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
05-15-12: Commentary : Archive Review: Clive Barker 'Abarat: Days of Magic, Nights of War' : Impure Life
05-08-12: Commentary : Archive Review: Clive Barker 'Abarat' : Reading in Color
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2012 Phone Interview with Mark Sundeen : "...over the years, I had heard through my friends that he had stopped using money and was living in a cave..."
04-30-12: Commentary : Christopher Moore Follows 'Sacré Bleu' : A Story in Color
Agony Column Podcast News Report: A 2012 Interview with Christopher Moore : "...it often isn't efficient to tell a story in chronological order..."
04-27-12: Commentary : Lisa Lutz on 'Trail of the Spellmans' : Meta-Fiction is Fun
Agony Column Podcast News Report: SF in SF from February 11, 2012 : Panel Discussion Moderated by Terry Bisson and Interviews with Rudy Rucker, K. W. Jeter, and Jay Lake
04-26-12: Commentary : Archive Review: Emmanuel Carrere 'The Adversary' : The Enemy Within
04-23-12: Commentary : T. M. Luhrman Listens 'When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship With God' : Science and the Supernaturaly
04-18-12: Commentary : Gregg Jones Stirs Through 'Honor in the Dust: Theodore Roosevelt, War in the Philippines and the Rise and Fall of America's Imperial Dreams' : A Dream Of Today From Yesterday
Agony Column Podcast News Report: A 2012 Interview with Gregg Jones : "The Philippinos would welcome us with open arms and greet us as liberators."
04-17-12: Commentary : Archive Review: Caleb Carr 'The Alienist' : Subterranean History
04-16-12: Commentary : Richard Zacks Visits 'Island of Vice: Theodore Roosevelt's Doomed Quest to Clean Up Sin-Loving New York' :The Wild, Wild East
Agony Column Podcast News Report: A 2012 Interview with Richard Zacks : "Roosevelt and Riis were out looking, and if they did find a cop, he was talking to a streetwalker."
04-12-12: Commentary : Excess of Excellence : Short Story Edition
Agony Column Podcast News Report: Three Books with Alan Cheuse : 'The Wolf Gift' by Anne Rice, 'Arctic Rising' by Tobias Buckell and 'The Third Gate' by Lincoln Child
