You never want to get in Adam Carolla’s cross hairs when he goes off on a rant.
The podcast king is known for his blistering tirades, and while he’s not the most politically active comic he does dabble in ideological matters on occasion. He recently did more than dabble when the subject came to the Occupy Wall Street movement. If OWS was on life support following a series of shutdowns and sinking poll numbers, then Carolla may have put the finishing touch on it with this nearly 10-minute rant.
It’s not pretty – the language is saltier than an over-brined chicken – but conservatives will cheer that rare comic willing to mine comedy gold no matter where he may find it. To be fair, Carolla isn’t getting political here. He’s talking common sense, and the fact that he’s one of the few comedians doing so with clarity and passion is a sobering testament to modern times.
Here are just a few of many highlights:
“We’re dealing with the first wave of participation trophies … everybody’s a winner, there are no losers,” he says.
“It’s this envy and shame, and there’s gonna be a lot more of it. It used to be back in the day, a father was walking his son and they’d see a guy go buy in his Rolls Royce. ‘There goes Mr. Jenkins. Look up to him.’ What do we do now? Oooh, look at him. Does he need that car? Why does he need to drive that car? Let’s throw a rock at it.”
You took guys who built something and you said, there’s a guy who accomplished something, not, ‘why isn’t this guy paying his fare share?’ When did that ever come about? That guy paid in millions of dollars last year, and you paid shit.”
… There are two things you can do with shame. You can be shamed and go, ‘I better get my shit together,’ or you can be shamed and go, ‘I’m gonna go tear that guy’s shit down.’ That’s where we’re at now.”
The rant needs to be heard in its entirety to give it justice, but take any random snippet and you’ll find more truth than can fit in your daily newspaper.