by Adam Carolla
You don’t have to talk a certain way
There’s nothing special you have to say
Just be yourself every day
And everyone will know you’re the coolest
You don’t have to be like everyone
Be yourself, you’ll be number one
And you’ll feel like the coolest
Don’t forget the golden rule
Be yourself and you’ll be cool
This is a horrific message to send to kids. “Don’t try to excel at anything. Don’t try to be special. Don’t do anything. You’ll still be the coolest! Whatever you do, you’re the coolest! Fail out of school! You’re the coolest! Live in your parents’ basement until you are fifty. You’re the coolest. Eat until you’re morbidly obese and your liver shuts down. You’re the coolest. Set a bum on fire. You’re the coolest. Slaughter nineteen nursing students. You’re the coolest!!!”
And that’s not the golden rule. The golden rule is to treat other people how you want to be treated, not “Fuck what other people think. You’re the best.”
You condescending pricks think this is a positive message? Everyone is number one. Doesn’t that mean someone else who’s listening to this song is number two? What about their feelings? I’d like to knock you out with a frying pan and take a number one and a number two on your face.
It’s the same message the pop chicks like Katy Perry sing. You’re the best, don’t change anything. Don’t ever attempt to improve yourself at all. Anyone who says you should do something different is just a hater (more on this disturbing trend coming up). Fuck that. Beat yourself up a little bit. Be better. That’s the message from a couple old white guys who founded this fucking country. Benjamin Franklin said the Constitution only guarantees the right to pursue happiness; you have to catch it yourself. If Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! and One Direction founded this country with their “you’re beautiful the way you are” and “you don’t have to do anything to be the coolest” message, we’d all still be riding horses and dying from preventable diseases and the scourge of winter. Life is about improvement, the pursuit of better whether it’s your body, your home, or your career.
MODERN MUSIC MAKES ME SICK
I was not educated in high school. I was educated by listening to talk radio on construction sites, and not only because there were no stations that would touch the good music of the eighties—John Hiatt, Joe Jackson, the Pretenders, etc. When I was digging ditches, I sought out talk radio because I wanted to hear alternative voices and ideas. I had plenty of time to hear the crap rattling around in my bean as I humped a wheelbarrow around. I needed new ideas and opinions to think about. Now radio is like beating off into a fan, it’s just more of you splashing back in your face. We’ve decided we need to give everybody what they want, not expose them to new concepts. So what you end up with is a bunch of computers playing Rihanna records. There are no more DJs, no more talk radio, no more opinions, no more news. Just thumping techno with Auto-Tuned vocals about “You know you want me, boy, but you can’t have me, boy.”
But before I go off on another vitriolic rant about kids and how the music they’re listening to is ruining them and consequently our country, let me start with a couple of palate-cleansing annoyances related to music and take the time to name John Hiatt as my director of the FCC. I feel like it’s the only way I’m going to get to hear his music on the radio.
I was watching the Grammys a few years back and saw a nice tribute to the Beach Boys. Of course they showed Mike Love, one of the founding members. I’m always driven nuts when I see him because he’s constantly wearing a hat that says BEACH BOYS on it. You were introduced as the Beach Boys on the Grammys. Should we have thought, “What group is this, the Delfonics?” We get it, you’re bald and you were in the Beach Boys. I understand you get a lot of swag in show business. I have some Man Show shirts, but I would never leave the house in one. Also, and this goes for Jimmy Buffett too, we need a moratorium on the Hawaiian shirt. Once you get past fifty-one it’s time to hang those up, Jimbo.
This was at the 2012 Grammys, hosted by LL Cool J. Is there a federal law that LL Cool J must present or host every award show? If so, as president, I’m going to repeal it. I feel like I’ve seen him and his Kangol hat at every awards show in the last fifty years. If I watched the Oscars in black and white from 1959 with Bob Hope hosting, I’d see LL digitally inserted. I understand that’s he’s charismatic and charming but it’s starting to feel required. Like having Jeff Ross at a roast. I bet when the Klan puts on the “Klannys,” LL still gets a call. Don’t get me wrong, I like the guy. I just feel like when my son gets his next participation trophy for t-ball, LL is going to be there to give it to him. But in addition to calling Bob Marley a genius (which I strongly disagree with), he did something that struck me as odd that night. He introduced Paul McCartney and called him his “homie.” Normally I don’t want to mess with guys built like brick houses, but no one, if you think about the word “homie,” could be further from LL than a guy who was born in Liverpool while it was being bombed by the Germans.
And since I’m on this topic I have a quick message for Sir Paul. You’re a legend and I’m a big Beatles fan, so I say this with love: it’s time to put down the Just For Men and walk away. We know you don’t have the same hair color you did when you played on Ed Sullivan. And you’re a fucking Beatle. You can still get laid anytime you want. You don’t need to attempt and fail to trick us into thinking you’re still rocking the auburn locks. Take your own advice and “Let It Be.”
While I’m attacking legends, let me dig into Bob Dylan. This hack is completely overrated. He came along at the right time and carved his initials on the psyche of America. He can’t play the harmonica, his guitar playing is pedestrian, and his voice is bad. I could get a bunch of cats, fill their stomachs with varying amounts of nitrous oxide, and then back over them with a car and produce something more pleasing to the ear than Bob Dylan’s voice. I’ve argued with a lot of people who love Dylan and this is always my knockout punch: People doing Aretha Franklin impersonations don’t sound better than the Queen of Soul. When someone does a Bob Dylan impersonation it always sounds better.
And my friend John Popper, king of the harmonica, thinks Dylan is shit on the mouth harp, so that’s that.
I saw them wheel out Dylan on the Grammys a couple years ago to do “Maggie’s Farm.” Of course he had the Avett Brothers, Mumford & Sons, and about ten other guys whaling away on banjos behind him. When there is a wall of banjos propping you up and covering up your weasel-scratch voice, it’s probably time to hang it up. And about the twenty-fifth time I heard him croak about not working on Maggie’s farm no more, I thought, “Bullet dodged. That must be a relief for Maggie.” Can you imagine what a shitty farmhand Bob Dylan would be? He’d end up passing out at the wheel of a combine and driving it into the living room.
The only thing he has to hang his hat on is lyrics, and I think people pretend to understand them but secretly have no idea what the fuck he’s talking about. I listened to “All I Really Want to Do” and was struck at just how awful that song is. Dr. Seuss would think it was amateur hour. “I ain’t looking to drag you down or drain you down, chain you down or bring you down.” Awesome, Bob, you rhymed down with down. Twice. Genius.
Okay. On to the music of today. The shitty, shitty music of today. The teenage-girl garbage fest that passes itself off as music that has infected our culture. This shit is insidious. It has spread quicker and farther than AIDS in Africa. There’s no escaping it. Traditional bastions of male-dom are being invaded by this teen chick music. I was in the chair at the aforementioned Mexican barbershop and they were pumping Miley Cyrus. Worse, I was at a sports bar in the San Antonio airport at nine A.M. trying to enjoy a preflight Bloody Mary and Lady Gaga was blasting from the speakers. Because there’s nothing guys who frequent sports bars in Texas during prime hangover hours enjoy more than the music of Lady Gaga. My travel companion, Mike August, asked the bartender to tur
n it down. The bartender replied that he wasn’t allowed to.
I can’t even escape this crap in my own house. Natalia is nuts for this shit. She followed me around one day holding an iPad that was cranking out some Rihanna while I was trying to do the work that paid for that iPad. This is ruining my daughter. I read her a story two years ago about penguins and how baby penguins have a special song that they call out when they get lost and need to find their parents among the swarm of penguins on the glacier. I asked her what her special song would be if she got lost so Daddy could find her. Without thinking for a second, she said “Nicki Minaj.” My soul died.
Do we have to hear Katy Perry at every moment of our lives? The whole world is not a twelve-year-old girl. It sounds inspirational but if you really listen it’s “Fuck him, you’re better than him, you’re totally awesome just the way you are.” The “anyone can be sexy, all women are beautiful” message is bullshit, and coming from Katy Perry it’s completely hypocritical. She’s literally shooting whipped cream from her D-cups in slow motion at Snoop Dogg while preaching girl power.
Convincing depressed dumpy chicks they’re perfect just the way they are is not a great plan for the future. I want Beyoncé to come out with a song about shedding a couple of pounds and dressing up nice for your boyfriend or job interview.
The worst was last year when I was in New York doing a live show at Town Hall for the comedy festival. I was completely burnt from doing the show, plus two shows the night before, and had to be up at five the next morning to catch a flight. But my buddy Daniel was in town and we made plans to go out after the show to a high-end steak joint in Manhattan called STK.
Before we even sat down, I was annoyed. The jams were being pumped. I looked over and saw a live DJ on a riser at one end of the place. When the waitress came over to take our order, she had to shout the specials at us like you do at your deaf grandmother when you visit her in the home. “IT’S NOT A TRADITIONAL CRAB CAKE . . . NO, CRAB CAKE . . .” I shit you not, the techno was so loud I had to act like a UN interpreter between the waitress and the guy sitting next to me. “SHE SAID THAT ONLY COMES WITH TWO SHRIMP, SO WE SHOULD PROBABLY DO THREE ORDERS!” We all got a nice side order of tinnitus with our asparagus.
And they were not just any jams. No, this DJ was doing it mash-up style. So not only were we treated to Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe,” but it was mashed up with the bass from “Roxanne.” And to add insult to injury there was ten seconds of relief when they played the intro to Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York.” I thought, “Oh, thank God. Finally, a little Sinatra in a New York steak house, the world is right again.” And then came the Alicia Keys.
And that’s the point. How about some Sinatra or jazz? Would people light the place on fire and throw chairs through the windows if you played a little Dave Brubeck? Is this a steak house or a fashion show? I came here for a porterhouse and some mashed potatoes, not a rave.
Of course I had to talk to the waitress about this. I asked, “Do people like the music so loud they can’t hear the specials?” She gave me two very unsatisfying answers. First she said, “I know. Everyone complains about it.” Then why don’t you do something about it? Is there a city ordinance that the music must be louder than a jet engine? The second part of her answer was worse. When I asked why the DJ cut Sinatra, she said the owners wanted it that way to make the place more friendly toward women. I thought, “Women or eleven-year-old girls?” Because that’s who this “music” is appealing to.
This was not the first and definitely won’t be the last time a live DJ ruined my life. I was at an event at the Tribeca Film Festival and the white DJ, who I’ve lovingly dubbed DJ CrackerJew, was pumping up the jams as if the room was full of thirteen-year-old girls with learning and hearing disabilities. I went up and asked him politely to turn it down and he said no. I asked, “Do you see anyone dancing?” He replied that he didn’t. So I asked again if he could turn it down and he said no again. Then I snapped, “No one likes your shitty music.” He said, “I do,” and turned it up. I wanted to find this guy’s parents and kick the shit out of them. Just never stop kicking them until my shoes were covered in teeth and blood. Can we get black people DJing again? White guys have too much to prove.
Seriously. Remember when party DJs were lovable black guys in Run-D.M.C. sweatsuits whose shoes were untied? (Unclear if they were trying to cultivate a look or if it was the morbid obesity that prevented them from doing so.) They played some Temptations, they played some Marvin Gaye, they dutifully honored the “Walking on Sunshine” request, and then went the fuck home. Now they’re spindly, obnoxious white guys in front of a Mac laptop with their hats on crooked looking like a cheap Chinese bootleg of a Beastie Boy. This guy doesn’t seem to notice he’s in a room full of people whose average age is fifty-one and average skin color is Meryl Streep. This is just jacking off, they don’t care what their audience wants to hear, as long as they look and feel cool doing it and get to take a coke break once in a while.
But that was in New York. It’s an urban center where everyone is trying to be cool. So it’s not a total surprise. The most egregious example of this shitty music permeating our culture was when I was in St. Paul, Minnesota, for a live show. I was playing at Garrison Keillor’s theater. That is the whitest building in the whitest city in the whitest state. Long story short, I was late for the gig and had to hop in a cab with my manager on the phone giving me directions. Meanwhile, the cabdriver named, no joke, Habib, was playing some form of music that was so grating and computerized I had to hang up with my manager and ask him what the fuck it was. I had never heard anything so annoying. Speaking to one of the neck rolls on the back of Habib’s head, I asked, “What is this?” He replied through a heavy accent, “Soca. It is Soca music.” I said, “Soccer?” No, Soca. “What is Soca?” I asked. My swarthy friend said, “It’s for the young people, to dance the club and make love!” I thought, “What part of this looks like that? Our combined age is ninety-six and half and we’re in a cab in St. Paul.”
PUTTING THE MAD IN MADISON AVENUE
The pursuit of youth and “the demo” started with advertising. This never made sense to me. People will talk about trying to get people while they’re young and have disposable income to “create brand loyalty,” but when I was nineteen I didn’t have a pot to piss in. So go ahead and youth up your commercials all you want, they’re falling on deaf ears and an empty wallet.
If advertising is to be believed, we should all be attending rooftop parties with our young, perfectly racially balanced, one-of-every-color group of friends. I should be heading up to a rooftop with my black friend, my Hispanic friend, and my Asian friend to see DJ CrackerJew spin some records and drink a refreshing Dr Pepper. But the reality is that the majority of my friends are white and we’ve never been on a rooftop together. I don’t think these parties actually exist. The only time I’ve ever seen a Mexican on a roof, he was rolling out tarpaper, the only time I’ve seen an Asian on a rooftop was with a rifle during the L.A. riots, and the only time I’ve seen a black guy on a roof was waving down the coast guard in the Ninth Ward.
And I’ve never seen an American Indian in one of these ads—especially liquor ads. African Americans are 13 percent of the population, but if beer and McDonald’s ads are to be believed, they’re 50 percent. American Indians are 1.2 percent of the U.S. population, yet never appear in any commercials. If you apply the same racial math Madison Avenue does with black people, every tenth beer ad should have a Mohican in it.
Everything has to be young and cool when it comes to ads, even the maxi-pad commercials. I saw a Kotex ad recently and the whole point was “This isn’t your grandma’s pad. This one is edgy and in-your-face. Wear them loud and wear them proud.” The lead chick is walking by a faded ad on the side of a building for some boring old maxi pad. She goes into her bag, in which she is conveniently carrying a couple cans of spray paint. A Joan Jett knockoff song kicks up as she starts tagging up the billboard.
Then all these other hot rock-and-roll rebel chicks—one of every ethnicity, of course—come out of the stores and schools and into the street with ladders and paint to team up and do a little graffiti about maxi pads. It ends with the tag line “Take a Stand Against Bland.” Yeah, that’s what chicks want, to advertise their menses. How dumb do they think women are? Just because they changed the packaging on your maxi pad to Day-Glo doesn’t make you part of the Runaways. I’m no expert in this area but I’ve talked to my female friends and they don’t have strong opinions about the color of their pad packaging. They think the more subtle the better.
As president, I’m going to decree that maxi-pad packaging should come in three styles—a beige one, a suede one, and a leather one so they blend in with your purse. This should help me land the female vote for my reelection.
And the younger the advertiser is aiming, the more annoyed I am. Because these ads are all about attitude. I saw a commercial where the kid was annoyed that his mother made him Pop-Tarts instead of Toaster Strudels. Fuck you, you little turd. I would have sucked my gym coach off for a Pop-Tart when I was a kid. I wanted to reach into the TV and punch him in the face. Let’s see how many Toaster Strudels you can eat with no teeth. We’re empowering these little shitbags too much by catering to them and constantly telling them it’s their world. But by ingraining that attitude, we’re ruining ours.
The ad that’s driving me nuts right now is a Pepsi campaign where they tell you to “Live for Now.” Not only is there something slightly morbid about it—basically it’s saying, “Fuck it, you’re going to die, have a Pepsi”—but this is the opposite of what we should be teaching our youth. We should be telling them to save for later. Living for now is what collapsed our economy. A lot of people took out home loans they couldn’t afford because they were living for now. Now they’re living in tents under the freeway. You show me a student that lives for now and I’ll show you an F. That’s why Asians are handing our asses to us. We’re telling our young people, “Sure, you have a book report due tomorrow but you want to play Grand Theft Auto. Live for now.”
