Yes, it was an easy question. One of five, I think I asked, or comments I made, as I'm not much of an interrogator. And while I try, i really try to eschew topical questions, who could resist asking Adam Carolla about the "don't touch my junk" guy? Especially when he makes such a great, impassioned plea in his book about the TSA?
Now each interview is an individual event. While I strive for conversational tone, hey, if that's not happening, then we go with plan B. And who knows, maybe most conversations with Adam Carolla run along the lines of the one I had. This is not to say that I didn't have some specific goals, to get material for NPR. But it rapidly became happily apparent that Carolla was not going to confine himself to things that could easily be broadcast on the radio.
I met with Carolla just before they filmed his podcast, in a warehouse in Glendale, not far from the shadow of the ABC Building off the 134 freeway. As I set up and waited in the his super-plush, super-pro, very cool studio, I eavesdropped on the conversation next door. There were five or six producer types, very young and very casual – not stuffed suits, more like a bunch of kids you might see hanging in a bar – talking about monetizing the podcast. My take is that if you can monetize a podcast, you might as well skip the who whole podcasting thing and just turn lead into gold.
Either that or start charging for the free weekly arts entertainment papers that thrive in every city and see fast they move.
Of course, they're already monetized, as it were, by the advertisements.
And I admit, perhaps Carolla's podcast is monetized by advertisements for Old Spice (hip again after all these years!). I don't know. I heard fascinating talk about iPad apps and developers ... it was really an education to this gentleman who has been podcasting since, well, before there were podcasts, when I'd post RealAudio files, since it was just not thinkable at the time that folks would take the time to download an MP3. Hearing a group of hip, intelligent people seriously talking down about apps and per-episode charges ... fascinating.
By the time Carolla showed up, I had my stuff set up and we were ready to talk. I had him read, ort at least start reading from his book. He quickly went off script and the interview went into something more along the lines of a personal performance. I can't really claim to have done much beyond sending out a couple of prompts, because I did see a recurring theme in Carolla's book about lawyers. Let's just say he's not friending them on his Facebook page. I've got to guess he has one.
He's a smart guy and, a great writer, in real time, as a stand up. It never occurred to me until this moment, writing up the interview, but standup comedy is pretty much real-time writing, with no opportunity to revise. Carolla's great in this regard, and this is probably my funniest interview. He really goes off on a tear about those lawyers. Moreover, you'll find out how he got that warehouse we recorded the interview in. I'll even confess that I brought an additional piece of kit to do the interview, a full-size mic stand; it turns out I needed it. But I also managed to forget it and had to return to the warehouse the next day. You can hear my interview with Adam Carolla by following this link to the MP3 audio file.
11-24-10:A 2010 Interview with Adam Levin
"...he's like a really tough, pissed-off dad...he's not perfect, and he's not all-powerful, either...."
—Adam Levin
From God's mouth to your ears – that's my motto as an interviewer. Or at least in this instance it is, as talking to Adam Levin, against the background San Francisco's fire trucks, is nothing if not a Talmudic experience. Levin knows his own scripture, verse, chapter and word. That's some kind of accomplishment, even if he wrote it.
To a certain extent, every interview is an exegesis. In talking about the book, we seek not to regurgitate what it says, but to elucidate what it means to us as a reading experience. Of course, an interview about a book that is to a certain extent its own exegesis is doubly entertaining.
You might think that with a book of this density, with language that is sharp enough to draw blood, that Levin would be more earnestly serious. He's utterly serious about his visions, but he brought a kind of exuberant energy to our conversation about 'The Instructions.' I had the feeling that he might go straight from our interview to his computer to pop out a two-thousand page novel.
Listeners to my podcast know that I have a particular style of not-asking questions, which can flummox those who have prepared for the interview as if it were a test. Occasionally someone asks me what I'm going to ask in advance of the interview. I really don't know what to say, since I often don't ask questions, let alone write down the specifics. I generally tell them the truth; I don't have prepared questions. Fortunately my un-preparation was in this case matched by Adam's thorough understanding of his own material.
Of course, I come at the whole messiah complex from a peculiarly non-religious viewpoint. But the language of the novel, which is in effect the savior of the novel, is something I automatically respond to. And of course, the creator of that language was able to speak with me about his creation. You can hear our conversation by following this link to the MP3 audio file.
New to the Agony Column
09-18-15: Commentary : William T. Vollman Amidst 'The Dying Grass' : An Epic Exploration of Simultaneity
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with William T. Vollman : "...a lot of long words that in our language are sentences..."
09-05-15: Commentary : Susan Casey Listens to 'Voices in the Ocean' : Science, Empathy and Self
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Susan Casey : "...the reporting for this book was emotionally difficult at times..."
08-21-15: Agony Column Podcast News Report : Senator Claire McCaskill is 'Plenty Ladylike' : Internalizing Determination to Overcome Sexism [Incudes Time to Read EP 211: Claire McCaskill, Plenty Ladylike, plus A 2015 Interview with Senator Claire McCaskill]
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Emily Schultz Unleashes 'The Blondes' : A Cure by Color [Incudes Time to Read EP 210: Emily Schultz, The Blondes, plus A 2015 Interview with Emily Schultz]
07-05-15: Commentary : Dr. Michael Gazzaniga Tells Tales from Both Sides of the Brain : A Life in Neuroscience Reveals the Life of Science
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Michael Gazzaniga : "We made the first observation and BAM there was the disconnection effect..."
04-21-15: Commentary : Kazuo Ishiguro Unearths 'The Buried Giant' : The Mist of Myth and Memory
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Kazuo Ishiguro : ".... by the time I was writing this novel, the lines between what was fantasy and what was real had blurred for me..."
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Marc Goodman : "...every physical object around us is being transformed, one way or another, into an information technology..."
Agony Column Podcast News Report UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 199: Marc Goodman : Future Crimes: Everything Is Connected, Everyone Is Vulnerable and What We Can Do About It
