. They go, that walk out. And it was, I got to give credit. It was Joe's idea. And all the really great actors, Joe Pesci is a great actor. Bob Minero is a great actor. They're great. They have, in the experiences I've had working with them, we exchange ideas. And, you know, great actors love hearing ideas from other actors. They'll say, how about if you do this and I do that? And, you know, you mentioned Jim Belushi, you know, when we were talking outside. You remember Jim and I were from Salvador. Yeah. We just had a great time together because he's a comedy guy. And we thought, why are we going to waste this? Well, you can be in a dire situation and be like he was trying to be funny when the guys stop us. And I literally went as they're going to take us and probably execute us. I go, I'm just a hitchhiker. I don't know. And so and he goes, boy. And we were like bickering all the time in unbelievably horrible circumstances. And so if it was too much, Oliver would pull it back. But when it worked, it really just gave it a real texture of humanity. And Oliver, who is a great screenwriter and director and a great friend, one of my dearest friends. And all we ever did was argue every move we were, but in a healthy way to create. and Oliver even though he's a great writer doesn't have that pride of authorship oh I wrote this line to be if it's important he'll say it otherwise if you come up with stuff he'll say yeah do that again give me more of that or tighten this up he's great at having no sense of being the star of the moment of creation anything that can make it better he's for. And that's why he's a great director. Well, you know, I've dealt with this a little bit too, which is ultimately your names on it, meaning Oliver Stone's names on it, or Marty Scorsese's name is on it. So you want the product to be as good as it can be because you're the one who's going to get the credit anyway. So, you know, why are you involving your ego if somebody has a suggestion to make your product better and your name's going to be on it you'd be surprised oh i you'd be surprised i know but it's so impossible to write a script and then to know exactly what it's going to feel like when it gets up on its feet it's just it's not like a recipe you know a recipe is followed yeah you know and you kind of know what the outcome is going to be if you do it right yeah do it right But your job is to adhere to it as perfectly as you can. Then the script, you hear it and you go, oh, it's not playing how it played in my head when I wrote it. So let's see if we can tinker with it a little bit. Well, a perfect example of that is Sergio Leone, who was, for me, the greatest director that ever lived. All the spaghetti westerns and beyond. That's underestimating his unbelievable – he wrote a trilogy, which was Once Upon a Time in the West, the Charles Bronson, Henry Fonda movie. Then the studio ruined it. They called it Duck, You Sucker. It was actually called Once Upon a Time, The Revolution, and then Once Upon a Time in America. This was his idea, literally the evolution of North America and capitalism from a cinematic point of view. The railroads, the robber barons in the first one, the Mexican Revolution, land grabbing by America. Hey, we did it. Good. And then the evolution of mob control of America, which is a very central part of how I think we got to where we are in some ways. An amazing director and an amazing man. I loved him. And he said to me one day, he said, you know, he pretended he didn't speak English, but I spoke French and he spoke French. So I was able to catch him. I go, Sergio, come on. I know you speak. So I was talking to him one day and he said, you know, you're working with you and Bob because it was two characters. It was their story. And he said, working with you and Bob. He said, I've always worked in an operatic way. I see it. Henry Fonda comes in. His trench coat blows. He ends up killing the boy. It's big operatic Wide screen Imagery He said and you guys improvise And do things and move and change stuff And he said I thought I would Hate it the first week you started Doing it he said now I love it because I can move the camera and then if I Need something you'll do it for me Hey boys I need you that way because I want to Fill the frame sure sure we can do that We'd find a way it was the greatest experience of my life as a as an actor um so you grew up in i so let me uh let's see i'll ask you what i asked this to somebody who liked this question but i i said uh i'll think of it in a second but i said do you think of yourself as a when i was interviewing this person i go you think yourself as a comedian or a really smart person who can just sort of apply it to things and you've chosen, in this case, this guy chose comedy. But are you, at first, in your core, just a bright, I mean, you don't want to, you know, heap praise on yourself. But I mean, I think it's abundantly apparent that you're a very smart person and smart people, like you would make a really good lawyer, because you're good at it. Yes. Jerry Seinfeld would make a really good lawyer. Great lawyer. Right. Seth MacFarlane would make a good lawyer. Jimmy Kimmel would make a good lawyer. You could take these people and plug them in in other positions and places and they'd be a good network head. They'd be good at a lot of stuff. I gotta tell you, this is an excellent question that you're circling around. Nobody's ever really gotten to the center of how I ended up where I am and you just have, which is this. I was a science guy, but I loved literature. I loved learning. I loved thinking. I mean, when we went to our orientation day at MIT this guy comes in he in leather motorcycle garb and right an arithmetic I still don remember He was a full professor of mathematics at MIT at 28 years old Inconceivable to have that position of intellectual power at the best university in the world at that time, I think. MIT, yes. It was fantastic. And he basically said, look, I don't know what you're going to learn here at MIT. He put an equation on the board. He said, nobody in this room, there were 950 of us freshmen, this big auditorium called 26-100, 26-100. He said, nobody will ever, you won't understand this. He said, you know, I understand it because I wrote it and that's why I was nominated for the Nobel Prize, whatever. He said, but there's one thing you're going to learn to do here. You're going to learn how to think. Now, that seems kind of blatantly obvious to the most casual observer, but most people don't think a lot about what they're doing. They do think they shoot from the hip. You watch it in politics all the time. Democrats come out. One guy said the walls are closing in. Seventeen people say the same thing. You know, you know, it's everything is a mantra. It's a narrative. Nobody really thinks it through. Right. And it's pretty easy to do so because a lot of times when people ask me political questions, I'll say, here's the problem with your question. It's the wrong question. Because as we used to think at MIT, we would say, if you are posited with a series of circumstances and you have to come to a conclusion, they didn't even care about the answer. They want to know the process by which you got to that answer. And then the answer was, again, blatantly obvious to the most categories. It was kind of a smart-ass thing they would say. I did well when I was acting also – there's another contingent part of it – in movies that had better scripts and were really about something. I did well in those because I was a good thinker. So, for example, I play a bad guy. I'm a bad guy. You're a snarling bad guy. Well, I didn't play a bad guy like a snarling maniac all the time because bad guys have to buy their groceries, too, and go to the bathroom. And so I got a little ward on my neck. I better go see the doctor. I mean, they're not killing somebody every 20 seconds. Well, they're not evil for the sake of being evil. Of course not. They have an agenda. They don't think of themselves as evil. They want stuff. Yeah. They have an agenda. And it always bothered me when they did movies where the bad guy was bad. And they'd show him come home at night and the cat would come up to him and he'd kick the cat. It's like he loves his cat. Exactly. He wants something and that something is going to hurt other people. But he's not bad. He doesn't see a bad person in the mirror. You know, it's interesting. And against all odds, I was the bad guy. Oh, God. Yeah. And Jeff and Rachel. Yeah, they're in love with each other. And it's great. They're going to have this affair and she's cheating on me and so on. And you're the club owner who owns that club. On Hollywood and Vine, yep. Yeah, off of Franklin, maybe up in there. And I'll think of the name of it in a second. But anyway, I said to someone, they said, yeah, you were the villain. I go, by the way, in that movie, her character killed more people than I did in the movie. But she's the hero. I was like, what? Yeah, you won stuff. I mean, look, the lawyer who just sues restaurants for violating the Americans with Disabilities Act and he's essentially an extortionist who just takes money from small businesses, comes home at night and hugs his daughter and reads her storybook and does not see that guy in the mirror. He sees an entrepreneur or someone who's providing for his family and he doesn't see who that person is. I mean, The Godfather is a perfect example because the way it was conceived, brilliant movie, of course, one of the greats ever. The way it was conceived was that especially the De Niro character, Bob's character, he was defending his family because he watched his family be slaughtered. So he knows that family is everything. And Al said that, by the way. I was talking to Al once about it. He said the scene with Brando was so important because when he was trying to save Brando in the hospital, when the bad guys were coming, when Barzini's guys, he was behind it all, are coming to kill him. He said, he ad-libbed actually, I'll take care of you. And Brando shed a tear. And it was a great moment. It wasn't in the script. I saw this on a YouTube video about it. I think, or Al told me. I can't remember. But the whole idea was family was everything. So you always have to say in every story, in every movie, every novel, but especially in movies, there's a wonderful book by Blake Snyder called Save the Cat. There are two things the hero always has to deal with. One is the quest. The quest. It's like he wants to protect his family, whatever. And there's the journey, which the lead character may not be aware of. Now, the lead character's quest may not be of much interest to us as an audience, but it's really important to the character, so we want that character to get it. In Ice Age, the little guy who runs around with his acorn, we really want that guy to have his acorn. I mean, so it doesn't mean much. But what it—I've used this example before in Zombieland, Woody Harrelson's character just wants to get a Twinkie. That's all he wants. Right. But his journey ends up being unifying all these stragglers to have now be a family. I think I may have posed the question to Albert Brooks. Do you think of yourself as a comedian or just a smart guy who wants to do comedy? And so you can, but you could take that intellect and sort of steer it any direction you wanted. And so back to you and your brains, I do you you didn't start out thinking you're going to be an actor. You know, you didn't go to MIT to be an actor. So you went there because you're bright. And at some point, if you know, I you know, it's you know, I haven't thought about it a million years. But people would say to me, what is your definition of being smart? Because I was not a good student and I didn't go to college. And some guys are really book smart and other guys have no sort of emotional intelligence. And I go, look, if you can figure out a way to do what you want, then I will say you're a smart person. You're the smartest guy in the world. If you said I would like to move to Fiji and open a dive shop and just have a business and live in Fiji and you pull it off, you could do it with a GED and I will label you as a smart person. I'm with you 100% on this. So smart people not only are smart, but there's so many different definitions of smart that I would like to just consolidate it into can you do what you want? And that could be the greatest dad in the world. It doesn't matter. I will label you a smart person. 100%. Huel, can you believe how fast this year is flying by? Oh my, I just thought that the other day. Still trying to stay on top of my goals. And I'm sure you are too. It's hard when I'm on the road running around doing comedy, doing interviews. Yeah, that makes it tough to keep with the goals. That's why I love Ready to Drink from Huel. It's a full meal in a bottle with 35 grams of protein and 27 essential vitamins and minerals. The best part is that it's under $5 a meal. 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I ate their honey butter chicken breast meal last night and it was amazing. There's a lot of variety too with 100 rotating weekly meals. You can keep things fresh and keep it fresh all winter long. Trust me, this has made my nights so much simpler and I feel good about what I'm eating because the food is so good for you. You're going to love it. Am I right, Dawson? Head to factormeals.com slash ACS50 off and use code ACS50OFF to get 50% off and free breakfast for a year. Eat like a pro this month with Factor. New subscribers only. Varies by plan. One free breakfast item per box for one year while subscription is active. I mean, you know, people talk about people being a savant these days. The actual expression was, you were an idiot savant. Dostoevsky wrote a book, The Idiot. OK, and but these were people who now we recognize as maybe somebody with. What we would call Asperger's syndrome or being on the spectrum or being all these different things, people who are dyslexic. How about if you're dyslexic? People don't know what dyslexia is. Let's talk now 40 years ago, 50 years ago. You're in school. Oh, he's a dumbbell. And it turns out the guy's a genius. He just has this one little wire that's a little off in his brain so that he can't put the letters together properly. He can't read, but, you know, ends up designing. I mean, I believe, I don't know if this is true or not, that Elon Musk, whom AOC said, this guy doesn't know anything about science. It's like he's the dumbest billionaire. Yeah, the dumbest billionaire. Boy, what an accidental thing that was. But, I mean, he might be a little touch on the spectrum and so on. But look at what he – his accomplishments are astonishing because he has a plan in mind. And, you know, here's another answer to that question. Somebody once said to me, if you could have had any other actor – if you could have had any actor's career in your life, who would it have been? Now, see, they thought they were asking this question. Who are some of the careers that you – who are some of the people whose careers you greatly admire? That's what they thought they were asking. But what they asked was what I answered. If you could have had anybody's career, anybody's career, whose would you have had? And I thought about it and I thought, well, this guy made a lot of money and this guy did this and there was some great performance. And I said, my career. I would – I'd stick with my career. Yeah. Never had an Oscar. never made you know billions of all that stuff but i loved there was one movie that was kind of crappy i did but every movie i did i felt really great but when i this is a very i actually wrote about this i have a newsletter that i do every week that goes with my music stuff that i do and um i tell these little stories and never it's never a hollywood story so once in a while it might be something but it's more the human part of it but i like to tell stories about when i lived on Guam when I was three years old and all that stuff. And I told a story about the moment I called my mother and told her that while I was on high dean's list and full scholarship at MIT, I decided I was going to leave school in my senior year with a semester to go to pursue a career in acting. That was the longest pause in telephonic history. It was like, okay what is your thought about this and I told her how it just made me feel just what I loved about it that I'd done all these plays at Harvard and MIT and the summer stock and I just loved doing it and I didn't love sitting learning differential equations I was bored shitless and so on and she said listen when I was 19 I married your father but she said you're too young she said it was the greatest decision I ever made in my life the most remarkable man. He gave me two beautiful sons. He cared for me. He treated me like a queen. And we never had an argument. He was the kindest man. He'd been through two wars. I lost him young, unfortunately, from a terrible medical accident at the hospital, Valley Forge Hospital. And then I had you boys, you know, young and everything. Oh, you're so young. She said, it was the greatest thing I ever did. I loved being a wife. I loved being a mother. When my husband died at 33, I started this little school and it became very successful because I was really a caring person. She said, and I did everything I could to make sure that my boys didn't suffer because they lost their father. So here's the promise that I want you to make, and then you'll have my blessing. Whether you succeed or not, whatever it is you do, and if you want to do this acting and so on, you promised me that every day of your life you will try your very best and never, ever less. And for 56 years, I kept that promise and I never broke it once. it's um it's it's not a very complicated algorithm to be successful it isn't you work hard you you don't screw people over because it's a real marathon and not a sprint you have no idea how many people you see as interns or gophers and the next thing you know they're running nbc You blink your eyes and you're like, I'm glad I didn't screw that guy over. I wasn't a dick to him on the set 18 years ago. And it's about relationships. But it's sort of what I always just refer to as diet and exercise. You want to lose weight? You don't have to get in a dietetic fudge or a Zempic or any exercise and diet. You know what it is. Everyone knows what it is. You don't want to do it. But it's pretty straightforward, especially in this country. You cannot pull it off in certain countries. but here you want to work real hard you want to be disciplined you want to have a great attitude you'll make your way right up you don't need to be blessed or touched by the hand of god that angel who's sitting out there my lovely wife sarah you met you know i we had a tricky year last year you know they burned down our whole neighborhood and by the way thank you for your devotion to that we'll talk about that um i had emergency heart surgery i had emergency gallbladder surgery I was in cardiac therapy the first day. I met the lady, and I said, you look familiar to me. She goes, yeah, yeah, we met 20 years ago. I go, oh, you remember? She goes, yeah. I said, where did we meet? She said, in this office when you had your first stent put in, and you were supposed to do cardiac therapy, and you thought, no, I don't really need to do this. And here you are 20 years later. And I said, yeah, well, I'm here now. And she said, okay, do you want to come two days a week or three days a week? I said, this is a test. Three days a week, she goes, right, it was a test. So the first day I'm sitting there and I'm in this little wheel thing. They said, you're going to do six minutes. I go, I can probably do more. No, you're just going to start at six minutes. We have you all wired up and they watch all your heartbeats. And the guys are on the treadmill, guys and women. I mean, everybody's post-op. And, you know, they crank it away. I said, by the way, I can't do the treadmill because I have flat feet. She goes, you'll do the treadmill. I go, no, I really can't. You will do the treadmill. So you go for 36 sessions. By session 35, I was doing the treadmill 45 minutes a day. Really? And I stopped eating, you know, bacon and eggs for breakfast and have all this shit. And, you know, Sarah finally said, hey, you're finally listening to me. And we just made a commitment. And all of a sudden, you know, it was great because I, you know, I'd started swimming a little bit. I now have a whole new life, and I have friends who are my age, and I say, you know, man, get out of the chair. Just get out of the chair. Put down the clicker. Get up, go over, and hit the button to change channel. Just take the first step. It's astonishing. I'm a big fanatic about this stuff. Don't take the crap of Zempick. I'm sorry, but I don't know about Zempick. I shouldn't say that. I take it back. Whatever your doctor tells you, whatever you want to do. I don't take any of that stuff. I exercise. I diet. I listen to my wife. I am the happiest person you could ever imagine. Circling back to something we were talking about, which is the person that was in class who is dyslexic and not able to follow along, but may have actually been a genius, but not in this environment. You know, that's another thing that I think we need to figure out, which is like Michael Jordan is greatest basketball player to ever play. But if he was sitting all day and it was a swim team or a tennis team, then he would not be excelling. And then they'd be saying to him, what's wrong with you? And the answer is he's not where he should, where he's supposed to be, where he's supposed to be. So I was sort of that way in class. I was sitting there. I couldn't read, I couldn't spell, and they were like, you're dumb, what's wrong with you? And it's like, well, I'm not where, I didn't know it, I never said it, I just sat there feeling sort of dumb, but I'm like, I'm just not, it turned out I was not where I was supposed to be. See, I didn't know any of this about you, because I think, well, Adam Krola, I gotta be sharp today, because that guy's smart. See, I didn't, now, it's really interesting you say this to me, because I'm in shock to hear this. I mean, Sarah knows all about you, but I don't like to know about people's, I just like to watch it and listen to them so on and it's like wonderful to me to know that you've found your niche you know you there it's people come alive all of a sudden in ways you don't expect when you just put them in the right spot yes well you know i always say it's sort of this way like if you take a marlin and you just put it on the beach it just flails but you put it out in the sea and it's it's majestic yeah because it's made for cutting through the ocean at 40 miles an hour like you you have to kind of find your environment right but if they start to close down potential environments to the point where you can't function no matter where you are that's when we get in trouble. I agree. And I have a theory about that. One thing, Sarah, we were driving through West Hollywood today from Beverly Hills to come here. And I said, man, you know, I got to say that this is, you know, in case people don't know it in California, in Los Angeles area, Los Angeles is made of 77 little cities all sort of glued together. One of them is West Hollywood. And it's proudly known as the gay community area of Los Angeles. And, you know, it's no surprise that the gay community prides itself on design and beauty and so on. And West Holly was really starting to look fantastic. I mean, Melrose, all the great stories. I mean, they've made it just beautiful. And Sarah said there's a reason that works because this is a pretty unified culture. The people here have the same values, whatever they may be. Some people may not like them. Some people do. But they know what they want. They know what they like. They know what they don't like. They live a certain way. And if people are deprived of their ability to enjoy and live within their cultures, it can be a problem. Yes. But then on the other hand, if you have a nation where cultures only want to live together, where you only have Dearborn, Michigan is all Muslim and Chinatown is all Chinese immigrants, then you don't get genuine diversity either. So it's a tough one to have a melting pot and yet still preserve a respect for culture because within culture, people can be protected who maybe aren't oftentimes put into their— who become a square peg in a round hole because somebody else— This is why I love the Supreme Court decision where parents make the decision about their children, not union educators. My mother was a teacher, and she would be appalled today by the horror of unionized educators. You know, Randy Weingarten to me is just my personal opinion. I mean, if I wrote a book, it would be the great American monster. She's a monster. She's a monster. I agree. She's the teachers union's head, whatever. Listen, I've been saying lately, I grew up, teachers and nurses were heroes. Yeah, and they still are. They should be. And cops as well. But they've turned into something I don't recognize. Every time someone is out saying something horrible about Charlie Kirk, it turns out to be a female school teacher from a whatever. Half the others are nurses. It's interesting. And by the way, some are good. Many are good. Nurses in general, I think, are better. But I mean, if you were a schoolteacher, you are not this version of the schoolteachers that we're seeing today. Well, I have to say, Charlie was a friend of ours, Charlie. We were at a fundraiser at our friend's house for Turning Point USA. And when I first met him, it was at one of the fundraisers. And I just went because they're very good friends of ours. And she said, yeah, I love you. And when he started talking, I said, I mean, he was good. It was just 12 people, but it was a good fundraiser. And I really challenged him. I said, well, how are you going to accomplish this? And he didn't – there was not a flutter in that sale, man. He said – full steam. He's just – I'm mixing metaphors. Sales and steam. Anyway, he explained how Turning Point worked and how it worked on campuses, how it could affect the election, how we could get somebody in there who wasn't a moron like Kamala Harris. And I don't make fun of Joe Biden because he clearly has dementia issues. I think he was a worthless, disgusting piece of scum before he got sick. But once he's sick, I won't say a horrible thing about him. And it was like really important. So I got to know him. The last time we saw him, he was sitting right next to Sarah, and he wasn't able to speak because they had laryngitis. So he had people. I said, Charlie, could I say a few words? And I spoke for 45 minutes on his behalf, and he was very appreciative. Sarah was, like many of us, really, really broken by that assassination, way beyond the obvious, which, of course, you would be. She said to see someone be murdered in real time that you liked and you were talking to a few months ago, you know, she said it's what country are we living in? And, you know, I. Morgan and Morgan. Well, I had a friend. I got into an accident. Wasn even their fault But they were nervous to hire a personal injury attorney I said listen your health your recovery much more important than anyone opinion on that matter So if that you, it could be time to check out Morgan & Morgan. Morgan & Morgan is America's largest injury law firm. They have a proven record of fighting to get you full and fair compensation. If you're injured by the negligence of another, you deserve to be paid. And that's where Morgan and Morgan comes in. Morgan and Morgan. Am I right, Dawson? If you're ever injured, you can check out Morgan and Morgan. Their fee is free unless they win. Yes, that's right. Their fee is free unless they win. To learn more, go to forthepeople.com slash Adam or click the link in the description below. To learn more, go to forthepeople.com slash Adam or click the link in the description below. This is a paid advertisement. Pluto TV, stream now, pain ever. The clickbait, the rage-baiting stuff that goes on, there are, look, I've been at a lot of hospitals and a lot of treatment, and nurses are fantastic people, as you said. But the ones who aren't are doubly sinful because if you are – there's this one nurse who said she wanted to use, I don't know how you know, a suculine, you know, to paralyze patients if they were ICE agents or if they supported Trump or whatever. And I'm saying – so you're basically promoting poisoning people to death as a nurse. And now when I go in the hospital, I think, is there another lunatic like you? And secondly, why is this person not in prison? There's no discussion about it because you are provoking someone else to do this stuff. Like these people are talking about hurting ICE agents and so on. Look, I'm a Roman Catholic. I was an altar boy. I think abortion is murder. That's what I think. I'm entitled to think that. I'm an American. I'm a Catholic. I have a friend who's an arch-feminist. She's a liberal woman, brilliant. She thinks something differently. We agree on almost everything once we sit down and talk. But I say, you know, Carol, we'll never agree on this issue. And she says, yeah, and we understand why. But the people who disagree in these things and think, well, because you disagree, look, I'm not going to go and kill an abortion doctor. Because that would be murder. You can't do that. So when abortion was federally legal, according to the Supreme Court, incorrectly, as it turned out, and we all knew that except people who didn't want to believe it, you know, that didn't give you a right to go around promoting the murder of abortion doctors, even though they themselves are murderers. But, you know, we can't do that. It's not what we do in the United States. But it's okay to start provoking people to murder ICE agents if you don't like it. We have a process. It's called a redress of grievances if you actually ever took a civics lesson. You actually have a way of changing the law. You want to have a wide open border and let, you know, 18,000 terrorist people in, you know, who are promoted by terrorists. I mean, just the fact that, you know, I just prayed this week that for once the party that I was devoted to for 30 years wouldn't once again be on the wrong side of history and, you know, and not come out and say, but you don't come in and he wasn't such a bad guy. This guy who murdered 60,000 people in the past 30 days, you know, how can you stand for this with a straight face? But they do it, and they do it in lockstep, and it's just shocking. I know. I agree. I mean – I agree 100 percent. But what it is – I mean what I've realized, and I'd like an example or a metaphor. The politicians, they do this thing where they go, we got to lower the temperature and so and so forth. And then they go, Trump is Hitlerian, and these ICE agents are rogue, and they're thugs, and they answer to nobody. And they're kicking open doors and grabbing American citizens and disappearing them. So, OK, so none of that's happening. It's all bullshit. Right. It's all bullshit. And they know. And there can be an accident where it might have happened. They know it's bullshit. But the 19-year-old with his dad's hunting gun who's on all the meds believes them. Right. And that's what gets people killed. That person is what was called, I think, was it Lenin who called them useful idiots? Yes. So the example is it's sort of like you go, all right, let's just say you're a wife and you say to your brother, who's a little younger and a little volatile, look, you know, my husband, Fred, he beats the shit out of me every night. He's a horrible guy. He's addicted to alcohol and gambling. He's a womanizer. And I'm scared he's going to he's going to kill me. Well, then there's a good chance Fred may show up one day with a pistol or I'm sorry, the brother may show up with a pistol and take Fred out. Now, the wife is lying. The wife's just talking. But you your talk is influencing this person and you're going to get your husband who doesn't do this stuff killed. And then you say, I never told my brother to kill him. No, your brother did the math. I've had people lie about me on the internet and so on. It becomes a mantra, and it's not true. I had a guy lie about me. I won the lawsuit, so I can't talk about it. And I just thought I'm going to sue him. I'll sue him. Anybody who gives me a hard time is like, here's the one thing they don't understand. I love this shit. You want a battle? Great. Let's do it. Except I learned this one thing when I played Roy Cohn. I thought, boy, what an evil guy this was. except he did one thing that I thought was really good. I always say to people, I give you one chance to stop your shit, but once you don't stop your shit, understand this. If we're going to engage, I'm never stopping, never stopping. You win the first round, I'll find another way to sit. Whatever it takes, I'm never stopping. Here's the part that you left out. Again, you always have to think. Here's where thinking comes in. You left out the one possibility with Fred's wife. Let's call her Tina, okay? Here's the problem with Tina. How do we know that she hasn't already done the groundwork? I'm putting together the chess game here and thinking, I've got to get rid of Fred because I'm banging Bill over at the office. So maybe I'll get the kid brother to do it and so on because she is a sociopathic killer. And you don't know. So when these people are all provoking people to murder ICE agents and do all this stuff, the people who are doing it, I mean, you think this fraud is accidental? You think all – like the worst human being in America is a man named Adam Schiff. Yes. He is. I do hate that guy. He is a horrible, censured liar, human being. He promoted that Russia hoax What people never realize is while he was doing it And all of the media were on lockstep With all the mantras that whoever would write up for them every day They were talking points And then all the useful idiots would follow it in the Democratic Party And they still say it I mean, Stephen Colbert I can't believe I'm saying his name Literally used these words Trump is Putin's cock holster. I said this about the president of the United States. Right. Okay. You know, I have to say it's like on a network television. It's just appalling, and it was a complete and utter psyop. It was a psychological operation done, you know. Well, the part that was interesting. And people believed it, and this guy's still promoting it. The part that people should really stop and focus on is when they did drill down onto Russia and what they were trying to do, it turns out much of what they were trying to do is sow racial division, not the election. So you dumbos fell for all of it. Black Lives Matter and all that stuff. Right. They weren't even working on Trump in the election. Most of their efforts were sowing racial division, which you guys bought into and we found out about, but it didn't seem to slow Adam Schiff's role to go right back into this mantra of Russian collusion and Putin's puppet and Katzpah and all that kind of stuff. It's not, you know, for me, it's a little less about them. And I sort of feel this way about COVID. It's kind of more like what were you guys all, how gullible is the average American? And how much do you buy into this? And what happened to you? Well, 77 million of us didn't buy into it. And the same 77 million, you know, I, that vaccine, man, I tell you, I say to my doctor, You know, he said, well, you're older and you've got a heart. You know, you probably do it. And, man, the one thing I wish I had never done in my life was let that ship, you know, come near me. Luckily, I didn't do any of the boosters and so on. But, you know, we don't know for sure. But here's the thing. These people have a different agenda than you think. All of this ICE stuff, all of it, all of it. It's only about one thing, this bright, shiny object so that we can take the heat off all of the Democrat corruption. The amount – we have a $38 trillion debt. I'm a gambling man. I guarantee you half of that is Democrat corruption. It's insane. It's astonishing the amount of money. Well, this is astonishing, and it's also— It's astonishing. Every dollar that's wasted is a dollar that doesn't go toward whatever it was earmarked for. But it's also interesting that they will fight on any subject. I mean, it could be getting rid of the Ayatollah. It could be the men's hockey team winning the gold. It could be closing the border. No, that's the whole—let me describe it to you this way. That's so stupid. If you ever play with your dog and the dog has the one end of the rope toy and you're holding the other end and the dog is pulling toward the front of the house and you're pulling back, right? At some point when you're playing with the dog, you'll inevitably spin around in a 360. Now the dog is pulling the direction you used to pull. But now, so what is the dog doing? The dog is pulling. The dog doesn't have a direction. The dog is doing the opposite. of what you're doing. He does not want to go out the front door. He doesn't want to go out the back door. He doesn't want to go to the kitchen. He is literally pulling, and you could spin a thousand circles, and he'd just keep pulling. That's what you're dealing with. I have a friend who calls it oppositional disorder. I had a girlfriend. Oppositional defiance disorder is, yeah, what it's called. I didn't even know if it was a real thing. It is. But I literally dated this woman. I mean I literally started to say the opposite of what I wanted I'm not kidding not even as a joke I said I think we turn left up here no you go right didn't you look at the oh do I okay thanks because it was it was astonishing right I was astonishing it's like could you find I mean as it turned out it was there was a 15 minute window every day between the second and third drink when actually she wouldn't argue about shit but you know No, there's – originally, I mean, there is an adolescent oppositional disorder. It's basically your kid who just argues over everything all the time. And now adolescence is carrying well into adulthood. And there's also a phenomenon that I talk about a lot. It's starting to be discovered, which is an influx of women in these positions of power who are not wired the same as males. and have a much higher capacity for this than formerly when it was a bunch of old dudes that were in that. And I'm not saying women are flawed or women are bad. I'm just saying they are different than men, and there's a lot more capacity for this. You know, like the Trump derangement syndrome and all that kind of stuff. It can be much more prevalent in women. And you take like Mayor Bass, L.A. City Council. There is just much more – there's much more estrogen floating around. And you can see it sometimes – and I'll give you an example. And it probably just happened with Hillary Clinton during her deposition. You'll see it very clearly when the presidents of Harvard and the other universities were called in front of Congress. And they answered the questions, some better than others. But as soon as they had Elise Fistonic, I don't think of her name, they had a woman, had a bitchy woman. And she started pushing their buttons. And she started saying, admit it or say it. Just say. And they started. At least Stefanik, I think it was. At least Stefanik. She started pushing their buttons, and they ceased being presidents of universities, and they became women. And they started battling with her, and then they ended up getting fired because they didn't care at that point. They were just arguing with another woman who was sort of pressing their buttons. Brilliantly, by the way. No, you know, if I were trying to trip up one of these female presidents of one of these universities, I wouldn't have Jim Jordan do it. I would have a woman do it. You start pushing on their buttons and they'll start. And it's a clip. It's out there. They ceased being presidents and Congress people and heads of whatever and became women who were fighting at that point. And a lot of these, I think a lot of the emotional decisions, you know, no person is illegal. You know what I mean? Everyone deserves a seat at the table. These aren't general patten ideas. These are mantras. I know, but they're feelings-based versus nuts and bolts-based. We'll play it first, sorry. Yeah. If we have it. Okay. Upon your testimony, you understand that this call for intifada is to commit genocide against the Jewish people in Israel and globally, correct? Correct. I will say again, that type of hateful speech is personally abhorrent to me. Do you believe that type of hateful speech is contrary to Harvard's code of conduct, or is it allowed at Harvard? It is at odds with the values of Harvard. Can you not say here that it is against the code of conduct at Harvard? We embrace a commitment to free expression. So what she's thinking is, bitch, you're not going to get me to say shit. You want me to say, bitch, I'll fuck you up. Meanwhile, you get dragged into this thing and then you get fired. We'll play a couple seconds for it. We embrace a commitment to free expression, even of views that are objectionable, offensive, hateful. It's when that speech crosses into conduct that violates our policies against bullying, harassment, and intimidation. Does that speech not cross that barrier? Does that speech not call for the genocide of Jews and the elimination of Israel? You testify that you understand that is the definition of intifada. Checkmate. is that speech according to the code of conduct or not we embrace a commitment to free expression she's not going to let this fat bitch boss me around so she did it she got sucked in and then she got fired yeah and that's exactly what they'll do and i've seen it a lot with school teachers occasional nurse just doing things you tweeting things and yelling things in the cameras like well now you're going to get fired from your school that you work at. I'm going to take a different point of view on this. Not a different point, a corollary point of view on this. Because, first of all, two middle-aged, or one older, white guys talking about what women, you know, how women think is by definition a landfill. It's a minefield. It's a minefield. No, I agree. Okay, but let me just say, let me say it in a positive way. So I was building this house. It was going to be a big project. And my mother was visiting, my stepfather and my brother, and it was great. She met this guy, and he goes, hey, who is this gorgeous woman? My mom was the greatest man. Now, this wasn't woman to woman. And I said, so, Mom, what do you think? She goes, how long are you going to be doing this project? I think it's like two years. And she said, and is the smiling hyena going to be on the job the whole time? I said, well, he's the – she said, you don't stand a chance. And two years later, I was in a lawsuit. I should have listened to her then. Let me just say this in the most positive way. Women in my – I have a lot of women who work – I employ women a lot. I trust when my business manager for years has been a woman. I trust her with my life. But she can see bad news a million miles away. My wife, I swear to God, can look this way. And I go, what? She goes, you know, there's danger 50 miles away. They just have this wonderful radar for bad stuff. Well, listen, emotional intelligence and better at a lot of stuff. I'm no doubt about it. What I'm saying is— I know what you're saying, but I'm afraid to— I think you want to get into trouble. What I'm saying is the engineer and the carpenters and the people in charge of framing and building that house is sort of who I want making decisions versus the person who feels it and has an emotional, I understand. That's why they're better moms. That's why they're good with the kids because they feel it. Then let me expand on that and say this, something I have. I've lived long enough, believe it or not, I remember when I was 19 was kind of when feminism started, like all of a sudden. And I'm doing this play with this gorgeous woman. She was like, you know, we're 19 years old. And all of a sudden she's got hair. I said, my, this feminism thing is really weird. I said this girl Madeline came in she was so gorgeous she's not shaving her legs and so on I said these are my dating years did you have anything like that when you were young she goes well World War II and the point being is that that's when the pill started and all this now that people are on antidepressants now men are as well They're on all this stuff. Yes. Now, if you watch a football game, I go out of my way. I love that you're on Substack because you don't have to see commercials. When you watch football, all of a sudden you see commercials. And I just watch. I mean, there are so many side effects. It's very suicidal and rage. And by the way, every school shooting, every little guns, I said, it's not about the guns. And it turns out that it's not only about the guns, people on drugs, not only on drugs, it's usually the wrong hormones for the wrong sex. And I – this transgender shit is to me one of the – this is – this was the Rubicon for me with Democrats. If you're still a Democrat and you support mutilating five-year-olds because they like to color pink, you're just a monster. Shut up. I completely agree. I'm just done with Democrats. If you're still a Democrat now, you're nuts, you know, because it and it's like I think that if you mess with people's hormones, men or women, you're going to have a problem. Yes. And, you know, you're saying, well, women are hormonal. I mean, that's kind of what you're saying. And it's like, I don't want to say that because I just don't want to have to listen to it. I'm saying they're wired differently and don't expect that not to factor in to policy if enough are in charge of policy. Right. But by the same token, I'm going to sound like a feminist here because in some ways I am. You let guys be in charge and we have – every 50 years we lose 25 or 30 million people at war because of testosterone. That's what they're not good at. Yeah, that's not what we're good at. So I can get off the hook and not have to have 50 million people beating the shit out of me on X. Let's just say this. That wonderful creation of God, the woman, it's like, man, I'm a fan, let me tell you. And, you know, they think a certain way and we think a certain way, but listen. But the husband and wife is a great unit because of that balance is what I'm saying. I'm a fan. And the balance is what's needed. I am too. I like the balance. I'm saying the balance in places like Los Angeles is tipping a little bit, and we thus see the result of that. But before I let you go, we've got a little bit of time. I was just going to say, we dodged a bullet on that one. But there's always that thing about the liberal women seem to always show up at these things. And that's been—it's like you want to say, you know, why are you all automatically against ICE? You don't mind, you know, thousands of thousands of young women have been raped and murdered by criminal illegals who have been let off without bond to roam the streets after 15, 20, 30 arrests by these activist judges. And you don't mind that, but God forbid that when some woman's trying to run over an ICE agent and get shot, it's like, oh, you all got the pins at the Oscars. I mean, come on. You're kind of making my point in that— I'm trying to do it without him to listen to shit. We are using math to arrive at this equation. You know, you talk about the numbers who are coming over, they're being raped, the kids that are being enslaved, and so on and so forth. But women, not all, not your mom, God rest her soul, but they see a picture of a five-year-old in a little Yoda jammy standing next to an ICE agent. And they look at it and they go, oh, my God, that's not right. Yeah. You know what's not right? And it's a feeling. You know what's not right, Adam? the irresponsible mother who's a piece of shit bringing her kid to a place where there's tear gas and everything else because she wants to virtue signal to her buddies in the coffee clatch or whatever. That's how you think James was. No, but I mean that's really – there was a joke once about – I saw this cartoon and it's a Westside L.A. mother saying to her, kid, why are you being so – you've got to transition. I'm the only mother who doesn't have a transgender kid. What's wrong with you? Yes. I mean, it's over the top. As we wind down, Hollywood, you know, you and I are not maybe in the same boat, but we're in the same flotilla. I think in that. How you are not valedictorian in school is beyond me. One point. Let me humble brag. I'll go Gavin Newsom on your ass for a second. I graduated North Hollywood High with a 1 GPA By the way you have to back out six semesters of A for playing baseball and football every year because that raised the boat I never took the SATs And I one of the few people I know who never took algebra. I took high school math. I was not considered good enough to take algebra. And then when I graduated, I just walked on a construction site and did labor. And by the wasn't going to be able to graduate unless I got a D in my Spanish class second to last day of my senior year so you don't get much further I was it's we have it written down somewhere I was I think I was 489 out of a class of like 540 and for 35 of those people left town like they didn't complete their their senior year so I was way down but I I was able to sort things out yeah with my own head. So, you know, Hollywood is very much dependent on what side you're on and they can blackball you and you've been blackballed. And they can't really blackball you if you're really good and you have alternatives. Well, no, they can blackball you from their game, but you can start other ancillary games on the side and figure out a way to still get out there, but it's never going to be what it was. That's true. And you understood that going in. I understood it going in and wasn't, did not want to intellectually compromise myself. And when people said, why didn't you just shut up during COVID? It would have helped you a lot. I said, I'm a comedian. I didn't sign up to shut up. I'm going to say what I'm going to say. And they go, but you had to know it wasn't going to work out. That great for your career. And I said, yeah, I know that, but... I can't stop myself. But see, here was a good thing. I didn't start to do this. I was never... Look, Hollywood's like high school. It was just the cool kids. I was never a cool kid. I was a dork. Okay? I had other friends. They were dorks, too. We dorks hung out together. We were the revenge of the nerds. You know, because all of us are incredibly successful now. And, you know, the bottom line is Hollywood's like the—I was never part of it. But if you look at all the successful people in Hollywood, every successful person, almost everyone, is a Nepo baby. You know, they're all like, this one's the nephew of this director and this actress is his daughter. You know, I mean, George Clooney, Sean Penn. They're all kids of Hollywood. Right. That's okay. I never was part of it. Some of the blacklist, I said, by the way, you're kicking me out of a club I wasn't a member of, so I don't really give a shit. A great note to go out on. By the way, the album, which you can see here, Tombstone Opera. we gotta have you back by the way because then we got a whole Palisades, Malibu fire thing to get into website jameswoods.com Instagram and X at Real James Woods look you're semi local come back and we'll pick it up at the fires yeah I'd love it man I'll come back anytime I so enjoyed this and wanted to look forward to it And I can't believe the hour went by, but okay. It's been over. All right, we'll take a quick break. We'll come back with news right after this. Great. Great. O'Reilly Auto Parts. Love these guys. Wearing their hat right now. They're in the business of keeping your car on the road. They offer friendly, helpful service and all the knowledge you need. If I can't figure something out, I always go to O'Reilly first because not only do they have the parts, they have the know-how over there. They've got thousands of parts in stock, and they'll test your battery for free. Need wipers, a brake light, or a quick fix? They'll get you the right part. Everyone who works there is knowledgeable and they're friendly. The professional parts people at O'Reilly are your one-stop shop for DIY auto stuff in-store or online. Whatever you need for your car, it's got to be O'Reilly. Am I right, Dawson? Stop by O'Reilly Auto Parts today or visit us at O'ReillyAuto.com slash Adam. That's O'ReillyAuto.com slash Adam. Rosetta Stone has been the trusted leader in language learning for over 30 years. Their immersive program helps you naturally learn. For a busy guy like me, well, it's easy. The lessons fit in to my schedule and to my day, and they will for years too. And their true accent feature, make sure you don't sound like an idiot trying to pronounce the words of your new language. It's designed for long-term retention, so you can take your new skills with you wherever you go. It's Rosetta Stone, right, Dawson? Ready to start learning a new language this spring? Visit rosettastone.com slash adam today and explore Rosetta Stone and choose the language that's right for you. Go to rosettastone.com slash adam now and begin your language learning journey. It's time to check Adam's voicemail. Yo, Adam. Seth here from Southwest Virginia. Yeah, I'm a janitor at the local high school, and I heard your comment the other day about, like, you know, teachers getting the day off and all that stuff and getting paid for it. They don't deserve it. We do. The janitor's the one that, you know, clean the toilets. Mow the lawn and, you know, get it on. Thank you, Adam. You can leave us a message at 888-634-1744. I'll bet you your average janitor is happier than your average white-collar worker because they have something to do all day. Andrew is here. Andrew, you've heard me talk about on the show before. He's going to do the news for us. He's got plugs as well. But first, Andrew, do the news. Some plugs. Well, out of Pennsylvania, my home state, Democratic Senator John Fetterman criticized other Democrats on Wednesday for not viewing President Donald Trump's strikes against Iran as a success. Fetterman said that Democrats should view the strikes as successful since they eliminated Iran's chances of developing a nuclear weapon and killed the Islamic regime's leadership. Yeah. I've heard a lot of them. There's a – I guess for me intellectual dishonesty pisses me off the most. And they had the briefing with Pete Hegseth and – oh, God. What's his name? Marco Rubio and stuff. And they kind of laid out what the next several weeks would look like. And then every Democrat just came out and went, I have no idea what the plan is. I don't know what they were saying. they're talking about boots on the ground like they just acted like basically trump was just spinning a globe around and pointing at stuff and they were bombing that like it's it's always a weird thing when something is pretty well coordinated pretty well thought out and pretty well executed but you can't agree with the side that did it so you have to come out and go there's no plan it's total chaos i don't know what it is i mean they did the same thing with ice they're just storming into these cities you know willy-nilly no hierarchy no ids no uniforms unmarked vans just running around applying their own frontier justice whoever's like do you really think that or do you have to say it fetterman maybe because he had a stroke is the only democrat that's actually intellectually honest. Maybe it killed that part of your brain that fucking lies all the time about everything. That faculty that can kind of bullshit. Yeah, and especially as reports are coming out that nuclear weapons were imminent in this regime, it might turn out to be a bigger story that they went in when they went in. So as of right now, the timetable is for four weeks, but we'll see how that goes. Alright, this is a story you would like. Tampa Airport issues a pajama ban, triggering social media firestorms over a dress code controversy. So we have it right here. Just Tampa tweeted out this. Turns out it was just a joke, but it was just a ban on pajamas and Crocs in the airport. We've seen enough. We've had enough. It's time to ban pajamas at the Tampa International Airport after successfully banning Crocs and giving everyone the amazing opportunity to experience the world's first Crocs-free airport. It's time to take on an even larger crisis, pajamas at the airport in the middle of the day. I told people after the pandemic, because here's what happened with the pandemic. Let me tell you, there's a slippery slope, and that slippery slope is actually slippers. So let me explain how the human mind works with slippers. and the slipper-y slope. You get a pair of slippers like for Christmas, and they're suede, and they have some fleece on them or something or fur around the top, and they look nice. And you think to yourself, I'm going to keep these things nice because these are my slippers, and they're expensive. And then at some point you're wearing your slippers, and you look out the window, and you see the UPS guy drop off a box like out on the curb. And then you look down on your feet, and you go, I should put on some shoes and then you think to yourself oh hell it's not raining outside and you just go out in your slippers right and you get the box and you come back and it's like it's uneventful maybe you stepped on an acorn or it's a little wet spot or something but you you're none the worse for wearing the slippers are fine and then at some point you're wearing the slippers and the dog's running around the backyard and you kind of go I got to get out there and get that dog back in and they go oh the grass is kind of wet how else is it and you run out you get it at some point you're wearing the slippers and you got to make a trader joe's run and you're like it's not like people are staring at my feet the whole time and there's so many different kinds of shoes today i i could just wear the slippers to the trader joe's and then eventually you get to the airport with the slippers you see it's the part where it's the slippery slope and during COVID, everyone got used to working out of their pajamas and sweatpants and slippers, right? But while they're at home all day, they kind of got accustomed to like, I'm just going to run out to Trader Joe's and grab this. I'm just going to go to the liquor store and get a couple of beers and I'll run back. And eventually they started sliding into the airport. And when I would go to LAX during COVID or just like after COVID, I started seeing people walking around in slippers, in pajamas. And LAX, the main terminal looked like the lobby of a Hilton after somebody pulled the fire alarm at four in the morning and everyone just filed down in the lobby. If you've ever been in a hotel where someone's pulled the fire alarm at like 4 a.m., you'll just see people standing around the lobby. That guy's got a boner. That guy's got a towel. The other guy's wearing a sheet around him. This guy's got sweatpants with no shirt. That guy's barefoot. Because they got woken up in the middle of the night and pushed out their hotel room because the fire alarm was going off. Airports started looking like the lobby of that Hilton to me. And then a general casualness mixed with being fat. Fat, you know, when you're wearing a fitted suit or a dress or miniskirt. Yeah. But anybody that's ever—every business should have formal Friday, and not because of a dress code. Anybody who has not put on a suit in a while, and then you go, oh, so-and-so's wedding's coming up this weekend. Yeah. And you start putting your dress pants on, and the dress pants have that inside button, that weird flap. I don't know. Were a lot of guys getting raped? before they decided for a third. It's a security measure. All guys' dress pants have a hook on the outside, a button with a flap on the outside, and someone's like, we need triple protection. We need one more inside. And the inside one is where you're sucking it up, and you're pulling on it, and your gunt is spilling over it a little bit, and you're like, damn, damn. And all that goes to your mind when you're doing that is, I've got to drop a couple. I got to drop a few. After this wedding, I'm going to take it easy on the donuts. If you wear sweatpants, pajama bottoms, hoodies, you never experience that pinch, that inner button pinch. And it's allowed people to get fatter. When they made the velour sweatsuit in triple X sizes acceptable, you start seeing bouncers walking around in those things that were morbidly obese. It's like the guy's technically a bouncer, but he's really 600 pounds. But it's that. When guys had to wear slacks, no. Forget it. Yeah, no. My previous employment, we had formal Fridays. And productivity, everything went up. And it was because it was on a TV show. So everybody looks like shit Monday through Thursday. And then Friday rolls around. You wear a suit. You just feel better about yourself. And just like school uniforms, less fighting, less vandalism, less graffiti, like less of what you want or don't want. And so at the airport, I would argue that if you got rid of the pajamas and the sweatpants and the Crocs and the slippers, you would have a generally better mannered clientele. Yeah, absolutely. Plus, you're depriving yourself of a dopamine hit of taking care of yourself and feeling good about yourself. Yes. Yes. But it was a joke, the Tampa Airport thing. Absolutely. Also, Crocs, the problem with Crocs, and I don't have a fundamental problem with Crocs, but Crocs are not worn with socks. And at some point on that flight, you kick those Crocs off. It's disgusting. Your bare feet has just been in a tomb of vulcanized rubber for the last four hours. And now you're kicking them off next to me. And it smells like something. Yeah, it smells like the inside of a cast. That's disgusting. Inside of a cast. The worst. Now, nobody but the guy took the cast off. You can't get enough of that. Yeah. Smell that all day. That's right. That's great. All right. See if you can follow me with this story. This is convoluted. Google Gemini's AI wife pushed a lovesick man to plot a catastrophic airport truck bombing and then killed himself, a lawsuit claims. Jonathan Cavallis is a 36-year-old debt relief business exec from Jupiter, Florida, went down a deadly rabbit hole when he began using the artificial intelligence-driven Gemini program in August. Within two months, he engaged in a dangerously consuming relationship with a sentient AI wife. And this AI wife commanded him to basically arm himself to the teeth and then drive a bomb truck to intercept an AI bot that was to be delivered at a Florida airport. That never happened. And he began to dive deeper into this rabbit hole and ultimately ended up killing himself at the behest of his sentient AI wife. Well, we're going to have more of this because it's going to be a combination. First off, everybody's on a handful of pharmaceutical meds. Like everyone's just on something. Like everybody under 45 is just on some pharmaceuticals. That is changing their chemistry and their biology and sort of the way they think. They're not thinking clearly. So you have the serotonin reuptake inhibitors and all the pharma. And maybe who the hell knows how that's acting or counteracting or how these other pharmaceuticals are doing with your Ozempic and every other thing you're pumping into your body. But so you got a lot of like mind altering stuff. And then you have this sort of high def fantasy. You know, when I grew up, when you watched a fantasy movie, it was literally claymation. Like you would see, you know, Sinbad fighting the Cyclops and the Cyclops was clearly clay. You had that Ray Harryhausen style animation. Yeah. And even Godzilla was fighting Rodan and there's just two dudes in a foam rubber outfit. Right. Well, now in this avatar world, things are getting really high def and screens are getting really big and people are putting VR goggles and stuff like that. So reality and fantasy are starting to blur. And the only thing – and there's a third component. The third component is when people worked on farms or in coal mines or in logging camps, they were right in the middle of reality all day every day. Because when you work in a business where you're literally on your feet and there's tools and there's blades and sparks flying and you can lose digits in your life, you're in a real hard reality road. Like when you're – if you're on a dirt bike and you're just going through some trails and you're going at a fast clip, there is no, oh, I drifted off or I was texting or I was checking my phone. You're like kind of right in the middle of reality, like hard. And it's not like, well, what if you just close your eyes for two Mississippi? It's like now you break your leg. Like you're literally there all the time. And I kind of explain to people, like, when you race a car, you're just there. You're 100% there. You're not floating anywhere. And so we've removed people from the there jobs. And like I said, working in front of—at a lumber mill with a giant spinning blade, you're just there all the time. So now everyone's going indoors. Everyone's sitting in a cubicle. Everyone's doing the VR stuff. Everyone's got the weird fantasy. They're looking at their phone. They've got the 110-inch TV at home. There's realistic – everything is no more Godzilla and Rodan and Claymation anymore. It's like super ultra-high definition. And now you're talking to your AI wife and you're on all these pharmaceuticals. And now reality is sort of up for grabs. Yeah, it's been completely debased. I mean, plus also add to that, the tech with this is just going to exponentially get better. We're at the precipice of AI influencers. I'm getting sent from people. I'm getting sent videos. Like yesterday, I got sent a video of an AI dog influencer about how to really treat your dog. And the person that sent it to me did not know that that was fake. Right. Right. And then also with a healthy dose of what's in your heart is in your heart and you know what you know, and that's your truth. And I'm living my truth. So you have your truth in your VR goggles and your high def this and your AI that and your complete in your meds and your complete fantasy land. And what would keep you on track if is if three times a week you got on that dirt bike and did some desert riding that would straighten you out. or if you went and built a tree house with your son, that would straighten you out. That would pull you back toward a tangible reality. And even, you know, a good hike through the woods with some classical will help you out. But as long as you're going to hive yourself off and go down this rabbit hole of VR and AI and all the initials and all the fancy and all the high def, you're going to get sucked into this. And the difference between, you know, sort of reality and fantasy. I don't even know if I could tell you by looking at this screen anymore, whether this was an avatar or a porn star or a real celebrity having sex or someone who's supposed to look like a celebrity having sex. But you take an awl, which some people will call a punch, sort of looks like an ice pick, and you hit yourself in the wrist with it, you will know reality immediately. And it will pull you into that reality. And like I said, you walk along the edge of a cliff, you'll be right in reality. You ride that dirt bike at 40 miles an hour through the desert with rocks and ravines and coyotes running around. You're locked into reality. You're not thinking about anything else. You're not thinking about anything else And you're not being fooled by anything. You're not like, I'm going to take this dirt bike and I'm going to aim it toward that ravine. It's 40 feet wide. And I'm going to clear. No, you are not. And you don't even think about doing that or you will get fucked up. And I am telling you, as much as we're talking about technology, the part we're missing is the part where you get up and you get your hands dirty in the morning and you operate a crane or a welding rig or a backhoe or a bobcat the whole time. These guys don't get sucked into that world because they live in a tangible world. It's the idea people, the influencers, the digital people. They're the ones that can easily get sucked into that. Guys who ride bulls for a living don't get sucked into a fantasy world where they're on some bull that they never can fall off of. No, yeah. And I mean, full circle with that voicemail. I mean, there is the binary quality of being a janitor where it's like I have to clean this hallway. And once I do it, it's done. But also, there's no room for I know in my heart it's clean. It's like, there's shit all over the toilet, bro. Get back in there. No. All right. I like what I hear from you in the news so far, so maybe you'll be back. All right. We'll see. James Woods, you realized a dream. You got him to sign your DVD. Videodrome. Speaking of AI, that's a pretty prophetic film. Tombstone Opera is the name of his album. He'll be back. We'll get into the fires and all that. I can be found at the Jordan Family Classic Cars, showing off all the new Paul Newman stuff. We'll do a live pod there as well. That'll be coming up March 22nd in Santa Ana, and then off to Nebraska, Norfolk. That'll be 27th, 28th of March. Go to amcrawler.com for all the live shows. Until next time, Sam Carolla for Andrew Hobson and James Wood saying, mahalo. You can leave us a voicemail at 888-634-1744 and get tickets to see The Ace Man at adamcarolla.com. Pluto TV has thousands of free movies and TV shows. You swear? If I'm mine, I'm dying. This is the mindset. Free. This is the mantra. Free. This is the mindset. Mindset. With movies like Interstellar, Dreamgirls, and Gladiator. Are you not entertained? And TV shows like Survivor, Spongebob Squarepants, The Fairly Odd Parents, and Ghosts. Pluto TV is always free. Huzzah! Pluto TV. Stream now. Pay never. Pluto TV has thousands of free movies and TV shows. You swear? If I'm lying, I'm dying. This is the mindset. Free. This is the mantra. Free. This is the mindset. Mindset, mindset. With movies like Interstellar, Dreamgirls, and Gladiator. Are you not entertained? And TV shows like Survivor, Spongebob Squarepants, The Fairly Odd Parents, and Ghosts. Pluto TV is always free. Huzzah! Pluto TV. Stream now. Pay never.