So I have noticed that you have shifted in your emphasis when I see you on ACS and see some of the materials that get pushed out on social media. You've gone from congratulating the sheep for being so, to telling everyone to shut the fuck up and get to work. More of that now, I've noticed. Just get to work. You're a drill sergeant now. Which I would argue is not a bad shift, because telling them they're sheep doesn't seem to get anywhere. But go to work is a pretty good message. Just get it on, let's get going. Yeah, all right. I'm not really conscious of that. I wasn't either. I just saw some stuff where he was saying, oh yeah, yeah, that's an evolution, I think. It's a movement.

Well, if people push, you know, people come at me, tell them, maybe I'll call them sheep. I don't know. See, I have a different relationship with criticism than I think other people have.

People with a pulse. Yeah,

people with a pulse. I don't like criticism, but I'm used to it, and I don't mind it. And I look for kernels of something that might be live within the criticism, and that might help shape or direct, you know? You have to do that, you know, if you do stand up, you know, you want other comedic voices watching you, and then when you get off stage, they go, hey, a, I think an idea for a better way to go on this joke or that joke or something. Well, nice depending on how you're wired. You know, some people don't take that very well. I'll listen to whatever, you know, people go, oh, I got a button for that one, or swap this one out for that one, or whatever. To me, that seems incredibly nice. Well, that's the interesting part of it, because the criticism, and maybe we need a better word for it, I guess sometimes people put constructive in front of it, which helps, but the criticism. I like accurate.

That's what I'm looking for.

Well, yeah, but in the realm comedy, it's really hard to say what is a better joke than another joke. It's a little in the eye of the beholder, you know? But I grew up in an environment, mostly in a time, that that's all you did. You got criticized or

you got coached up, essentially. You know, I don't - As far as from your coaches or teachers, or where was that coming from?

Every coach I had just sort of told you what you're doing wrong and sort of what to do, you know? And then that was pretty, you know, that was early and often for a long time. My family, they really only had sort of one unified doctorate because, you know, my family, they don't, you know, I don't have any, you know, I remember my dad telling me, you know, they're, my family didn't move in conventional ways and they didn't really have a, you know, the Corollas were proud and we never backed down from a fight or something. But they did have,

there was a Corolla doctrine, which was do nothing, say nothing, have nothing.

If nothing is a doctrine, then yes, that was, but they really did, there was the only thing they really agreed on and were consistent about and I don't think they did it for reasons that were altruistic or love -oriented or anything. They made you have to sort of internalize everything. And they got some weird, very much, you know, like I said... Now, my grandma would go way further with it than you need it to, you know, like I famously... But an example of early on in Love Line when I was over at her house for dinner or something or whatever, it was the early days of Yumi and Ricky Rachman and Ricky clearly was not happy about me being there. And he sort of read the writing on the wall. Probably reacted the same way 91 of humanity would react. Just tried to kind of, I don't know, throw me under the bus would be the word, but like, you know, I'd say, I remember saying something like, tough rojo or something, and he'd go, what's that mean? And I'd go, it's a saying, you know, no one knows what that saying is, you know, like into the microphone, like, okay, thanks. Anyway, we'll keep moving on. I remember you complaining about a lot of no. Well, well, most people are pretty bad with the yes and, but Ricky's had a sit, you know, his situation was difficult because I was coming in there and maybe I could have taken his place, or maybe I was being groomed to take his place. I don't even really know if I was or not. We don't

have any, no one told us.

But we were going to find out, we're going to see how I did, and it didn't behoove him to have me flourish in that environment. I think if you just made it a financial decision, I would tend to agree with Ricky that it would not behoove him or his bank account to have me, you know, Sail through that process, you know, so anyway, I told my quite quiet. I told my grandma I said Yeah, I said how's it going or something? I said that's kind of tough because Ricky's kind of stepping on my jokes and running a little interference and not being helpful. You know, and she just went, I bet it said same about you. Now you have to really think about that. Thanks, Grandma. Well, my grandma doesn't know Ricky Rachman. She's never listened to 10 Seconds of Loveline. She has no idea what's going on. But the point is, is she took the side of the unknown person in the room. And my mom and my grandma did that a lot, you know, just whatever. If you couldn't say, someone was driving slow in front of me and I couldn't get around, well, they were probably running, you know, they had a situation that you don't know about. They just would never go, yeah, I hate those people. You know what I mean? Fuck Ricky Rackman, you should be the host of it. And it was always the other, the other. Well, it started coming your way later

when you were writing for the Oscars and things. You gotta little fuck you, but anyway, keep

going. No, no, it was, what I'm saying is, not because they did it out of love, they did it out of some sort of bad, negative, reactive thing that had been baked into them, some automatic thing. Yeah. But like I said, when I was telling you, when I told you the story about the T .J. Miller, you know, heaping praise on me after a show and talking about how influential I was, and big difference I made in his life, and inspired him, blah, blah, blah. But my sister was standing there, and then later on, my sister said, what's up with T .J. Miller? You didn't believe that, did you? I was like, he's obviously being a hat off. Yeah, what do you want? Like he's always trying to get something out of him, because he wouldn't have said it otherwise. And I thought, oh. So far from the

truth is what you're implying. Well,

it doesn't take a mathematician to figure out what the implication of that kind of what it's... Why did TJ Miller praise you and what does he want? Because obviously, whatever the praise was, it's not worth... That's not befitting you. So something... But all I'm saying is, is it gets sort of generationally down. Now, if T .J. Miller had tried that in front of my grandmother, she would have hit him with a chair halfway into the compliment. She wouldn't have tolerated it in real time. She would have dove in with something. Something insulting. Oh no, the strategy, she would have had to get him off the subject, you know what I mean? But it's a generational thing, gets kind of handed down. But what it does... I

think it must feel uncomfortable to them.

Yes. That's because

they have to get away from it, change

it. My grandmother would, you know, uncomfortable if someone was going on about their accomplishments or something in the family, not Jules Mandel, not someone out of the family would have been fine. But you can, yes, it became, yes, it was uncomfortable to them. So then I got used to that and I got kind of used to like, you know, all right, well, how does Ricky Rachman feel about me being there? And am I talking over him? I think he's talking over me, but grandma brought this thing up. It's

not a bad thing to be worried about other people, but we do that already,

don't we? Or is this where that got really... I'm just saying I come from that space where, whether it's grandma or football coach or whomever, yes, I will listen to your criticisms and see if I can, you know, whatever. And I also definitely know that people feel very... to tell me tons of shit. I have people come up and say things to me. Well, not come up, like, you know, but people in my world will just say things to me and I'll go, wow, that's horrible. But you wouldn't say that to

other people because of their reaction. From your family?

Friends, family, relationships. I mean, I get a lot and I realize there's some sort of environment that

fosters. You invite it somehow.

Do I do that to you? No, you do... You speak almost like from a little mouth of babes. You just kind of say what you think, which is fine. Like Mike August is kind of doing that. But it does make it comical then when people go, well, you know, Carolla, it's his way or the highway. He surrounds himself with the S -Men. It's like, then that becomes a weird assertion because I'm constantly talking to Mike August or whomever, and he's going, nah, don't do it this way, don't do it that way. We don't

want to do this or I don't want to do that. Some people might be afraid if they feel an aggression or something. I've told you that. Mike and I are neither here nor there with it, but I think I feel what they're feeling.

Yeah, but there's no evidence to support my way to highway, kind of thing. No, no, no, no. That's not the issue at all. With people. But bigger picture, being okay with criticism, trying to figure out what the role that you played in it is, having it be, I I got lucky in that I just grew up with it. So I had coaches kicking out my down hand in a three point stance and why me fall in my face and then you yelled my balance was off. And by the way, I was thinking about that. It's such a bullshit that the kick the hand out of the three point stance. Yeah, but listen if you kick the hand out and You don't lurch forward or fall forward. You're not ready. You're not a three point stance. I mean you're you may be a pulling guard and Maybe it's a pass situation, right? But these are eight -year -olds. All we do is hand the ball off to the one guy and we go forward. You can't fire out if your weight isn't

on that front hand. Yeah. Anyway. A lot of my football career is playing defensive end, and so that was getting in there. Yeah,

yeah, getting in there. And so

I was way up and over my, I put two hands down. Oh, four point, Drew. It's

a good you know, it's a good Position or a good Posture to be in to just be able to hear stuff. You don't have to beat yourself up. You don't have to agree with everything. But just in general, hearing stuff. And I've realized that's a bygone era. And I don't, I don't know how much of this, our leadership seems to do none of it,

which is a weird thing to